TJ Would Be Outraged

The YouTube video that you're going to see below is shocking. I spent probably a couple of hours today looking at videos people took of our police around the country in action. I started off looking at a series of videos that showed people being stopped by the border patrol, sometimes 50 miles away from the border, at "immigration checkpoints." Uniformed federal agents were stopping every car and asking drivers if they were American citizens. It turns out you're not obligated to answer this question, and the videos showed a number of drivers in successful encounters with these agents when they refused to do so.You can find these videos by searching YouTube for "Am I being detained?"

But that is not what this video is about. This one I found just by chance. It needs a short set up: apparently this group headed by one Adam Koresh, apparently a U.S. Marine Corps vet, heard that if anyone demonstrated by dancing inside the Jefferson Memorial, he would be arrested. So they set out to test it. It's never very clear exactly why the cops and have so much trouble with this particular form of demonstration. Notice that the cops in this video are Park police, a species of law enforcement agent virtually unknown 10 or 12 years ago. But since 9/11, this country has become freakishly paranoid, and American citizens are being manhandled regularly by the police, often without any reason or on the flimsiest reasons imaginable. Such seems to be the case here. A couple of things to notice. First, the amount of force that is used on these people. It certainly appears excessive and malicious to me. Second, you don't have to view the entire video, because the second part of the tape just repeats the first but from another camera angle. Nonetheless, you're not believe your eyes. This takes place inside the Jefferson Memorial in Washington. In front of God knows how many tourists. This is the United States of America. Thomas Jefferson, the virtual father of free speech, lover of the Bill of Rights, and enemy to oppressive executive power in any form – he must be rolling over in his grave.



Just a short postscript: the charges (one has to wonder what in the world they were) against these five dangerous dancers, these obvious subversives, were dropped as soon as the prosecutor heard them.