And Home of the Brave Pepper-Spray Wielding Uniformed Thugs.
So this week Peter Watts, brilliant Canadian hard SF writer, marine biology PhD, good e-cquaintance of mine, and by all accounts all round nice guy in the flesh, was pepper-sprayed, beaten up, and imprisoned by US border guards as he tried to leave the US for Canada. His crime apparently consisted of having the temerity, when pulled over, to exit his vehicle and ask what was going on (twice, because they ignored him the first time he asked). More detail here on his website, and here at Boing Boing. Long and the short of it, he’s now been bailed out and is safely back home, but looks like facing charges, crippling legal costs, and a possible two year jail sentence for “assaulting a federal officer”. Yeah, right. Bookish, forty-something marine biologist and SF author takes on a squad of armed border police. Of course he did. Happens all the time.
Couple of things:
1) Please go over and express your support for him in whatever way you can – moral, financial, or informational. Looks like there’ll be a defence fund in the New Year, but right now I suspect the greatest value lies in getting the word out as widely and vocally as possible.
2) What the fuck happened to the US? (Okay, rhetorical question, I know). For me, the most terrifying thing about this is not what happened to Peter itself, but the scads of US citizens currently posting about it who seem to think that Peter pretty much had it coming; that getting out of your vehicle and remonstrating with law enforcement officers is an act worthy of a beating and jail. Jesus, talk about Daddy-fixated – do what the authority figure tells you, boy, and jump to it! Don’t ask questions, don’t get out of the car.
What is this, Germany 1933?
I guess this provides some insight for relative youngsters like me as to what it must have been like to be involved in the Civil Rights movement, back in the – currently fashionably vilified – sixties. Plus ca change, eh?
One wonders what the Founding Fathers would have done. Stayed in the car with their collective lip firmly buttoned? Somehow I doubt it.
“…the scads of US citizens currently posting about it who seem to think that Peter pretty much had it coming; that getting out of your vehicle and remonstrating with law enforcement officers is an act worthy of a beating and jail.”
I was shocked and outraged to read these comments by some of my fellow Americans. Obviously they’ve never been stopped by a cop. Now you see why America has more people locked up than any other country. Frankly, I’d hate to be black and living the the southern U.S. – it’s even worse there.
Linda
But you never said what was going on when they detained his car. There is so much mystery surrounding this story.
I will be sure to petition for his freedom.
Still, asking questions shouldn’t warrant getting your arse kicked. I don’t blame him for fighting back.
From what I have read of him, he’s intense. He’s as talented as you.
Law enforcement and psychiatrists alike are drunk with power in the U.S. I heard of a case where a young woman was arrested and subsequently hospitalized for two weeks for a mere slap. They tried to commit her to a nursing home. No bruise or blood was involved in the slap.
The solution isn’t more police…it’s more civil liberties unions.
Hospitals in IL are full of doctors who illegally drug patients into forgetfullness and drowsiness and then expect them to magically piece their life back together.
I want to compliment your work. Few people are as good at character developement and clever, real dialogue AND good with the action scenes as well. My ex fiance read The Steel Remains in about three days.
I need to talk to talk to you privately. Can you post your email in clearer terms? It’s important.
Just some advice: if you’re stopped by cops or the border patrol in the US, you NEVER get out of your car unless you’re told to. Never. Never. Never.
Much of this is based on safety of the law-enforcement agent. If you’re sitting in your car, buckled in and the agent standing slightly behind you, you’re far less of a potential danger. Then there’s the matter of the law: if they’ve got you pulled over, they’re in the course of doing their duty, investigating an infraction, issuing a citation, whatever. You get out of the car, you’re interfering in that and they’ll tell you to get back into your car. After that, they’ll subdue you.
And you’ve got to remember that the border patrol has every right to detain you if you’re not cooperative. Watts was in a securitized zone along the border, not wandering around in the middle of Michigan.
