American Rights - Fading Fast?

The coronavirus (COVID-19) has been in our face lately.  (Excuse the pun.)  Millions of Americans have had to lock themselves in their homes and ‘hunker down’.  Being locked in a home with teenagers can be more hazardous to your health than the virus.  Consequently, after weeks of being in ‘solitary’, it’s no surprise that people are wanting a few minutes of escape on occasion.

Although the virus should not be totally discounted as a real problem, it is one problem that seems to be creating a second and even worse problem — loss of constitutional rights. This does not mean that there isn’t a special condition that allows our government to exercise their ability to control a situation.  But how far should they be allowed to go?  Because the courts are tied up with existing issues to hear cases on, time is becoming a premium and topics are not being addressed due to lack of time and priorities.  How far can this go?

For example, a father (and wife) who want to take their six year old daughter out to play T-ball in the empty park shouldn’t be a problem.  There aren’t any people around.  They didn’t stop to talk to others on the way there.  And they’re keeping an eye out for potential hazards while enjoying time with their daughter.

While playing, the father sees three policeman walk up to question him.  After a brief conversation, the daughter states, “Daddy, I don’t want you to get arrested.”  To which he responds with words of reassurance.  But, he is soon placed in handcuffs.  Not good.

Fortunately he is subsequently released (after 10 minutes of being in the police car) — apparently common sense prevailed.  The entire story with a video is here.

My concern is that the current generation of police are not using their heads very well.  Common sense should be involved at some point during incidents such as these.  It would seem though that common sense isn’t so common anymore.  A worse concern is, what would happen if a ‘real‘ crisis were to occur in America?  If this sort of thing can occur in ‘peacetime’ over a virus, what could happen in the event of a real national crisis?  Terrorism or a foreign attack for example.

This is not an isolated story.  A teen in California was arrested for being on his boogie board way off shore, for example.  And, before this article could go to press with other affiliates, this report of citations being given to church members while in their cars in a “drive-in church” arrived!  This slope is getting rather slippery.

I’ve known some police (not all) who have a ‘different view’ of their place in society.  Several years ago while on duty, several of the guys were killing time discussing people’s behavior.  It was mentioned that “only police should be allowed to have guns”.  Whoa!!  How is this possible you ask?  For one reason alone — we have to hire people from the human race to be police.  And as long as that is a requirement, this problem and others will continue to exist — fortunately only to a comparatively minor extent.

Although there may be some in the justice system that see themselves as elitists, most police are people too and can be threatened by politicians with threat of their job, no promotion, disgrace, and/or loss of reputation.  That can be a lot of motivation for doing what you’re told to do that you don’t agree with.  For those who are “on our side”, we should support them by ‘going to the source’ and making your view known.  This sort of political power exertion is tyranny.  It must be stopped before it gets totally out of control.

My concern is that our society is getting more fragile every year.  Things are happening today that we wouldn’t have dreamed of a few years ago.  Don’t ask what’s coming next.  The point being that we’re going to need ice-skates to navigate the slippery slope of our future unless someone reigns in this insanity.

At a minimum, we should all be preparing for what we think is coming and prepare ourselves.  We should assume that nobody else is gong to help us.  Self-sufficiency should be our watchword today, otherwise we may not be prepared for tomorrow.

Also see:  Barr concerned about ‘slippery slope’