“Sounds like “Little Brother” to me. This scares me. Heck Cory’s book scared me because I KNOW this kind of stuff can happen in America.”

I find it far more disturbing that GWB can be elected twice AND retire unscathed to the ranch to tend to the family’s assets…just like that…

It’s crap like this that makes me unable to take most activists seriously. It was all the rage to provoke the police into doing something violent so they could be filmed doing it here in Vancouver for a while. “see? they pepper= sprayed me! and all I did was throw a brick at his head!”

Everyone in this event is in the wrong. lock them all up. activists, police, all of them.

The only thing that will shrink and mitigate government abuse at this point is at least a libertarian caucus in congress. Both major parties have bought into the war on terror. The democrats have to act “more macho than thou” to deflect republicans’ claims they’re soft. The republicans actually believe they’re doing the right thing.

No, no. Vote Socialist. I mean Communist. I mean Green. Wait, there are a whole lot of parties besides the Republicans and Democrats. Why would I vote for a group who wants to replace government with online trolling?

I completely agree…as far as the careful watching of events unfolding and remembering history goes.

However, if any corrupt thug cop incident is interpreted as that you’re already living in a fascist state, where do you go from there?

Don’t get me wrong, we as a society need a powerful police. But there are things, even little things, which we must not let authority get away with unopposed if we want to keep rights and freedom for everyone. Not just because of this particular case. Not just because it’s always happening to someone else instead of us. (First they came… Communists, anti-CCTV “hate group” activists, it’s pretty interchangable, isn’t it?) Many little unopposed vexations add up to one really big vexation all to easily. And then you’re powerless yourself.

oop, there you go. just questioning CCTV cameras won’t get you busted, but criticize the police with evidence like that and watch the abuse of power flow.

Not that the cops are entirely in the right, though, by any means. Between the lack of a warrant and some of the comments the cop was quoted as making, there’s obviously some fucked up stuff going on there.

As for the L&I bit – yes, they definitely employ it selectively. There was a bar here that had trouble with a license after a neighbor with L&I connections decided he didn’t like the bar. But in this case, the place is talked about as having a “decrepit storefront” on the first floor and boards over the second floor windows, and they apparently had no permits for their renovations. So calling L&I in to declare it unfit for habitation was not in and of itself inappropriate in this case, though L&I enforcement badly needs to be standardized and they may or may not have overstated the code failures – it’s not like either side is entirely reliable here.

And for that matter, argumentum ad nazium is a quick way to fail at the internets. Police brutality and the “blue wall of silence” issue are a big problem here lately, but that’s a matter of a group of scared, power-tripping, well-armed bullies in a crime-ridden city. It’s not cause to say “OMG Nazis!” – the police commisioner and the mayor are not supporting this kind of crap.

I mean, aren’t I at liberty to not like things?…anymore?

It’s fine because it won’t affect the essence of my earlier post in the least. I’m not trying to make comparisons about Nazis, but specifically about police powers and mindsets – as they slowly became tolerated, and grew into extremes under the Nazis among others – nothing more than that.

Don’t worry, folks, you have nothing to fear. We respect the rights of “good” guys like you, fourth amendment and all that. And for the unlikely case that we need to “investigate” your “group”, we promise to get a proper warrant of course and won’t try to find any convenient charges to get a hold on you.

But someone must have sprayed that camera. While we’re at it, those police-critical bloggers probably are squatters too. And the demands of those union guys almost border on hate against the government, don’t you agree, citizen? I bet they’re hiding something. Certainly you won’t have a problem if we ransack them too and carry away their computers. That’s okay, everybody hates hate groups.

Now that he’s had time to think — and 10 hours in police detention gives you time for introspection — Dan Moffat concedes things might have gone better if he’d cooperated.

When officers came to his door in Francisville Friday morning about 10 a.m. asking to speak to the owner of the property where he and three roommates were living, he said the guy wasn’t home.

Even though he’s been co-owner of the place since 2004.

And when they said they were going in anyway to investigate a complaint, he says he probably shouldn’t have tossed the keys behind a gate where the cops had to fish them out.

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-blinq/20009829.html

The uncontrolled power! The free reign to intimidate and oppress! The power to destroy people, not directly, but by stigmatizing them. By making others afraid to associate with the wrong crowd. Everyone complies out of fear they could be investigated next. Not despite, but because it can happen to anyone of us.

The self-assuredness that you’re living in a country where you can arbitrarily restrain anyone, deprive them of their freedom, their rights, their possessions. The highhandedness of blatantly made-up reasons. No fear of judicial review, you’re always right by law. No one left who dares to speak up against the unlimited authority of law and order. The unabashed perversion of the legal system.

Wait… Philadelphia, 2008?

#2 astrochimp: “If only there were an amendment against drumming up charges.”
No, no, we don’t need that. There were no “charges”. It was just a harmless “investigation”, see?

Those 2 paragraphs are very spot-on to describe Nazi oppression in WWII.

But I’m not sure what the comparison does…

trivialise Nazi atrocities?
over-exaggerate Philadelphia cop crap?
prevent to come up with new “foul” cards?

“Imagine one gang, consisting of the Bloods, Crips and Latin Kings/ That’s when you start to realize what the police is/ Government funded gang-bangin thugs; that’s what beast is.” –Ill Bill