Idiocracy's Finest at Work

High caliber weaponry, small-bore intellects: Stormtroopers assemble in Philadelphia, 2010 (above); their 26th Century descendants, as depicted in the film Idiocracy (below, right).



Imagine, if you can stand to, a world in which the entire population has succumbed to Hannitization, and you'll capture the dystopian future depicted in the 2006 cult film Idiocracy. 

The fictional future America (written and pronounced "Uhhmerica") of the year 2505 is inhabited by torpid, barely ambulatory imbeciles, in large measure because of a quasi-Malthusian population imbalance: Smart people, according to the film, reproduce arithmetically, but dimwits multiply like tribbles. The result is what Huxley's Brave New World would have been had it been populated exclusively by Epsilon-minus Semi-Morons.

Uhhmericans spend most of their time in consumption -- glutting their bellies on nutrition-free junk food (Carl's Jr. fare washed down by a "sports drink" called Brawndo), and clotting their minds with sub-puerile entertainment.


The minimal interpersonal communications that occur are transacted in a patois that is equal parts hillbilly dialect, urban slang, casual profanity, and gibberish.

Each Uhhmerican is tattooed at birth with a laser-readable UPC code that serves as a commercial interface and tracking device. As long as a particular Uhhmerican is content to be a dutiful consumer and displays no troublesome individuality, he will be left unmolested. Otherwise, his UPC tattoo will attract the immediate attention of the police, who -- in addition to packing heavy artillery and wearing body armor -- are even stupider than the common herd.

As a result of a failed human hibernation experiment, 21st-century Army clerk Joe Bauers -- the very embodiment of the term "dull normal" -- is deposited in this moronic milieu. Without a UPC tattoo, Bauers is "unscannable," and thus he quickly finds himself in prison.


Joe uses his robustly unexceptional mental skills to escape (remember, this is a society in which even Sean Hannity would be seen as marginally bright) and is pursued by the police. After the car he's in is remotely disabled, Joe and two associates flee on foot. 

Seconds later, the empty car is besieged by roughly a dozen police, who without warning simply open up on the vehicle with automatic weapons. One particularly zealous hero deploys a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, which he is holding backwards. When the trooper pulls the trigger he sends the projectile skyward. Scant seconds later, a flaming passenger jet tumbles to the ground. Nobody -- least of all the police -- notices when the airliner crashes and explodes in the distance. 

 Brawndo: It's got what plants crave.



As with any successful satire, Idiocracy uses cultural caricature to diagnose disturbing trends. 


Writer-director Mike Judge doesn't flinch from 
extravagant exaggeration,  as when he makes the U.S. President a no-holds-barred fighting champion and porn star named Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho and turns the entire population into marginally sentient bags of protoplasm. 


By way of contrast, Judge displays creative austerity in his depiction of gratuitous police violence, since -- in this particular, at least -- there is little difference between the world created in his film and the one in which we're presently living.



The 2006 death of 20-year-old Tualatin, Oregon resident Jordan Case, who was gunned down by police while unarmed and blitzed on hallucinogenic mushrooms, offers a splendid example of Idiocracy-style police overkill. On May 4, a federal jury hearing an excessive force lawsuit brought by Case's parents and stepmother deadlocked; a second civil trial will take place this fall. 

When the second trial begins, I earnestly hope that it will focus on this question: Since an unarmed, terrified 120-pound woman was able to restrain the intoxicated, 128-pound Case, why was it "necessary" for three much larger police officers (each weighing well over 200 pounds) to electrocute the young man 12 times with a Taser, and pummel him with nine beanbag rounds, before he was perforated with several gunshots fired in two separate volleys? 

A life needlessly cut short: Jordan Case (holding infant) made some terrible mistakes, and he shouldn't have barged into his neighbor's home uninvited. But he did nothing to justify his violent, avoidable death at the hands of the police. 

 
Just before midnight on October 21, 2006, Case -- who had consumed a large quantity of hallucinogenic mushrooms -- barged into the home of neighbor Sally Arellano, a single mother who lived with her 8-year-old daughter. 

 Arellano, who had been sleeping on the couch, awoke to see the uninvited guest in her living room. Case, who was intermittently lucid, told Arellano that he was under the influence of an hallucinogen. 


