“But they got the suspect.” … THAT’S NOT THE POINT!!!!!!!
By Doug Newman
”The welfare of humanity is the alibi of tyrants.” – Albert Camus
Here are 30 thoughts about the martial law which was imposed on Boston in the name of apprehending one bombing suspect.
1. The Marathon bombings constituted a horrible crime. Likewise for the killing of the MIT police officer. Thoughts, prayers and condolences need to be offered to all affected.
2. The suspects could be totally guilty.
3. The suspects could be totally innocent.
4. The suspects were at large for over 3 days, but Boston was not on lockdown. Then, all of a sudden, it was deemed necessary to put Boston and several surrounding towns on lockdown.
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5. Is this the way it is going to be now in the aftermath of high profile crimes?
6. Will the American people continue to tolerate it?
7. If the answer to #6 is “yes”, this is ought to frighten you more than any terrorist. The cops are the business end of the government. And when they can put whole cities on lockdown, what can’t they – or any government entity – do?
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Just what kind of America awaits this young girl?
8. I am all good with cops pursuing violent criminals. This does not justify martial law (http://lewrockwell.com/slavo/slavo149.html).
9. Why am I concerned about rights at a time when suspected terrorists are on the loose? Because it is in times like this when governments want to take away liberty and people are more than willing to give up their liberty – in the name of “security”.
10. There wasn’t a lot of street crime in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. The cops could do as they pleased. Would you want to live in either place? How “safe” would you feel?
11. The most dangerous criminals have always been in governments. They have always sent police to do their dirty work. They always dress things up in the name of some higher good.
12. 238 years ago today, near Boston, “the shot heard ’round the world (http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/archives/5583)” was fired. King George III did a lot of bad things. Did he ever put an entire city on lockdown?
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Lexington Green. 13 miles from Boston. 238 years ago today.
13. The lockdown of Boston in pursuit of one accused terrorist came on the 20thanniversary of the torching by the feds of 80 innocent citizens near Waco (http://foodforthethinkers.com/2013/04/19/moral-indifference-about-waco/). This was a trial balloon that was floated before a brainwashed nation to see just how much Uncle Sam could get away with. As it turns out, he can get away with just about anything.
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14. The lockdown of Boston came on the 18th anniversary of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. Several witnesses claim to have seen a suspect known only as John Doe #2. A fugitive suspect in a bombing that killed 168 people did not cause the area around OKC to be put on lockdown. Why, then, was it necessary to put Boston and several suburbs under martial law after the killing of four people?
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15. “But these were local police”, you say. Police have become more and more militarized and federalized in recent years, especially since 9/11.
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Can anyone here say “occupying army”?
16. The media parrot everything the authorities say.
17. Millions of Americans believe everything the mainstream media says.
18. Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, etc. etc. are part of this mainstream media.
19. The 5th Amendment demands due process regardless of the severity of the charges or the weight of public opinion against the defendant.
20. The 6th Amendment spells out the details of due process.
21. If these protections don’t apply to the suspects here, they don’t apply to you or me either (http://foodforthethinkers.com/2011/03/09/yes-the-bill-of-rights-applies-to-terror-suspects/).
22. If you will cheer on the authorities in this instance, you had just better hope and pray that you are never falsely accused of anything.
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23. Most criminals are not Muslim.
24. 99-plus percent of Muslims are not violent criminals.
25. The most violent demographic in America is unmarried men. Let’s go after THEM! Oh, wait. Let’s not. I am an unmarried man.
26. It is always easy to say that your government should “do something” as long as they do it to somebody else.
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From the Boston Globe – April 19, 2013
27. NEVER GIVE UP YOUR GUNS! They are your last line of defense against any kind of crazies – be they terrorists or rogue police.
28. How many military veterans who “fought for our freedom” were on the receiving end of Friday’s lockdown?
29. You will note that I have not said anything about conspiracies, “false flags”, etc. Even if everything the authorities are saying is entirely true, their reaction to the Boston Marathon bombings is totally grotesque and tyrannical.
30. Dear God, why did You task me with being a “watchman on the wall”? (Ezekiel 33:6 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel%2033:6&version=KJV)) Why do I have to be the bearer of this kind of news? Why couldn’t You give me a “nicer” ministry?
