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I am a resident of Minneapolis. My house is less than 2 miles from the intersection where Officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd by asphyxiating him for 9 minutes. In addition, my house is about 3 miles from 3rd precinct police station that rioters burned down during the subsequent uprising.My wife’s birthday is May 29. Our wedding anniversary is May 31. Because my wife’s birthday is two days before our anniversary, we often call the combined celebration a “Birthiversary.”Because of timing, my wife & I celebrated Birthiversary weekend during the middle of a riot.On May 30, I spent most of my afternoon on errands trying to prepare for an eventual riot before everybody had to be back home for an 8PM citywide curfew. I had to go out to the far suburbs, to a town called Apple Valley, because most of the Home Depot stores near me were either closed or completely mobbed. I bought two professional-grade 50-foot hoses for my wife’s sister down the street and some fluorescent yellow safety vests. I couldn’t find the reflective tape that my wife put on the shopping list, but there was a Menards across the street, where I got fluorescent tape (orange and yellow) and some reflective metallic tape. On my way to the checkout, I grabbed a fluorescent yellow striped XXL shirt that I could substitute for a safety vest. I doubted that I would need to wear it more than 1 night, but I could certainly use it for a Halloween costume or an entertaining story later.After leaving Menards, I then gassed up the car & went for a grocery run at Cub Foods. (Cub Foods is relevant here, because it’s a popular grocery chain here in Minnesota, but the local convenience store near where George Floyd was murdered is called Cup Foods. That was definitely a genius marketing move by the immigrant entrepreneur who founded that store.) My wife didn’t have much of a grocery list for me, except to insist that I buy a lot of “comfort foods.” In honor of our anniversary, I bought a small little chocolate ganache cake from the bakery department to surprise my wife. For my final errand, I made a phone calls until I found a Play It Again Sports in the next town. I went in, tried out a few baseball bats, and left with an aluminum bat that was light in my hands, but the end of the bat landed with a satisfying SMACK! in my hand.I wasn’t the only one in the Twin Cities making riot preparations that day. The Hugo award winning writer Naomi Kritzer is a resident of St. Paul. She wrote a blog post, Minneapolis & Outside Agitators, that accurately conveys what a lot of locals were feeling on the eve of the Saturday riots.To know why Minneapolis is considering disbanding the local police, it helps to know a lot of local context. Sadly, there’s nothing new about local police departments antagonizing the black community. What’s different in Minneapolis is that there are a lot of taxpaying, normie white homeowners who are extremely pissed off about the police. I should know. I am one of them.Since 1999, the state of Minnesota has had a law called the “Stanek law” that preempts local municipalities from requiring police officers to live in the jurisdiction they police. The law is named after Rich Stanek, a police officer who also served in the Minnesota State Legislature as a Republican, representing the outer Hennepin County suburb of Maple Grove.Hennepin County is also the county where Minneapolis is located. After leaving the state legislature, Stanek got elected to the nominally nonpartisan position of Hennepin County sheriff, but he often used the position to push hard right Republican policies that were very out of step with the residents of an extremely liberal, Democratic leaning county. I used to see lots of lawn signs in my neighborhood in support of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, but Stanek sent Hennepin County police officers hundreds of miles away to suppress the protesters, when he was under no obligation to do so. In addition, after Trump came into office, Stanek became an enthusiastic collaborator with ICE agents against local immigrants, even though he was not required to do so and he was doing so against a lot of local opposition.Fortunately, in 2018, Rich Stanek was unseated as Hennepin County Sheriff as part of the Blue Wave that year. The sheriff is now a married gay transit cop named Dave “Hutch” Hutchinson who is committed to criminal justice reform and is trying to implement a program from Duluth designed to divert mental health cases away from the criminal justice system so that people can get the help they need.I’m glad I went canvassing in 2018 to help Dave Hutch win an upset victory over the incumbent Sheriff Stanek, because the current status quo would be a lot worse if Stanek had been in charge during the riots. Call me a “normie” if you want, but voting really does matter, if only because “Things could have been even more of a shitshow if we hadn’t got that normie Democrat in there.”Rich Stanek was a non-factor in the Minneapolis riots, but the Stanek law definitely was. The effects of the Stanek law have been disastrous on Minneapolis. Because Minneapolis is prevented by state law from imposing any residency requirements whatsoever, very few Minneapolis cops actually live in Minneapolis. According to an analysis conducted by the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2017, only about 8 percent of Minneapolis police officers live in city limits. There were more Minneapolis police officers living in Anoka, over 20 miles away from the city, than there were police officers on the Anoka city