After making this admission, Case curled up on the floor, giving Arellano time to call 911 -- and then flee to her daughter's room. After Case forced the door open, Arellano and her daughter both grappled with the intoxicated man. When Officer John Jayne of the Tualatin Police Department arrived, Arellano had pinned the intruder face-down on the floor. 



At this point, Jayne said "Thanks -- I've got it now," slapping Arellano's hand like a tag-team partner and taking physical custody of the smaller man. 



One would expect that's how it happened. One would be wrong. 


For some reason, "Jayne began his own stand-off with Case, who alternated between sitting calmly on a bed and lunging at the officer," recounts Willamette Week. At one point, Case reportedly obtained an item described as "similar to a kitchen knife," something that wouldn't have happened if Jayne had taken control of him immediately. Case discarded the knife and Jayne -- along with a man identified as his "friend," Grant Collins -- "struggled" with the intruder. 


Bear in mind that we're discussing a skinny, 128-pound 20-year-old who had just lost a pinfall to a 5'2", 120-pound single mother. An adult man in decent shape -- or even a typical police officer, for that matter -- should have been able to bulldog the kid to the floor and drag him out of a home he had invaded without permission. Yet for some reason, rather than subduing the suspect, "Jayne backed out of the apartment and Case followed, leaping a fence in a single bound," continues the WW account.  



Jayne called for backup, and shortly thereafter two other officers -- Washington County Sheriff's Deputy Glenn Howard, and Sherwood Police Officer Adam Keesee -- arrived at the scene. By this time, Jayne had already used his Taser on Case, to no effect. Howard and Keesee pelted Case with several beanbag rounds, which likewise did little to slow him down. 


Case then approached Deputy Howard, who had left his car running with the door open. Howard fired his Taser at Case "for seven separate cycles," narrates the Oregonian. When that failed to subdue Case, Howard -- who at one point managed to shock himself while reloading his Taser cartridge -- drew his firearm. 

According to eyewitness testimony, Case (who, recall, had been shocked more than a half-dozen times) was staggering in the direction of Howard's patrol car -- as if he were "just trying to hold on to something" -- when the Deputy unloaded on him. Howard testified that he was concerned Case might be reaching for an MP-5 assault rifle, which was stored in a locked rack accessible through the open driver's side door. Howard also admits that he "didn't think" of closing the door to prevent Case from reaching the rifle.  


Apparently it also didn't occur to Howard -- or either of the other uniformed heroes on the scene -- to secure the rifle and move the injured suspect from the car after he had been shot and immobilized. 


One of the rounds fired by Howard had found its way into Case's chest. For two minutes the 20-year-old sat slumped against the patrol car, motionless and bleeding, while the three police on the scene conferred with each other. Although he didn't move to restrain Case or render medical aid, Howard took the opportunity to re-load his Glock.


According to the official police account, after breathing heavily for a couple of minutes Case suddenly "sprung off the ground" and reached into the still-open vehicle. Howard, who later testified that he was worried that Case might grab the still-unsecured rifle, fired several more shots. One of them penetrated Case's skull, killing him instantly. 



Given that he apparently couldn't handle the effects of consuming psychotropic fungi, Jordan Case shouldn't have done so. More importantly, he shouldn't have been trespassing, and most likely wouldn't had he been in control of his faculties. His behavior created a serious problem for his neighbor. It was the intervention by the police that turned that problem into an eminently avoidable tragedy. 



It is not a sterile exercise in second-guessing to say that four large men (three police officers and a tag-along) should have been able to restrain Case without resorting to weapons of any kind: Remember, when Deputy Jayne arrived, a 120-pound woman had Case pinned to the floor. Yet for some reason -- most likely years of indoctrination regarding ubiquitous threats to "officer safety" -- the three Paladins of Public Order were terrified of the skinny 20-year-old kid, whom they later described as displaying "almost superhuman strength and endurance."



"My level of fear is skyrocketing, 'cause he's not responding to anything," Deputy Howard later recalled, explaining his decision to unload two separate volleys with his sidearm. "You don't understand what that feels like until you actually fear for your life."



Note this well: This armed, trained Sheriff's Deputy feared for his life because he and two other law enforcement officers couldn't subdue a 128-pound kid who -- his "superhuman strength" notwithstanding -- had just finished second in a grappling match with a frightened 120-pound woman. 


The single mother who had pinned Case to the floor of her daughter's bedroom had the sand to take the boy down and hold him there, yet we're supposed to believe that a similar feat was simply beyond the capacity of three tax-fed badasses with badges. 



