Objections to how law enforcement shut down the city of Boston

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Personally, I was wondering what would happen to a random homeowner that said "no" to the search.

Would he be arrested and charged or detained and released after they searched his house anyway or would the cops walk away? I'm sure the government would offer some kind of consolation to 4th amendment concerns like you wouldn't be charged if they found something unrelated to terrorism in your house. Small consolation.


Why Ron Paul is slamming Boston's response to the bombings
By Keith Wagstaff | The Week
6 hrs ago

The libertarian says the military-style lockdown "should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself"

Criticizing the Boston Police Department, which has been hailed for capturing Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, isn't exactly a PC move. Here, however, is former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) on libertarian Lew Rockwell's site:

These were not the scenes from a military coup in a far off banana republic, but rather the scenes just over a week ago in Boston as the United States got a taste of martial law. The ostensible reason for the military-style takeover of parts of Boston was that the accused perpetrator of a horrific crime was on the loose. The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city. This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.​

He goes on to criticize our modern "surveillance state," and argues that "we have been conditioned to believe that the job of the government is to keep us safe, but in reality the job of the government is to protect our liberties."

While Paul appears to be alone in equating the reaction to the bombings with the bombings themselves, plenty of commentators from across the political spectrum have voiced objections to how law enforcement shut down the city of Boston. Comedian Bill Maher warned of a creeping "police state" on his show a few days ago, according to Politico.

And others have said the government is prone to overreaction any time terrorism is involved. "Whenever the word 'terrorist' is mentioned in this country, reason tends to go out the window, and many other things go with it, too, such as intellectual consistency, a respect for civil liberties, and a sense of proportion," wrote John Cassidy a couple of weeks ago at The New Yorker.

Ross Douthat at The New York Times argues that such reactions could set a worrisome precedent if terrorist attacks become more common:

Because the Marathon bombing was such an unusual event, the city of Boston could muster a sweeping, almost crazy-seeming response without worrying that it would find itself having to do exactly the same thing six months later. But if such attacks started happening more frequently, as they obviously very well could, then last Friday’s precedent would put public officials across the country in an extremely uncomfortable bind: Repeatedly reproducing the lockdown might seem like a non-starter, yet not matching what Boston did would open you up to all kinds of scapegoating if, say, an on-the-loose bomber struck again.​

Last week, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (D) defended the city's response, telling The Boston Globe, "I think we did what we should have done and were supposed to do with the always-imperfect information that you have at the time."

http://news.yahoo.com/why-ron-paul-slamming-bostons-response-bombings-190000774.html
 
There are some right wing shows disguised as being neutral to attract a larger audience that promote distrust of the government; and avoids discussion of right/left politics. I believe this discussion about Boston and the lockdown is to create distrust utilizing the MSM, so that you will run into the arms of corporate political candidates that will strip regulations away.

If you distrust the government, you will vote for privatization, conservatism, and minimal regulation believing you are freeing yourself from tyranny. When tyranny can come from the private sector as well. The government has never kept people under slavery or used a prison peonage system to exploit labor, generation after generation for 400 years.
 
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There are some right wing shows disguised as being neutral to attract a larger audience that promote distrust of the government; and avoids discussion of right/left politics. I believe this discussion about Boston and the lockdown is to create distrust utilizing the MSM, so that you will run into the arms of corporate political candidates that will strip regulations away.

If you distrust the government, you will vote for privatization, conservatism, and minimal regulation believing you are freeing yourself from tyranny. When tyranny can come from the private sector as well. The government has never kept people under slavery or used a prison peonage system to exploit labor, generation after generation for 400 years.

I would say "The government alone has never..." Government and the private sector work hand in hand when it comes to slavery and exploitation of prisoners.
But otherwise, I agree.
 
Most people dont care about things of this nature.

This type of subject matter is too abstract for most,

Even though its not abstract at all!
 



Rand Paul Senate Filibuster
late March 2013

"I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded
from coast to coast that our Constitution is important,
that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">no
American should be killed by a drone on American soil
without first being charged with a crime, without first
being found to be guilty by a court"</span>

* * *






 



Rand Paul
Boston Bombing

late April 2013

I've never argued against any technology being used
when you have an imminent threat, an active crime
going on," Paul said. <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">"If someone comes out of a liquor
store with a weapon and fifty dollars in cash. I don't care
if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him."</span>




<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/EmOGeBQzj4g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>




 


Personally, I was wondering what would happen to a random homeowner that said "no" to the search.

Would he be arrested and charged or detained and released after they searched his house anyway or would the cops walk away? I'm sure the government would offer some kind of consolation to 4th amendment concerns like you wouldn't be charged if they found something unrelated to terrorism in your house. Small consolation.



It appears Rand Paul answered your question.

So much for the so-called Libertarians and Little-Government Guys.
Apparently, they're more likely to trounce on civil liberties than
the Government Itself.

:puke: :puke: :puke:







 




It appears Rand Paul answered your question.

So much for the so-called Libertarians and Little-Government Guys.
Apparently, they're more likely to trounce on civil liberties than
the Government Itself.

:puke: :puke: :puke:







I don't get how those Paul quotes addressed the rights of any random homeowner who hasn't done something wrong and hasn't been accused of anything wrong.
 
Swat Nation

If the events in Boston elicit horror, if the left-wing response occasions disgust, there are other things that, I think, spark justifiable fear. The increasing militarization of the police in this country has provided grounds for concern for many years. Almost four years ago, Glenn Reynolds wrote an excellent piece on the subject for Popular Mechanics called “SWAT Overkill: The Danger of a Paramilitary Police Force.” More and more police forces, it seems, are like that wacko character on Hill Street Blues who liked nothing better than dressing up in combat gear and assaulting a local malefactor with bazookas.

The so-called “voluntary lock-down” in Watertown — a more appropriate phrase might be “martial law” — offered a chilling spectacle for anyone who cherishes his personal freedom. Remember the Fourth Amendment? That guaranteed that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” Yet in Watertown, platoons of heavily armed police in combat gear went from house to house, guns drawn, banging down doors, screaming at people to come out of their own houses with their hands on their head. There were “a lot of big guns pointed at us,” said one Watertown resident. Several news outlets used the word “surreal” to describe this concentrated display of the coercive power of the state. What worries me is not that it is “surreal” but that it is, increasingly, all too real. And to what end? As Matthew Feeeney of Reason pointed out, Dzhokar Tsarnaev was caught after the lockdown was lifted and a homeowner stepped outside for a cigarette and noticed blood on his boat. The shock and awe show of intimidating police force might have made for dramatic TV, but it didn’t get the bad guy. An alert private citizen was the instrument of that coup.

But let me backtrack from fear to disgust for a moment. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has never met a freedom he didn’t wish to violate, has said that we need to change our interpretation of the Constitution in light of the the Boston terrorist attacks. I think we need to change our interpretation of the sorts of politicians we elect to safeguard our liberty. I recently wrote an introduction to a new edition of Richard Weaver’s classic Ideas Have Consequences. I began the essay with this epigraph from Weaver:

The past shows unvaryingly that when a people’s freedom disappears, it goes not with a bang, but in silence amid the comfort of being cared for. That is the dire peril in the present trend toward statism. If freedom is not found accompanied by a willingness to resist, and to reject favors, rather than to give up what is intangible but precarious, it will not long be found at all.​

The horrible events in Boston last week doubtless have many lessons for us. One of those lessons concerns the “willingness to resist” that Weaver talks about here. Do we, I wonder, still have it?​

http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2013/04/25/swat-nation/?singlepage=true
 
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