Paul Craig Roberts: Criminals With Badges

[tom_paine]

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01022008.html

Take heed, ye red-blooded American males. The police are operating a new sting designed to destroy your life. The police are planting attractive women half naked in parks. They entice passing males, engage them in conversation, lay back, spread their legs and rest their feet on the men's shoulders. After being as friendly and suggestive as possible, they ask to see your penis.

Don't show it to them. You are being filmed by police. If you show your penis, you will be arrested as a pervert.

Only American police, judges, and juries could think that responding to a seductress's invitation is proof of perversion. But, hey, you live in America where Christians believe that killing as many Muslims as possible for Israel is God's work. Don't expect a dumb Amerikan jury, or a self-righteous Republican judge, or a mindless law professor to understand entrapment.

No, this is not a joke. It is actually happening. Last May in Berliner Park in Columbus, Ohio, Robin Garrison, a 42-year-old firefighter was lured into arrest by a half naked woman under a tree.

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http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01022008.html

[ixion]

1. freakin' xian cops

I mean, what the hell? How can you tell the difference between a come on and sting now? Geez. :eyes:

[tom_paine]

2. What is really creepy is the sea change in law enforcement mores

The only part of trickle-down that works is tyranny, immorality, brutality, cruelty, lunacy...

We see it all over from VIPR Teams and the now-ubiquitous Behavior Detection Officers (next time I go through an airport I am going to crimp and crump my facial features until one of these assholes comes over and asks me "how my trip is going?"...have I got several answers for THEM!), to the multiple taserings of people who weren't even resisting to....well we've all seen all of it.

Again I say, I thought America would be a little more difficult to reprogram the way they did the entire German Culture in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s, and maybe it is just a tad more difficult, but the same chains are wrapping around our necks, and we are rapidly becoming a people for whom there is literally no bottom atrocity we aren't capable of performing and applauding, especially if times get a little tough.

Which goes back to the very successful Shock Doctrine of the Bushies. Just one or two or perhaps three more massive shocks, and the Bushies will have the complete reprogramming to be "Hitler's Henchmen" complete.

Look around, it's already there, waiting to come out of the dark closet of the national mind.

And this creepy little episode is just another tiny patch in a mighty mosaic making a huge arrow pointing downward in big neon lights. It's where our nation is going, and there is no bottom limit when we finally reach the dreadful destination that is the Bushies' Final Solution to the Liberal Problem, whatever that turns out to be.

[ixion]

4. I think you're spot on there

It amazes me that people have fallen so easily. I guess I under-estimated the American penchant for real liberty. :(

[dantyrant]

3. Outrageous!

I'll wave my penis at whomever I damn want!

[tom_paine]

5. You are missing the point entirely.

Yes, waving your penis at a park is wrong. However, ever have sex with a willing partner (I have no idea if you are heterosexual or not) in a park or woodland area? Did you whip it out during?

Then you are as guilty as this fellow.

Ever heard of entrapment?

This cop represented herself as a willing partner, going waaaaaay beyond what used to be considered entrapment to lure this guy in.

A far cry from some nut in a raincoat gratuitously exposing his privates to innocent passers-by.

Did you even read the article? In addition to being wrong about this single incident, and apparently quite ignorant of the concept of entrapment and why it was considered improper police before Old America fell to the Bushies, you completely miss the larger issue of police now routinely breaking entrapment barriers and other barriers, not just with this incident, but with dozens of others of this type all around the nation?

What about Operation Lucky Bag? That a clear cut case where you can show off your brilliant one-liners and superior morality. You don't even know what I am talking about, do you?

Did you even read the article, or were you too quick to whip out your brilliantly witty one-liner to show us all how brilliant and moral you are?

I know what my bet is.

Read the article, please, not just the 4 paragraph blurb.