police force. There were even 10 Minneapolis cops who lived in Hudson, Wisconsin, not even in the same state!As a result, a lot of Minneapolis police officers tend to view Minneapolis residents with contempt, because they can’t understand why anybody would want to live in Minneapolis. There’s even a transcript of Bob Kroll, the head of the Minneapolis police union, in a police brutality case involving the interrogation of a suspected car thief, in which Kroll mocks Minneapolis residents for not being smart enough to live in the suburbs (cite).Here’s the transcript. It originally appeared in a local underground comic book that was admittedly not flattering to Mr. Kroll.If you’re looking for a convenient villain in all this, you can’t have a better Darth Vader than Bob Kroll. I mean this in only the nicest possible way, but… Fuck. Bob. Kroll.In a county where Trump only got 28% of the vote in 2016, Bob Kroll stands on stage with Trump wearing a bright red COPS FOR TRUMP T-shirt, while Trump is blowing dog-whistles about how we can’t have police brutality like we did in the old days.Just look at Kroll’s Wikipedia page. Here are some of the highlights.He has over 20 internal affairs complaints.In 1995, a lawsuit alleged that he beat, choked, kicked, and used racial slurs against a 15-year-old biracial boy.In 1996, an officer got shot by friendly fire in a botched drug raid overseen by Kroll.In 2002, the city had to settle a lawsuit for $60,000 after Kroll and several other officers were accused of excessive force against an elderly couple during a no-knock raid.In 2004, while he was off duty in plain clothes, Bob Kroll beat up several people during an art crawl in Northeast Minneapolis, but didn’t get any punishment, except for a 20-day suspension.Then, in 2007, Kroll slurred the local congressman, Keith Ellison, by calling Ellison a “terrorist” because he is Muslim.In 2016, after four Minneapolis police officers walked off their job providing security at a Minnesota Lynx basketball game, because some of the players were wearing jerseys that said Black Lives Matter, Kroll not only defended the officers, but used the opportunity to insult the team, which had already won three WNBA championships for the city by that point.As late as last April, Kroll said in interview “…I’ve been involved in three shootings myself, and not one of them has bothered me.”(Interestingly, after culling this list of Bob Kroll’s “activities” from his Wikipedia page, I just realized that he was largely behaving himself during the Obama Administration, but acted with a lot more impunity after Trump went into office. Funny that.)Bob Kroll knowingly pisses off a largely anti-Trump city and county by standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Trump.If you think the list of Kroll’s general misdeeds was exhaustive, you do not know the half of it. Kroll is openly insubordinate against the civilian government of Minneapolis. When Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey instructed the Minneapolis PD to put Spanish-language placards in police cars that informed immigrant residents about their civil rights when dealing with ICE, Kroll refused (cite). When Jacob Frey responded to multiple officer-involved shootings by banning Minneapolis police officers from taking “warrior-style” training, Kroll ignored it and instructed his police union members to defy the ban.Kroll is also insubordinate in opposition to Medaria Arradondo, the first African-American police chief of Minneapolis. In 2007, Arradondo and four other African-American police officers filed a discrimination lawsuit against the Minneapolis Police Department. One of the police officers who was heavily implicated in creating a discriminatory environment and a racist culture in the MPD was—you guessed it!—Bob Kroll. According to the documentation in the lawsuit, Kroll is a member of a white supremacist biker gang for cops called City Heat, and he even had a white power patch sewn into the inner lining of his biker jacket.Kroll was even insubordinate against the Democratic governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz. According to a letter made public by Janeé Harteau, the previous police chief of Minneapolis, Bob Kroll told the membership of the Minneapolis Police Department union that he had given Minnesota Senate Republican Majority Leader Paul Gazelka “a detailed plan of action including a range of 2000 to 3000 National Guard, their deployment allocations throughout our city and St. Paul” and that Minnesota’s Republican Senate "was going to try and run the actions that the governor has displayed he is clearly incompetent to do." In other words, Kroll was so brazen and acting with so much impunity that he was seriously considering what was basically a coup against the elected Democratic governor of Minnesota!In reality, as a Minneapolis resident, I felt much safer about the Minnesota National Guard than about the Minneapolis Police Department. If you had asked me ten years ago, if I would make a statement like that, I would have looked at you like you were crazy. As a Generation X kid raised in the 1970s and 1980s, who grew up on reading about the Kent State shootings and all about how National Guardsmen suppressed protests against the Vietnam War, I still absolutely favor the National Guard over the Minneapolis PD, because the Minneapolis PD’s reputation among locals is so bad. Minneapolis cops are a group of outsiders who are about 80% pro-Trump who are policing a city that is about 80% anti-Trump. Under those circumstances, it’s not just the black residents who see the Minneapolis police department as a hostile