Crazy - Political Arrests in America

 

The FBI and Secret Service initiated the arrest of Brandon J Raub after he posted politically incorrect comments on the internet.  You wouldn’t know about this incident by watching the large news media outlets since it’s only being discussed on places like Facebook and within the blogging community; wonder why that is?  I actually looked for a report from any large news outlet using “Marine Brandon Raub” as key search words and could find nothing on the first several pages of Google other than blogger entries; the Huffington Post being about the largest contributor, and I’m not a big fan of the “Huff”.

“Police – acting under a state law that allows emergency, temporary psychiatric commitments upon the recommendation of a mental health professional – took Raub to the John Randolph Medical Center in Hopewell. He was not charged with any crime.”

From what I’ve read, and I’m not alone on this, Raub’s postings weren’t much different than many other concerned citizens who’ve been paying attention to the manner in which our government is being run into the ground at the expense of individual liberties and trampling God given rights supposedly protected by the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  His arrest constitutes a form of tyranny usually associated with third world dictators trying to silence their opposition; being arrested for physiological reasons was a favorite tactic under Joseph Stalin, or more recently, 200,000 political prisoners held in North Korean gulags.

The late Kim Jong Il had an explanation, he said, “… punishing the enemies of the state, protects the North Korean people’s human rights.”

These are children of folks kept in “protective custody” because their parents didn’t like the way Kim Jong Il treated the people of North Korea; clearly they’re a threat just as Brandon Raub needed to be held under protective custody for voicing his political opinions on Facebook.

John Whitehead, a lawyer for The Rutherford Institute, represented Raub at a hearing held to determine Raub’s competency and mental state.  Here is where Americans need to pay attention as Whitehead encapsulated a concern which affects everyone.

“For government officials to not only arrest Brandon Raub for doing nothing more than exercising his First Amendment rights but to actually force him to undergo psychological evaluations and detain him against his will goes against every constitutional principle this country was founded upon,” Whitehead said.

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“The big concern, Whitehead said, is whether government officials are monitoring citizens’ private Facebook pages and detaining people with whom they disagree.”

Most of us are familiar with the old black and white movie, Miracle on 34^th Street.  Kris Kringle challenged the abilities of Macy’s employee psychologist and was incarcerated in the local mental hospital under the charge he was a danger to himself and the general public simply because Kris believed himself to be Santa Claus.  

His lawyer and friend went to the mental hospital to get him released; but since the State had determined Kris to be a danger to himself and others nothing could be done short of completing the court’s drawn out processes.  It only took a neurotic self absorbed psychologist, an obliging prosecutor and a compliant judge to have Santa Claus removed from society.

Kris tried to make sense of what had happened as he explained, “…but I’m in here and he’s out there”; hum, not much different than what Brandon Raub might be saying as he sits in a mental institution against his will.   

It would seem our government is testing the waters, seeing just how far beyond constitutional restraints they can go before enough citizens call them on it; much the way TSA and Homeland Security have trampled on the 4^th Amendment with unwarranted searches.  We now have the FBI and Secret Service agents kidnapping law abiding individuals who speak their minds in opposition to a tyrannical government. 

The drive by media is in the pocket of big government so you won’t hear them clamoring for justice in behalf of Brandon Raub; that will be up to the blogging community and civic minded folks like The Rutherford Institute.  I never thought I’d see the day when an American citizen was arrested for his/her political rantings; that’s just crazy!

This article has been cross posted to The Moral Liberal, a publication whose banner reads, “Defending The Judeo-Christian Ethic, Limited Government, & The American Constitution”.