statism watch

A disarmed people are vulnerable, and at risk of enslavement to the expansion of authoritarian governments both domestic and foreign. Dictatorships thoughout history have employed gun control to devastating effect. This is the fundamental reason for the 2nd Amendment to the American constitution. This is a principle urban Canadians, who have been trained in a couple of short generations to quake in fear at the thought of a gun, have lost sight of. Kids in the US used to take their guns to school and stick them in their lockers. It was no big deal, the culture was accustomed to handling firearms responsibly. This, then, is the point that some ‘tea party’ types exercising their right to open carry at demonstrations are making. It is not a threat to shoot Barack Obama, as some moronic media commenters have inferred, voices quavering at the thought of the evil guns.

The stakes are very high when it comes to whether the citizens of any country are permitted their right to a means of self-defence, which is why there is so much obfuscation and spin around the issue. Which is why legitimate gun owners are demonized and police forces are directed to engage in tactics like knock and talk, seizures for minor violations of arbitrary registration laws, and bribery (cameras for guns) programs to encourage disarmament. This ruling by the US Supreme Court is a victory for liberty, but it is not an absolute victory, given that the absolute right of any citizen to act in their defence is now subject by this decision to any limitation local governments may dream up. It could be argued that this is a Pyhrric victory – it simultaneously affirms the intention of the constitutional framers on the one hand, while simultaneously restricting the right they held to be such an important check on the power of central governments with the other.

Related: UK doctors agree to waive privacy of mentally ill gun owners | Toronto police beat man, TASER dog in failed gun raid | Liberals aim to put a bullet in bill to scrap gun registry | Bilderberg Wants Americans Disarmed And Dependent On Government | Anti-gun registry bill hits snag as committee votes not to proceed | Police groups join forces in support of long gun registry | Gun activists rally in U.S. capital | George Jonas: Mr. Bumble’s gun registry | Toronto Star Columnist Fiorito: The cops came and took my gun | BATF Notice Bans Private Gun Sales In Texas | Parliament votes ‘in principle’ to scrap gun registry, bill moves to second reading | Tories move closer to killing gun registry | UK: Paramilitary police placed on routine foot patrol for first time | Toronto police seize 400 guns in ’safety push’ | Handgun bans and the world of make-believe | No vote scheduled on Tory bill to kill gun registry | Americans stick to their guns as firearms sales surge | Secret Homeland Security Threat Assessment Labels Gun Owners Potential Terrorists | Harper urges supporters to fight long gun registry | Police-run gun amnesties in trouble across country | 1,900 Guns Traded for Cameras in Toronto | Toronto Police offer gun owners shiny new camera, home visit to disarm themselves | Layton promises urban gun control | Ont. premier calls for Canada-wide ban on handguns | Citizens Witness Gunplay, Black Uniforms as ‘Flashpoint’ Shoots Drama in Heart of Toronto | A historic gun club’s final days | Chicago, awash in gun violence, gives Toronto advice: You need a gun ban like ours | Illinois governor suggests National Guard help with Chicago gun crime | Armed Police to Roam Toronto High Schools | My gun, my right. We’ll see | Municipalities Join Miller in Calling for Final Citizen Disarmament | Pistol Pendant Causes Airport Holdup | Miller wants shooting ranges shut down | Machine Gun-Toting Officers To Patrol NYC Subway

Bloomberg News
June 28, 2010

A divided U.S. Supreme Court said the constitutional right to bear arms binds states and cities, as well as the federal government, in a decision that raises questions about gun laws around the country.

The ruling, while not creating an unlimited right for individuals to carry weapons, restricts the power of cities and states to regulate firearms. A 5-4 majority said Chicago went too far by banning handguns even for self-defense in the home. The Chicago ordinance is now unenforceable, its mayor said, though the law stays in effect pending lower court proceedings.

The ruling said states and cities can ban possession by convicted felons and mentally ill people and enforce laws against bringing guns into schools or government buildings.

Chicago is the only major city with a blanket handgun ban, after a 2008 Supreme Court decision struck down a similar ban in Washington, D.C., a federal enclave. Jurisdictions with narrower weapons restrictions, including New York City, may now face new legal challenges.

The right to bear arms “is fully binding on the states and thus limits (but by no means eliminates) their ability to devise solutions to social problems that suit local needs and values,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court.

