The Power of Video

The old saying goes that a picture is worth 1000 words. There's truth in that saying which is why video is almost impossible to counter when it is purported to show something. More and more videos of police encounters with citizens are occurring. You'd think that law enforcement would welcome the videos as they'd make the gathering of evidence much easier. That police officer are threatening people more and more with arrest for the video taping of their actions should speak volumes to the public. These are the same police that frequently have cameras mounted in the dash board of their cars. These are the same police that advocate the installation of traffic cameras and red light cameras. They want to tape you, but they don't want you to tape them.

Knowing all of that, the video in the below situation is the only thing that kept an innocent man from becoming a convicted felon.

Are there "dozens" of Americans on President Obama's assassination list?

The United States of America has gone to a place I never believed it would go. It is doing things now that only happen in Ian Fleming or Tom Clancy novels; things that we Americans think are so un-American that no president would ever even suggest we do them. We now have a list of American citizens targeted for assassination without ever having been subject to due process of law. My how we have fallen.

President Obama's top terrorism expert, John Brennan, almost bragged in an interview to the Washington Times' Eli Lake that such a list now exists.

Glenn Greenwald wrote on Salon.com's website last Friday about this issue and asked a question I find myself constantly asking my friends and colleagues. He wrote:

I'm asking this literally -- if you're someone who believes, or are at least willing to acquiesce to the claim, that the U.S. President has the power to target your fellow citizens for assassination without a whiff of due process, what unchecked presidential powers wouldn't you support or acquiesce to? I'd really like to hear an answer to that. That's the question Al Gore asked about George Bush in a 2006 speech condemning Bush's claimed powers merely to eavesdrop on and imprisonAmerican citizens without charges, let alone assassinate them: "If the answer is yes, then under the theory by which these acts are committed,are there any acts that can on their face be prohibited? . . . If the president has th[is] inherent authority. . . . then what can't he do?" Can anyone defending this Obama policy answer that question?

Mr. Greenwald is completely correct. If the President can order the assassination of a US Citizen without benefit of due process of law then there is nothing he cannot order with regard to that citizen. He can order that you be enslaved. He can order that all your property belongs to the government. He can order that you divorce your wife. He can order what sermons your church teaches. He can order that you move out of your house today. With this power--the power to kill, to murder--he is all powerful. He has complete control over our very lives and everything we do. If President Obama can do this then we are no longer free.

The Rise of the Gendarmerie in America

So what is a gendarmerie other than a difficult to pronounce French word? Gendarmeries are military units with the authority to enforce civilian laws. The existence of such units though begs the question as to why they're necessary because the countries where they exist also have civilian police forces. Why are military units with all the powers, equipment, training and tactics that such units use needed to enforce civilian laws?

Italian Gendarmeries

Enter SWAT teams. SWAT is an acronym means Special Weapons And Tactics. For all intents and purposes, SWAT teams are gendarmeries. They're equipped with military equipment. They're trained in military tactics. They respond like they're about to fight a battle.

University of Tennessee law professor and blogger Glenn Reynolds had this to say about SWAT teams in a 2009 article in Popular Mechanics:

This approach, though, has led to problems both obvious and subtle. The obvious problem should be especially apparent to readers of this magazine: Once you've got a cool tool, you kind of want to use it. That's true whether it's a pneumatic drill, a laser level or an armored fighting vehicle. SWAT teams, designed to deal with rare events, wound up doing routine police work, like serving drug warrants.

The subtle effect is also real: Dress like a soldier and you think you're at war. And, in wartime, civil liberties--or possible innocence--of the people on "the other side" don't come up much. But the police aren't at war with the citizens they serve, or at least they're not supposed to be.

The combination of these two factors has led to some tragic mistakes: "no knock" drug raids, involving "dynamic entry," where the wrong house has been targeted or where the raid was based on informants' tips that turned out to be just plain wrong.

Do we really need to treat the investigation of crimes and the enforcement of laws that have been on the books for 100 years or more as if they're a strategic objection on a battlefield?

American SWAT Officers

Using a Tazer on a Disabled 86 Year Old Woman?

According to the Courthouse News Service the El Reno Police Department did just that.

Lonnie Tinsley claims that he called 911 after he went to check on his grandmother, whom he found in her bed, "connected to a portable oxygen concentrator with a long hose." She is "in marginal health, [and] takes several prescribed medications daily," and "was unable to tell him exactly when she had taken her meds," so, Tinsley says, he called 911 "to ask for an emergency medical technician to come to her apartment to evaluate her."

In response, "as many as ten El Reno police" officers "pushed their way through the door," according to the complaint.

The grandma, Lona Varner, "told them to get out of her apartment."

The remarkable complaint continues: "Instead, the apparent leader of the police [defendant Thomas Duran] instructed another policeman to 'Taser her!' He stated in his report that the 86 year-old plaintiff 'took a more aggressive posture in her bed,' and that he was fearful for his safety and the safety of others.

"Lonnie Tinsley told them, 'Don't taze my Granny!' to which they responded that they would Taser him; instead, they pulled him out of her apartment, took him down to the floor, handcuffed him and placed him in the back of a police car.

"The police then proceeded to approach Ms. Varner in her bed and stepped on her oxygen hose until she began to suffer oxygen deprivation.

"The police then fired a Taser at her and only one wire struck her, in the left arm; the police then fired a second Taser, striking her to the right and left of the midline of her upper chest and applied high voltage, causing burns to her chest, extreme pain and to pass out.

Do the El Reno City Police Officers really expect anyone to believe that they were in fear of a disabled 86 year old grandmother laying in her bed wearing an oxygen mask? The answer to that question is "Yes." They expect that simply wearing a badge and a uniform means that the everyday citizen they're sworn to protect will indeed believe them.

This is one of the most troubling problems in our court system. The men and women who have taken oaths to uphold our Constitution routinely lie when they fail to do their duty.

The Law Is King

What does this mean?

We live in a time where expedience is the norm. This current time, in all probability, is not unique to history. Yet we did not live in those other eras. We read about them, but did not experience the emotional and visceral reactions that living in those periods produced.

So what shall we then say? Is the law really king? Is it immutable, inviolate and pure? We have our doubts as to this. For our eyes today tell us that the words The Law Is King has lost its meaning.

Writing is an art as much as a form of communication. I'd like to write things in this blog that have meaning and power in the form and style in which the message is delivered. I know that won't always be possible. Part of the reason that won't always be possible is I am not that gifted no matter how pure and sincere my passion might be. Another part of the reason though is others either as skillful, or more skillful, have already said it better than I could. I now give you such an instance.

In the 1961 movie "Judgment at Nuremberg" actor Spencer Tracey delivers a description of what expedience can produce and why LEX REX must be the guiding principle of all of that which constitutes civilization:

". . . [A]nd the value of a single human being."

I would particularly draw your attention to those portions at the 3:38, 4:18 and 5:20 marks as to the applicability of this address to our times today.