One of the commenters on the nola thread mentioned that if the shoe had been on the other foot, the person might have been busted for threatening an officer of the court or something, maybe even gotten a "terrorist" charge of some kind.
That's the scary part about these abuses of power and public office in the current era.
There are REAL terrorists, real bad and scary people who want to cause big harm, so it is a good thing that efforts are being stepped up to get them.
But when the representatives of State power are like termites eating the house from the inside out, it is not cool that criticising them or exposing them, which may be a stellar act of patriotism or public service, can get you in secret prison sized trouble.
Or that you'd even FEAR that it might.
I think most people in power are saner than that, and while there have been some sad cases in recent years, for the most part, the people running things are decent.
The problem is the chilling effect that the handful of totally fucked up situations have on normal people who see things they'd like to speak up about.
Another problem is the protection that jerkoffs like this one often seem to recieve from the State mechanisms that were actually put in place to protect ordinary people.
Some of the tightened up laws make a lot of sense to me, but that old "Who will guard the guardians?" questions arise.
A lot of people are assholes; do you want to give them power over your life?
Answering "No" to that is one of the fundemental American traits; I respect it even when I think that a particular manifestation of it, such as fearing universal health care, is a little sad.
2 comments:
One of the commenters on the nola thread mentioned that if the shoe had been on the other foot, the person might have been busted for threatening an officer of the court or something, maybe even gotten a "terrorist" charge of some kind.
That's the scary part about these abuses of power and public office in the current era.
There are REAL terrorists, real bad and scary people who want to cause big harm, so it is a good thing that efforts are being stepped up to get them.
But when the representatives of State power are like termites eating the house from the inside out, it is not cool that criticising them or exposing them, which may be a stellar act of patriotism or public service, can get you in secret prison sized trouble.
Or that you'd even FEAR that it might.
I think most people in power are saner than that, and while there have been some sad cases in recent years, for the most part, the people running things are decent.
The problem is the chilling effect that the handful of totally fucked up situations have on normal people who see things they'd like to speak up about.
Another problem is the protection that jerkoffs like this one often seem to recieve from the State mechanisms that were actually put in place to protect ordinary people.
Some of the tightened up laws make a lot of sense to me, but that old "Who will guard the guardians?" questions arise.
A lot of people are assholes; do you want to give them power over your life?
Answering "No" to that is one of the fundemental American traits; I respect it even when I think that a particular manifestation of it, such as fearing universal health care, is a little sad.
It's pretty sad how often people get fired from police offices for looking up arrest records for fun.
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