occupying army. It’s normie white homeowners like me too.Anyhow, what happened on Saturday, the night that the riots & unrest came closest to my neighborhood? Funny you should mention that.At the same time I was running errands for groceries and riot supplies, my wife leaned on her status as a local block leader to attend community meetings via Zoom calls about how we and our neighbors could protect our local neighborhood.My wife’s sister, who also lives on our block, had already attended another community meeting in person that gave people instructions about how to prepare for potential looting and arson, as well as all the anarchists, white supremacists, accelerationists, “carnage tourists,” and generic youth malcontents who might be driving through the neighborhood to make trouble.As the 8PM nighttime curfew came closer, I made sure to walk my dogs to make sure their were too tired to distract us, but not so tired that they wouldn’t bark if something was wrong. My wife & I turned on all the lights in the house for the rest of the night. I planned to spend the night of my 12th wedding anniversary up until 5 AM, when my wife would take over the next community watch shift.The only real incident that happened on my block was when a guy in a silver SUV started exchanging shouts and harsh words with a sign-maker who lived in a house around the corner. The SUV was blocking the street, perpendicular to the road. So it definitely looked a little suspicious, since locals were constantly hearing rumors about urban guerrillas of whatever ideological stripe getting ready to blockade roads. After the sign-maker guy started shouting at the man in the SUV, another neighborhood in a fluorescent yellow security vest also shouted to make himself known, but he kept a safe distance and did not escalate. I got out of my house with the aluminum bat I had bought earlier that afternoon, and I smacked the metal railing on my front steps so it would make a really loud sound. THWONNGGG!!The guy in the SUV was out of the car by that time and definitely a bit angry. I couldn’t see his face, but he sounded “black” and he did shout “No justice! No peace!” I regretted pissing the guy off, but since all parties were maintaining a very safe distance from each other, the guy in fluorescent vest had to shout that we were all under curfew. SUV guy objected because he was “a grown-ass man,” but then again, so was everybody else. Guy in the SUV speeds off angrily, and we hear pop-pop-pop-pop! on the next block over. It’s possible that SUV guy shot off a gun, but if he did, he must have just shot it into the air, because there were no reports of anybody getting hurt or any bullets anybody found later.My neighbor from across the street called the police about the incident, while my neighbors and I tried to figure out what happened. I didn’t see it, but there was evidently another person involved, whom none of the neighbors got a good look at, who approached the silver SUV, but who wasn’t from the neighborhood. We think it’s possible that this mystery person may have antagonized or confronted the guy in the SUV, before the neighborhood watch even knew he was there. We eventually concluded that the guy in the SUV was probably trying to buy or sell weed, which would explain why he would be pissed off by a lot of noise attracting a lot of attention, but the local unrest made it very very difficult to pull of a low-key pot deal that weekend.As for the police, they were no help whatsoever. I’m not advocating vigilantism, but it was the community watch group that kept our neighborhood safe without escalating the situation. The police sort of arrived, but when they did arrive, it was a military-like caravan of six cop cars in a row rolling down our street without bothering to stop. Our neighborhood is not racially segregated (we spent the weekend defending a black church at the end of the block), but I could see a lot of my fellow white neighbors look scared when the police rolled by. I might not be ready to start doing donuts with my Honda while “Fuck Tha Police” pumps out of the car stereo, but as Public Enemy said, sometimes 911 is a joke, and the cops only come when they wanna.

Most of classic movies are seen by everyone So i am listing recent classic ingnored by current generation so if anybody missed it watchOn browsing Youtube I accidentally found this movie Onamaalu starring Rajendra Prasad and directed by a debute director Kranthi it is released in 2012 almost 3 years back but movie is good so I am writing analysis on this.I didn’t expected a great story like that but after I finished watching it film moved me little bit.Production values are average,movie was shot on a minimum budget etc but movie carried a great feel with it.Movie is about a school teacher is staying in America with his Son’s family but he always misses his school and village so he returns to his village by not telling to his son.First half of the movie is about his teaching days ,festivals in village ,Indian traditions ,culture,human values .Rajendra Prasad narrates his story to Raghu Babu a cab driver on the way to his village.But when he reaches his village he will be devastated by the change in village and people’s values .definitely movie will be liked very much by elder people as this story will relate to them more.Movie focuses on current generation’s beliefs,technology syndrome,how youth are being sidetracked etc .Movie pays tribute to the all teachers especially government teachers.Although every sarkari job doesn’t have sincerity in their jobs except teachers, I feel most of Government teachers feel responsible towards their