And in those ten years, have we had any incident in our country that resulted great loss of life that was not related to a natural disaster or accident?
From '92-'02, there was the Oklahoma City, and two separate attacks on the World Trade Center, and the Waco Seige. From '02-'12? Nothing of that scale.
I would submit that they are police tactics 101, practiced long before Nazi Germany and since. The Gestapo (or the NKVD, Stasi, DINA, etc) were institutional secret police operating outside the law. They maximized the intimidation of their policing tactics because they could and would routinely go far beyond them, employing terrible means.
You can pretend that they are the same to dramatize a point, but they are not.
Did you register an objection? Because, first the went for the beers, and nobody said anything…
It is indeed true that the government is monitoring more Twitter feeds today than on September 10, 2001.
This is not about kicking in the door of some suspected terrorist.
This is kicking in the door of a US citizen whose ostensible crime was not paying a fine for violating open container law. The obvious reason was not to go to the trouble of tracking down a scofflaw but to intimidate someone with a political view the powers that be do not like.
See the difference?
And how many of your constitutional rights, your freedoms, are you willing to forgo in pursuit of this “safety”?
*“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” * ~Benjamin Franklin
Which opinion - that the police are allowed to ask questions? Yes.
Not really the same thing - I have no useful information about riots and other foolishness that these anarchists possibly do. But if you hoped that I was weenie enough/silly enough to answer questions from the police if I did know such things, you are going to be disappointed.
It’s not really a theoretical - it is already the same with me as with them. The police can ask me questions, the police can ask them questions. Both they and I are entirely within our rights to refuse to say anything. I have seen zero evidence that the police forced anyone, the anarchists or me, to answer questions against their will.
So the answer is Yes, I am ok with the police asking questions of whoever they think might be up to no good. The police wouldn’t get anything out of me, because I am apparently smarter or more confident than these anarchist doofuses (doofii?). That’s not a lot to brag about, but it is apparently the case.
So much the better. I hope the police are better equipped to arrest these clowns if and when their pathetically insignificant “general strike” turns to somewhat-less-insignificant-but-still-pretty-pathetic violence.
Still haven’t seen anything Gestapo-like here.
Regards,
Shodan
Apparently you missed the part about kicking down the door to ask them questions part.
If the police want to phone them or you or anyone and ask questions fine. I have no problem with that either.
If you do not see the intimidation factor at work here then you are willfully blind to it.
Oh, those silly policemen. Always getting worked up over nuthin.
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/05/5_men_accused_of_bridge_explos.html
I’m willing to bet that these guys are alive and have all their fingernails and got Mirandized, too.
Sorry, I don’t know how to do the thing where you name the link.
This is police work.
The OP is about intimidating those the powers-that-be do not like using the police.
(To link the easiest way is to highlight the text you want as the link then click on the globe-icon (in the area where all the formatting options are at the top of the edit window) and pasting the URL in the window that pops up…formatting will be done automatically for you.)
Why are they all wearing lipstick?
Are you actually admitting to a brain fart or are you being sarcastic?
Because a scruffy mob of left-wing rioters getting out of hand while protesting the economic powers that be does not readily draw comparisons to uniformed government minions kicking down the doors of targeted minority groups.
I would be willing to let the government go through my home, everything I own, every contact I’ve had with another person and any activity I’ve engaged in if it meant the safety of the people as a whole. I’ve nothing to hide from them. If the government truly felt that that was the key to saving lives or preventing chaos and disorder, I would submit. Submission to authority is not a vice.
This would probably be the same reaction I would have if I lived under the authority of the British in the late 1700’s, as I would probably have been a loyalist. It would not be the reaction I would have if I had lived under the Gestapo. Each government, each people, have to be taken individually. You can’t generalize what level of power you give to a person, or a group of people.
I have faith that US authorities still operate with the best interests of the public in mind. The American people as a whole(including the people who serve in the govenment and the police), not so much. People are always out for their own interests, whatever they may be. Some, like good soldiers or police officers, are out to do their best to protect and serve the rights of people. Some, like terrorists, are just out to cause havoc and mayhem.
