Police State America

[Handgun Midas]

A Shoot the Pigs production... subtle

This is just counter-propaganda, obviously. They didn't need all the Nazi footage to get their point across, and I don't feel too good about the people whom that stock-footage swayed.

The filming of the protesters is disturbing, when you think about who could get the wrong (or right) idea about you and what power that person has. However, these protesters should be the last people to assume that a police battalion in riot gear is going to play fair.

They showed up that day to challenge the government, so good on them; but if the fact that the police will film their faces to try and pick out those with influence bothers them, then they should stay home, or counter the surveillance effort with masks like the more experienced protesters did.

If you put yourself on the front line of a situation like that, but then hide behind a skateboard when someone takes notice of you, then you are not being influential or inspiring to your fellow protesters and, I submit, are not making a difference.

***
The important part of that video is the pre-meditation of the police to assault the crowd, and the phony catalyst that was given to the media.

Maybe that is the whole story, maybe it ain't. But it's got me thinking, so the video did its job.

Thanks for posting.

 

[Puppy]

I have a problem with the "phoney catalyst" claims.

Granted the bottle throwing incident was not caught on tape, but this didnt mean that the police made it up.

There were thousands of protesters at various intersections/barracades that we didnt see on tape, but that doesnt mean that they didnt exist or that a bottle wasnt thrown at another intersection/barracade.

Anyway for whatever reason, whether it was a bottle being thrown at officers or not, an order was given to the officers to disperse the crowd.

The protesters were ordered by the officers to move, the protesters did not comply, thus the officers were forced to make them move.

Just because you are in a gigantic mob of politically, intellectually & emotionally retarded protesters does not mean you can disregard a lawful order from the authorities to clear a public street.

The protesters had their stupid protest, they chanted their silly chants, and waved their retard asshat signs, but once it started to become violent, the authorities moved in and shut it down.

Personally I thought the video was nothing more than leftist, anti-American propaganda.

 

[joab]

Would your opinions change if police started filming everyone at the local gun range? Your exercising your 2nd amendment rights and doing nothing wrong, but are you okay with being filmed by the authorities while you are doing it?

The ranges I go to are on private property where I have a reasonable expectation of privacy, which I don't have while on a public street mugging for the camera.

But have you ever seen those cameras mounted in the corners of of the walkways at indoor ranges, usually above the doors as you enter the firing line.
Guess what they're doing.

I fail to see how uniformed cops in full view of the protesters overtly taking pictures of protesters with readily identifiable cameras remotely compares to the secret police that Ms Sleepy Voice seems to be warning us about

 

[Colonel]

That wormy whiny narrator should have her vocal chords ripped out.

I wonder whether they have any idea how much they hurt their own cause by using such an annoying standard-issue liberal worm-whine narrator.

 

[milcaztra]

The comparison b/n the US today and Nazi Germany is silly. There's no valid comparison. No where in the world do you have the freedoms enjoyed by US citizens. Sometimes, people protest because they don't like the decisions made by government, where there are no great options to choose from. There is a group of people protest every president and every policy decision, creating a classic double bind -- if you do anything, they'll protest; and if you do nothing, they'll protest.

Of course, many protesters have what they perceive to be legitimate grievances against policy decisions, and there's no problem with demonstrations. But you have to remember that the rights afforded by the Bill of Rights are not absolute. You cannot protest in such a way that causes harm or jeopardizes the safety of others. Do you want a group of protesters, some of whom are masked, anywhere close to our President? I don't.

I have no problem with the protest being pushed back. The footage excerpts were probably presented out of order. The on-scene commander was describing the order of escalation -- first a simple push, sticks if needed, OC if needed, then pellets if needed -- in that order. He didn't say that they were going to start with spraying. What probably happened was the police started pushing the crowd back, and a protester got upset and threw a bottle. Police do not accept physical assault, which can escalate from one bottle to many if not controlled immediately. OC spray was the result.

Babies got sprayed. That's truly horrible. I've been sprayed in training, and it was one of the worst experiences in my life. So, don't bring the babies to rallies. You might not have any intentions of violence. You may be a great parent, despite your liberal views, but you don't know about the other guy -- who might not be a stranger to using violence for a cause, and who might throw a bottle when he/she is pissed off from being pushed back. Taking a baby to a rally is like putting a baby on a motorcycle. Just don't do it. You can have good intentions and be in complete control, but you don't know anything about the 1% radical dude next to you.