Source: http://foodforthethinkers.com/2013/04/20/but-they-got-the-suspect-thats-not-the-point/
Re-posted here by permission of the author.
This is an excellent follow-up (http://foodforthethinkers.com/2013/04/23/sometimes-martial-law-is-necessary/) by Doug Newman to his first blog post (http://foodforthethinkers.com/2013/04/20/but-they-got-the-suspect-thats-not-the-point/), which I shared earlier in this thread (http://threestooges.net/forums/index.php/topic,5004.msg41115.html#msg41115).
“Sometimes Martial Law Is Necessary”
Thus read a response to my Friday column about the lockdown of 1 million people during the manhunt for one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects. I didn’t “write” that so much as I slapped together a bunch of random thoughts.
I just want to say that I am honored by the response that this received by viral “sharing” of it on Facebook. Thank you, everyone.
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Here are some more random bullet points.
1. On April 19, 1995, a few hours after the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, a coworker commented on how easy it was for people to just “drive up anywhere”. I asked her if she would prefer to live an alternative kind of society where moving around freely was not an option. Boston on April 19, 2013 was just such a place. The inability to travel freely is a common feature of all totalitarian societies.
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The Berlin Wall.
2. If a million people in and around Boston can be put on lockdown for one day, why can’t a million people elsewhere be put on lockdown for 3 or 4 or even more days sometime in the not-too-distant future?
3. And why were just Boston and some surrounding towns on lockdown? I mean, like, the suspect could have fled to Cape Cod, Worcester, Springfield or Williamstown. Or, he could have crossed state lines. Why not put all of New England and New York on lockdown?
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4. “But what if the terrorist was on the loose in your neighborhood?” you ask. “Wouldn’t you feel safer being on lockdown?” No, actually I wouldn’t feel safer at all. And while I would certainly appreciate notice that an intensive manhunt was underway, I would also like the opportunity to get the hell out of my neighborhood for my own safety. And you can’t very well do that when you are on lockdown.
5. If you are a “conservative” who approves of the Beantown Lockdown, DON’T EVER complain to me again about nationalized health care, the IRS, gun control or any other big government program. None of these ever resulted in a million people not being able to leave their homes. You deserve every ounce of big government you get.
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They hate us for our freedom.
6. What is the next step after a lockdown? Drone strikes? (http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/19/4244048/lindsey-graham-homeland-battlefield-domestic-drones) All of America is now a battlefield in the war on terror. And there could be a “suspected militant” right in your neighborhood – a scary looking guy with a name you can’t pronounce from a country you can’t find on a map where the military budget is less than the payroll for the Red Sox infield. So what if 100 innocent people are killed by a Hellfire missile “if it gets the bad guy.”
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7. Why not also internment camps for Chechens, Muslims, etc.? I mean, like, desperate times call for desperate measures.
8. “Sometimes you have to give up liberty to have security.” They sang the exact same song in Germany in 1933 as they gave up their liberty for 12 years of sicherheit.
9. And if you don’t think Uncle Sam would kill innocent Americans en masse, think again. And consider the Branch Davidians, the Trail of Tears, the Sand Creek Massacre, Wounded Knee and the War of Northern Aggression from 1861-1865.
10. About 40 people are murdered every day in America. About 280 have been murdered in the last week. Why do the 4 Boston killings – 3 at the Marathon and the cop at MIT – get all the attention? (And this is not to minimize the grief of those affected by these killings.) Fourteen people perished in the plant explosion in West, Texas, and that has not been nearly as much of a showstopper as the Boston bombing.
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11. If you think the warrantless searches during the lockdown were “reasonable” because there was a manhunt for a terrorist, do you likewise believe that it is “reasonable” for TSA to molest children at airports?
12.If you tolerate locking down schools (http://foodforthethinkers.com/2012/11/10/the-aurora-police-pyongyang-style-or-at-least-the-cops-got-what-they-were-looking-for/) for the safety of the students, why wouldn’t they take the next step and put whole cities on lockdown?
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Aurora, June 2, 2012
13.If you approve of the police in Aurora, Colorado – where I live – detaining 40 innocent people for 2 hours (http://foodforthethinkers.com/2012/06/07/cops-gone-wild-obama-gone-wild-hitler-gone-wild/) in order to apprehend one bank robbery suspect, why wouldn’t police restrict the liberty of 1 million people for a whole day?
