printWatch this scene:
This woman is doing nothing unusual. She’s hovering close to the baggage screener, overseeing his rummage through her belongings.
The fat, thuggish, affirmative appointees then zero-in on her and proceed to toss her across the room. Then they climb into her.
The lowly subject clearly angered her overlords. A snippy word, perhaps? How dare she!
In a free society NO ONE has the right to lay a hand on another absent a clear threat of physical aggression. Verbal provocation is no excuse for this kind of aggression. As I wrote in “Tasers ‘R’ Us”:
Liberty is a simple thing. It’s the unassailable right to shout, flail your arms, even verbally provoke a politician, unmolested. Tyranny is when those small things can get you assaulted, incarcerated, injured, and even killed.
Did the victim, Robin Kassner, look as though she posed a threat to anything other than her captors’ sense of omnipotence?
Of course, America is not a free country, no matter how many freedom concerts Hannity holds.
Why does the ACLU not tackle the tackling and killing of innocent Americans at airports and elsewhere?
We have:
Don’t Tase Me, Big Bro
Tasers ‘R’ Us
Lunatic Government Occupies Airports
Seven years after 9/11 and people still have to endure this sort of bullcrap. What is it with police officers that can’t “enforce” freedom?
What’s wrong with the security guards?!Are they too paranoid or just power tripping?! That’s a woman that they’re throwing around, what threat could she possibly be? This is a clear case of tyranny over liberty. . .
Was this surveillance video taken in Nazi Germany? Communist Russia? Cuba? Zimbabwe? I remember experiencing a similarly diabolical group of security guards somewhere… Where was it again? Oh yes! It was in the prologue of the game, Half-Life 2.
Reading those stories of police brutality reminds me of an incident. I pulled over to use a pay phone in a rural location, returning home after completing a fence job. As I tried to use the phone, a cop pulled a u-turn on the highway, drove up and began inspecting my trailer. Walking back from the phone, tired and annoyed, I told myself, “Don’t say anything stupid.”
“Your safety chain is broken.” the cop announced. “Yeah, I know. Go ahead and give me a ticket or arrest me.”
He did.
As I was digging through the glove box to retrieve my papers, the cop told me “This is a stolen vehicle. You’re under arrest.” Of course, I argued with him for 3 minutes, but he refused to look at my registration/insurance. He then informed me that I was also guilty of disorderly conduct. While he was cuffing me, he jerked and wrenched my arm to provoke a response; I wheeled around and yanked my cuffed hand out of his grasp.
At this point, he began to smile and his hand went for his belt. “Jesus”, I thought. “He’s going to shoot me.” But no; only pepper spray. In the squad car, en route to jail 15 miles down the highway, I pointed out to the officer, in a conversational tone, what was only obvious: that he enjoyed wielding power, without restraint or conscience. When he tried to tape my comments, I shut up.
When I asked the justice of the peace, politely but persistently, if there were not objective rules that restrained police behavior, she informed me that one more such comment would land me in jail for a week. I shut up, spent that night in the slammer, and gladly paid a $350 fine the next morning, for resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
Aside from my initial, stupid, rude remark to the cop, I was polite and restrained throught this course of events. I didn’t bother to lodge any further protest to the authorities, because I knew it was futile.