By Doug Newman – please email me
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“Sometimes Martial Law Is Necessary”

Thus read a response to my Friday column about the lockdown of 1 million people during the manhunt for one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects. I didn’t “write” that so much as I slapped together a bunch of random thoughts.

I just want to say that I am honored by the response that this received by viral “sharing” of it on Facebook. Thank you, everyone.
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Here are some more random bullet points.

1.       On April 19, 1995, a few hours after the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, a coworker commented on how easy it was for people to just “drive up anywhere”. I asked her if she would prefer to live an alternative kind of society where moving around freely was not an option. Boston on April 19, 2013 was just such a place. The inability to travel freely is a common feature of all totalitarian societies.

The Berlin Wall.

    2. If a million people in and around Boston can be put on lockdown for one day, why can’t a million people elsewhere be put on lockdown for 3 or 4 or even more days sometime in the not-too-distant future?

       3. And why were just Boston and some surrounding towns on lockdown? I mean, like, the suspect could have fled to Cape Cod, Worcester, Springfield or Williamstown. Or, he could have crossed state lines. Why not put all of New England and New York on lockdown?

  4. “But what if the terrorist was on the loose in your neighborhood?” you ask. “Wouldn’t you feel safer being on lockdown?” No, actually I wouldn’t feel safer at all. And while I would certainly appreciate notice that an intensive manhunt was underway, I would also like the opportunity to get the hell out of my neighborhood for my own safety. And you can’t very well do that when you are on lockdown.

5.       5. If you are a “conservative” who approves of the Beantown Lockdown, DON’T EVER complain to me again about nationalized health care, the IRS, gun control or any other big government program. None of these ever resulted in a million people not being able to leave their homes. You deserve every ounce of big government you get.

They hate us for our freedom.

6. 6. What  is the next step after a lockdown? Drone strikes? All of America is now a battlefield in the war on terror. And there could be a “suspected militant” right in your neighborhood – a scary looking guy with a name you can’t pronounce from a country you can’t find on a map where the military budget is less than the payroll for the Red Sox infield.  So what if 100 innocent people are killed by a Hellfire missile “if it gets the bad guy.”

7.   7. Why not also internment camps for Chechens, Muslims, etc.? I mean, like, desperate times call for desperate measures.

8.      8. “Sometimes you have to give up liberty to have security.” They sang the exact same song in Germany in 1933 as they gave up their liberty for 12 years of sicherheit.

9.      9. And if you don’t think Uncle Sam would kill innocent Americans en masse, think again. And consider the Branch Davidians, the Trail of Tears, the Sand Creek Massacre, Wounded Knee and the War of Northern Aggression from 1861-1865.

        10. About 40 people are murdered every day in America. About 280 have been murdered in the last week. Why do the 4 Boston killings – 3 at the Marathon and the cop at MIT – get all the attention? (And this is not to minimize the grief of those affected by these killings.) Fourteen people perished in the plant explosion in West, Texas, and that has not been nearly as much of a showstopper as the Boston bombing.

11. If you think the warrantless searches during the lockdown were “reasonable” because there was a manhunt for a terrorist, do you likewise believe that it is “reasonable” for TSA to molest children at airports?

     12.If you tolerate locking down schools for the safety of the students, why wouldn’t they take the next step and put whole cities on lockdown?

Aurora, June 2, 2012

    13.If you approve of the police in Aurora, Colorado – where I live – detaining 40 innocent people for 2 hours in order to apprehend one bank robbery suspect, why wouldn’t police restrict the liberty of 1 million people for a whole day?

      14.   If you cheered on the police authorities in Southern California as they shot at innocent people as they hunted down and killed Christopher Dorner with no due process, why wouldn’t cops put entire cities on lockdown to catch a fugitive?

      15.   It does not surprise me at all that so many chowds celebrated the capture of Dzhokar Tsarnaev while not minding at all that they had been under martial law for the better part of a day. Since 9/11, many millions – perhaps even a majority – of Americans have gladly accepted – in the name of “safety” and “security”: warrantless searches and spying, the suspension of habeas corpus, sexual assault as a condition of travel, rampant police brutality, indefinite detention without any semblance of due process, severe restrictions on peaceful protest and surveillance drones in our skies watching our every move. Are predator drones next?

     16. You will note that I have not mentioned the names of any politicians here. It does not matter at all whom we elect anymore. When you grant unconstitutional power to a president that you like and trust, please know that the next president will inherit and, inevitably, augment these unconstitutional powers.

     17.  “The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism.” — U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Davis, Ex Parte Milligan (1866)

     18.   At the “4/20” marijuana rally in Denver on Saturday, 2 people were shot and a third was grazed by a bullet. As this column goes to bed, the suspect remains at large. Should metro Denver – including Aurora, where I live – be put on lockdown for everyone’s “safety”?

      19.   If you profess a belief in Jesus, who would He subject to martial law?

      20.   Do you believe everything the government and their media lapdogs tell you?