(more…)

We’ve repatriated the constitution. It’s well past time we had a Canadian head of state rather than being beholden – even if only symbolically – to an authoritarian institution like monarchy. Kings and Queens, historically, are hereditary dictators and fawning over royalty is a perversion of everything the idea of a free nation stands for.

Related: Canada’s royal link has rusted out

The Canadian Press
June 28, 2010

Support highest in Atlantic Canada

As the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh start their nine-day Canadian tour, a new poll suggests Canadians are feeling rather listless about the visit and the monarchy in general.

The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey of just over 1,000 Canadians found that 45 per cent of respondents didn’t know they were coming, while almost half – 48 per cent – agreed when asked if they consider the monarchy “a relic of our colonial past that has no place in Canada today.”

As well, 44 per cent said they would support a referendum on whether Canada should keep the monarchy, with 58 per cent of Quebec respondents leading the call for a national question.

The telephone poll was conducted between June 17 and June 20. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

Tom Freda, director of Citizens for a Canadian Republic, said the poll confirms Canadians are apathetic when it comes to royal visits and the role of the Queen.

(more…)

It’s an incredibly loose definition of ‘anarchist’ that allies itself with Communists carrying a big banner of Mao around. (Interested researchers should mine the Globe and Mail liveblog carried here over the course of the weekend – it was a Communist group that reportedly provided cover for the Bloc to begin its rampage by lighting a flare in the square) While clearly anarchism is not a monolithic movement, Wikipedia provides a reasonable thumbnail def’n for our purposes: “Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. It seeks to diminish or even abolish authority in the conduct of human relations.” A quick reading of the history makes it clear that Communism and Anarchism developed concurrently, but were opposed in many of their (confused) principles, with early proponents of both schools of thought exchanging barbs in their correspondence. Clearly, modern anarchism is in something of an identity crisis when it’s understood simultaneously as anti-state, Communist, and vandal. While mainstream media coverage of these groups isn’t helping to clarify things, modern ‘anarchists’ should also take a long, hard look at how their destruction discredits any good ideas their founders may have had in the past, shields potential police provocateurs in their midst (see: Montebello, etc), turns the public against them, creates media cover for the brutal repression of peaceful activists (witness the shamefully underreported crackdown in the Queens’s Park ‘free speech zone’ in which people were trampled by horses and the snatch squad grabbed old women who didn’t even know what the G20 was) and drives the culture into the arms of militarization and the statist globalists they claim to oppose.

(NB: While the net is clearly afire with both MIHOP (made it happen on purpose) and LIHOP (let it happen on purpose) speculation about the involvement of the G20 ISU in this riot, evidence thus far is obscured by a sort of fog of war, with Judy Rebick among countless others on the #g20report Twitter hashtag suggesting police left cars in the path of the Bloc to be burned on camera. Anarchist media sources suggest this is bullshit, as do the police, and in all fairness the video evidence here – provided by TheYorkLife -  suggests it was some random dumbass that set the car on fire. What do you think? No doubt there’s more details waiting to come out in a week or two once the media has moved on.)

Related: G20 protesters clash with Vancouver police | ‘Anarchists’ leave trail of destruction, peaceful 3hr march forgotten | Black bloc taints anti-Olympic movement | Vancouver Olympics protesters fall silent as Black Bloc ruins it for everyone | Olympic protesters smash store windows | Provocateur Cops Caught Disguised As ‘Anarchists’ At Pittsburgh G20 | G20 police ‘used undercover men to incite crowds’ | G20 protests: Riot police, or rioting police? | Rioters Were Paid To Provoke the Police in Bulgaria | Greek Cops Caught on Video Posing as Anarchists | ACLU wants probe into police-staged DNC protest | Ex-Italian President: Provocateur Riots Then “Beat The Shit Out Of Protesters” | Massachusetts Police Get Black Uniforms to Instill Sense of ‘Fear’ | Police inspector posed as militant protester | Quebec police admit agents posed as protesters | Canadians who trust our secret police should think again | For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature

Jesse Mclean, Toronto Star
June 26, 2010

As suddenly as they burst onto the streets, they vanished into the crowd.

The men and women, clad in black clothes, their faces obscured with bandanas, ski goggles and gas masks, had spent the last hour storming through city streets, hurling rocks and debris through the windows of banks and big-chain stores.

