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Former Rep. Ron Paul said the law enforcement that swarmed around Boston in the days following the marathon bombings was scarier than the actual terrorist attack.
“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,” he said on the Lew Rockwell website, Politico reported. “This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.”
The terror attacks on April 15 in Boston killed three and injured 264.
Mr. Paul, a former libertarian political candidate who served in Congress as a member of the Republican Party, said the door-to-door searches police conducted in Watertown for the bombing suspects were particularly alarming.
They reminded of a “military coup in a far off banana republic,” he said, Politico reported. “Force lockdown of a city. Militarized police riding tanks in the streets. Door-to-door armed searches without warrant. Families thrown out of their homes at gunpoint to be searched without probable cause. Businesses forced to close. Transport shut down.”
Mr. Paul reminded the surviving suspect, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was ultimately discovered by a civilian, and not due to police crackdown, Politico reported.
“He was discovered by a private citizen, who then placed a call to the police,” he said. “And he was identified not by government surveillance cameras, but by private citizens who willingly shared their photographs with the police.”
Read more: Ron Paul: Police manhunt for Boston Marathon bombing suspect scarier than attack - Washington Times
Former Rep. Ron Paul said the law enforcement that swarmed around Boston in the days following the marathon bombings was scarier than the actual terrorist attack.
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, he said on the Lew Rockwell website, Politico reported. This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.
The terror attacks on April 15 in Boston killed three and injured 264.
Mr. Paul, a former libertarian political candidate who served in Congress as a member of the Republican Party, said the door-to-door searches police conducted in Watertown for the bombing suspects were particularly alarming.
They reminded of a military coup in a far off banana republic, he said, Politico reported. Force lockdown of a city. Militarized police riding tanks in the streets. Door-to-door armed searches without warrant. Families thrown out of their homes at gunpoint to be searched without probable cause. Businesses forced to close. Transport shut down.
Mr. Paul reminded the surviving suspect, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was ultimately discovered by a civilian, and not due to police crackdown, Politico reported.
He was discovered by a private citizen, who then placed a call to the police, he said. And he was identified not by government surveillance cameras, but by private citizens who willingly shared their photographs with the police.
Read more: Ron Paul: Police manhunt for Boston Marathon bombing suspect scarier than attack - Washington Times
I got 90% of my criticism of the Patriot Act and War on Terror from Ron Paul. [This is why I like being on the Left, because I'm allowed to get my information from the other side when necessary]
I attended a speech of Ron Paul's in 2005. He basically said this:
We live in a world with evil.
We live in a world with risk.
We live in a world where 40,000 people a year die in car accidents.
We live in a world where, on most years, more people die in the USA from lightning strikes than terrorism.
So why are we building a big-government-police-state and letting Washington monitor our emails and phone calls... and why are we letting Washington start questionable wars and spend trillions of dollars for such a minimal risk? The price of freedom is that evil people will occasionally do bad things. Life is unfair. Life is dangerous. But freedom is more valuable than safety.
Ron went on to say that many radical groups use terrorism in order to force a free society to become unfree - which, as he pointed out, is exactly what Bush did. Bush started illegally tapping the phones of American citizens, and collecting data on their purchases and internet activity. Ron Paul was very clear that the Patriot Act and War on Terrorism was a big government power grab that achieved little more than the destruction of privacy and freedom. (And let's not talk about the cost. Homeland Security is now the largest and most expensive bureaucracy in US History)
Ron Paul thinks free people can take their own risks and decide if they want to go in a skyscraper, fly in a plane, or leave their homes. Only in the Soviet Union did government use national security as an excuse to build a massive freedom-destroying surveillance bureaucracy. Bush followed the model of the Soviet Union to a "T". And his Fed used this surveillance bureaucracy to hunt political enemies. They used the Patriot Act to track Eliot Spitzer's finances when they should have been preventing Iraq from spiraling into a wasteful mess.
It would be great if government could "fix" evil, but, Paul said, we libertarians believe that if you give government the money and power to do these "Big Things", they will only make things worse.
Ron Paul understands the Law of unintended consequences. He understands that downside of making Washington big enough and powerful enough to police the globe.
Government can't run a laundromat on budget, so why did we trust the Bushies to rebuild the entire Middle East in our image?
Ron Paul basically taught me that Republicans in his party have more faith in the power of government than anyone on the Left.
This is why they won't let him near the presidency.
I just wish that the Talk Radio Republicans on this board understood how much power their party has given to government. I cannot believe how utterly and completely these people have been duped.
BullWarrantless searches with probable cause have always been legal in this country.
Amendment four.
We are at War with "terror" apparently. The Military are sworn to protect foreign and domestic. Let's see someone logically prove that this was somehow out of bounds or oppressive.
