QUICK, DNC!!! Make an ad about what happened to this family:

[pnwmom]

http://www.rawstory.com/showoutarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wpcva.com%2Farticles%2F2006%2F10%2F19%2Fchatham%2Fopinion%2Fopinion01.txt

I am a local farmer; my wife teaches elementary school; our three children are well-adjusted, “A” students.

SNIP

On Saturday morning, Sept. 23, 2006, many police vehicles appeared in our driveway. Men in black with flak jackets ran to and around our house.

SNIP

I was held at gunpoint, searched, taunted, and led into the house. I had no idea what this was about. I was scared beyond description. I feared there had been a murder and I was a suspect.

SNIP


Pittsylvania County Sheriff's Department, Bedford County Sheriff's Department and Blue Ridge Thunder invaded our peaceful lives with military force based on one piece of wrong digital information.

SNIP

Inexcusable. Civil rights laws have been established to protect the innocent. Our ancestors fought and died for these rights.

The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause...”

Invading our home with one bit of incorrect evidence was totally unreasonable.

I support the police and their efforts, but I believe every United States citizen should fear and be angry about these tactics.

I will not rest until I know what went wrong in this investigation. I pray that you will not either.

A.J. Nuckols, Gretna


MODS: I didn't know how to excerpt this, since the writer didn't write in paragraphs.

[peacebird]

1. welcome to "Amerikkka"

the police are so anxious to get the evil-doers that their commonsense is left in the toilet.

fear fear fear! Terra Terra Terra! suspicion, mistrust, and more fear.

Land of the "free" home of the "brave - that America has gone the way of the the Dodo....

courage, compassion, honor and belief in the geneva conventions, quaint concepts all.


:grr:

i miss america.
.

[babylonsister]

2. Get ready for lots more stories like this. nt

[midnight]

24. This is true. My husband was coming home from work at 1:10

in the morning and he was stopped. He was given a breath test, and when he past it he was arrested and taken in for three more hours of drug test, before blood work was taken from him by our local emt volunteer who works as an Engineer by day. I asked engineer what my husbands rights were he said he doesn't worry about that he leaves that to the police. I asked the chief what my husbands rights were and he said my husband has no rights. Wake up!

[pnwmom]

25. I hope you also asked for a lawyer right away.

Or better yet, were able to get one yourself.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

3. Well previously, when we were governed by the Constitution,

this would have been a problem however, those days are long behind us and it can always be said that this was the result of a perceived terrorist threat. So in other words, tough shit.

[pnwmom]

5. They can say whatever they want about a terrorist threat.

But I think an ad with this family could be a powerful demonstration of what we have LOST. The right to feel safe -- from an intrusion by our government -- in our homes.

[Warpy]

7. Actually, it's been a problem since the 70s

when Nixon decided the best way around Posse Comitatus was to militarize the local police departments. Those militarized police were then enlisted in the drug war, and stories like this pop up in every town once in a while, cops going to the wrong address, bashing the door in, terrorizing everybody within the home until one of them reads the fucking warrant.

People have been hurt. There have been a few deaths when a homeowner has grabbed a gun when he's awakened to his door being bashed in.

What's new is that they just help themselves to anything they find interesting, even after they know they're in the wrong house.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

22. You're right but I am trying to keep it simple. n/t

[eppur_se_muova]

18. I like that opening phrase, propose to use it often.

"Previously, when we were governed by the Constitution," should open many a conversation.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

21. Thanks, that was my thought also. Unfortunately, it rarely happens.

:toast:

[cool user name]

4. Insanity ... n/t

[hwmnbn]

6. This is the republican wet dream ........

being able to scare and intimidate the populace in order to enforce their authoritarian mindset. If they can employ these tactics with impunity, their grip on power is absolute.

This is the america the bushbots and dittoheads, the log cabin and young republicans, the gated white communities would like to see. In their avarice and greed, they see this example as "securing the homeland," not from terrorists, but from us.

They've codified this behavior. This is legal in america today.

[pnwmom]

10. There are a significant number of libertarian/leaning Republicans. This is

hardly their wet dream.

It's more of a Bush/Rove thing, IMO.

[Dragonbreathp9d]

8. DU the poll on this page too!!!!!!

[pnwmom]

9. hah! Well, that was a surprise!

72% polled say Virginia does not need a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to men and women.

Keep those votes coming.

[ovidsen]

11. This is not a drill

This is horrifying.

link to original letter.

[MonteSano]

12. k&r

[OneBlueSky]

13. "I will not rest until I know what went wrong in this investigation . . .

I pray that you will not either" . . .

what went wrong with this investigation is that BushCo stole the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections . . .

let's not overlook the lead of this post . . . an interview with this man surrounded by his family and telling his story would be one powerful television ad that could be used in every state and every Congressional District in the naation . . . I really hope the Dems pick up on it -- but I'm not holding my breath . . .

[ShortnFiery]

14. And the republicans are in the process of stealing the upcoming one n/t

[OneBlueSky]

15. yup . . . they most assuredly are . . . n/t

.

[JNelson6563]

16. Welcome to the Police State

To show we are fiscally responsible we do not squander money on lubricant. Now bend over....

[eppur_se_muova]

17. "Overreaction" seems to be the only form of action Authoritarians know.

They do absolutely nothing about real problems, but when they find some anyone engaging in activity they regard as even remotely suspicious, they charge in with all the firepower they can carry.

[SaveOurDemocracy]

19. We are ALL suspected terrorists now...

This so clearly illustrates that it could happen to ANYONE!! Maybe my home, and my family next ... or my neighbors ... or yours ...

How long until we have to watch what we say, and to whom?

[Contrary1]

20. Well, if they hadn't done anything wrong,

there was nothing for them to worry about, was there? :sarcasm:

[BrklynLiberal]

23. kick!!!!

They Thought They Were Free....

"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap, after1933,between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know it doesn't make people close to their government to be told that this is a people's government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing to do with knowing one is governing.

What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.
<snip>
"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it - please try to believe me - unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, "regretted," that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these "little measures" that no "patriotic German" could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.

"How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice - "Resist the beginnings" and "consider the end." But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have changed here before they went as far as they did; they didn't, but they might have. And everyone counts on that might.
<snip>
"Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, "everyone is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there will be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to you colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, "It's not so bad" or "You're seeing things" or "You're an alarmist."

"And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can't prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don't know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.
<snip>


more....


http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.html

[pnwmom]

26. Thanks BrklynLiberal, for the site. Everyone should read the whole thing.

[BrklynLiberal]

27. I try to post that every now and then to remind people that we should

remain vigilant.
Complacency is the best friend of creeping fascism.