I have no problems with cameras/film. If the police did not document the event, they wouldn't be doing their jobs. It is ironic, however, that the protesters received the footage -- it was probably the result of a lawsuit, not FOIA. Someone filed suit against the city PD, and all the film came out as a part of discovery.

People are entitled to protest, even if I don't agree with them. This is their constitutional right. Most protesters are probably nice, good, kewl people, and good parents. I briefly dated a girl who had protested for bisexual rights -- now that was an interesting time, but I digress. However, even with the purest of intentions, demonstrators are not entitled to jeopardize the safety of others, especially the President. Nor are they entitled to hurt police simply because the protest is being pushed back.

 

[Art Eatman]

One thing we learned from the "peaceful" protests of the 1960s/1970s is that there are people who go from one place to another to protest. "Professional protesters", if you will. Peaceful is fine, but filming showed that some of these people initiated crowd violence and then faded from the scene to leave the had-been-peaceful types to deal with the problems. "Professional agitators" is a more accurate description of some of these people.

The filming is an effort to identify the professional agitators who incite riots. They're not looking for "everybody who's there"; they're looking for the same face(s) over and over where there has been violence. It's an effort to penetrate the anonymity of a mob.

Think back to the damage done in Seattle during the trade talks a year or three back, just as one example among more than just a few. We discussed that here at THR.

One of the reasons I don't get upset about this, why I don't yell, "Police state!" stems from something I saw back around 1971 during a protest at the Capitol in Austin, Texas. The crowd was moving toward the building from the north. I was just west, having come from a visit to the barber. I saw some rocks thrown from well behind the "front lines". I happened to spot one thrower. He stopped moving forward, although he moved his body as though he was still marching. He drifted back through the crowd. He met three or four other guys and they all moved back from the crowd. A van pulled up; they got in and left.

So to me, an effort to identify trouble-makers seems wise. If you see somebody who's already provided probable cause, you have a chance to stop violence before instead of after. You do preventive maintenance on your car, right?

I guess ya gotta figure out which is better: Stop violence before it happens, or wait until the glass shatters, heads are battered and the joint's on fire...

Art

 

[aryfrosty]

Police state???

I am confident that peaceful and productive protest are a vital part of freedom. Any protest which includes violence against any person or thing is wrong. ANY activity which tolerates the wearing of masks in garbage all the way down to the roots. It is NOT a concern for self privacy which motivates the Klan and its fellow mask wearers, it is no more and no less than a desire to hide so that the person can act silly, stupid or in a criminal manner and anonymously infringe upon the rights of others to walk by or into the area to transact lawful business.
By the way....the sign one of the idiots had? "Stop sucking America"....Do these mental midgets think of their signs for themselves or do that have writers?

 

[longeyes]

Are we in an incipient police state? We're in transition. Kelo certainly snapped a lot of us awake, and we're all waiting to see what Congress does with the invasion--I mean immigration--situation. In my mind these are intimately connected with 2A rights because all of them are about the advance of government encroachment and globalist hegemony, the exact forces which will lead, if unchecked, to disarming us. Disarmament is an inevitable future step, essential to The Agenda. No, we're not there yet, and a lot of Americans have guns and want to keep them, but the question is how "good citizens" will react when faced with an increasingly lawless state. Will they just say NO to a future executive order, sanctioned by, say, the United Nations, "for our own good" and to "advance world peace?" I think we have serious reasons to wonder whether young people today will put up any fight for the Second Amendment. I still think the real battle, for 2A and everything else, is in K-12, not in Iraq, Iran, or even at the southern border.

 

[Dannyboy]

Those idiots wouldn't have much to worry about if all of their "peaceful protests" truly were. However, it seems that the majority of them end up as full scale riots. Take Seattle in 99, I think. During the WTO meetings. Then there was New York during the Republican convention. Hopefully, this chick will be on the receiving end of somebody's stick at the next "peaceful protest."

 

[Dmack_901]

When you're protesting in large groups, especially where riots may occur, the government has an obligation to videotape their own actions, and the people who may percipitate or commit violence. If forced to take action, this is necessary for the individual officers to defend themselves. The protesters have cameras too. And you can't blame the police for wanting the whole story on tape. And they have to identify the people in the crowd. Otherwise it wouldn't be evidence.

Now cameras on street corners, at intersections, etc. That's a different story.

 

[shotgunner]

It's happening slowly.

It began with the patriot act, and it will continue unless we stand up and do something about it.

