"Security" Thugs Strike Again: Taser Student at FL Kerry Event

A University of Florida student was roughly seized, handcuffed, tasered and arrested yesterday by six campus police officers during a campus forum in Gainesville. Journalism student Andrew Meyer, 21, was grabbed after asking Sen. John Kerry a series of questions about documented election fraud in 2004 contained in Greg Palast's book Armed Madhouse, impeachment and Kerry's membership in Skull and Bones. According to an article in the Florida , Meyer was charged with a third-degree felony for "starting a riot." (Click to see more citizen-produced videos of events surrounding this arrest.)

What's particularly disturbing to me is how Kerry continued to hold forth on stage while this was going on and how most of the students sat there like sheep. Some even applaud the arrest. I guess the unending quest for "order" trumps any right folks may think they have to say what they want at an open mic at a public question and answer session at a public university.

This fiasco comes on the heels of the recent arrest of activists putting up signs about the DC antiwar March in DC, the tackling and arrest of Rev. Yearwood at the U.S. Capitol outside the Petraeus hearing, the Elevator 9 trial in Albuquerque and the nasty treatment given peaceful demonstrators in Albuquerque last Saturday. Of course there have been many similar incidents during Bush's time in office, from banning mildly critical teeshirts at presidential events to setting up "free speech zones" miles from presidential appearances.

I guess the message is that everyone should keep quiet (even at college student forums), acquiesce immediately to any and all orders from "law enforcement," no matter how out of line, and refrain from gathering peaceably to challenge the government. I'm willing to bet this is just the beginning of the clampdown to come as Bush and his cronies prepare to attack Iran. How about you?

Of course when you have The Decider and his cronies wantonly trashing the Constitution, Geneva Conventions and any number of laws, it communicates down the chain that lawlessness on behalf of the "authorities" is perfectly all right. Ignoring first amendment rights becomes standard operating procedure. Refusing to see any difference between passionate but protected speech and "terrorism" or "inciting riots" becomes the norm. Rough arrests replace handling incidents with any degree of discretion or restraint. Anyone daring to express themselves in ways not to the liking of those in power is viewed as dangerous, disruptive and subject to the kind of treatment usually reserved for violent criminals. And even prominent Democrats stand idly by as it happens. Drip, drip, drip.