Thursday, August 14, 2014

How Do You Spell Militarization?

Wait a minute! Hold the horses, or the mules, or the rabbits. Surely this can't be the United States — the place that allows people to protest peacefully. It's no wonder no one takes to the street when there is some kind of injustice. Let's look at the situation with an eye toward fairness.

So there was this black teenager who was doing whatever. And the next thing you know he's lying on the ground with 11 or twelve bullet wounds in his back. Does it really matter how many bullets went into his body, so in our attempt to be fair let's say it was only four bullets. As my mother would say, dead’s dead.  And as has been the behavior of the community lately, people decided to go to the streets and protest. That's when the police armed with machine guns, riot gear and yes, tear gas (like it was Iraq), pounced on the pesky protesters. 

And then, two actual reporters, who were sitting in McDonalds, writing, got arrested.
Surely, they didn't get arrested for covering the protest. That only happens in a dictatorship, never in a democracy. They must have been arrested for something other than being on site journalists. Like, maybe they asked for extra tomatoes or onions. Having not been in a McD for some time, I imagine there are still onions on a burger. Or maybe the police thought that the reporters were being disruptive. Stepping into other persons personal space. There has to be some respect for personal space at a burger joint, after all, the fast food emporiums are America.  It's easy to understand why riot police would protect the rights of the customer.

How did all this happen? And when I say all this, I mean the over zealous police commandos who feel the need to use weapons senselessly because why else would they have them.  If you have a plethora of anti-terrorist equipment you absolutely want to make sure there are no terrorists lurking in, say a McDonalds.  You can probably trace some of this back to the Democratic Convention in Denver where as a normal person (Normal is relative) heavy militarized police were everywhere trying to intimidate unarmed peaceful attendees. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.  Something has gone awry. Maybe because it was those leftist Dems the police were correct to be intimidating. But what was amazing was that no one complained. Not the delegates or the journalists. And certainly not any McDonalds devotees or Presidential candidates..

The President did acknowledge that the police had no business arresting or harassing the journalists. Something about first amendment rights -- talk about pesky.  The unfortunate thing is that you can't go backward. We cannot unarm these heavily and stupidly armed defenders of what?  Do you think any of these people or their supervisors ever read the Constitution.
I know, that was uncalled for and it's mere snobbery (rhymes with robbery), for which you might need the police.

Now I will share the bottom line. The police need to disrobe before they take any emergency calls. If they can do their job naked then I say go for it. Shoot anyone you want to at any time you feel like it.  The protesters need to be wearing silly hats and I can guarantee no one will shoot or throw tear gas canisters. And most importantly, never try to do anything beyond eating a Big Mac or chicken paws at a McD. If God had wanted us to do anything else he wouldn't have invented park benches.   We’re just sayin’…. Iris

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