Christ on a Crutch
May. 27th, 2004 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumImagine:
A man is arrested because he has a list of public figures, federal officials, politicians and political events. He says the word, "Marked," next to their names means he plans to kill them. He says he plans to blow up the political event.
When questioned he says he is planning armed rebellion against the government of the U.S.
I'll bet you'd do what the cops did, arrest him.
I'll bet you'd do what the judge did, hold him for trial.
I'll bet you wouldn't do what the judge did Tues... let him go.
Pending the trial he is under house arrest. It seems his father, and grandfather managed to give a persuasive case to the judge, and got him released, apparently on his own recognisance.
Happily the US District Court overturned the release, saying the evidence presented made it appear his release posed a threat to the community.
But I wonder what made his release possible in the first place. He said he was planning to kill some 1,500 people at a caucus, that if Kerry were elected he wanted to, "formuate a militia."
So many problems. From the gist of things, the cops made a reasonable search, and he had stuff ("materials to make bombs") which concern me. On the other hand, I have the same sorts of stuff (inert hand grenades, swords, ammunition, gunpowder) and if I were stupid enough to shoot my own door while stripping a rifle, I too might have to do some explaining.
Then again, I don't have lists of people I say I want to kill, and I certainly don't have a handful of congressmen and senators on that list, and if I did, I wouldn't show it to cops, or tell them what it meant.
But it scares me, because the thing I see here is that the people on that list, who are, "liberal," don't seem to matter much. If it were Rumsfeld, or Perle, or DeLay, or Ashcroft, I'll wager he'd have been in the pokey so fast, and so deep we'd not be worrying about it. We'd rather be asking the questions above (which of us might inadvertantly end up afoul the law).
Combine this with the ricin case, and the sodium cyanide bomb; the way they were ignored when they came to light, and one must question what's going on.
It seems that wanting to kill liberals, or "un-American" types is all right, not a thing to really worry about.
A man is arrested because he has a list of public figures, federal officials, politicians and political events. He says the word, "Marked," next to their names means he plans to kill them. He says he plans to blow up the political event.
When questioned he says he is planning armed rebellion against the government of the U.S.
I'll bet you'd do what the cops did, arrest him.
I'll bet you'd do what the judge did, hold him for trial.
I'll bet you wouldn't do what the judge did Tues... let him go.
Pending the trial he is under house arrest. It seems his father, and grandfather managed to give a persuasive case to the judge, and got him released, apparently on his own recognisance.
Happily the US District Court overturned the release, saying the evidence presented made it appear his release posed a threat to the community.
But I wonder what made his release possible in the first place. He said he was planning to kill some 1,500 people at a caucus, that if Kerry were elected he wanted to, "formuate a militia."
So many problems. From the gist of things, the cops made a reasonable search, and he had stuff ("materials to make bombs") which concern me. On the other hand, I have the same sorts of stuff (inert hand grenades, swords, ammunition, gunpowder) and if I were stupid enough to shoot my own door while stripping a rifle, I too might have to do some explaining.
Then again, I don't have lists of people I say I want to kill, and I certainly don't have a handful of congressmen and senators on that list, and if I did, I wouldn't show it to cops, or tell them what it meant.
But it scares me, because the thing I see here is that the people on that list, who are, "liberal," don't seem to matter much. If it were Rumsfeld, or Perle, or DeLay, or Ashcroft, I'll wager he'd have been in the pokey so fast, and so deep we'd not be worrying about it. We'd rather be asking the questions above (which of us might inadvertantly end up afoul the law).
Combine this with the ricin case, and the sodium cyanide bomb; the way they were ignored when they came to light, and one must question what's going on.
It seems that wanting to kill liberals, or "un-American" types is all right, not a thing to really worry about.
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-28 02:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-28 07:10 am (UTC)And white and well to do isn't a proof against being arrested for terrorism. A man was recently arrested (and his house ransacked) because when his wife died in the night, the police saw some of his art supplies (he does protest art on bio-genetics) they decided he might be engaged in manufacturing bacteria.
He wasn't, and he walked out on the detention, but his papers, his computers, his art supplies have all been siezed, and the FBI hasn't said when (or if) they'll release them.
Were I more cynical, I might think it was because he was against things the administration is for.