"Though there were ... three officers on the scene and Jordan was only 128 pounds, unarmed, outnumbered and did not make any threatening gestures toward the officers, at no point did any officer attempt to restrain Jordan without the use of the taser or other weapons," summarizes the civil complaint filed on behalf of the victim's family. "Instead, the officers elected to tase him and shoot him.... At no point did any officer attempt to calm Jordan or to communicate with Jordan in any way other than shouting threats and commands to get down on the ground."



In describing what went through his mind as he gunned down Jordan Case, Deputy Howard expresses himself in terms suitable to the world depicted in Idiocracy: "I remember thinking, unplug him, unplug him, we're f*****g done with this sh*t."



Though substantially more vulgar, Howard's internal monologue was similar in substance and intent to the words that fell from the lips of Officer Troy Meade as he executed the intoxicated Niles Meservey in an Everett, Washington parking lot June 2009: "Time to end this -- enough is enough." 




Meade was acquitted of criminal homicide by the same Idiocracy-caliber jury that rejected his self-defense claim. The Washington County, Oregon DA declined to file criminal charges against Deputy Howard, insisting that his conduct comported with the "reasonable officer" standard governing lethal force cases.  

This is to say that the combination of timidity, ineptitude, and impulsive violence displayed by Howard and his comrades in this episode is what the public should expect when they seek "help" from the police. Under the "reasonable officer" standard, summary execution is a proportionate punishment for overtaxing a police officer's patience. And things will only get worse from here because most people prefer to take refuge in comforting illusions, rather than confronting grim and potentially lethal realities.




"People have a huge emotional investment in believing  the police are on our side," explains attorney Greg Kafoury, who has represented plaintiffs in law enforcement-related wrongful death lawsuits. "If somebody sits on a jury that concludes that the police have used unlawful violence against a citizen, that's a declaration that the world is a lot scarier place than they want it to be." 



Unfortunately, reality isn't optional -- something too many residents of our proto-Idiocracy come to understand only when they find themselves on the receiving end of officially sanctioned criminal violence.


___


(Note: This essay has been slightly modified from the original version to clarify my views regarding Jordan Case's consumption of psilocybin.) 
 

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Gregory Girard: Political Prisoner

 Arrest this man! Civilian disarmament in Massachusetts Colony, 1775: The Regime deployed Redcoats. Civilian disarmament in the People's Republic of Massachusetts, 2010: The Regime deploys SWAT teams and psychiatrists. 

Massachusetts resident Gregory Girard has never been formally charged with a crime, let alone convicted of one. Yet after spending four months in jail, he will spend the next four years as a ward of the court.


Girard's legally obtained firearms will remain in the possession of the thieves in uniform who stole them on February 9, the same day he was kidnapped by a SWAT team. He will undergo involuntary psychiatric evaluation and treatment, including the administration of psychotropic drugs.


If it is deemed "necessary" by any of the legal or therapeutic apparatchiks who are now in charge of his life, Girard will be taken into custody for "in-patient treatment."


This would almost certainly occur if Girard were once again to express the unacceptable political views that resulted in his four month imprisonment, to wit: The Regime ruling us will eventually send paramilitary goon squads to confiscate legally owned firearms and imprison those who own them.


Because possession of such views made Girard a "danger to the community," a paramilitary strike force was sent to seize his guns, and he was summarily imprisoned.Under the terms of a "continuance without a finding" announced by Salem District Court Judge Richard Mori, Girard will avoid prison only if his conduct and attitude meet with the approval of people who can consign him to the psihuska at whim.



The local Vyshinsky disciple, District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett, isn't satisfied with this arrangement and most likely won't relent until Girard is sent to prison. The 45-year-old inventor was initially charged with possession of five "infernal devices" -- which proved to be legal smoke and tear gas grenades -- and four counts of "carrying" what were described as "dangerous weapons" -- police batons and hunting knives he had legally stored in his home.



The remaining accusations involve discharging a weapon in a home-made target range on his property, and possession of two items ambiguously identified as "silencers." Girard and his attorney maintain that the cylindrical objects, which were found on his boat, are flash suppressors he intended to use in order to avoid violating a law against sending up a false distress signal.


