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Leviathan's Heel
by John Taylor
[email protected]

Attribute to L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise

On the 20th anniversary of the government's sadistic and excessive slaughter of men, women, and children at their home in Waco, TX, the people of Boston awakened to find an army of occupation had seized and paralyzed their city.

Military and paramilitary units from city, state, federal, military, and even neighboring states moved into the streets and neighborhoods of Boston and several adjacent towns, ostensibly to capture two kids—19 and 26—who are accused of being the Boston Marathon bombers.

The entire area, comprising some 1 million-plus souls, was locked down for most of the day. Homeowners were forcibly evicted from their residences; traffic was curtailed and government-run transportation shut down; businesses were forced to close; events were cancelled; homes were entered and searched by force and without warrant.

All for two young men.

The mainstream media breathlessly covered every aspect of the occupation—both real and imagined, without ever, to the best of my knowledge, acknowledging the actions for what they in fact were— martial law and unconstitutional infringements of the rights of peaceful citizens. (All "for their own safety", of course.)

Now, many in the liberty movement will, without thinking this through, gloat "All this and they couldn't find one lousy teenager; how credible can government be?"

Sadly, this is not the "lessons learned" that we should take away from this, no matter what the outcome. Here are the points on which we need to focus:

A major city was placed under Leviathan's heel, without a squirm.

No protest over the imposition of unnecessary martial law;

No resistance to unwarranted search and seizure;

No voiced concern about the use of military men and equipment on the streets of a US city;

No presumption of innocence for the accused;

And the unanswered $64,000 question—who authorized these out-of-state and military units, and what were their rules of engagement?

As Waco inured us to the death of citizens at the hands of the government, so will Boston harden us to the acceptance of government harassment of our citizens on a grand scale. One more paving stone on the road to perdition.

Will you be the next to be affected?

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