I Cogitate
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Flag upside down and authoritarianism
Here's yet another story in what I call the 'flyspecks' category. There are miracles being performed, along with grave and venal sins, throughtout this country and world yet someone goes off the deep end and obsessively focuses on a flag display.
But in this particular case, the someone is a member of law enforcement. An individual who seems to lack the emotional maturity and judgment necessary for those who carry weapons in our society in the process enforcing order..
Fortunately, there are a bevy of witnesses who noticed this blatant abuse of authority and the overreacting deputy just may pay a price for his petulance -- if his boss, the sheriff, follows thourgh on what he has indicated.
Aren't you so glad that Deputy Brian Scarborough, a National Guardsmanm and an Iraq veteran, is also so willing to picket appearances by his Commander In Chief/Pathological Liar George W. Bush and call out Bush and his cohorts for their abuse of American military personnel over missing personal armor, absent vehicle armor, never-ending re-deployments, the Walter Reed veterans scandal, lies to start and more lies to continue the conflict. and so on -- not.
No, that would take actual courage.
Scarborough chose to overstep his authority and teach some private citizens, those who have had enough of this madness, a lesson.
Call Scarborough Bush's mini-me -- abusing his status by exerting power over those he feels he should be controlling, with absolute disregard for the law. In Scarborough's mind, he is the law, just like his dictator, check that, idol.
Flag fightGo here for the remainder.
West Asheville couple say they were assaulted by deputy
David Forbes
Mountain Express
8/01/2007
The July 25 arrest of a West Asheville couple for desecrating the flag has sparked a storm of controversy, including doubts about the constitutionality of the rarely enforced state statute. The Buncombe County Sheriff's Office is investigating the handling of the matter, and Sheriff Van Duncan has expressed regrets about the incident, telling Mountain Xpress that "we would normally not have handled the situation that way."
Local activists Mark and Deborah Kuhn say a Buncombe County sheriff's deputy invaded their home and used excessive force in responding to a complaint that the couple was desecrating an American flag. The flag, which they'd hung upside down on their porch as a protest, had several statements pinned to it, including a photo of President Bush with the words "Out Now" on it and an explanation that the upside-down flag is a traditional distress signal.
The Kuhns, backed up by several neighbors who witnessed the confrontation, assert that a sheriff's deputy violently invaded their home on Brevard Road. The Sheriff's Office maintains that the couple assaulted Deputy Brian Scarborough and resisted arrest. Scarborough, who is also a National Guardsman, became a full-time deputy on June 13 after spending seven months in Iraq. Scarborough had been a reserve deputy since 2003.
According to the Sheriff's Office, Scarborough arrived at the home at 8:45 a.m. in response to a complaint lodged that morning by Staff Sgt. Mark Radford of the National Guard's 105th Military Police Battalion, which is based in Asheville.
"I'd taken photos on my personal cell phone after I got off duty and out of uniform," Radford told Xpress. "The [National Guard] Armory is a gathering place for a lot of cops; they'll come here to do their paperwork. I showed the pictures to him [Scarborough], asked him if it was illegal and left it in his hands.
"I can't speak for the Guard, of course, but personally, I felt [the display of the flag] was totally uncalled for," he added. "If they want to do the political thing, that's fine, but don't deface the flag."
Tied in to this is something John Dean (of Watergate) has talked and written about -- that is, Republican authoritarianism. Authoritarianism, if testable, should be a trait that disqualifies someone from entering the law enforcement field. Too many gravitate to such because of possessing this malady. And, no, this isn't a knock at the vast, vast majority of law enforcement personnel who simply want to serve and do a good job and not ply their personal beliefs under the aegis of a badge.
July 14, 2006Go here for the remainder.
John Dean: Authoritarianism Rules Republicans
Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean of Watergate fame (or better, infamy) isn't very happy with the direction the Republican Party is headed under its current leadership. After studying "decades of empirical research," he thinks he understands why, authoritarianism, and says that "I hope that social scientists will begin to write about this issue for general readers. It is long past time to bring ...[this] work into the public square and to the attention of American voters. No less than the health of our democracy may depend on this being done..."
...For almost half a century, social scientists have been exploring authoritarianism. We do not typically associate authoritarianism with our democracy, but as I discovered while examining decades of empirical research, we ignore some findings at our risk. Unfortunately, the social scientists who have studied these issues report their findings in monographs and professional journals written for their peers, not for general readers. With the help of a leading researcher and others, I waded into this massive body of work.
What I found provided a personal epiphany. Authoritarian conservatives are, as a researcher told me, "enemies of freedom, antidemocratic, antiequality, highly prejudiced, mean-spirited, power hungry, Machiavellian and amoral." And that's not just his view. To the contrary, this is how these people have consistently described themselves when being anonymously tested, by the tens of thousands over the past several decades.
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