Don’t get me wrong: Watts in no way deserved a beating because of his actions, but, if he wasn’t going to get back into his car, he should have expected to get handcuffed and detained.
Of course, the rest of the allegations lined up against him (the choking of the officer) seem to be the usual mishmash thrown into a report to give the border patrol the air of acting in self defense. Chances are there is a video recording of this. I’d very much like to see it.
Miguelito: It’s too bad Mr Watts didn’t have this advice beforehand. We U.S. citizens know NEVER to even look an officer in the eye or speak until spoken to. Perhaps a brochure should be distributed to any foreigner trying to enter the U.S. with this information.
Having just finished a book about Cuba under Castro, this whole situation sounds a little familiar and rather scary.
Linda
Why does an incident like this not shock me anymore? Although I am still amazed that events like this still surprise people around the world. I’ts not like our track record points in a different direction.
This is worrying; law enforcement shouldn’t be based on fear. I don’t know if anybody took the time to read through the comments on Boing Boing yesterday (there were a lot – I dread to think how many there are now!) but where people were unsympathetic to the man (although anyone familiar with the good folks @ Boing Boing will know that the general view was that he should not have been treated in this way) they were either going on the basis that those nice men in uniform couldn’t *possibly* be thugs now, could they? Or – and more dangerous in my view – the chat was that “he should know better. That’s how law enforcement in the states is” I think that this is an occasion where one can be forgiven for multiple Godwinning of threads: why the hell should one grovel to law enforcement officers? Dishing out a Cheka/SS/STASI inspired beat-downs because someone wasn’t grovelling to your AUTHORITAH suggests that you are acting illegitimately and you know it.
Revolting, revolting business. Never been to the States, and this kind of thing makes me less inclined to want to go. Which is a real shame, because (ok, almost) every American I have ever met has been charming and good humoured.
Apologies, that was slightly ranty…but for fucks sake. Argh.
Anyway, I shall be donating some money to his legal defence and purchasing Blindsight. (*cough* I downloaded it offa BB when they drew folks attention to the stuff and haven’t gotten around to it yet.)
I used to say this as a teenager for a few laughs but many events through my teens and young adulthood changed my oppinion of it as a joke -
Violence: Simple Soloution for Complex Problems
At the age of 12 i attended a public protest against Australia’s then current PM’s (John Howard) immigration policies. We staged a “sit-in” of his Sydney office foyer so that no Business could be done – about 500-600, 12-30 year olds were there to show their support. about 40 minutes into the sit-in the Federal police were called. They arrived on horseback and via carload, they removed all nametags and identification before engaging the protesters – the first thing that happened upon their arrival was that one of the largest (and probably the highest rank)came into the foyer with an entourage. He bellowed that we were breaching the peace and ordered us out of the building – a young girl, no older than 12-13 turned her head upwards and said “But we have a right to protest – The officer picked her up by her hair and slammed her face into the marble-tiled wall- What ensued was a small-scale riot where 17 protestors where arrested, including some of my close friends- We marched through the city to the Police Headquarters and after 30 minutes of protesting out the front of the building ALL protestors where released without charge – 14 poeple left the building – 3 where missing and i was later informed (via a fried who had been arrested) that they had all been taken to hospital for treatment of their injuries, being driven from the rear of the HQ. This wasnt a one off Event, this is how The Australian Federal Police deal with ALL Protests that have their roots in student movements – and this wasnt the worst example i could have provided from the many years i spent working with student protest movements. It was just the first.
I know this doesnt related to a Canadian Writer getting the beat-down from American Rent-a-Hero’s, but it helped re-inforce a lesson learnt else where.
Violence is Power; Power over other People.
It only takes one person to misunderstand their duties, obligations and responsibilties and yet many can feel the repercussions – i’m going to show my support – just like i continued to show my peers support when we were surrounded by cops without nametags
Peace – Smoke on~ Freeman
Yeah. Um. You never get out of the car. Ever. It’s a _great_ way to get your head bashed in. This sounds like excessive force, but I would, in fairness to all parties, love to see a video.