They embraced the Black Bloc tactic, a popular sight at almost every international protest since the late 1990s: The crowd, dressed in their black uniforms, moves as a blob, its members indistinguishable from one another. One will run from the pack and lob a rock through a window, before disappearing back into the mob.

On Saturday, as the riot police shuffled closer to the intersection at College and University Aves.– shields up, gas masks on, guns raised – they disappeared again.

Dozens huddled on a patch of grass outside Queen’s Park. Protected by their peers, the ones in the middle changed into their street clothes. Within minutes, all that was left was a pile of black garments.

“Don’t take a f–king picture of me,” said one man, now wearing a brown T-shirt, as he walked away.

(more…)

Related: ‘Anarchists’ leave trail of destruction, peaceful 3hr march forgotten | Naomi Klein and 500 marchers crash party at tent city | Protesters flood the streets on first day of Toronto G20 summit | Huntsville G8: Military, locked down security, few protesters | Canada flunks on indigenous rights: G20 native protesters | Marcus Gee: Why the G20 protesters won’t condemn violence | Peaceful protests continue in Toronto as G20 nears | Anti-poverty activists occupy ESSO station during Monday G20 protest — for ten minutes | Toronto activists launch G20 alternative media centre | Ban G20 summit agents provocateurs: activist groups to PM | Oxfam astroturf march leads early G20 protest for bank tax | Activists plan walkout and tent city to protest G8/G20 summits | G20 centre for protesters set to open | Rights group files for injunction against G20 ‘sound cannon’ | G20 activists accuse CSIS of intimidation | Anarchists plan ‘militant’ protests at Toronto G20 | Toronto labour, native protesters ready for G20 demonstrations | Toronto G20 protest area moved to Queens Park | All Toronto G20 protests will be directed to Trinity Bellwoods Park | Protesters and police get ready to square off at G20 summit | Hundreds of Toronto G20 delegates granted diplomatic immunity | For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature

CBC News
June 26, 2010

While protests against the G20 summit in Toronto turned violent on Saturday, a mostly peaceful gathering in Vancouver became ugly when a group of demonstrators began kicking police officers and poking them with signs.

Vancouver police Const. Lindsey Houghton said the aggressive protesters were dressed in black and masked their faces to hide their identity.

“A core group of the black-clad protesters began to try to bait officers, who were facilitating the protest, by trying to damage police equipment, kicking the officers and taunting them,” Houghton said.

He said the so-called Black Bloc tactic included protesters in the city’s Commercial Drive area swearing and yelling at officers in an effort to provoke them.

“While there were no arrests today, the right to protest doesn’t include the right to commit criminal acts that place the public’s safety at risk,” he said.

In February, Black Bloc protesters smashed display windows of the downtown Bay store in Vancouver on the opening day of the Olympics.

(more…)

Related: Protesters flood the streets on first day of Toronto G20 summit | Huntsville G8: Military, locked down security, few protesters | Canada flunks on indigenous rights: G20 native protesters | Marcus Gee: Why the G20 protesters won’t condemn violence | Peaceful protests continue in Toronto as G20 nears | Anti-poverty activists occupy ESSO station during Monday G20 protest — for ten minutes | Toronto activists launch G20 alternative media centre | Ban G20 summit agents provocateurs: activist groups to PM | Oxfam astroturf march leads early G20 protest for bank tax | Activists plan walkout and tent city to protest G8/G20 summits | G20 centre for protesters set to open | Rights group files for injunction against G20 ‘sound cannon’ | G20 activists accuse CSIS of intimidation | Anarchists plan ‘militant’ protests at Toronto G20 | Toronto labour, native protesters ready for G20 demonstrations | Toronto G20 protest area moved to Queens Park | All Toronto G20 protests will be directed to Trinity Bellwoods Park | Protesters and police get ready to square off at G20 summit | Hundreds of Toronto G20 delegates granted diplomatic immunity | For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature

Kate Allen, The Globe and Mail
June 26, 2010

Tame gathering in downtown Allan Gardens awoken by audience from high-profile speaking event

The tame, 100-person tent city pitched by G20 protesters in downtown Toronto’s Allan Gardens was jolted awake when nearly 500 marchers unexpectedly arrived to join them, led by celebrity author and activist Naomi Klein.

