We All Lose if Cops Have All the Power, says Larry Dudley Hiibel.
I hadn't been argumentative; I wasn't picking a fight. Basically, when Deputy Dove demanded my papers — and he didn't ask for them, he demanded them — I didn't say, "Hey cop, I'm not going to give you nothing." I just asked why he wanted them. "What have I done?" I asked. If he'd explained what he was doing there, perhaps it could have been settled on the spot. But his position was that he wanted the papers first.
Here's why this was so important to me: I don't believe that the authorities in the United States of America are supposed to walk up to you and ask for your papers. I thought that wasn't lawful. Apparently I was wrong, but I thought that that was part of what we were guaranteed under the Constitution. We're supposed to be free men, able to walk freely in our own country — not hampered, not stopped at checkpoints. That's part of what makes this country different from other places. That's what I was taught.