14. If you cheered on the police authorities in Southern California as they shot at innocent people (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57568368/christopher-dorner-manhunt-two-innocent-women-shot-by-lapd-officers-had-no-warning/) as they hunted down and killed Christopher Dorner (http://foodforthethinkers.com/2013/02/17/there-is-no-truth-only-news/) with no due process, why wouldn’t cops put entire cities on lockdown to catch a fugitive?
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15. It does not surprise me at all that so many chowds celebrated the capture of Dzhokar Tsarnaev while not minding at all that they had been under martial law for the better part of a day (http://21stcenturywire.com/2013/04/20/why-did-boston-and-america-celebrate-martial-law-with-chants-of-usa-usa/). Since 9/11, many millions – perhaps even a majority – of Americans have gladly accepted – in the name of “safety” and “security”: warrantless searches and spying (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/napolitano2.html), the suspension of habeas corpus (http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberger/hornberger130.html), sexual assault as a condition of travel (http://foodforthethinkers.com/2011/07/14/tsa-does-not-protect-you-period/), rampant police brutality (http://www.facebook.com/groups/350955711587953/), indefinite detention without any semblance of due process (http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/three_myths_about_the_detention_bill/), severe restrictions on peaceful protest (http://ericpetersautos.com/2012/05/02/were-almost-there-now/) and surveillance drones in our skies watching our every move (https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_empire_strikes_back_attack_of_the_drones). Are predator drones next?
16. You will note that I have not mentioned the names of any politicians here. It does not matter at all whom we elect anymore. When you grant unconstitutional power to a president that you like and trust, please know that the next president will inherit and, inevitably, augment these unconstitutional powers.
17. “The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances (http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/reawakening-liberty/2013/apr/20/bill-rights-was-written-dzhokar-tsarnaev/). No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism.” – U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Davis, Ex Parte Milligan (1866)
18. At the “4/20” marijuana rally in Denver on Saturday, 2 people were shot and a third was grazed by a bullet (http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_23070899/shots-fired-denvers-civic-center-after-pot-rally). As this column goes to bed, the suspect remains at large. Should metro Denver – including Aurora, where I live – be put on lockdown for everyone’s “safety”?
19. If you profess a belief in Jesus, who would He subject to martial law?
20. Do you believe everything the government and their media lapdogs tell you?
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Source: http://foodforthethinkers.com/2013/04/23/sometimes-martial-law-is-necessary/
Re-posted by permission of the author.
That was a completely unjustifiable mass deployment of thousands of heavily armed police in Boston. They blatantly violated the Constitution throughout the process, unlawfully detaining innocent citizens in their homes and elsewhere, forcing their way into homes at gun point without a warrant, threatening to shoot people for even watching from their windows. (See the picture above.)
[youtube=560,315]2LrbsUVSVl8[/youtube]
The police are being terrorists here. They were literally going door to door terrorizing innocent citizens, treating them like common criminals. This is supposed to be a free country, not a prison, damn it. The police have no more right to behave this way then you or I do.
If people cannot understand what is wrong with what the government was doing in Boston, then I guess this country really is just totally fucked. ::)
By the way - the Nazis did not "displace an established government." They were elected into office lawfully. Just as Americans are doing to themselves today.
What’s Bad About a House-to-House Search?
by Michael S. Rozeff
Unless the search passes certain legal criteria, it is illegal.
The search in Boston set a precedent, which means that such searches can be generalized to other places in America and to other situations, unless whoever authorized the Boston search is reprimanded and sanctioned for having ordered it. That seems to be Governor Deval Patrick, at a minimum.
Unless this search is clearly labeled and understood as being illegal and wrong, it creates a precedent. This changes the law de facto, even if not de jure. A de facto change will become a de jure change if only by interpretation
But what's bad about such a precedent? What's bad about the police having the power to make house-to-house searches routinely?
Consider what sorts of searches were common in totalitarian countries. This provides an inkling of the results of such police power.
First of all, America is in some respects following a path that Nazi Germany followed. I quote from one account (http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005464/t_blank):
"Police manpower was even extended by the incorporation of Nazi paramilitary organizations as auxiliary policemen. The Nazis centralized and fully funded the police to better combat criminal gangs and promote state security. The Nazi state increased staff and training, and modernized police equipment."