job although they are not having enough resources.Once in an interview Steven Spielberg said ‘Teachers are the most underpaid and undervalued superheroes”.Its sad but quite true.Movie touched so many sensible topics and director never overboard with his views.Film says technology is good that doesnt mean youth should be slaves to technology. Learn many languages but dont forgot telugu , in one scene depicts a guy says by drinking water from water cans is prestige now a days and Rajendra prasad explains about the rivers in india is quite a good scene.Gandhi said”Pallele Desaniki pattukommaalu” .Movie depicts the statement in sincere way and reminds how villages are suffering with out electricity,poor infrastructure,bad schools because everybody is leaving their villages for their greater good.Movie never says to live in villages if you have opportunities in cities or other counties but just remember your villages and try to give something back to your villages whenever you got time.Movie is having some great dialogues and I liked one particular dialogue very much “Bharata Desaniki swatantryam vachhi 64 yellu avutuunna 24 gantalu current ichhukoleni paristhi”.Watch the movie if you want to see a genuine effort and movie itself is a rare piece of art

When esteemed mathematician and philosopher Kurt Gödel, a refugee from Nazi oppression, was being interviewed for US citizenship, the story goes, he was asked if he thought it was possible for a regime like the Nazi's to take over the United States. Gödel had apparently pored over the Constitution in anticipation of the interview and claimed to have discovered just such a loophole - to the examiner's horror.It's never been revealed what Gödel's loophole was - it's wide open to speculation - and many of the details of the story have been lost to anecdotes and retellings of variable quality. While I won't suggest that this answer is one such possibility, it does strike me as having frightening potential for leading to the kind of fascist regime Gödel escaped.While the patchwork of state and local laws governing political activities and policing would make it difficult for a party-sponsored paramilitary organization to become a national force, the heart of the answer is that there isn’t anything explicit in law to stop something like the SS from emerging in the US.The issue really hinges on the legal status of political parties in the US. They’re not expressly sanctioned by the Constitution, and other than with respect to campaign conduct and finance laws, they aren’t defined in US federal law at all. This is because elections are run at the state level, per the Constitution, and not the national level.The Republican and Democratic National Committees, for example, are private organizations that provide national coordination services to their state chapters for the purposes of selecting and supporting candidates for public office.The definitions and conduct requirements of a political party vary from state to state. In my home state of Virginia, for example a "recognized political party" is:an organization that, for at least six months preceding the filing of its nominee for the office, has had in continual existence a state central committee composed of registered voters residing in each congressional district of the Commonwealth, a party plan and bylaws, and a duly elected state chairman and secretary. [Although to receive automatic ballot access thereafter, they must then receive at least 10 percent of the vote in a statewide election]Whereas Colorado (chosen randomly) goes so far as to define “major” and “minor” political parties:"Major political party" means any political party that at the last preceding gubernatorial election was represented on the official ballot either by political party candidates or by individual nominees and whose candidate at the last preceding gubernatorial election received at least ten percent of the total gubernatorial votes cast."Minor political party" means a political party other than a major political party that satisfies one of [several] conditions set forth [in law] or has submitted a sufficient petition [signed by at least ten thousand registered electors].Now, not being an expert in election laws in all 50 States, I stand to be corrected in saying that there are not explicit prohibitions on political parties having militia or paramilitary wings – or, at the very least, political parties in the states are not defined to exclude the possibility.Going back to Virginia, an upstart political party may have on its legally required central committee a “Director for Party Security.” In the party’s bylaws that role might be defined as something innocuous like, say, “he shall provide for the physical security of party members at official party events or while conducting political duties on behalf of the party.” That could very well get a pass.If challenged, the DPS/central committee might say, “We train our volunteers to keep the peace at our events and to liaise with law enforcement if necessary.” That would probably strike most people as a really, really weird thing for a political party to care about, but there’s nothing wrong with that on its face.So let’s say this fictional party, despite its weird emphasis on the security of the party faithful, does well enough to succeed at the ballot in a couple of states. It forms a national committee (or maybe it formed the national committee first and devolved to the states, whichever), and it begins to accrue a nice little war chest from donations. It’s getting more difficult for the various state DPS’ to keep up with "maintaining security" at the