Ms. Klein and a cast of other high-profile speakers held a panel discussion earlier in the evening at Massey Hall, several blocks away.

She concluded her speech by asking the audience to walk to Allan Gardens.

Ms. Klein said the police “didn’t expect a bunch of middle-class people who paid $20” for a ticket to the event to start a march in the middle of the night.

As the crowd cheered, organizers asked the audience to continue down to a temporary detention centre on Eastern Ave., where they said a deaf man was being held who had been arrested at a protest earlier in the day. They said he still hadn’t been read his rights because a suitable translator could not be found.

Jaggi Singh, another famous Canadian activist, also spoke about the earlier protest. The mainly peaceful protest was marked with several confrontations between heavily armored police and the more than 2,000 demonstrators, including arrests.

(more…)

An historic day. There were lots of well intentioned folks on the street Friday and the atmosphere was festive, with a Marimba band, floats, and banners for every social and environmental cause going. The legitimacy of the G20 was given a serious drubbing, a cause this journal can get behind, but in many cases the critiques were for all the wrong reasons. It was a bit puzzling, for example, to see so many anti-capitalist and pro-Communist groups in the march. Maybe a quick look at the ten planks (scroll down) of the Communist Manifesto will serve to highlight why the International has as much in common with its comrades behind the fence as in the streets.

1. Private property abolished – not constitutionally protected, and regularly expropriated in Canada and elsewhere
2. A heavy progressive income tax - check
5. Central bank control – check
6. Communications and transportation in the hands of the state – to a large degree, regulated or publicly owned, check
10. Free education for children, schooling tied to needs of industry – to some degree, check.

Capitalism in its undiluted form, on the other hand, is the social and political system that protects individual rights, where people are free to trade with each other given the proviso they do not violate each other’s rights. Coercion by force or fraud is removed from the equation. (See this visual presentation explaining capitalism). Government is held to the minimal role of protecting rights and is thus less of an inviting target for occupation by corrupt interests. That means no corporate welfare. Services are provided by the market, at mutually agreed upon prices.

Canada, obviously, is a mixed economy and is neither of these systems. The reader may decide for themselves which system Canada most resembles, but clearly we’re on the road to some form of authoritarian state. Look, if you’re living in a country where the government is in the pockets of corporations (a common compliant) and their agents are given near carte blanche, what you’re protesting is not capitalism. To argue from the ‘left’ or the ‘right’, both statist concepts, creates a hall of mirrors: a labyrinth of meaningless division. Nobody’s going to make any headway towards a just society unless we realize the real struggle here is between liberty and tyranny. Peace.

Related: Huntsville G8: Military, locked down security, few protesters | Canada flunks on indigenous rights: G20 native protesters | Marcus Gee: Why the G20 protesters won’t condemn violence | Peaceful protests continue in Toronto as G20 nears | Anti-poverty activists occupy ESSO station during Monday G20 protest — for ten minutes | Toronto activists launch G20 alternative media centre | Ban G20 summit agents provocateurs: activist groups to PM | Oxfam astroturf march leads early G20 protest for bank tax | Activists plan walkout and tent city to protest G8/G20 summits | G20 centre for protesters set to open | Rights group files for injunction against G20 ‘sound cannon’ | G20 activists accuse CSIS of intimidation | Anarchists plan ‘militant’ protests at Toronto G20 | Toronto labour, native protesters ready for G20 demonstrations | Toronto G20 protest area moved to Queens Park | All Toronto G20 protests will be directed to Trinity Bellwoods Park | Protesters and police get ready to square off at G20 summit | Hundreds of Toronto G20 delegates granted diplomatic immunity | For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature

Adrian Morrow, The Globe and Mail
June 25, 2010

Police hem marchers in near University Avenue, but demonstration ends peacefully

Thousands of protesters were slowly moving down Toronto’s College Street when the call went up: Someone was getting arrested.

Protesters surrounded a small group of police, shouting at them to release a lone man in a blue T-shirt. As two officers took their detainee into a shopping complex and whisked him away, other police advanced to break through the cordon of protesters.

Wearing bulletproof vests and helmets with the visors down, some 30 officers shoved their way through the crowd.

