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i was trying to make the point that a local government in the US could not restrict the freedom of movement the way that collection of people are doing in that

i was trying to make the point that a local government in the US could not restrict the freedom of movement the way that collection of people are doing in that region of Mexico. it would end up in court and be forced to cease such restrictions on travel. only the federal government could do a thing like that, and even it might face lawsuits for such a restriction. my comment got a lot of down votes, but i feel like either i'm missing something or the people who voted it down are missing something. yes, the federal government restricts movement. yes, there are DUI spot checks in cities from time to time. yes there is even racial profiling by local police forces (which is not constitutional). but all of those things differ from an all-encompassing restriction on the freedom to travel into a region by mandatory choke points on roads into that region. but people reacted quite strongly. what on earth am i missing here?

FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
> but all of those things differ from an all-encompassing restriction on the freedom to travel into a region by mandatory choke points on roads into that region. >but people reacted quite strongly. what on earth am i missing here? try driving through the panhandle of Texas while brown or black. It's not exactly a choke point because I could go a few hundred miles out of my way or fly, but, at the time, I believed the same thing you do. I learned the hard way that often times the written law has no bearing on reality. You can say it's unconstitutional all you want, but that doesn't change what millions of people face. The reality on the ground matters more so than some dusty old document written a few hundred years ago, especially since, like a religious text, people interpret it in wildly different ways. >yes there is even racial profiling by local police forces (which is not constitutional), but all of those things differ from an all-encompassing restriction on the freedom There is the America as it likes to see itself and the America that truly exists. Just because there is a document written a few hundred years ago that expressly forbids the restriction on freedom of movement doesn't mean that it meshes with reality.

FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago

> but all of those things differ from an all-encompassing restriction on the freedom to travel into a region by mandatory choke points on roads into that region. >but people reacted quite strongly. what on earth am i missing here? try driving through the panhandle of Texas while brown or black. It's not exactly a choke point because I could go a few hundred miles out of my way or fly, but, at the time, I believed the same thing you do. I learned the hard way that often times the written law has no bearing on reality. You can say it's unconstitutional all you want, but that doesn't change what millions of people face. The reality on the ground matters more so than some dusty old document written a few hundred years ago, especially since, like a religious text, people interpret it in wildly different ways. >yes there is even racial profiling by local police forces (which is not constitutional), but all of those things differ from an all-encompassing restriction on the freedom There is the America as it likes to see itself and the America that truly exists. Just because there is a document written a few hundred years ago that expressly forbids the restriction on freedom of movement doesn't mean that it meshes with reality.