growing events, though – and the quality of volunteers is too variable.One enterprising DPS starts a security consultancy where party volunteers may be sent for rigorous training – or the firm might be contracted to provide security from using its own staff (who happen to have been plucked from the party faithful). He “resigns” from official party duties to avoid the appearance of impropriety, naturally, in accepting security contracts from the party; but he does set up a Political Action Committee to make sure money goes back into the party war chest when possible.On the side, this security firm also puts in tenders for government security contracts – some of which are overseas – and because they offer cheaper rates than other firms (being partially subsidized by a new and emerging political party helps keeps costs down), they’re usually selected.Up to this point, no laws (that I'm aware of) have been broken. The party is merely trying to provide for security at its events, its volunteers are being properly trained and have not taken law enforcement into their own hands, and there is nothing preventing a party from contracting a properly licensed firm for security at its events when relying on volunteers alone is insufficient. Moreover, depending on the state in which the security firm is organized, it's probably not against the law for the senior executives to screen current and prospective employees for their political affiliation, since that is not a class explicitly protected from discrimination.I will take this moment to note that in 2014, the Republican National Committee paid (non-paramilitary) firm Securitas Security Services USA a total of $462,835 to provide security at its events. Obviously I’m not suggesting that the Republicans are starting a covert paramilitary force, just illustrating the point of legality. I’d happily be bipartisan and call out the DNC for doing likewise, but so far I can’t find any security services expenditures in their financial reporting.The next issue in turning this security force into a pseudo police force would next require the amending of state laws to allow for agents of private security firms to operate as law enforcement officers. All states have statutes governing the certification of private security officers, and these place limitations on how far they can go in preventing criminal activity. Either these restrictions would have to be relaxed, or the state would have to make it legal to privatize its law enforcement responsibilities. Many states already permit this, and the trend has been growing for a while (noting that article was written in 2007).But it’s not enough to say that a politically affiliated security firm that acquires limited police powers is on the same page as the SS. To get to that level of notoriety, there are many more hurdles that need to be considered. Certainly at the state and federal levels there are restrictions concerning voter intimidation or suppression, assaulting journalists, or attempting to “unduly influence” elected officials (much less through violence), which the SS did extensively in order to aid the Nazi Party’s rise to power.The thing about laws, though, is that they’re only as good as the people who choose to enforce them – and that’s where things could get scary, as follows (because of course I was going to accompany this answer with a micro-fiction).Gold Eagle SecurityYou’re a good citizen. You diligently pay your taxes with a sigh, and you vote in most elections – the ones that matter, anyway. You keep your politics to yourself, though, because you don’t think it’s really anybody else’s business.Recently, you heard about a new party that’s organized in your state. Supporting third parties isn’t really your thing, as your preferred party has aligned well with your beliefs, but you look them up out of due diligence.On the surface, you don’t see anything too terribly offensive in their party platform – it’s all boilerplate stuff about making the country great, supporting the individual, and keeping the government out of your business – but nothing to compel you, either. So you ignore them and figure they won’t get far.On Election Day, when you arrive at the polls, you’re a bit surprised to see that this new party has a booth set up next to the Democrats and Republicans (and that lonely Green volunteer who’s been turning up alone since time immemorial). While the other volunteers are casually dressed (the Green maybe a bit too casually), the new guy is wearing a crisp suit over a white collared shirt with an Old Glory tie. You approach him just out of curiosity.Up close, you note his lapel pin. It’s a gold bald eagle on a white background surrounded by an oak wreath. It’s bordered by a blue field with silver five-point stars.You make small talk. He moved here after his time in the Army was done. You reflexively thank him for his service, and point out the lapel pin. Something from the Army? It’s a token the party gives to combat veterans.You think that’s a little weird, but it’s not like the other parties haven’t glorified the military in some manner or another. What are you doing now that you’re out? He’s a police officer – off-duty today to work the polls – and part-time consultant for a security firm.That’s the extent of your conversation before he makes the partisan pitch you’ve been expecting. You politely nod along as he talks. He offers you a sample ballot, and you decline. You were just curious. His demeanour seems to change immediately. He’s a bit gruff when he tells you to “have a nice day” when you walk away from the booth.You give a handshake to the party volunteers you’re used