Yesterday the police of Ferguson, Missouri were telling news reporters to get the hell out. Some of them didn’t listen and decided to exercise their press rights and were duly arrested:
Two reporters covering the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri were arrested and physically assaulted by police on Wednesday.
Ryan Reilly, the justice correspondent for The Huffington Post, and Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery were working in a McDonald’s when a SWAT team suddenly invaded the restaurant. After being told to stop recording the proceedings, and refusing, both men were then violently arrested. (Recording police officers is a legal act.) Lowery was shoved into a soda machine. An officer slammed Reilly’s head against glass.
In defense of the brave men and women of the Ferguson SWAT team the reporters were told to get the hell out yesterday. Since they didn’t listen the city’s heroes did what they had to do to make a point: beat the fuck out of the reporters and throw them in a cage. That will teach those disobedient reporters what the First Amendment is all about!
What’s ironic is that the biggest criticism people wield against anarchy is that it would be a state of perpetual chaos where the strong prey on the weak. The reason that criticism is ironic is because we currently live in a society that has a state that creates perpetual chaos and preys on the weak. What is happening in Ferguson right now is the product of statism. A gang of thugs working for the state are able to beat people with impunity, even those who supposedly have a legal right to report on the disturbance, because they are soldiers of the state and have shiny badges pinned to their chest that grant them legal immunity. This is why I don’t take that criticism seriously.
I’m two hours from all of this and it takes every bit of restraint to keep from intervening. I hope it starts to wake people up to the fact that this is the new normal they have allowed to happen.
I’m sure people will forget all about this next week when the news cycle changes to another crisis situation.