The Bush Doctrine, as enunciated by the president, says the United States may launch a pre-emptive war against any nation, at any time, if the president determines that nation is a threat to the interests of the United States.
There has been – and continues – discussion about what that means for international relations. But what does the Bush Doctrine mean at home? Two stories in Washington, DC newspapers last week give some indication.
The first, carried by the weekly City Paper, concerned an incident from September of last year, in which DC Metro police blockaded over 400 people in a city park, arrested, them, strip-searched them, hog-tied them, held them in custody for over 24 hours and then failed to appear in court to press charges or explain what happened.
Many of those arrested were in Washington for an anti-globalization protest. Citizen protest is a hallowed right enshrined by the First Amendment, but no one in the park was protesting; they were simply in the park. Others arrested were not in town for the protest; some were local residents on their way to work, some were nurses in town for a conference. One woman, in training for a bicycle race, was thrown from her bike to the ground and dragged into a police car.
DC Police Chief Charles Ramsey, who was on the scene, said the arrestees failed to obey an order to disperse. Those arrested say no such order was given. No police official will state for the record that he or she gave – or even heard – an order to disperse.
Chief Ramsey then argued he took pre-emptive action to head off a potential protest like the one that rocked Seattle in 1999. After some more thought, Ramsey speculated that there might have been terrorists coming to town, hiding among the protesters. And there you have it, the Bush Doctrine. An authority makes a judgement, based on evidence no one is allowed to see, that so-and-so over there might be a terrorist and it’s all the justification needed to tear up the Constitution and pull out the clubs.
Every American who is arrested has a right to answer the charges in a court of law; it’s another one of those Constitutional rights, except, as I said, when the people arrested in the park arrived in court, there was nothing to answer. The DC Metro police didn’t bother to file any paperwork on the arrests, which means all charges were dropped, but it sends a big F-U to the judicial system as well as the people who had their rights violated.
The same day City Paper published the piece on Charles Ramsey, the Washington Post reported police Fairfax County, Northern Virginia spent the holiday season sending undercover officers into bars to arrest people for public intoxication.
It is true that public intoxication is against the law in Virginia, and it is true that a bar is a public place. But the people arrested in the bars were not a safety hazard or a public menace. They were not driving cars, they were not underage, they were not smashing bottles on curbstones and they were not singing “Show Me the Way to Go Home” in the street at three o’clock in the morning.
Fairfax County Police Chief Thomas Manger defended the operations by saying, “If a patrol officer observes someone violating the law, I don’t know how I could ask him not to enforce it.” What Manger didn’t explain is why officers were patrolling in Jimmy’s Old Town Tavern.
Substance abuse is a terrible thing and many Americans drink more than they should. By the same token, a person of legal age should be able to knock back a shot and a beer at the corner pub without Officer Buttinski running up and down the bar with a Breathalyzer.
Police officers perform difficult and dangerous jobs, and for that, society grants police authority to act in ways the rest of us cannot. As the chiefs in and around our nation’s capital are demonstrating, if police betray the trust on which their authority is built, the inevitable result is less – not more – respect for the rule of law.
Push Comes To Shove
The Bush Doctrine, as enunciated by the president, says the United States may launch a pre-emptive war against any nation, at any time, if the president determines that nation is a threat to the interests of the United States.
There has been – and continues – discussion about what that means for international relations. But what does the Bush Doctrine mean at home? Two stories in Washington, DC newspapers last week give some indication.
The first, carried by the weekly City Paper, concerned an incident from September of last year, in which DC Metro police blockaded over 400 people in a city park, arrested, them, strip-searched them, hog-tied them, held them in custody for over 24 hours and then failed to appear in court to press charges or explain what happened.
Many of those arrested were in Washington for an anti-globalization protest. Citizen protest is a hallowed right enshrined by the First Amendment, but no one in the park was protesting; they were simply in the park. Others arrested were not in town for the protest; some were local residents on their way to work, some were nurses in town for a conference. One woman, in training for a bicycle race, was thrown from her bike to the ground and dragged into a police car.
DC Police Chief Charles Ramsey, who was on the scene, said the arrestees failed to obey an order to disperse. Those arrested say no such order was given. No police official will state for the record that he or she gave – or even heard – an order to disperse.
Chief Ramsey then argued he took pre-emptive action to head off a potential protest like the one that rocked Seattle in 1999. After some more thought, Ramsey speculated that there might have been terrorists coming to town, hiding among the protesters. And there you have it, the Bush Doctrine. An authority makes a judgement, based on evidence no one is allowed to see, that so-and-so over there might be a terrorist and it’s all the justification needed to tear up the Constitution and pull out the clubs.
Every American who is arrested has a right to answer the charges in a court of law; it’s another one of those Constitutional rights, except, as I said, when the people arrested in the park arrived in court, there was nothing to answer. The DC Metro police didn’t bother to file any paperwork on the arrests, which means all charges were dropped, but it sends a big F-U to the judicial system as well as the people who had their rights violated.
The same day City Paper published the piece on Charles Ramsey, the Washington Post reported police Fairfax County, Northern Virginia spent the holiday season sending undercover officers into bars to arrest people for public intoxication.
It is true that public intoxication is against the law in Virginia, and it is true that a bar is a public place. But the people arrested in the bars were not a safety hazard or a public menace. They were not driving cars, they were not underage, they were not smashing bottles on curbstones and they were not singing “Show Me the Way to Go Home” in the street at three o’clock in the morning.
Fairfax County Police Chief Thomas Manger defended the operations by saying, “If a patrol officer observes someone violating the law, I don’t know how I could ask him not to enforce it.” What Manger didn’t explain is why officers were patrolling in Jimmy’s Old Town Tavern.
Substance abuse is a terrible thing and many Americans drink more than they should. By the same token, a person of legal age should be able to knock back a shot and a beer at the corner pub without Officer Buttinski running up and down the bar with a Breathalyzer.
Police officers perform difficult and dangerous jobs, and for that, society grants police authority to act in ways the rest of us cannot. As the chiefs in and around our nation’s capital are demonstrating, if police betray the trust on which their authority is built, the inevitable result is less – not more – respect for the rule of law.