The Police State Hates Tinted Windows

by
Karen De Coster
KarenDeCoster.com

Recently
by Karen De Coster: Pork:
The Government’s Other White Meat



Just recently,
a friend of mine was stopped by the Michigan State Police for having
committed the insidious crime of driving her vehicle that has tinted
front windows. Tinted windows are regulated by individual states,
and in the era of vehicle customizations for artistic purposes,
they have become immensely popular, and thus they have also become
a favorite target of the police harassment state. You can read an
overview of the individual state
laws here
.

My friend was
given a hefty ticket, and she could only avoid the monetary punishment
by producing a prescription or a note from a doctor. She only recently
bought the car, in used condition, with the windows already tinted.
So she immediately reached out to two doctors she sees regularly,
and she obtained, yes, a prescription from one doctor and a ‘doctor
note’ from her second doctor. It’s easy to make crap
up – these docs can spin it any way they want. She sent me
copies of the doc note and the prescription, and I found both of
them to be hilarious and heroic.

I have another
friend who lives in the city of Detroit, where he has been ticketed
numerous times for his window tint. He usually gets stopped by the
same couple of cops. He is black, a large man, and he is a Muslim
– and with his facial hair one can certainly tell that he
is a Muslim. Each time he is stopped he is needlessly harassed,
and still, he has refused to get rid of the tint. He is a very security-oriented
person, and he likes his privacy, especially for his wife when she
is driving alone.

On that note,
I’ve always wanted a dark tint for both of my front windows,
but I haven’t wanted to bring on the harassment that is sure
to come with it. When I am stopped by bully cops for other reasons,
the results have never been gainful. I have a Honda Element that
has the rear windows tinted dark at 35% (legal in Michigan), with
no significant tint on the front windows. Quite frankly, I am tired
of being ‘checked out’ by strangers in vehicles next
to me, especially at red lights.

I often have
males – usually in work trucks or raggedy jalopies –
making very blatant and unshakable visual contact with me. Even
if I creep upward a few feet at the light to avoid their disturbing
stare, they also creep up in order to roll right next to me. I’ll
creep forward again, and they do the same…again. These are
not rare occurrences. It’s gone so far as to have men (and
cars full of male teenagers) roll down their windows and verbally
harass me, even while I continue to look straight ahead and ignore
them.

Dark tinted
windows would help to solve some of these troubles I experience.
Additionally, here in Detroit it is disturbingly common to have
your windows punched out in order for thieves to steal the contents
inside the vehicle, even when vehicles are parked in very public
(busy) places. One bag or box in your vehicle is a huge enticement
for the scavenger thieves to bust in. Dark windows are an impediment
to theft because street criminals are more likely to take the risk
of breaking into a vehicle when they can observe the vehicle’s
contents.

The tale is
that tinted windows became an enemy of the police state because
of cops being shot while approaching vehicles with dark tinted windows.
Dark windows do limit visibility, but if that were true, the same
could happen with passengers behind the front seat in any car, or
especially from the rear in an SUV. However, many states allow darker
tinted (or unlimited tint) windows in the back of vehicles, as well
as the rear of SUVs. Often, the allowance for tint on the front
windows is dictated by how dark the back windows are tinted.

Read
the rest of the article

April
12, 2013

Karen De
Coster, CPA [
send
her mail
] is an accounting/finance professional in the
healthcare industry and a freelance writer, blogger, speaker, and
sometimes unpaid troublemaker. She writes about libertarian stuff,
economics, financial markets, the medical establishment, the Corporate
State, health totalitarianism, and other essentially, anything that
encroaches upon the freedom of her fellow human beings. When she
has a few moments of spare time she engages functional fitness,
adventure cycling, photography, conversations with friends, and
visiting wine regions. This is her
LewRockwell.com
archive
and her Mises.org
archive
. Check out her
website
. Follow her on Twitter @karendecoster.

Copyright ©
2013 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided
full credit is given.

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