This is a terrible thing. There’s no question of that. But it’s worth saying that roadside with Officer Border Guard inside a secured zone is not the place to make your moral stand, however badly you may be being treated. As long as you keep a handle on your common sense and dignity, you hold the moral (not to mention legal) high ground.
Making traffic stops of any kind is the worst job an officer can be doing. Ask any of them; they’ll tell you. It’s ridiculously dangerous for any number of reasons, from getting hit by passing vehicles to getting attacked by the person you stop. The instant a stop happens, everybody involved is running on adrenaline.
In this particular case, the person this officer stopped was an author and academic. He wanted to assert himself and his rights. What he forgot is that the officer has no way of knowing he’s harmless. Scared cops get angry and overreact. Based on Thirteen I’m preaching to the choir, but any kind of police force develops a pretty strong “us against the world” mentality. Richard’s friend ran into that head first by (quite inadvertently, I’m sure) acting like a threat.
None of that excuses what happened or lessens the gravity of the situation. All I wanted to say is that there are two sides to any story, and it was a silly thing to do. Better, in 20/20 hindsight, to just cooperate and lodge a complaint later rather than defy instructions, however onerous or unfair, on the spot. It sucks, and the urge to do something right then and there is almost overwhelming. But it’s not worth things escalating out of control and someone getting hurt or worse to make the point immediately.
Also, for what it’s worth, America’s police as a whole really aren’t that bad. It’s the bad eggs that make the news. I come from near a very segregated, high-crime northern city in the US. We’re certainly not without police overstepping their boundaries. But things are getting better. Sometimes it’s painfully slow, but not so long ago it was a hell of a lot worse than it is now. World media loves the image of American police out of control because it’s satisfyingly outrageous to see this country at its worst. Maybe it’s because we’re trying to be better than that; I notice Guatemalan or Uzbek or Burmese dy-to-day police brutality gets no coverage. People seem to accept that it just happens in those places. Is it because we try to play by the rules and get it right that our failings are heard ’round the world? Maybe. Maybe that’s even a good thing. I don’t know.
At the same time this was happening, I was reading a book called ‘The Authoritarians’ by Dr. Bob Altemeyer about the kind of extreme right-wing mindset that’s been dominating American culture for several years now. ‘The Authoritarians’ is an indepth sociological study over a thirty-year period, and you can get the book as a free PDF download at http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/ (why he gives it away free is discussed at the start).
It’s very, very worth reading, and about fifty pages in you’ll start to have a good idea precisely how someone can do this to an unarmed civilian making the unfortunate mistake of asking questions. There’s more information on Altemeyer on Wikipedia.
I agree with one of the earlier Anonymous commenters – the one that pointed out that a) bad eggs make the news and b) being a uniformed officer is a thankless job, and one that makes you very, very nervous. Plus, the conclusion, c) that what happened to Peter Watts was truly horrible and it’d be good to know more about what happened.
I advise against condemning the US as a whole because of this. Horrible events like this are still the exception, and not the rule.
The US also has a system set up wherein people can blog, complain, raise money, go to court, talk to journalists, etc. etc. etc. That’s part of the process, and, as sad as it is that this needs to be exercised, it something to be proud of.
I always get nervous when uniformed officers actions get justified because it’s a dangerous job. They knew what they were doing when they joined up. They are here to uphold the law, not take advantage of their position. Bottom line.
pINGVA-
Well, I suppose _that_ was inevitable. It’s not funny.
…well, okay, maybe it’s a little funny. I’m a terrible person.
Well I did my part in petitioning for his amnessty.
Linda,
Please do tell me that you’re joking writing this: We U.S. citizens know NEVER to even look an officer in the eye or speak until spoken to.. Please.