to (even the lady from the “other side” who’s actually very sweet) and you go do your civic duty.When you leave the polling station, you feel like you’re being watched, but you chalk it up to a cold November morning.You check the election returns that night before going to bed, and it looks like this new party has picked up a few seats in your state legislature – mostly from the crazy part of the state (of course). It’s big news, though, because their victories have cost both parties a majority in the lower house, so they’ve become something of a power broker. They weren’t as successful in other states, though, so this might just be a flash in the pan.Your candidate made it in, though, and that’s all that really matters. He can deal with the politics in the capital. Congress hasn’t changed anyway, so what’s really going to change?A few months down the track, and you’re at the mall. The new party has a recruiting booth set up. They’ve drawn a (very) small crowd, and a couple of people are signing up. Off to the side of the young, enthusiastic volunteers, though, you notice someone in a black t-shirt and jeans and you think… A holster? What kind of idiot brings a gun to the mall?As you’re lost in thought contemplating the armed man, you bump into someone. Not just anyone. It’s the officer from the polling station – now very much on duty. You apologize, and he begrudgingly accepts.You ask if he’s here about the armed man, and he curtly reminds you that this is an open carry state, and he’s not breaking any laws. Yeah, but isn’t it weird? He has his rights.You feel a bit uneasy, so you apologize to the officer again and go about your business. As you exit the mall, you see the officer chatting it up to the armed “overseer,” as you dubbed him in your mind. When you walk by the booth, you pick up a couple of pamphlets – earning a smile from the young volunteer.One of the pamphlets touts the party’s commitment to community, including an upcoming youth retreat where children can learn outdoors and “survival” skills, to include marksmanship courses. Another one lists off volunteer opportunities, to include “security.” They all have the boilerplate party information you remember from before, and they’ve obviously co-opted the eagle as their party symbol (which annoys you a bit).As November approaches, you’re reminded that there are local seats up for election, but they’re all non-partisan. Besides, does the county sheriff seat really matter? They’re going to enforce the laws no matter who’s in office. Solidifying your decision to stay home, it rains on Election Day. You’re not even bothered to check the results the next day.Another year goes by, and the upcoming election really matters. Not only is it a presidential year, but the governor’s seat is also up. The new party (well, they’re not so new anymore) is running a candidate who’s been doing marginally well in the polls. He won’t win, but he’s forced the campaign narrative to go in ways that really unsettle you.Your friend’s car is broken, and he asks if you can ride him to the polls on the way home from work. You agree, even though you really prefer to vote in the morning, and at the end of the day the two of you head over together.The moment you pull into the parking lot, you feel like something’s not right.You don’t see that Green volunteer anywhere, but he might have just rolled out. No, that's not it.Your friend points it out. They're here. A lot of them. They're in a group, happily chatting and having a laugh. You immediately spot the officer, who seems to be leading the pack. Surely he's off duty, so why's he in uniform? The rest of his group are in matching long-sleeve shirts and dark slacks – a casual uniform of sorts.They're hanging out by the entrance, so there's no way to avoid them. As you pass, you note one of the long-sleeved young men has the same lapel pin as the officer. You also notice that the police officer isn’t wearing the local sheriff’s patch on his uniform. He’s with a private security outfit. What is he doing guarding a polling station?Just as you think you're going to walk past without recognition, your friend mutters something aloud about "fucking jackbooted assholes," and their laughter stops. You swear you can hear the air crack as they turn their heads towards you and your friend.You stammer out something about that not being cool and quicken your step. When you approach the usual bunch of partisan volunteers, you can tell that they look a bit stressed and wary - even that sweet lady. Your friend makes a show of taking one of their sample ballots, and you two go in to vote.When you leave, you try to walk on the other side of the parking lot, but your friend stridently passes the group of partymen with his sample ballot in hand.Unlike a few years back, you know you're being watched. You leave quickly with your friend, who won't stop ranting about those assholes until you drop him off at his place.When you get home, you immediately switch on the news. The party's candidate hasn't made it to the Governor's House, but he did better than expected. Other candidates were more successful, though. One state's legislature is now dominated by the party.You sleep uneasily.In the morning, the tires of your car are slashed, and its windshield has been broken out. Your insurance company requires a police report. That's fine, because you know exactly whom you want to report for the crime.The officer from the polling station responds to your call. Send someone from the actual police department! This is a non-violent crime, which we’re contracted for. I want someone else. Nobody’s available right now. I want a