This has been happening in America for some time now. These are initial steps in creating a police state. The centralization is done through building authoritative organizations that control local deviations in behavior and through funding. The funding brings in militarization and central coordination, training, and routines.
From the same source, we next read
"The Nazis offered the police the broadest latitude in arrests, incarceration, and the treatment of prisoners. The police moved to take 'preventive action' that is, to make arrests without the evidence required for a conviction in court and indeed without court supervision at all."
We are seeing in America a broad latitude given to police in making charges against civilians, in mistreating them and getting off the hook, in killing civilians in some cases rather than arresting them, in bringing false evidence into courts, in lying under oath and having their words accepted, and in seizing property. We also see prosecutors suppressing evidence and bringing false charges. Add to these misbehaviors and others the fact that almost anyone can be guilty of one or more felonies. When all is said and done, police are subjecting a significant fraction of America's population to a police state.
Highway and transportation searches are already common. Here's a photo dated Feb. 27, 1933 of German police searching a car for arms:
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America is not going to follow what Nazi Germany did in any kind of lockstep fashion. There is too much variation in situations and events and laws for any two societies to mimic one another precisely. The American police state already has some unique features such as the LOCKDOWN. The spectacle of Americans being routed from their homes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LrbsUVSVl8/t_blank) with raised arms and herded down the street is not too far, however, from German soldiers arresting Jews in Warsaw in 1943:
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In a house-to-house search, police can find evidence of many wrongdoings. This depends on other laws that are passed and what items may be searched. Police could find a copyright violation on most everyone's computer, for example. They could find drugs. They could find out-of-date prescription drugs. They could find weapons. They could find cash and seize it. It is the search power combined with other laws that become a powerful tool of repression.
"The Nazis took control and transformed the traditional police forces of the Weimar Republic into an instrument of state repression and, eventually, of genocide."
Even without other law, the mere interaction of common people with police in house-to-house searches can result in arguments, altercations, arrests, injuries and deaths. The police expect obedience and deference. In Watertown, they demanded that people leave their homes and raise their arms over their heads. There are many situations where people don't want to leave, or cannot due to illness, or who do not understand what's going on, or refuse to kowtow, or who naturally resist intimidation. Arrests and charges lead to criminal records and subsequently affect everything from employment to getting a loan to traveling to having a firearm.
In an article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGB/t_blank) on one of the Russian police agencies while under Communist rule, we read
"Leonid Brezhnev reverted the State and KGB to actively harsh suppression – routine house searches to seize documents and the continual monitoring of dissidents."
Once searches become routine, i.e., without warrants or under very loose conditions, then police can intrude for any number of activities that the authorities have deemed illegal or a threat to the authority of the State itself. In Russia, this included political speech against the State. In America, all sorts of records of money transactions might be monitored or seized in order to detect "suspicious" political contributions or other activities, for example.
House-to-house searches, of course, make hash out of privacy.
So, in short, what is bad about these house-to-house searches that we have just witnessed?
They set a bad precedent in which Americans allow measures that significantly raise the likelihood of further repressive measures in the future. Why does the threat of further repression go up? It's because these searches are illegal. Undermining rights and respect for rights helps set the stage for further measures that repress liberty. It's because these searches follow closely upon the heels of other measures that have already laid the foundation of an American police state.
This is the direction in which America is headed.
The reason for this direction is terrorism directed at America. The reason for the terrorism is the conclusion among the men engaging in it that Islam is under attack and/or that the lands in which Islam is prominent are under attack.
Washington will continue to go into places like Libya, Yemen, Lebanon, Jordan, Pakistan, Somalia, Iraq, and therefore retaliation can be expected. The empire will continue to use drones that kill innocents. It will continue to pressure Iran. It will continue undermining Syria. It will continue to try to change the politics of these lands. It will continue with its benighted Israel policy. It will continue to support the military-industrial complex, which is one major source of all of this unnecessary expansion.
Consequently, at home, it will continue to turn America into a target for jihadist attacks, and it will continue police measures that can easily turn the whole country into a police state.
April 24, 2013
Source: http://lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff404.html