Hello Freedomphiles! In the Arkansas town of Helena-West Helena, the brownshirts have moved in and turned ten blocks into a NAZI-style ghetto:
Officers armed with military rifles have been stopping and questioning passers-by in a neighborhood plagued by violence that's been under a 24-hour curfew for a week.On Tuesday, the Helena-West Helena City Council voted 9-0 to allow police to expand that program into any area of the city, despite a warning from a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas that the police stops were unconstitutional.
Police Chief Fred Fielder said the patrols have netted 32 arrests since they began last week in a 10-block neighborhood in this small town on the banks of the Mississippi River long troubled by poverty. The council said those living in the city want the random shootings and drug-fueled violence to stop, no matter what the cost.
No matter what the cost? Normally, upon hearing something like that, I'd get all hyperbolic and say something like, "Yeah? Well, what if they put the whole city on lockdown and searched everyone who ambled by?" But, obviously, they're using
reductio ad absurdum not as a rhetorical tool, but as a yardstick for effective police work.
This is not law enforcement - this is a military occupation:
The police chief said the officers in the field carry military-style M-16 or M-4 rifles, some equipped with laser sights. Other officers carry short-barrel shotguns.
ACLU lawyer Holly Dickson. who I am sure is gobsmacked that she even has to say this, rightly mentioned that this plan runs afoul of American's rights to peaceably assemble and be free from unreasonable searches and siezures.
The city's airtight Constitutional rebuttal?
"As far as I'm concerned, at 3 o'clock in the morning, nobody has any business being on the street, except the law," Councilman Eugene "Red" Johnson said. "Anyone out at 3 o'clock shouldn't be out on the street, unless you're going to the hospital."
Anyone else think "Red" is an appropriate nickname for this douchebag? This guy should be thrown off the Reichstag - er, I mean,
Council. In case the similarities to Jewish ghettos in WWII aren't striking enough, here's the last line of the article:
In the curfew area, those inside the homes in the watch area peered out of door cracks Tuesday as police cruisers passed. They closed the doors afterward.
Whole story
here.