supervisor.Why are you being hostile? His interview of you proceeds along that theme. What's wrong with you? What have you done that would upset someone? If you were asleep, how could you be so sure who did it? You'll get a copy of the report in the mail.After he leaves, it occurs to you to call your friend and check on him.He doesn't answer.You call the sheriff's office to lodge a complaint, but you’re referred to his firm’s customer service line. No, that’s not good enough. They invite you to come in and lodge a complaint in person. You're angry enough to go and give them a piece of your mind. They get you in with a deputy sheriff.That cop is a jerk! He doesn’t work for us, and besides, you’d be his first complaint. He's got a perfect service record. Yeah, well, don’t send them to my house again. Have to, unless it’s a violent crime. Why do you let your officers engage in politics? Their own time is their own business. What are you going to do about the people who trashed my car? You don't have any evidence of who did it.While the deputy is taking down your complaint, you take a brief scan of his desk. He has a golden eagle lapel pin. Your blood boils.Why do you have a political pin in your office? It was a gift, not political. So you're not in the party? What party do you belong to? None of your business! Likewise.You leave, and on your way to work (now very late), your friend calls you back. He's in the hospital. Someone jumped him when he was leaving his house. He was on the ground and out cold before he could get a look at who was responsible. But he's sure of who it was that got in a few blows – or one of them, anyway.You both are. This has to stop.You check when your county board is meeting, and you intend to raise the issue of the privatization of the police force. As you build your case by cruising around online, you find allegations that the security firm running “non-violent” crimes in your county has deep connections to the emerging political party. They’ve even been contracted by the Federal government to conduct security operations overseas. There are rumors that they’re looking to expand into private prison services.You’ve seen enough.When you’re given your five minutes to make your presentation to the county board, you try to keep yourself from coming off as a conspiracy theorist as you lay out your concerns. Still, you can tell that the panel is not entirely persuaded. At the end of your speech, the Chairman insincerely thanks you, reminds you that this was put up to a vote in the last election, and it passed, and this has freed up the county sheriff to pursue more serious crimes.I want to put it back on the ballot. The law doesn’t authorize this to be put up by popular referendum. Then make a motion! We’ll consider it.You leave the hall dejected. The county board doesn’t act.The Midterms are coming up. You're out mowing your yard when you spot a college-aged kid going door-to-door, dropping off pamphlets. It strikes you as a bit unusual, because normally your district isn't competitive enough to warrant volunteers showing up.As he approaches your house, a pair of volunteers from the ascending party also walk up the street. One of them is a particularly burly looking fellow. When they spot the other volunteer, they stop going house to house and approach him. You get a bad feeling and go inside to get your phone to call the police.By the time you're back outside, the two thugs are wailing on the volunteer. You charge into the fray, shouting at them to back off. You've got the police on the line, and you've taken their picture, so they'd best stick around.They're smirking as you read them your version of the Riot Act, and help the battered volunteer in your house. It turns out he's not from your party, but it doesn't matter.The contracted officer you've encountered now too many times shows up.I thought you only did non-violent crimes. Our services were expanded. Did you see who started the fight? No, but of course it was them. They say the volunteer pushed them first. Bullshit. But you didn't see it.He arrests the volunteer. You threaten to call the news and highlight this perversion of the law. "Do what you have to do."The paper already has a reporter assigned to cover the spate of election-related violence. She comes over and interviews you. You don’t care if you sound like a nut job as you run through your personal history of unease about the state of politics since the party showed up. She seems entirely sympathetic.You're called to court as a witness a few days down the track. The reporter is there, too. The thugs argue self-defense - they just wanted to talk, and he lashed out. The volunteer says they had been harassing him all day. You can't say who threw the first punch, but you know the thugs showed up looking for a fight. The contracted officer says he's responded to your house before, where you had a paranoid go at party members and probably weren't an unbiased observer.The judge tosses the case.The reporter's story runs a few days later, alleging "volunteers" of the party have been implicated in numerous acts of violence in the run-up to the election. To your disappointment, though, there’s no mention in the article of their connection to the party-sponsored security firm. The state and national party organizations denounce politically motivated violence, though insist on their volunteers' innocence. The other parties are working together to discredit them, they counter, because they're afraid of how quickly they've come to power.Because of the danger to their volunteers, they say, they're going to increase security at their events. If