It's doubtful that even in Massachusetts a jury would find a reason to send Girard to prison. Yet Blodgett, according to his errand girl (or, as she prefers to be called, assistant DA) Michelle DeCourcey, was "very troubled by the presence of the two silencers and felt it merited a jail sentence" of at least two years.


Gregory Girard has no prior criminal record. He is not accused of committing crimes against person or property.


The same Jonathan Blodgett who is determined to send Girard to prison for possession of two cylindrical pieces of metal is anxious to protect the people who beat Worcester resident Kenneth Howe to death last November 25. That's because Howe's murderers are among the numinous personages swaddled in government-issued costumes and invested with the presumptive authority to kill.

Kenneth Howe  was co-owner of a barbershop, a husband, and father of three children. His contributions to society were immeasurably more valuable than anything done by a tax-feeder in an “official” capacity. Last November 25, he has the misfortune of riding in a car that encountered a "sobriety checkpoint."




This particular roadblock -- or "joint sobriety enforcement operation" -- involved the Andover Police Department, the Essex County Sheriff’s Office, and the Massachusetts State Police. Like all such operations, this was an orgy of overtime for people who wear government-provided costume jewelry.  For the helots on wheels who are forced to endure them, checkpoints of this kind are pregnant with the possibility of lethal violence, as Howe and his friend learned.


Police accounts say that Howe was observed making a “furtive movement” as the car in which he was a passenger approached the checkpoint. The driver says that Howe, who had been smoking a marijuana cigarette, was trying to snuff it and put on his seat belt.


When Jodi A. Gerardi, a female state trooper, approached the car, Howe told her, “It’s only a marijuana cigarette.” After being ordered from the vehicle, Howe tried to flee. (In the official police version, the middle-aged man supposedly jumped through the passenger-side window -- something that would tax the athleticism and agility of a Parkour master.)



As Howe tried to flee, the distaff tax-feeder shrieked, “I’ve been assaulted” — something the driver, the only objective eyewitness, disputes: In fact, that witness claims that it was Gerardi who placed hands on Howe, rather than the reverse.


Gerardi’s account describes Howe as “releasing” a pit bull and “assaulting everyone in his path” as he fled the scene. This is of a piece with her claim that Howe busted a move that would have put the Prince of Persia to shame.



Once again, the other eyewitness to the events doesn't support Gerardi's version. However, he did testify that at least a dozen -- and as many as 20 -- police officers swarmed Howe, beating and otherwise brutalizing him, after their little tag-along (or was she a camp follower?) claimed that he had laid an unholy hand on her sanctified person.

Shackling a dying man: Several members of the thugswarm that killed Kenneth Howe cuff him and put leg restraints on him as he slowly dies from the injuries sustained at the hands of at least a dozen police officers. 


Somehow, despite his Jedi-level physical prowess, Howe was taken to the ground “where he continued to disobey orders to ‘stop resisting’ by several other officers,” Gerardi reports, reflecting the common assumption that Mundanes must patiently endure whatever abuse their plunder-supported betters see fit to inflict on them.



After being “softened up,” Howe was  handcuffed and placed in leg restraints. He died at a local police barracks shortly after midnight on the morning of November 26.



In a very real sense, Howe was a victim of the federalized Homeland Security State, which underwrites checkpoints as a way of keeping the local condottieri loyal to the Regime. He could also be considered a casualty of Leviathan’s longest and most destructive war, the federal “War on (Non-Government-Approved) Drugs.” More to the point: It is a matter of settled fact that he was a homicide victim.


The Essex County Medical Examiner ruled that the official cause of death was homicide by way of  “blunt impact of the head and torso with compression of the chest.” This means that the 45-year-old father was beaten to death, at an East Berlin-style checkpoint, by a tax-subsidized thugswarm.



Acting out of solidarity with the rest of the tax-consuming class, the ME's office moved quickly to take the edge off its findings.



“The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner uses the term homicide to mean a death at the hands of another,” explained the M.E.’s attorney, Jacqueline Faherty. “A medical examiner does not offer an opinion regarding criminal wrongdoing or civil liability.”


In keeping with routine procedure in any case involving the death of a helpless Mundane at the hands of the Bullies in Blue, the Medical Examiner eagerly described the victim’s cardiovascular disease as a “contributory factor” in the death.

 Death by Government: Rest in God's Peace, Kenneth Howe. 


When someone dies at the hands of an assailant or assailants whose violence is  sanctified by the state, we are supposed to believe that the victim wasn’t killed by the police — he just happened to die in their custody.