Given that, I believe people will use the very rights that living here provides them to do wrong if it suits their wishes. And I would rather give the police a little room with the rules if it means that people will not be able to use them to attack the very fabric of society. I do not endorse outright breaking rules, or imprisonment without trial or jury. But wiggle room? Absolutely.
“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower.
I’m not sure.
Are you trying to minimize the indescriminant crimes committed by a mob of people because you happen to agree with their cause?
Correct - one group is breaking the law, and the other isn’t.
Regards,
Shodan
I’m betting it was legal for the Gestapo to do what they did too (all of it).
What’s your point? That as long as the powers that be deem an action legal then it is ok in your eyes?
Not readily, no. But you know there’s them as is ready to try, and will. A lot.
Ah, the old “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”
I was wondering when this would come out.
What we’re talking about here is using police to kick the doors down and intimidate people because of their political views. Sure they used an old ticket as an excuse. This time.
Let’s say you voice some unpopular opinions about the government on a message board. You have nothing to hide, right? So you’d be happy with the police kicking your door down and “asking a few questions”? Maybe taking you down to the station and putting you in the tank with some addicts and winos where hopefully your paperwork would not be lost for a couple of days? Not to worry. You’d be released because you had nothing to hide. But I bet you would not be voicing your opinions as much anymore. Especially after the third time. Which is the purpose of the tactic.
How about vandalizing your property? Doors, and door frames aren’t free, you know. How about a humiliating strip search? No intimidation there?
Good for you. You must have lived a very sheltered life to have never encountered any bad cops, abuses of authority, or an American history book.
How do you feel you would have did as a civil rights activist in Jim Crow south?
The same US that made Bush II an authority?
I agree that it is intimidation. Intimidation is a large part of police work. From the look: the uniform, visible sidearm, mirror shades and badge or simple tactics: being highly visible and mobile or propaganda: we all know what it means if a cop gets hurt for the one who did it. Police cajole, persuade and bully to get their jobs done. Kicking down a door is another tactic. It is still a far cry from hooking genitals up to electrical generators or using drills on various body parts - THATS what the Gestapo did. I still think it’s an insult to elevate the mundane bullshit described here to the level of actual suffering that some have had to endure.
I believe the (current) powers-that-be are more interested in preventing some fools from hurting people than ideologies.
(Thanks for the tip)
I tend to be fairly biased towards favoring the government’s view on things, as I was raised to have an extremely high respect for the law, regardless of my personal feelings. I might voice an opinion against a particular law, but I would not advocate actively disobeying authority. THAT is what gets you in trouble. The US govenment doesn’t mind when you give voice to your opinion, they mind when you break the law(or associate with people who do). A person can say “I don’t think I should have to pay taxes.” US government says, “Ok, you go right on thinking that.” They get pissed when said person doesn’t actually pay their taxes.
But if I did voice opinions that advocated breaking the law, or resisting authority, I would not fear this kind of retaliation if caught. If I felt the government might target me due to my associations or political views, that last thing I would do is hide my opinions or back off when they treated me as you described. I would be PROUD that they locked me up. It’d be a damn victory in my book.
Now if they started moving into torture, that’s about where I’d be lose my rebellious spirit. Course, if they let me out after torture, they’d be paying in the papers the next day. The American media is good for something, afterall.
I’m a person who is very submissive to authority. EXACTLY the type of person cops don’t have much motive to hassle. So in my experience, cops are not something to mistrust or fear. That doesn’t invalidate experience to the contrary, and I’m not naive enough to believe all cops are trustworthy individuals, but I think it is better to act that way. The last thing you want to do is piss off a cop.
Also: only an American history book? Try world. No need to cut the rest of the world’s countries out of their share of sin in human history.
Possibly beaten at some point. Maybe killed and made a martyr. Certainly terrorised at some point. Why? Was there a something else that happened to civil rights activists in that time and place?
Goodness, you’re assuming I think that was a bad thing. And that I think the acutal government was responsible for that. Last I checked, the American people elected the man.