4Th Amendment
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 Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Please point out where warrentless searches are allowed with probable cause. No hurry, I'll wait.
Case
Law
I agree.
I think the Democrats supported the central tenants of the War on Terrorism because they lack political courage. They're afraid of being accused of being weak on national defense. This stems from the sixties, anti-Vietnam, SDS, etc.
This is why I turn to Ron Paul and not the Democrats for criticism of the War on Terror.
Also, we kind of expect the Dems to give Washington more power, but we count on the Right to limit that power. IMO.
The Right played Obama like fiddle. Every time he moved against the structures Bush put in place, they ran to the microphone and accused him of being a Muslim Sympathizer. This is how free societies are shut down. This is how the Soviets did it.
The game is over.
2001 gave the Bushies a context to change America as powerfully as FDR, who also created an ideological movement and attendant policies which ensnared the other side.
That's the problem with agencies and movements that capture Washington. They gain a life of their own, with a sub-culture of special interests and no-bid contracts.
Ron Paul: Police Manhunt For Boston Marathon Bombing Suspects, Scarier Than Attack
Bull4Th Amendment
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 Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Please point out where warrentless searches are allowed with probable cause. No hurry, I'll wait.
Case
Law
Shit
Whether or not it is strictly legal according to case law is essentially irrelevant in a discussion about whether or not the government should have the power in the first place of that it is correct for them to have taken these action. Hiding behind case law without coming up with actual reasoning to back your thoughts up is disingenuous. Dont tell me that you agree whole heartedly with every single case that the SCOTUS rules on. Are you completely comfortable with the citizens united ruling? Are you on board with Heller?
Just because the SCOTUS has ruled on a subject does not mean that we cannot disagree with it or argue that it was an incorrect decision. Even the court itself is not so naive or we would still have separate but equal codified in law.
Lastly, you have still failed to show where there is even reasonable case law here to boot. To call the searches as falling under reasonable suspicion is lunacy. Hundreds of homes and thousands of people and suddenly they can declare that they ALL are under reasonable suspicion. Essentially, that logic allows them to declare anything reasonable. To say then that we have not lost our 4th amendment rights makes no sense.
BullCase
Law
Shit
Whether or not it is strictly legal according to case law is essentially irrelevant in a discussion about whether or not the government should have the power in the first place of that it is correct for them to have taken these action. Hiding behind case law without coming up with actual reasoning to back your thoughts up is disingenuous. Dont tell me that you agree whole heartedly with every single case that the SCOTUS rules on. Are you completely comfortable with the citizens united ruling? Are you on board with Heller?
Just because the SCOTUS has ruled on a subject does not mean that we cannot disagree with it or argue that it was an incorrect decision. Even the court itself is not so naive or we would still have separate but equal codified in law.
Lastly, you have still failed to show where there is even reasonable case law here to boot. To call the searches as falling under reasonable suspicion is lunacy. Hundreds of homes and thousands of people and suddenly they can declare that they ALL are under reasonable suspicion. Essentially, that logic allows them to declare anything reasonable. To say then that we have not lost our 4th amendment rights makes no sense.
I call it absolutely reasonable.
5 thousand men were searching for one person within a sectioned off radius that he could not be outside of - so of course it's reasonable to assume he's hiding inside of one of the homes holding an innocent family hostage.
It's also the spirit of the law that people miss. The Law's real purpose is so that police can't unjustly occupy homes, willy nilly. This is hardly that. They looked, they left. They looked, they left. They didn't damage anything, they didn't remain and occupy and they didn't use excessive force except evidence of one youtube video out of thousands of people with cameras where the homeowners were escorted at gunpoint.............where no one knows the context of the gunpoint at all.
Being unsufferable prisses all of the time about rights violations that don't actually have merit and have produced no actionable harm is why it will always be in "tin foil hat" area.
It is my opinion that we are not oppressed. If I felt oppressed, I wouldn't be gloating about it on the internetz daily whining, I'd be fighting. And so would the millions of Americans that you guys call "boot lickers" or "authority worshippers" be fighting also, if there were actionable merits to your feelings of oppression.
It's not that we worship authority, it's that we don't feel violated.
It is those that actually feel violated - yet the only tangible thing they do about it is sit about the internet and preach anonymously in the comfort of their own homes, that are the cowards.
If thats what happened you might be right. Instead we saw people pulled from their homes at gunpoint, guns pointed at people, people patted down, people made to walk with their hands up, barked at by policem etc etc. Nothing is reasonable about that.We're talking about two different people.
When a person gets pulled over for speeding and is a total dickwad to the Officer and acts like he's doing so as a cause of liberty, he's being a douche.