Miguelito: for the first 15 years of my life I lived in a truly authoritarian, even if slightly decaying, state. Don’t tell me, that the authorities in the U.S. require and request kowtowing for every occasion…
If you want the laugh of the day, check out my blog here:
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&bID=522222469
Been there, done that..
Once upon a long time ago, in perhaps another life (I sometimes think), I was your basic card-carrying Long-Haired-Hippie-Type-Weirdo-Freak and, as a consequence, got harassed and otherwise dogged by just all sorts of uniformed folk. Took more than just one beating from same, as well. Of course, back in those halcyon days of yore, someone either with dark skin and/or obviously not living within the lines didn’t have just a whole lot of say in how they were treated by law enforcement. Best to take your beating and hope they were happy just to drop you at whatever imaginary border enclosed their particular fiefdom, when they were through with you. You know; lesson learned and all that sort of thing.
I feel for your friend, I really do and I am personally sorry and ashamed for those of my whatcha call fellow countrymen who chose to side with the storm troopers who accosted him. I honestly thought things were gonna get better with the changing of Presidential Puppets, but it appears that was a false hope.
Lot of people of late (read FOX News) like to throw around comparisons to this or that political person/party and the misguided (?) souls who got a stranglehold on Germany back in the mid-30s. For the most part, I have ignored those comparisons. When they start coming in from outside, though, it does make me just the least bit nervous.
That said, were I you, I would be real careful about traveling inside our borders. The paranoia is really starting to turn people mean. It’s the 60s redux, Part Deux, I’m afraid.
Again, my personal apologies to your friend and here’s hoping he has good representation in the upcoming Kangaroo Kourt.
Peace.
Richard,
Hope it’s okay to post this link – a group of people on Facebook set up a page for Peter Watts defense. If you are a FB member, here’s the link:
http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?gid=348936790393&ref=search&sid=1362324428.3051783307..1
Linda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOx6OM01M5M
I’m honestly not sure which disturbs me more – the event you detail, or some of the responses you’ve got. What has happened to our world?
Jubal: You’re right – I should not speak for all U.S. citizens, only myself. So let’s say I’ve been stopped a couple of times for minor traffic violations and was too intimidated to look the officer in the eye or speak first. But then I’m an easily intimiated female. Or maybe it was the way they swaggered up to the car, looked down on me and spoke in a condescending manner. Or maybe I was influenced by the media hype about what happens to people who talk back to a cop and end up tazered and in jail.
On the other hand I did cause a minor car accident once and the motorcycle cops who talked to me were very nice. Of course, what they were facing was a hysterical white-haired old lady (me).
Linda
p.s. I still maintain most people in the U.S. would think talking back to a cop is really a stupid thing to do, that you’re just asking for it and thus get what you deserve. This attitude needs to change.
Nice play on words…methodically designed to destroy me.
Mr. Morgan, egos like your are dangerous to the cause.
Question: how often do you apologize?
Seething with rage at the moment. It stems from the comments:
“Not to be overly critical of Professor F, the problem with it isn’t that an obscure academic made such comment, it is that hyper-motivated administrations decided to run with it for their foreign policy”
I earned an A for the record. He was an arrogant prick. I have all the records proving the authencity of the A. He still randomly runs into me to this day after I blamed him for failing to address the radicalism of the Koran and how it interplayed with World War I and II. Religion has been used to ignite the anger of the ignorant masses while all the big whigs want is oil and power to their fake god status. But yours truly joined mary’s camp and became a true sell out to the movement.
I did well in that history class, Richard. And if you think I’m so lousy at history, then why do you run scared from an innocent interview of the real reasons behind World War I and II rather than the usual initial response that it stemmed from the archduke was assassinated. I wanted to know who had Telepathic devices and when. I heard it was a bastards war. (Read biogengineered to you saintly individuals who couldn’t conceive of having a bastard. A bastard is all I will have, as a matter of fact.)
