Tasers, Taming, Torture

For whatever reason, the recent tasing incident at the University of Florida has raised hackles across the board. Authoritarians and not-so-authoritarians are claiming that the kid's belligerence and rudeness brought the tasing on. That, in effect, the kid deserved to be tasered and possibly more. Analysis of the video shows that the kid, while being an asshole, was neither violent, inciting a riot, or out of control. He did in fact resist arrest, but primarily because THERE WAS NO REASON TO ARREST HIM. Even now we're finding out that he HASN'T BEEN CHARGED with anything except resisting arrest. So, he ran a little bit and threw up his arms, he did this because the fucking pigs had no right to grab him. John Kerry has even noted that he had the situation under control.

Thisis not an isolated incident.

We have gradually, incrementally like a toad in water, slipped under the thumb of authoritarianism. The pigs have somehow convinced us that if we've done nothing wrong then we have nothing to worry about. Simultaneously, it has become almost impossible to protest anything without being arrested, They're passing laws that ban saggy pants, They're monitoring your e-mail,They've taken away Habeas Corpus, They're murdering innocent people in paramilitary drug raids, They're intimidating us. Can't we see this is the opposite of freedom? Can't we see that there is something wrong with police being armed with automatic weapons?

If you've ever had an encounter with a police officer, it is much like getting into an argument with a jarhead except that police officers can legally beat you, drag you over asphalt and make up reasons to arrest you. In my experience with law enforcement (and it has been rather extensive), the individuals that gravitate to this type of work are assholes. Kids that picked on people smaller than them in school, guys that get erections when they push people around, guys with intelligence on par with the lowest rung of Mafia goons. Tell them to beat something up and they will.

This is a disorganized mess, but I am so thoroughly disgusted. A charge of resisting arrest should be worn like a badge of honor. These people only have the authority that our contrived society GRANTS THEM. The entire thing is illusory. The root of the problem is that we have convinced ourselves that these people (dickhead cops, the brainless torturers in Abu Gharaib, et al) are enforcing some sort of actual, concrete law. The truth is they're carrying out the worst element of human nature, and justifying it via the same bullshit we've justified all of the ugliness in the world: that it is our right by god, by law, or by might.