Look at the UK, that's scary stuff... you're on TV all the time in the larger cities...

Our rights are slowly being taken away, all in the name of "anti-terrorism"

Just another fear tactic so that the people will agree with the violation of their civil rights...

History does repeat itself...

 

[Optical Serenity]

I really wish I had a dollar for everytime I read the phrase "police state" on this message board.

Pass out the tin foil and everyone get to making your hats.

+1

Another stupid video by some uber-liberal on myspace

Actually, the majority of those videos are use for intel by gang units. The govt doesn't give a hoot who protests. You think we are something like Laos or Cambodia? We just allowed millions of illegal aliens (aka: criminals) to stop streets and protest. In those countries, including Mexico, they would have been severely punished or killed.

God Bless America...or is that a phrase forgotten these days???

 

[Old Dog]

Ultimately, you are all crying over the same proverbial spilled milk.

Technology has rendered any expectation of privacy in this country a moot issue. Whether the expectation of privacy as we go about our daily business is, in fact, covered by the Fourth Amendment (or anywhere else in the Constitution, for that matter), well, this also is an issue that has been overtaken by events, and rendered moot by technology. Further, it appears the only way to counter the nefarious or illegal use of existing technology, is to overcome it by the use of additional technological means, which simply perpetuates a never-ending cycle. Cases in point: identity theft crimes ... or the booming business in fake identity documents, which further requires even more invasive means of proving one is who one claims to be.

Pandora's Box has been opened; it's doubtful that the demons loosed can be easily put back in their box.

You think cameras are a symptom of a police state? I say, bah. Cameras are merely a symptom of the rampant, uncontrolled advances in technology that the government is only now beginning to put widely in use. The private sector's been using much of this techology, stealthily and without fanfare, for years. If this is only now beginning to bother you, you're come too late to the party.

Are we in an incipient police state? We're in transition.

No. We're in an incipient nanny state. The difference between the nanny state and the police state is that we vote (or don't vote, even though we could) the nanny state upon ourselves.

And criminy, for the life of me, those of you who want to use some of these examples to claim we're becoming a police state really need to have spent some time in a real police state.

 

[longeyes]

No. We're in an incipient nanny state. The difference between the nanny state and the police state is that we vote (or don't vote, even though we could) the nanny state upon ourselves.

And criminy, for the life of me, those of you who want to use some of these examples to claim we're becoming a police state really need to have spent some time in a real police state.

Old Dog, here's a bone for ya: the nanny state IS a police state. America can be tyrannized by Big Nanny just as surely as by Big Cop. Of course to think that Big Nanny or Big Shrink or Big Social Worker or Big Prude might not be a prelude to something or someone less subtle could be a tad naive? First you addict 'em, then you control 'em, then you separate out the recalcitrant ones and apply the old truncheon with a bit of the old ultra-violence.

 

[Old Dog]

Old Dog, here's a bone for ya: the nanny state IS a police state.

Nope, sorry, guess I have to repeat myself:

those of you who want to use some of these examples to claim we're becoming a police state really need to have spent some time in a real police state.

There's a world of difference; either you choose to see it, or you can sit at your keyboard in the luxury of your own home and make with the clever wordplay ...

 

[Art Eatman]

shotgunner, I'd say the rate of increase in governmental controls over our society really got going bigtime with LBJ's "Great Society" programs in 1965/1966, and then enhancement came with the War on Drugs in around 1973.

There's been another jump since 9/11.

Mostly, it's because government and the bureaucratic mentality don't deal well with the idea that there are round pegs and square pegs. Life Is Good, for a bureaucrat, when it's all round pegs and round holes. Uniformity = serenity.

Art

 

[gc70]

The obsession over the government's use of cameras is interesting.

As Old Dog pointed out, if you feel that a government camera invades your privacy, you should be absolutely outraged by the pervasive use of cameras by businesses. If you refused to shop at businesses that used cameras, you wouldn't do much shopping.

The other thing I don't understand is why people are so touchy about inanimate objects. If your actions are observed by a camera, you get upset because your privacy has been invaded. Do you feel the same way when a cop on the street observes your actions? If so, what should we do about cops? If not, why not?

 

[longeyes]

There's a world of difference; either you choose to see it, or you can sit at your keyboard in the luxury of your own home and make with the clever wordplay ...

Of course there's a difference; that doesn't need to be belabored. My point is a) the difference may be where we are on the time-line and b) that there can be different forms of tyranny. Sitting in chains in a dank cell (or worse) may be the classic form, true, but that doesn't mean we should not be alert to the newer variants.