I wanted to draw the bastard war out of you. I was hoping you may be able to legitimize some of the gray aliens rumours that Hitler allegedly was working with that rearmed him magiclly after the Treaty of Versailles robbed him of his weapons.
I know history, Richard. Apparently with more faciltiy and ease than you do.
The administration decided to run with my foreign policy because it was smart politics. I created a pro science humanist movement that rallied scientists to get involved in military weaponry and be prepared for universal war. So now you try to destroy I movement I created? Are you that warped in the mind by religion?
Another reason why they ran with my thoughts on the matter is that other life forms agreed with me. But your just clinging desperatley to a fucking family dynasty and I tried explaining to you long ago I do not believe in the Devine right of kings.
Now why don’t you go say your hail Mary’s with rosemary’s beads. You can try to censor me but I’m warning you it’s not going to work.
Is anyone else having trouble following the thread? I got lost at grey aliens re arming Hitler.
Indeedy. I think that people that are less than supportive of Peter Watts miss the point.
Why should he have known better? The fact that both US citizens and visitors to to the country are often cowed into what amounts to submission is worrying for the US, I think. We shouldn’t be saying that he was foolish to question the border patrol, we should be questioning why it is that the border patrol feel that pepper spray and beatings are an appropriate response to reasonably (even if angrily) expressed.
The people that say that this kind of security is necessary in light of them thar turrists again miss the point. It’s tired, yes, but surely being against terrorism is about freeing your citizens from terror, state or otherwise?
Making comparisons to other, far more repressive regimes is also disingenuous. The United States (lest we forget, a young country which was founded on certain principles, ostensibly to differentiate itself from what it saw as the repression of the old world – I know it wasn’t perfect and the old world it was kicking against was probably, in relative terms, not as awful as all that) is held to higher standards that it set for itself. The founding fathers had high ideals about freedom and that has carried itself through (possibly in speech, if not always action).
This has manifested itself, more recently in Fukuyama’s (prior to that, I suppose, you had Daniel Bell’s guffspew) hopelessly misguided belief that post-Soviet collapse had vindicated liberal democracy and we had reached the END OF HISTORY. Not to be overly critical of Professor F, the problem with it isn’t that an obscure academic made such comment, it is that hyper-motivated administrations decided to run with it for their foreign policy.
And what has this to do with Dr Watts and the behaviour of the US border guard as compared to other, much less savoury regimes?
Well; Americans are – well, most of the ones I’ve met unscientific I know – a good bunch. I like American music, film and literature. And the US does still have some good ideas about freedom and so forth. The problem with all this comes, though, when they spend so much time telling other people that they’re doing it wrong when, in fact, they are little better. I don’t wish to belittle the crimes of the Burmese Junta, for example. A despicable bunch, but they don’t have the might politically, economically or militarily to impose their will on anybody else. That’s where I have a problem with that kind of justification. Saying, “but look! Those guys are worse!” Is a naughty rhetorical trick. As it happens, more people should be talking about Burma and every other unpleasant regime out there, but this is about Dr Peter Watts, by all accounts a good man, being mistreated by a state which purports to higher ideals than others.
Apologies for the length; I don’t mean to hi-jack Richard’s thread and I hope I haven’t gone off-topic, or caused offense. I have, genuinely, no desire to do so. This kind of report upsets me though. I hope Dr Watts is properly treated and that this highlights a problem that needs fixed.
Richard
If they have mastered the forces of time and space to get here why go through the trouble of giving tech to the Nazis? I never got this [conspiracy] theory.
I know nothing of Watts or his personality. I haven’t seen any response from the US Border Patrol either.
I am not saying that he deserved to be beaten for getting out of a car, I’m saying that I have no idea what happened> I’d be very curious to see video of the incident is they had it.
P.S.
Humans will always see what they want to see. Finding patterns with no meaning. Seeing conspiracies where none so grand exist.
@Evalinsapple
Wooooooaaah!
I think you may have missed two important things! (Unless I am too, in which case apologies!)
