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Ex-Marine Detained Under Operation Vigilant Eagle For His Political Views Sues
stry_cat writes "You may remember the story of Brandon Raub, who was detained without due process over some Facebook posts he made. Now with the help of the Rutherford Institute, he is suing his captors. According to his complaint [PDF], his detention was part of a federal government program code-named 'Operation Vigilant Eagle,' which monitors military veterans with certain political views."
This is where the "Do something" crowd falls down a pit of bias. We've seen similar rhetoric from politicians and tv 'personalities'. As rhetoric it's protected speech, as straight statements of non metaphorical intent, it's an imminent threat. The metaphoric rhetoric almost certainly far out masses the straight statements of non metaphorical intent, so just seeing the above is not a proper signal of a threat, though if sufficient resources exist, it may warrant some spot checks to see if there are other signals, on it's own, it shouldn't be sufficient to detain anyone. If, on it's own, that is sufficient to detain someone, then large swaths of society are arbitrarily detainable; not necessarily for those specific views, but for rhetoric of that style. At that point, certain Jefferson quotes may in fact, need to come into play. I hope that point is not imminent, that the trial turns up proper non rhetorical, non protected, signals that fully justify the detention and aren't nigh universally and arbitrarily applicable to most citizens.
Realities just a bunch of bits.
That would be nice, but we wouldn't hear the end of it from the southern states.
What are you talking about? They've been itching to break away for over 150 years. They'd be happy to be allowed to go out on their own finally. Yes, they do absorb the most Federal money, but that's irrelevant: go ask all the Southern pride folks if they want to secede or not, and they'll tell you "yes". They think they'll do just fine without a Federal government (or at least, with only a Federal government that encompasses the Southern states and is independent from the north and west).
and would quickly erupt into anarchy once the shit hit the fan. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they killed themselves in the span of a month.
That may be, but again, the Southerners don't see it that way. And if they do self-destruct, how's that our problem? The conservatives (who are strong in the South) are constantly talking about "letting the free market work"; well, let's give them their freedom and leave them to their own devices. They're all adults; it's their own responsibility to take care of themselves. If they can do better on their own, great. If not, oh well. Either way, the rest of us would be better off without their representatives being part of our government.
And it's not just that I think the South should be kicked out, it's the whole union: the northwest, the midwest, the southwest, the southeast should all be separate countries. They'd probably all (or at least most of them) do better without having to be part of a single union where none of them can agree on anything, and the federal government of which has entirely too much power and no longer represents the will of the people (for example: marijuana laws), and thrives on the endless infighting between the different regional interests.