Pre-emptive Strike Against Protesters in Minneapolis

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Ah, the heavily armed SWAT teams just keep pushing the boundaries back little by little. Apparently they are raiding houses--and doing standard procedure of coming in with semi-automatic weapons, cuffing everyone and putting them on the floor for a half an hour at a time, you know--where people are planning to protest the upcoming Republican convention. The people who were raided claim that they weren't planning anything illegal, and were just going to exercise their rights in this free country.

But that's what you expect lawbreakers to say.

Glenn Greenwald was actually there, interviewing people after the fact, but the videos are kinda boring. You should read his (short) article though to see exactly what I am talking about.

We're getting there, folks. They started doing SWAT raids like this on citizens' houses because of the possibility of armed drug dealers, and nobody cared. "Hey, I don't deal crack out of my living room. They won't knock down my door!" Sure, they burned a bunch of religious nutjobs to death. "But I don't go to church in a polygamist compound, so it's all good." And now they are raiding people's homes because they are planning to protest a political convention. "Eh, I'm not a pot-smoking antiwar activist. Doesn't chafe me."

We're getting there, folks.

Comments

  1. TokyoTom4:09 AM

    Makes me think of the Lee Greenwood jingle for jingoists:

    "I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free ... there ain't no doubt I love this land God Bless the U.S.A.!"

    Since terrorists "hate us for our freedom", isn`t best way to defeat terrorism to give up freedom?

    Say, I bet I can get you on a Homeland Security watchlist by noting the names of the targeted protest groups:
    - the "RNC Welcoming Committee",
    - "Food Not Bombs," and
    - "I-Witness".

    Actually, God bless patriots like Glenn Greenwald, and you for putting things like this up. The steady march to tyranny is very disturbing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bob Murphy9:16 AM

    My uncle-in-law (referenced in a recent LRC article) knows a religious guy who wrote a song called, "America Bless God." I.e. he was trying to reverse the self-congratulatory phrase.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous11:43 PM

    Unfortunately, I think we still have a long way to go. The vast majority of the people in this country would gladly let the "Food Not Bombs" folks rot in jail even if their offense was only sight and scent.

    ReplyDelete
  4. TokyoTom2:52 AM

    I note, for purposes of balance, this thread at Volokh, which has a different view.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bob Murphy9:14 AM

    Unfortunately, I think we still have a long way to go.

    Are you responding to my "we're getting there, folks" line? If so, I meant we are getting to the nightmarish police state that "kooks" have been warning about, and that normal people have been pooh-poohing saying, "It can't happen here."

    ReplyDelete

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