First I’m not Richard Morgan! I’m a different Richard (the screen name “redrichie” and the picture of a chimp, I would have thought, would give it away.) The fact that I said the words “I have no wish to hi-jack Richard’s thread…” That would give it away, also.
Now, I don’t know why you’re seething with anger about the comment about Fukuyama. I was just trying to be reasonable. For the record, I can’t stand what he had to say for himself, but the fact remains that he wrote a book, of its time, which was then used to give a supposed stamp of intellectual credibility to the neo-liberal project. I’m sorry, but he was an obscure academic.
I was merely using the example of the neo-liberal project to point out why the US state should expect to be, rightly, held to high account. And therefore why the authorities should be castigated for its treatment of Dr Watts and any other person who just wants to visit the US.
I admit, I could have used other example, but I’m so, so lazy.
However, you appear to have lifted one paragraph from what I wrote and taken it ever so slightly out of context for…what reason?
So…it now behooves me to apologies to Richard for fucking his thread. Sorry.
I have just donated what I could via Paypal to help Peter arrange his defense. We all can do it, the e-mail adress for donations is donate@rifters.com.
Cheers.
USA = United States of Abuse?
Evalinsapple is obviously off his meds. Pay him no mind.
And yes, a vigourous defence fund for Peter Watts is in the offing. Stay tuned…
I.T. is encrypted in about every major newspaper and publication in the world. A language within a language. Any honest linguist will acknowledge the use of terms such as it. Virginia Wolfe herself spoke of the constant competition between this and that. Of JH, a woman who dared to step oustide the normal bounds of popular human thought, in her book A Room Of Her Own. It has even infiltrated comedic routines. Check out Seinfeld for example. The struggle between this and that. Friendship vs sex. Religion vs the freedom of the mind that atheism brings.
Kovac would kill me for this..Good thing he doesn’t have a website. Oh wait..
On the other hand, I know he’s roughed some people up on websites before.
“The Pleiadeans allegedly warned the President about
the alien contacts with Hitler, and that the greys were supplying the
Nazis with technology designs to take over the world(for the greys)
and use genetics to create alien hybrids.”
read more here
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=9509
http://specialfarm.net/the-gray-alien-alliance-with-adolf-hitler/
It is never something you read about in history or the news. It’s always on blogs or personal websites. I was hoping that a conspiracy theorist history major could cut through the bull and tell us what really happened.
http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=954
It seems there is a witness. Fingers crossed.
I figure even if that rate is a tad bit high for next year, you get the point. Bow down to MAO.
Rihanna’a tank is dually noted. Yawn. So is China’s 15% projected growth rate for 2010. Smile.
It’s not so much lack of medication as it is the personality I was born with. The Rage of Emma Goldman. If I feel subtley sabotaged, I will counter argue. I am an aggressive female, not a he. I apologize for making the attack so personal. I like Richards and wouldn’t bee here if I didn’t. His personal life is not really anyone’s business unless it affects them.
I wanted to apologize again for causing a stir here in the blogosphere. I am midlife crising somewhat. It’s not so much that Jim Morrison reincarnated failed to buy a ring or even that Kovac has yet to come through with any definitive plans for the future.
It’s the lack of career. I write several times a week, live on next to nothing, have a brain that is worth more than this, and go unpublished.
I don’t write cookie cutter articles about how to save your marriage, how to be a good parent, or how to bake the perfect cake.
Instead, I spend my time defending men who break the law and deserve to get away with it. Like former Governor Blagojevich who hint, hint, hinted that he needed some cash to what should be friends.
I petition for health care. I make atheist jokes. I read international news. All of these things are rewarding, yes, but somehow I always end up living life in mind, rather than achieving all of those Europeon adventures I always dreamed of.
So rather than write me off as some crazy who needs more drugs, why not cut me some slack for maintaining this level of sanity in a cultural vacuum with few intellectuals.