It's all relative, and because we're not all yet in an internment camp for misfits doesn't mean there aren't serious encroachments going on. We have the luxury in America, at the moment, of complaining about the Not So Awful. But it's awful enough, as far as many of us are concerned, if only because The Awful tends to get More Awful.

If, Art, you are correct about bureaucrats, and I think you are, then is a "cellular" form of governance, foreshadowed perhaps in perverted form by Al-Qaeda, the answer to the ever more bloated State?

 

[gc70]

If, Art, you are correct about bureaucrats, and I think you are, then is a "cellular" form of governance, foreshadowed perhaps in perverted form by Al-Qaeda, the answer to the ever more bloated State?

Is a democratic republic of sovereign states as envisioned by the Founders not a "cellular" form of government?

 

[longeyes]

Exactly. Let's hear it for a "guerrilla Republic."

 

[benEzra]

No. We're in an incipient nanny state. The difference between the nanny state and the police state is that we vote (or don't vote, even though we could) the nanny state upon ourselves.

Hitler was democratically elected. I'd still consider Nazi Germany to have been a police state.

The difference between a "police state" and a "nanny state" is only degree and PR. If you are sufficiently recalcitrant in a nanny state, I'm sure the gloves will eventually come off.

 

[Thin Black Line]

As someone who has been part of the state apparatus years back and taken
X# of kids into custody from their parents, I'll go ahead and jump in as an
advocate for one side, then maybe switch back a little, then leave everyone
totally confused before I'm done.

A state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic, and political life of the people, especially by means of a secret police force.

Good definition with plenty of working room under "rigid" and "repressive"
since these are subjective.

What rigid and repressive controls has this country placed on you? Yes I know you're going to say various gun control laws and the MG ban of course, but seriously. We have the most firearm freedom of ANY country in the world and the most overall freedom as well.

Been to the Phillipines lately?

Also where is the secret police force that is just whisking people away in the night never to be seen again? I sure as hell haven't heard of any of these instances.

Currently, federal LE can come into your home, perform a clandestine search,
and are no longer required to serve you the warrant or tell you about it for
who knows how long, if ever.

Yes, people (aka "suspects", "terrorists", etc) have been whisked away.
There have been cases of mistaken identity. Kind of sucks to be on a
rendition flight when you're the wrong guy from the gitgo. Oh well, mistakes
do happen and who cares about the one innocent man if 100 guilty ones
were caught in the big net? What about that whole public trial thing?

From a moderate viewpoint all states are police states to *varying* degrees.
There is no "autonomous zone of total individual freedom" anywhere on this
planet. You are always restricted in some way with the threat of force
that includes the removal of your life functions by someone else working
under the authority of a "state" depending how far you are willing to go
to resist that authority. The US is no exception to this. In fact our
history is full of many cases where people have been screwed big time by
the state. Just off of the top of my head: trail of tears and internment of
japanese. Is this on the scale of a Hitler or Stalin? No. Not even close.
Could it happen here in the future? Who knows. Should the frogs be
concerned if the water feels a little hotter? Yes. Croak out loud now or
croak later.

 

[Thin Black Line]

How could I forget this one

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/36/Inselian.jpg

Did I just hear a can of worms get kicked over?

 

[CAnnoneer]

The Nanny State only would look harmless. Maybe they won't beat you black-and-blue like the Nazis would (at least initially), but the loss of freedom, the imposed compliance, and the disappearance of most liberties we take for granted would be all too real. They'd send you to a reeducation center or a mental hospital, for your own good, instead of shipping you to a concentration camp. In both cases, you'd be in a lot of trouble.

If you do not believe that, consider the ultimate nanny state - communism. I doubt the initial high-headed intellectuals planned the likes of Stalin. Hell, most of them got wiped out by Stalin as "reactionary, counter-revolutionary elements" themselves. In the same way, I would not be surprised to see the nowadays malcontent flaming liberals be the first to be offed as "radicals and terrorists" under the New World Order they so desperately want to bring about. The irony.

 

[joab]

Did I just hear a can of worms get kicked over?

No but you did use a tired old misrepresentation

The family in this case repeatedly failed to comply with the court ordered reuniting of a father and son who was taken from his home without his father's permission or knowledge by his mother who put him at great risk to runaway with her criminal boyfriend.

Somehow some think that because the father was a Cuban communist the above facts are irrelevant