When the NDAA is protested, that's reasonable and does not fit into my above diatribe.
And I compare what happened in Boston, to which I'm very intimately familiar with every little intricate detail - with the sniveling little priss who gives the officer a hard time in the name of "liberty."
So forgive me if I don't agree, and actually find it detestable, that "rights protectors" are finding fault at how the city handled a Bomber situation. Especially since much of it is predicated on a lie: the "lockdown" was voluntary, not mandatory. The searches were very reasonable, and it would fly in the face of simple common sense *not* to have performed them. The little asshole could have been in one of the homes saddling a little 6 year old girl with a bomb. Finding him was an absolutely dire situation, and he was within an established radius and so the thorough search within said radius was obvious to protect innocent civilians.
You saw how many videos of people pulled from their homes at gun-point, out of the thousands of homes searched?
What were the exact circumstances of the gunpoint? Were they being the prisses I'm talking about, and blatantly trying to resist the necessary search for a loose terrorist in the area? Do you know everything, to draw a conclusion?
If you were an Officer in a shootout with bombs and guns between two men, and one of the men was loose within a restricted area, would you not be vigilant and take each vantage point for possible shooting, like second story windows, very seriously?
Who's shoes do you have to imagine being in? A guy from Tennessee who's totally separated from the bombing and not living or policing inside the area where the bomber is at large? I'm sure it's hard for people to understand when they don't even offer a modicum of "benefit of the doubt" to people inside such a dire situation as a man on the loose in a rural neighborhood who is thought to have bombs and an intent to mass-kill.
It's so easy, from the sidelines.
How many were unjustly dragged out at gunpoint?
All we have is one video, of thousands of cameras on thousands of people's phones in the area.
And, we don't know the circumstances of said gunpoint, to even call it unjust. That's using assumptive deduction, not being aware of the specific circumstance and speaking about it as though you are.
You saw how many videos of people pulled from their homes at gun-point, out of the thousands of homes searched?
What were the exact circumstances of the gunpoint? Were they being the prisses I'm talking about, and blatantly trying to resist the necessary search for a loose terrorist in the area? Do you know everything, to draw a conclusion?
If you were an Officer in a shootout with bombs and guns between two men, and one of the men was loose within a restricted area, would you not be vigilant and take each vantage point for possible shooting, like second story windows, very seriously?
Who's shoes do you have to imagine being in? A guy from Tennessee who's totally separated from the bombing and not living or policing inside the area where the bomber is at large? I'm sure it's hard for people to understand when they don't even offer a modicum of "benefit of the doubt" to people inside such a dire situation as a man on the loose in a rural neighborhood who is thought to have bombs and an intent to mass-kill.
It's so easy, from the sidelines.
You saw how many videos of people pulled from their homes at gun-point, out of the thousands of homes searched?
What were the exact circumstances of the gunpoint? Were they being the prisses I'm talking about, and blatantly trying to resist the necessary search for a loose terrorist in the area? Do you know everything, to draw a conclusion?
If you were an Officer in a shootout with bombs and guns between two men, and one of the men was loose within a restricted area, would you not be vigilant and take each vantage point for possible shooting, like second story windows, very seriously?
Who's shoes do you have to imagine being in? A guy from Tennessee who's totally separated from the bombing and not living or policing inside the area where the bomber is at large? I'm sure it's hard for people to understand when they don't even offer a modicum of "benefit of the doubt" to people inside such a dire situation as a man on the loose in a rural neighborhood who is thought to have bombs and an intent to mass-kill.
It's so easy, from the sidelines.
The entire incident in the first place was unjustified.
I, since I can only speak for myself here, am not attacking this incident based on the one video that we have (now 2 it seems) but rather on the entire incident in the first place. You keep referring to the *one* video as if that was indicative of the larger picture. There is a clear problem when we have MILITARY (not the police but MILITARY) involved in a criminal pursuit. When we quarantine an entire area of a city and demand that they search homes without warrants. That is unacceptable to me. This entire incident is a clear case of a complete overreaction because of this asinine fear of terrorism that we have allowed to fester in this country and it highlights how complacent of a society we have become to the powers that be every time that we are exposed to some errant terrorists plots.
What scares me most of all is that there are people such as yourself that are attacking those that raise the bullshit flag when this type of stuff happens. I should not see military on the streets of an American city unless they are simply traveling somewhere. I should not see them engaged in any kind of anti-criminal activity unless there is something on the scale of the LA riots going on (aka. Thousands of citizens have gone crazy). That is not the militarys purpose. Nor will I ever accept that the new reasonable search and seizure includes thousands of people whenever the government damn well decides it.