Tag: police state

Academia Is Establishing A Permanent Surveillance Bureaucracy That Will Soon Govern The Rest Of The Country

Having now received a tsunami of messages from people across the US (and a few internationally) about the surveillance regimes being permanently installed at their educational institutions — in contravention of earlier assurances that the current academic year would mark a long-awaited “return to normalcy,” thanks to the onset of mass vaccination — there are a few conclusions to draw.

First: unless and until COVID “cases” are abandoned as a metric by which policy action is presumptively dictated, these institutions are destined to continue flailing from irrational measure to irrational measure for the foreseeable future. Just turn your gaze over to one of America’s most hallowed pedagogical grounds: As of September 17, Columbia University has newly forbidden students from hosting guests, visiting residence halls other than their own, and gathering with more than ten people. The stated rationale for these restrictions? Administrators have extrapolated from the “contact tracing” data they’ve compulsorily seized that a recent increase in viral transmission is attributable to “students socializing unmasked at gatherings in residence halls and at off-campus apartments, bars, and restaurants.” (Socializing at apartments, bars, and restaurants in the middle of Manhattan — gee, I can’t imagine anything more heinous.)

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Cop Arrested After Shooting at a ‘Puppy’, Killing Innocent Sleeping Woman Instead

As readers of the Free Thought Project know, police killing or attempting to kill dogs is an all too common occurrence — happening so often that it is caught on video much of the time. Also, as the following tragic case our of Arlington, TX illustrates, all too often, police will attempt to kill a dog — miss the dog — and shoot and kill an innocent person instead.

A Texas grand jury indicted a police officer this week after he was seen on video trying to kill a dog and killing an innocent woman instead.

Arlington police officer Ravi Singh was charged on Wednesday with criminally negligent homicide for killing Maggie Brooks, 30, the daughter of an Arlington fire captain.

“It’s a puppy. This is a grown man afraid of a puppy. Who is the paid professional in this encounter? Every child, every mailman, every runner, jogger, bicyclist has dealt with a dog running at them and no one ends up dead. Why do you go to deadly force immediately?” Brooks’ father, Troy Brooks, said.

Brooks explained to FOX4 that he thought the charges should have been more severe given the ridiculous nature of his daughter’s death.

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State retaliates against private investigator for criticizing police shooting

A state has retaliated against a private investigator for criticizing a police shooting that left two people dead by denying him a license, and now he’s taking his protest to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Institute for Justice explained it is Joshua Gray, of Massachusetts, whose comments about a fatal police action drew the reaction from state officials in the Maine Department of Public Safety, who admitted the rejected his application for a license because of his criticism of the department’s employees.

“When the government retaliates against people because of their speech, it violates the First Amendment. That’s true whether the government is imposing a fine, withholding a parade permit, or denying an occupational license,” explained IJ Senior Attorney Paul Sherman.

The IJ explained, “Gray’s problems with the department began after he criticized the conduct of Maine police in the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Kadhar Bailey and 18-year-old Amber Fagre in February of 2017. Believing that the shooting could have been avoided had it not been for police recklessness, Gray expressed his criticisms on his Facebook page. But when Gray later applied for a license as a professional investigator in Maine, the Department denied Gray’s application on the ground that his online criticism contained factual errors, and therefore he lacked the ‘good moral character’ required for licensure.”

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Covid Lockdowns Signal the Rise of Public Policy by Ransom

Public commentator Amanda Marcotte is “incandescent with rage”—her words—with those who refuse to be vaccinated against covid-19.1 She wants to get back to her spin class, and the unvaccinated are ruining it for her. Lockdowns and other restrictions on gymnasiums have either closed them or required masking during training sessions, and the result is that Marcotte is unable to enjoy her spin class at the gym, so she has had to cancel and exercise at home. In attributing where the blame for this predicament lies, she is unequivocal: “[B]y refusing to do the right thing, the unvaccinated are stripping freedom and choice from every other American who got vaccinated. We stand by helplessly watching restrictions pile back on and our freedoms dissipate, all to protect those who won’t protect themselves.”

This statement is indicative of a relatively new phenomenon in public commentary, which is a general support for the rise of what I call “public policy by ransom.” Public policy by ransom occurs when a government imposes a behavioral requirement on individuals and enforces this by punishing the general public in aggregate until a stipulated level of compliance is attained. The method relies on members of the public and public commentators—like Marcotte—who will attribute blame for these negative consequences to recalcitrant citizens who fail to adopt the preferred behaviors of the governing class. In the weltanschauung that underpins this type of governance, government reactions to public behaviors are “metaphysically given” and are treated as a mere epiphenomenon of the actions of individual members of the public who dare to behave in ways disliked by public authorities.

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80yo Army Vet Facing Fines, Jail for Butterfly Garden He Planted in His Front Yard

In the Land of the Free, as TFTP frequently reports, attempting to use your own property in a manner that suits you but not the government, can and will land you in hot water. Dennis Moriarty offered up his life to preserve the ostensible freedom in this land yet he is now finding out that “freedom” under tyranny is not freedom at all. His “crimes” in this new tyrannical world? Planting a flower garden in his own yard.

Moriarty, an 80-year-old Army veteran who loves butterflies, spends his days looking out from his porch into his 1,500 square foot garden in his front yard. He loves this garden as he’s spent countless hours planting native plants to attract butterflies.

The garden consists of milkweed, coneflowers, culver’s root, buttonbush, and other native flowers that aid in attracting bees and butterflies. As KansasCity.com points out, however, this beauty comes with a price — thanks to government.

“It’s not only gorgeous, but beneficial, using less water than conventional grass, for one thing. Yet the city has ordered him to either cut it down or wind up in court. That’s because Moriarty’s flowers are several inches higher than the 10 inches allowed in the city code against common nuisance.

With all the challenges Kansas City faces — gun violence, homelessness, crumbling abandoned buildings, the lack of affordable housing, trashy vacant lots and so much more — we have one question: Huh?”

Despite actual crime running rife throughout the city, the code enforcers are out in full force to make sure 80-year-old vets don’t have tall flowers. So, after wasting tax payer money to stake out Moriarty’s yard and photograph what he thought were “weeds,” code inspector Leon Bowman told Moriarty that he has 10 days to cut these “weeds” or else.

If Moriarty doesn’t cut his flowers, he will be subject to fines and eventually — if he resists this extortion — a warrant will be issued for his arrest and he will be kidnapped and caged.

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