“This is what a police state looks like!” shouted one man before an officer sent him reeling with a kick to the groin. Another man was shoved repeatedly by police as he lay on the ground.

While the crowd yelled “the whole world is watching!” organizers of the demonstration tried to keep the protest moving. Within 20 minutes, the protesters had moved on.

This first violent confrontation between police and protesters on the streets of Toronto would serve as a template for the rest of the day, the opening of the G8 summit. While there were tense moments and brief tussles with police, the protest largely unfolded peacefully.

The march, meant to highlight issues of poverty and homelessness, was organized by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty and No One Is Illegal, a group that campaigns for the rights of non-status immigrants. It began in the early afternoon at the AllanGardens downtown.

(more…)

Related: CP Reporter: How I was detained by G8 security | G8/G20 Police Fusion Centres Unmasked in Barrie, North Toronto | Soldiers and secret police: Some in Huntsville ‘getting nervous’ over G8 | Fake Lakes not Required, But $50 Million of G8 ‘Legacy’ Spending Pours into Clement’s Riding | Security unit shows off G8 plans for Huntsville | G20 media centre with fake lake to cost $1.9M | Clement blasted for G8 riding spending, Baird drags out 9/11 trope | Budget watchdog probing G8/G20 summits’ $1-billion price tag | Toronto Police to take up to $100-million of G20 security funds | Toronto and Muskoka G8/20 Summit security costs hit $1.1B | For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature

Linda Nguyen, Canwest News
June 25, 2010

HUNTSVILLE, Ont. – The mood in downtown Huntsville Friday was lively and even festive – a sharp contrast to the heavy security presence a few kilometres away at the Deerhurst Resort on the first day of the G8 Summit.

“It’s like a festival out here,” said OPP Sgt. Pierre Chamberland, donning sunglasses under sunny skies by the water. “People are here. They’re engaged. They want to see what is going on.”

Just a few kilometres away from the G8 epicentre, the secluded field designated as the protest zone remained virtually empty for the most part on Friday.

A handful of protesters was spotted around town mingling with locals down by Riverside Park, on the first day Prime Minister Stephen Harper hosted leaders from the world’s most powerful countries.

But the modest groupings of demonstrators were nowhere near as plentiful as security officials had expected at the idyllic town.

The heads of the G8 countries – including U.S. President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy – will discuss a number of topics during the 1 1/2-day summit at the posh resort, including global economic policy and health care.

The leaders will then head to Toronto Saturday for the G20 Summit which runs through Sunday.

Despite the low demonstrator turnout, agendas were on display, nonetheless.

Huntsville resident Terry Exell marched with four others in the park, carrying signs that read “Water is a Human Right.” His group wants world leaders to support a global water policy. “We want our water to be protected,” the 59-year-old said. “It’s not for sale.”

(more…)

Related: G20: Canada’s billion-dollar summit mystery | G20 security prepared for any threat, at any cost | G8/G20 Police Fusion Centres Unmasked in Barrie, North Toronto | No legislation, no precedent to limit G20 police powers | Hospitals, medics prepare for G20 injuries and tear gas | Torontanamo Bay: Life inside the G20 ‘security zone’ | G20 traffic fence can be closed at ‘a moment’s notice,’ police say | Police add water cannon to G20 arsenal | Toronto G20 police arsenal includes plastic bullets | Ban G20 summit agents provocateurs: activist groups to PM | Rights group files for injunction against G20 ‘sound cannon’ | Toronto G20 weekend: Private security fast-tracked, traffic jams, heavy police presence, but no sonic weapons | G20 activists accuse CSIS of intimidation | G8/G20: Cell phones to be jammed as motorcades move through Huntsville, Toronto | G20: Eastern Avenue Protest Jail | G20 Security unbridled: Cops bring out artillery as civil rights observers preach vigilance | Construction begins on Toronto G20 security barrier | Toronto police show off G20 summit security | Mounties shun ‘sound cannons’ in urban settings ahead of G20 | 1,100 private security guards to work G8-G20 summits | Police detail G20 security zone | Toronto police buy four ’sound cannons’ for G20 | Toronto and Muskoka G8/20 Summit security costs hit $1.1B | The Toronto G20 Police State Crackdown | Toronto streets get 77 more surveillance cameras for G20 | Fighter jets buzz Toronto, Muskoka in G20 test runs | Downtown Toronto To Be Transformed Into Locked-Down Police State This Summer | Police State Canada 2010 and the G20 Summit | Militarized police integrate with private security for G20 Toronto concourse drill | Small army to protect Toronto during G20 summit | Toronto G20 summit security to be ‘massive’ | RCMP needs 5,500 rooms during G20 summit | Downtown Toronto to become a fortress for G20 summit | G20 security could strangle downtown | For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature

Linda Diebel, Toronto Star
June 25, 2010

It’s a sad admission, but I used to feel somewhat smug about being Canadian and writing for a Toronto newspaper, during my years as a foreign correspondent in Latin America.