Thus victims of lethal Taser strikes succumbed to “excited delirium,” rather than being murdered through electro-shock torture. The state-licensed assailants similarly seek to exculpate themselves when an innocent person suffering from heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, or other medical problems is beaten or suffocated to death by a police mob.


Curiously, “contributory factors” of that kind aren’t treated as mitigating factors when someone is fatally beaten or otherwise subjected to lethal violence by a gang of bullies who do not bear the insignia of state “authority.”  


By way of contrast, when violent deaths are inflicted by commonplace criminals, the victim’s health problems — if they are mentioned at all — are taken as evidence of the exceptional viciousness of the crime.


Despite its patent viciousness, the beating death of Kenneth Howe -- although ruled a homicide -- will not be treated as a crime. “There is absolutely no way reasonable force was used in this case,” insists attorney Frances A. King, who is representing the murder victim’s widow and children. “He has handcuffs on part of that time and leg irons and [the police] are beating him to death.”


Let it not be said that DA Jonathan Blodgett -- the same law-and-order zealot presiding over the persecution of Gregory Girard -- was indifferent to the events of November 25, 2009. In fact, his office was prepared to file charges and prosecute ... the victim, Kenneth Howe, for the supposed offense of "resisting arrest." If Howe had survived the beating inflicted on him, he most likely would be in jail awaiting trial.

Predictably, Blodgett has displayed no measurable interest in building a case against the people who beat Howe to death. Like practically everyone else in his profession, Blodgett apparently assumes that police are entitled to kill anyone at any time who displays anything other than immediate, complete, unconditional submission.


That totalitarian assumption makes a nice matched set with the one undergirding Blodgett's Soviet-style persecution of Gregory Girard -- namely, that Mundanes seeking the means to protect themselves against the Regime's armed enforcers should be treated as fodder for the gulag.

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Murder as a Punchline

 (Do) Fear the Reaper: A Predator-B or "Reaper" unmanned drone, one of the Regime's most celebrated kill-gadgets, takes to the skies.

The same theory of criminal conspiracy being applied to the prosecution of Michigan's Hutaree Militia would justify the arrest and trial of President Obama for conspiring to murder the Jonas Brothers. In fact, the case against Mr. Obama -- based on previous criminal conduct and the means at his disposal -- is far stronger than the single-ply tissue of speculation and innuendo that constitute the federal case against the notorious Michigan Nine. 

During the White House Correspondents Dinner last Saturday (May 1), Mr. Obama uncorked what his scribes doubtless considered to be a certifiable thigh-slapper regarding the president's power to murder human beings at whim: 

"[Obama's young daughters] Sasha and Malia are huge fans, but boys [addressing the Jonas Brothers, who were seated in the room], don't get any ideas. Two words for you: predator drones. You will never see it coming."

In response, the audience rendered unto Caesar the dutiful laughter required anytime the Pontiff of the Civil Religion favors us with an insipid specimen of pre-fabricated presidential "wit." 

None of the spangled sycophants in attendance displayed a tremor of discomfort at the thought that the individual who had just made a joke about assassinating Americans by remote control actually attempted to kill a U.S. citizen -- New Mexico-born radical Muslim cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki -- by way of a Predator drone strike last December. The Obama administration, which admits to maintaining a hit list of U.S. citizens subject to summary execution, has annihilated hundreds of innocent civilians in Pakistan and elsewhere over the past year. 

Such thoughts, if they occurred to anyone in the room last Saturday, weren't allowed to taint the revelry. Perhaps at next year's dinner Obama could get his Caligula freak on, calling out individuals by name and describing various horrible things he could do to them at whim; that routine would surely bring the house down like a Predator-deployed Hellfire missile! (Drum kick.)

But seriously, folks, this kind of thing is funny -- until someone gets killed. That's the entire point: people are getting killed, at the orders of the guy who was willing to read from his Teleprompter a line intended to extort humor from the slaughter.

Some might contend that a bad joke doesn't constitute evidence of a criminal conspiracy. The people responsible for compiling the indictment against the nine Hutaree defendants apparently think otherwise, since they are treating ill-advised talk about killing people -- at least some of it best characterized as misguided juvenile attempts at humor -- as evidence of a "seditious conspiracy."