Merry XMAS Richard. I hope you are safe amoung friends.
Gary Gibson – At the same time this was happening, I was reading a book called ‘The Authoritarians’ by Dr. Bob Altemeyer about the kind of extreme right-wing mindset that’s been dominating American culture for several years now.
I read this and I wonder what the terms left and right wing mean anymore.
A right wing government by which I mean conservative and relitively nationalistic does not exist in the US.
For example: Would a right wing state allow millions of Mexicans and other non-Europeans to settle within its borders despite the manifest problems involved.
@Jay:
“or wear shorts to visit St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome…”:
I live in Rome. Nobody will pepper spray you if you try to get into S.Peter’s in short, nor they will charge or beat you. No way. This is a creazy comparison.
In the US you all sometimes seem not to see differences among countries. Maybe this is what makes some people in your country think violence is always the proper mean to keep order. Instead, it is tha main reason why waht you call terrorism exists.
Francesco.
Jesus, Richard you have some random ass people who post on your blog. For some reason I envisioned an ultra biting edge core of people who have intelligent conversations. I need to retool and have less faith in people on the interwebs.
Argh! As an American, I have to say I’m utterly disgusted and horrified. I know police thuggery isn’t exactly a US-only thing. Having said that, I can’t help but think that the US authorities still try to pretend we exist in some kind of alternate moral universe, where everything imaginable is justified in the name of “law enforcement” and/or “national security.”
I know Peter was at a border crossing, sure, but where did the common sense go? Did those border guards really see a Canadian sci-fi author as a great threat? I blame police paranoia for this.
America is turning so green! (Read Arabic influence) People are doped into religion. It’s a cultish disease that rids the mind of independent thought. Martin Luther once stated that in order for religion to exist, we need to destroy all reason.
I’d much rather see America picking up an opium habit than dope. At least then they’ll be happy when they get tucked into bed.
So it goes. Anyone who knows the cop mentality should really not ruffle their feathers unless you want to deal with a shitstorm of grief.
And, yes, the USA is a nation of largely right wing zealots. If the cops don’t get ya, the neighbors likely will. Guns a-plenty, and they don’t mind crammin’ one more rabble rouser in the prisons, or the graveyard.
One of the things that is interesting to me is that many socialist/communist sympathizers in the U.S. buy from small business. I like my products to be clean and have security so I appreciate Chinese products. Other underdeveloped countries will just poison you.
Speaking as a Canadian, we’re not any better than the States: just look at what happened to that Polish fellow in Vancouver’s airport a couple of years back. He started acting up and the four RCMP just walked up and pepper-sprayed the snot out of him with no questions asked… and if he hadn’t had the frigging temerity to die from a heart attack it would never even have made the news!
Richard,
I used to live in the U.S. and I am now a Canadian citizen that lives right on the border near Buffalo, NY. I work full time at the front desk of a hotel, so I hear horror stories like this all the time. Just this past week a guest of mine who had all the proper legal documentation for crossing responded to the question of “How much money do you have on you?” by stating: “That’s a rather personal question.” Chuckling and laughing as he said this in good humor. He was pulled aside and detained.
My father used to be a member of the Lions Club here in Fort Erie Ontario and he was going across to visit another fellow Club in Buffalo. Out of the 5 other men in a van, my father was the only brown man. Despite having proof that he was a citizen, lived in Fort Erie, owned a business, owned a car, and had a family, he was asked to leave the care, searched and then refused.
We just don’t bother with crossing into the U.S. any more. It’s not worth the hassle.
“And, yes, the USA is a nation of largely right wing zealots.”
I resent that. I really do. Just because the idiots are the loudest doesn’t mean they’re a representative majority.
The ‘right-wing’ in Altenmeyers’ The Authoritarians does not refer to political views but high susceptibility to authoritarian views. Does overlap nicely in the US though.
Reccomended reading for insights in the minds of dictators and their followers.
I collect dictators and make them better. R U Game?