Yes, yes, it’s disconcerting, I would sympathize with friends who visited me at home base in Mexico City. They were always shocked at the show of armed force at every bank or shopping mall, and at the army roadblocks that had to be endured on road trips outside the capital. For me, it was routine, part of the ongoing assault on human rights I so often witnessed in covering Latin America.

I don’t feel so smug anymore. If Canada — and my city, Toronto — was ever innocent, it doesn’t feel that way anymore. Not after the Ontario government passed secret legislation giving special arrest powers to police, an action that used to be more in the style of Latin American dictators.

I walked the perimeter of the three-metre high chain-link fence along Wellington St. yesterday, on a Friday like this city has never seen, and listened to people’s mostly dismayed reaction to the lockdown for the G20 summit in Toronto. Several mentioned the $1 billion-plus cost, others talked about the overwhelming presence of police (14,000 in total), the ugliness of the massive fence or the ominous feel on what should be a bustling summer afternoon.

Overwhelmingly, they said their city had become unrecognizable; it no longer felt like home.

(more…)

Related: Officers suspended after using Taser on 10-year-old | RCMP had no grounds to use Taser on N.W.T. girl: report | U.S. police taser 10-year-old | US Cop Tasers and Arrests a 10-Year Old Girl For Throwing a Fit | RCMP defend Taser use on girl, 16 | US Lawsuit: Cops tasered 3 kids in shelter, threatened one with sodomy | Officer denies uttering sexual threat before lethal TASERing | Latest TASER victim looked ’scared’ as officer approached with knife | UK Police watchdog to investigate Taser arrest, beating posted on YouTube | New video shows officer shove, then taser 72-year-old great grandmother | Dziekanski’s ‘combative behaviour’ justified Taser jolt: Mountie | Cops Taser Drowned Dad’s Distraught Son | RCMP Investigates, Clears Self of Wrongdoing in Case of TASERed Inuvik Girl | US Cops Tase 54 Year Old Woman For Sitting In Wrong Seat At Football Game | Family sues police claiming Taser raid on autistic son in own bedroom | Tasering of mom with baby ‘necessary’ in order to take child, police say | Probe into tasering of teenaged girl reopened | Mounties pinned me down in cell and tasered me, Manitoba girl says | RCMP Taser Confused, Hospitalized 82 Year Old

Tim Hull, Courthouse News Service
June 24, 2010

Police Tasered an 86-year-old disabled grandma in her bed and stepped on her oxygen hose until she couldn’t breathe, after her grandson called 911 seeking medical assistance, the woman and her grandson claim in Oklahoma City Federal Court. Though the grandson said, “Don’t Taze my granny!” an El Reno police officer told another cop to “Taser her!” and wrote in his police report that he did so because the old woman “took a more aggressive posture in her bed,” according to the complaint.

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.”

(more…)

Related: CNN Poll: Majority says government a threat to citizens’ rights | Headed to National Socialism | Pro-rights ‘Charter 08′ Manifesto author could face prison in China | An inconvenient truth: Libertarianism is a counterexample to traditional political categories | ‘Idea of Communism’ conference sells out in London | Atlas felt a sense of déjà vu | Freedom isn’t failing us – we’re unhappy because we’re no longer free | The Illustrated Road to Serfdom | Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

Rasmussen Reports
June 24, 2010

Nearly half of American Adults see the government today as a threat to individual rights rather than a protector of those rights.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Adults see the government today as a threat to rights. Thirty-seven percent (37%) hold the opposite view. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.

Most Republicans (74%) and unaffiliateds (51%) consider the government to be a threat to individual rights. Most Democrats (64%) regard the government as a protector of rights.

(more…)