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This past weekend found me in Natchitoches, Louisiana, the oldest permanent settlement in the Louisiana Purchase and the home of Lasyone's, the restaurant which makes the world's greatest meat pies. The residents of Natchitoches were having yet another music festival (there are more festivals than work days in Natchitoches) and revelers had arrived from all over.

Lined up along one side of the ancient, brick street was an immense gathering of motorcycles and their owners. Nearer to Cane River Lake were several horses accompanied by riders. Looking from the motorcyclists covered in leather, fringe, appropriately logo-ed tee shirts and bandanas, to the horsemen wearing hats, boots, buckles and spurs, it suddenly dawned on me why both motorcycling and horseback riding are so popular: both activities allow grown men to play dress-up.

When I was young, Harley riders were a hard lot. Tattooed, dirty, often possessing a criminal record a mile long, they were people to be avoided at all costs. Today, most Harley riders you see are professionals with a career, a mortgage and 2.6 kids. Riding a Harley and wearing the officially licensed merchandise allows them to pretend to be something they are not; a gang member, feared by decent folk. A desperado of the open road; an easy rider.

Weekend cowboys are no different. If a person honestly loved to be on the back of a horse and that was all there was to it, there would be no reason to spend $100 on a Stetson and a giant belt buckle. Those accoutrements allow the rider to escape reality and assume a new identity; a lone cowboy riding the trail, looking for doggies lost from the herd. Weathered, grizzled. A dangerous hombre.

See? Playing dress-up.

I imagine that many a modern day Heck's Angel would throw his palm pilot down in complete disgust were he to hear me say such a thing. "Just wait until I finish the Davidson account," he would roar, "and then we'll see who's playing dress-up!" Vroom! Vroom!

There is nothing wrong with playing dress-up. If you want to dress like a Confederate soldier and march around a field all weekend, go ahead. There is absolutely no harm in doing so.

My great fear is that there is another group playing dress-up today, and their actions do cause harm.

Source of picture: St. Petersburg Times.

The militarization of the police

How many of you remember the TV show SWAT from the mid 70's? Robert Urich and his team would roll into a dangerous situation in their big, blue van with the best theme music this side of Peter Gunn blaring in the background. As a child, I loved it. It appears that many other people my age also loved it. Since the early 80's, the number of SWAT team deployments have increased from approximately 3,000 per year to more than 40,000 every year.

40,000. Really. A 13-fold increase in 25 years. Why?

SWAT teams are now used by police departments to perform jobs that normal, uniformed officers once handled.

Illegal gambling? People voluntarily coming together and playing Texas Hold-em? Send in SWAT! (see the video here)

Suspect that a high school student might have marijuana in his locker? Send in SWAT and terrorize all of the students! [The school's] surveillance cameras and a police camera… show students as young as 14 forced to the ground in handcuffs as officers in SWAT team uniforms and bulletproof vests aim guns at their heads and lead a drug dog to tear through their book bags… No drugs or weapons were found during the raid and no charges were filed. (Source: ACLU)

Elderly women in their homes minding their own business? Send in SWAT! Ms. [Kathryn] Johnston, who was at least 88 years old, was killed in a barrage of gunfire after narcotics officers burst through the front door of her home without warning last Nov. 21. Apparently fearing for her life, Ms. Johnston, who lived in a high-crime neighborhood, met the officers with a gun. (Source: NYT)

Heck, let's just send in SWAT now and ask questions later! The CATO Institute maintains an interactive map tracking and documenting dozens of botched paramilitary raids throughout the U.S.

But it doesn't stop there. Once a police department forms a SWAT team, the military attitude is adopted by the other members of the force. Today, we see not just SWAT members, but patrolmen moving about our towns wearing jump boots and flak jackets… just like the military. Unfortunately, once a person adopts the military mindset, the focus is no longer to assist, to help and to be the peacemaker, but rather to intimidate, to force and to destroy.

Look at what happened in MacArthur Park this past Monday. Police in riot gear (read: military garb) decided to disperse an overwhelmingly peaceful demonstration and assaulted with batons and rubber bullets everyone who did not cower and flee at their coming, including the female reporters attempting to film the despicable scene. Watch this video until the end and you will be reminded of China's Tiananmen Square as paramilitary-police batter a man attempting to support an American flag while another policeman uses his baton on a woman splayed in the dirt.

I fear things will become even worse in the future. The paramilitary-police are now being glamorized on TV once again. But this time the shows are not fiction as they were in the 70's but real life episodes. Dallas SWAT on A&E TV follows the (surprise) Dallas SWAT team as they carry out no-knock warrants on unsuspecting bad guys. The videos provided in the preceding link allow the viewer to watch the SWAT team pump themselves up, destroy private property and drag dangerous perps from their homes. I'm still trying to understand why the police have a tank… probably to protect us from drug-dealing Soviets.

Nothing good can come of having the military patrolling our streets, and make no mistake, the police are becoming militarized, and doing so with the help of the Federal Government. How long before our towns are nothing more than caricatures of old Nazi movies where citizens rush home lest they be approached by soldiers asking for identification? ("Papers please!" But it must be spoken with a German accent. Also, any movie with "papers please," must also have the line, "You are veak, Fader, Veeeak!")

Maybe I'm overreacting. But I don't think so. Since the Supreme Court threw out the "knock and announce" rule concerning police who serve warrants, there is nothing to stop SWAT teams from tearing off the side of your home, dragging you and your family out of your beds, seizing your belongings and shooting your pets while giving you little or no notice as to these invaders' identity. Amusingly (or not), several newspaper investigations have shown that less than half of all no-knock warrants have resulted in contraband or arrests. I'm sure that fact is comforting to people who have watched helplessly as their small children were seized and handcuffed by armed men wearing black hoods.

Until we, the honest citizens, say "no more!" to an armed military in our streets, things will only get worse. How long before we are the occupied territory? How long before we are the ones trapped behind the "blue" curtain? How long before our neighbors are "disappeared" in the night?

Maybe I'm overreacting. But I don't think so.

May 4, 2007

The Best of Rob Blackstock