If you spend any time around

cops in a group and get to know them, you come to understand why they are so scorned by many attorneys, civil right activists, and the some of the population at large.

It's a shame, really. I used to think it it extreme when I heard them refered to as liars, cheaters, crimimals with badges, willing to break the law to supposedly enforce it. I thought that was the stuff of movies, based on a few bad eggs.

I have learned different. The group is plagues with an elitist view, even believing that they have the right to protect each other from the legal consequences of little things like battery, dui, harassing civilian. 'As long as it doesn't make the papers...' Its not a few bad eggs. It's systemic.

That same view runs in "fighting crime." The higher ups decide what crimes to target based on political factors. Their loyal underlings embrace the direction- all that is important is a feather in there cap for an arrest. NOT A CONVICTION, mind you. An arrest.

As extreme as this may sound, it is frighteningly close to elitist culture found in the nazi regime during WWII. The jackbooted thugs do the misguided will of their corrupt leaders.

America deserves better.

"switch of tactics"? Hardly, cops have been setting up stings in AMPS for ages. Is there other crime to deal with? Sure there is LB but we both know that no local government official is going to miss a chance to "clean up the town" during an election year...

As for Half hour's rant about the new police state that we are headed for well, sure, some cops are scum. Many are not.  The best way to avoid the bad ones is not to run afoul of the law to begin with.

a very close friend of mine was a cop, and damn good at it; in fact too good, when he found the chief of police tryng to impede an investigation against a child molester who was a friend of said chief, he got canned, then the chief resigned with a fat pension.  Attempts to get his job back through arbitration and hearings went nowhere and he ran out of money trying.

But back to the hobby business.

I will gurarantee that the vast majority of hobbyists will never run afoul of LE because there is just too many of us.  Add behaving smartly and you'll run those odds to infinitesimal.  I've been doing this for thriry-five years, the first thirty without any of the advice I find here on TER, and I've never come close to seeing LE.

We foolish humans often don't worry about the right things.  (I should have been doing a better job of keeping things quiet from the now ex-wife.)

I like your idea.  I know a guy with the ugliest feet you'll ever see.  He has bunions, overgrown fungus toe nails and sores.  I'd love to have him make an appointment with them without washing his feet for a few days, and get a foot massage.