In her order granting pre-trial release (under conditions of house arrest and electronic surveillance) to the Hutaree defendants, U.S. District Court Judge Victoria Roberts provides extensive excerpts from the evidence. This includes redacted transcripts of conversations in which militia David and Joshua Stone, Michael Meeks, and Kristopher Sickles talk about killing judges and law enforcement personnel. 

The ellipses littering the transcript are tangible evidence of cherry-picking by the prosecution. 

Even orphaned from context, however, the recorded conversations don't amount to evidence of a criminal conspiracy, but rather a tendency to engage in the worst kind of self-deluded, adolescent locker-room braggadoccio. 

Here, in its entirely, is the "evidence" adduced by the prosecutors to substantiate the supposed plot to kill police and then ambush the mourners, gleaned from a recorded conversation that occurred on February 20:

                                                                   David Stone: 

Or, or better yet, we shoot one, from a distance, high powered rifle, you sit back you take him out -- you go, kapop! -- You just shoot one. And then you just kind sit back, they'll pack out a huntin' [sic] for ya. Try to find out who you are, but they have this thing, that everybody has, and it's called a funeral. Now for that funeral, you'll have cops from every state of the country come where? To his funeral.

 

[...]

Why not just take care of the situation? Kabunk! Kabunk! [Sound effect] 

[...]

I'm thinkin' IEDs and you just blow the whole convoy up. Boom!

[...]

                                                               Kristopher Sickles

Sneak in their house, poison their milk.

[...]

                                                              David Stone

No, no, you set their house on fire and you have another team sitting back watching the local fire department try and come down the road and it's just pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! As trucks go baba, "we're over heating," Rrrr [sound effect]. "Hey, we're not gonna make it to this fire."

[...]

I mean, there's a hundred and one scenarios you could use.

(End of excerpts.)

The ellipses in the excerpt above are from the original transcript, as provided to Judge Roberts by the prosecution. We're not reading a conversation; we're being fed lurid soundbites carefully juxtaposed in a way intended to elicit maximum outrage with minimal detail.

The prosecution insists that the foregoing demonstrates a "general concept of operations" in which the defendants were preparing to ambush and murder police. But if there was an actual agreement to carry out such acts, or preparations to do the same, the relevant excerpts were left on the cutting room floor. This is the "A-list" material the prosecution cited in its effort to deny bail to a group accused of seditious conspiracy involving weapons of mass destruction. 

"Discussions about killing local law enforcement officers -- and even discussions about killing members of the Judicial Branch of Government -- do not translate to conspiracy to overthrow, or levy [war] against, the United States Government," wrote Judge Roberts. She followed with the observation that during the recording, "the Defendants laugh, make sounds, and appear to talk over one another. There is also a discussion of strippers." 

This wasn't a strategy session conducted by a terrorist cabal, but a bull session involving angry people who -- most likely under the influence of an adult libation or similar conversational lubricant -- indulged in what Roberts calls "hate-filled, venomous speech" that enjoys unconditional First Amendment protection. 

The most extensive expression of the Hutaree's "seditious" intent, Roberts points out, was a lengthy address written by David Stone that "speaks of reclaiming America, not overthrowing the United States Government."

Reduced to what John Wayne would call the "spitting out words to watch them splatter" mode of argumentation, the Feds insisted that the Hutaree defendants "pose a danger to the community because they lack respect for lawful authority." 

The prosecution could demonstrate that the Hutaree defendants had abundant contempt for the government -- what perceptive person doesn't? -- but it hasn't demonstrated that they were hostile toward lawful authority (which of itself wouldn't constitute a crime, either).

The American political tradition, beginning with that instrument of sedition called the Declaration of Independence, clearly distinguishes between government and lawful authority, making the former subordinate to the latter, which itself is vested in the people. That same literary product of irrational anti-government fanaticism also states unambiguously that there are times when defense of lawful authority requires that the people "alter or abolish" the government ruling them.

By any honest reckoning, the government ruling us is the single most promiscuous law-breaker on record, and the contempt of our rulers for the legal authority under which they supposedly operate -- the U.S. Constitution -- is inexhaustible. This helps explain why the Regime's secret police infiltrate and entrap inconsequential groups of socially marginalized people who live in rotting mobile homes, while their Dear Leader -- an individual who lives in a fortified mansion, and has at his disposal power sufficient to destroy human life everywhere -- can make puerile jokes about his ongoing murder spree.

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