We're living in an era where government thinks nothing of trampling on constitutional rights or personal liberties. Furthermore, even as the economy grows, the wealth goes to mighty, while mom and pop America gets food share. The gender wage gap, the racial wage gap, and the age wage gap are amplified now as we all must fight even harder for just a little larger piece of the meager pie we share.
Soon, every sliver of that pie will be gone or distributed, and we'll stop bickering amongst ourselves and attack the real enemy. If Americans were to take to the streets, it will be a revolution of epic proportions. Therefore the will to resist must be so broken, and Americans so terrorized by authority, that college kids are conditioned to accept that public assembly in any form will be met with overwhelming and violent force.
But, there are exceptions.
Rancher Cliven Bundy may not be a good guy, and may be completely illegally grazing his cattle on Nevada public land. That aside, instead of just arresting the elderly man for possible illegal activities, the government floods the region with thousands of heavily armed federal agents.
For days, they terrorize locals and protesters through tazing, beatings and arrests for the eerily Orwellian charge of "failing to disperse." CBS and other networks reported that officials had stooped so low as to sic attack dogs on a pregnant woman. The feds, it seems, were hell-bent on escalating a relatively minor grazing issue, more suited to civil court, into a riot situation.
That is, until well-armed members of the Texas State Militia arrived, brandishing armor-piercing ammunition. No sooner are federal agents faced with heavily armed resistance, than they immediately cite "public safety concerns" and stand down.
Contrast this with the well-documented and reported brutality against the unarmed Occupy protesters, which resulted in over 2,500 arrests.
The Bundy case is indicative of the reality that the disparity in arrests and abuse between Occupy and Tea-Party protests has little to do with political bias. Although this is not an endorsement of militias or gun violence, the facts are painfully clear--police don't mess with assemblies of citizens who are armed to the teeth.
On March 2, 2014, in Washington, D.C., the peaceful protest of only 1,200 participants against the Keystone oil-pipeline project resulted in pepper spraying, police assaults, and nearly four hundred arrests. A whopping 40% arrest rate, for what should be a basic constitutionally protected right of public protest. How many arrests would have occurred with a hundred or so armed citizen militiamen lurking in the shadows?
Is this what America has become? Do even college students or environmental activists need to call upon the armed protection of the Texas State Militia in order to exercise their constitutional right of assembly, or prevent police abuse?
Police around the nation are cracking down on even the most peaceful of public assemblies and escalating situations. Peaceful protests, traditional college student public antics, and even wedding-reception parties have been sequestered or dispersed by overwhelming police show of force.
"Excessive show of force and acting on rumors" is standard police procedure in America today, as the public will to resist must be shattered.
It's a vicious cycle played out every day in the US: police escalate a minor situation into a riot, then as a result demand more riot gear and more military-style equipment for the next situation. The next assembly is met with even more immediate force, and it escalates even further. Eventually the public is so filled with fear that even the thought of any public assembly, let alone public protest, is far removed from their minds.
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