To Punish And Enslave

Via Reason: Hit & Run:

This is what happens when you try to videotape your neighbor's warrantless search and arrest in Portland:

The moral to the story? I'm not sure... but the complete and total abuse of force by the State (see previous post on Blackwater, see the "Don't Tase Me, Bro!" kid a week or two ago) are starting to get more and more common.

It's worth pointing out, at the very least, that these sorts of abuses of authority, attacks on civilians by the ruling powers-that-be, attempts to control foreign lands, etc., were pretty prevalent in the late eighteenth century. And it didn't turn out so well for the bastards, then, either.

I'm not, at all, advocating violent overthrow of the government (that, my friends, would be a crime). However, I'm not ashamed or afraid to predict it. Neither party has a great track record on this front (the Red Team has Iraq, the Patriot Act, and Guantanamo Concentration Camp X-Ray... the Blue Team had Waco, Ruby Ridge, and others), so don't look to "the 2008 Election Cycle" to solve all your problems. It's not going to.

It's going to come down to, eventually, the population getting seriously pissed off at its leaders in both parties, and voting the bastards out whenever they try that crap, or it's going to come to an American Revolution style showdown... and the verdict really isn't in, for me, as to which outcome is more likely.

(Title is a reference to the paint job on the Decepticon "police-car" named Barricade from the Transformers movie)