elected, they also promise to clamp down on "un-American" politically motivated violence through strict laws at the state and federal level.Like hell you're going to let them be elected!The day of the Midterms, you leave your house and find a group of men at your car.They ask if you need a lift to the polls. Fuck off! You see that your tires are slashed. I'm calling the cops!You don't see the fist that knocks you out.You miss the election while in the hospital. Turnout for your (and the other) party is at an "historic low." Your incumbent Congressman has narrowly lost; and while the Senator won, it was by the lowest margin in his career. The ascending party has secured power in numerous states.When you get home, you try to call the reporter who covered your day in court. She died in a hit-and-run accident months ago. The car that struck her was stolen, and the driver fled the scene. Despite pleas from her family, the police closed the investigation with no suspects.This can't be happening. Not in America! There are laws against this bullshit!Still, you know you're on the party's shit list, and you'll be damned if you let this happen to you again. Words from years earlier pop into your head, "This is an open carry state."You buy a gun.Local elections are coming up again. The sheriff's seat is up. You're damned sure you're going to vote him out of office. You'll vote for whomever promises to fire whatever’s left of the goddamned police force! That’s how you feel, anyway, until you see who’s opposing him for the office.It’s your favourite officer.Oh, fuck no!Well, surely you can at least clean up the County Board! That will be one way to sort out this mess. When you look up the "non-partisan" candidates, though, almost all of them are tied to the party in some manner.Still, there are some who have no apparent affiliation with the party – even if that means they’re affiliated with the other party. You don’t care. Anybody else is good. You even recognize the old lady from your polling station among the candidates. Surely she’ll get your vote!On Election Day, you hurry past the large group of partymen – to your relief, you don’t see that “officer” around – ignoring the sample ballots they thrust at you on the way and get feel relieved once you get into the booth. Once you’ve voted for the local candidates, or at least the ones you can stomach, you flip over to some of the state-wide ballot propositions.One of them is to amend the state’s constitution to define a “hate crime” to include crimes based on political affiliation.You vote in favour of that one without hesitation.When the results come in that night, your heart sinks. There’s a new sheriff in town, and you’re pretty sure he hates you. The new County Board doesn’t look much better. The lady from across the aisle seems to be the only person affiliated with the established parties to make it in. The security party expanded its hold in the state legislature.The party is running a candidate for President, and your stomach churns in thinking what his victory might mean for the country. You decide that you can’t keep your politics to yourself anymore, and so for the first time in your life you volunteer for a political campaign.They’re elated to have you on the team! Finding volunteers this year has been difficult to say the least. They recommend you also become a precinct captain for the party to help corral other volunteers. You try, but you find out for yourself just how hard it is to get people to sign up to help with the campaign – even using the party’s list of stalwart supporters.As you’re out canvassing one day, you notice a car has been following you from block to block. You immediately recall the incident from two years ago, and start on your way home. The car follows you. Even though your house is just two miles away, you take an hour to get there as you take the most convoluted route you can imagine to get there – the car following you the whole way.You want to call the police, but you know how useless that will be.You finally get home. The tailing car parks in front of your house. You run inside and grab your gun, and emerge with it in hand just as three people step out of the car. You raise the pistol as you warn them off, peppering your threat with all manner of slurs. It works – the men back down, get back in their car, and drive off.An hour later, there’s a knock on your door. The sheriff is here to arrest you personally.It’s an open carry state!That doesn’t give you the right to wave your gun around like a lunatic. They were following me! That’s not what they say – and in any case, you didn’t call us. I want a lawyer! You have your rights.Your lawyer does the best job he can, really, but your documented history of hostility towards party volunteers makes it seem pretty obvious that you have a bias against them. The three of them testify that they were doing nothing more than what you allege to have been doing – supporting your candidate for office, as the Constitution allows you to do freely and without harassment.Thanks to the Constitutional amendment that you supported last election, you are convicted of a politically motivated hate crime, which has been aggravated by your use of a firearm. Neither you nor your lawyer are aware that the judge presiding over your case is receiving kickbacks from both the party and the state to ensure that the newly opened private prison meets the occupancy quota guaranteed by its contract, and that contributed more to your harsh sentencing than anything else.You watch from your prison cell, guarded by men with gold eagle lapel pins, as the party locks up majorities Congress, and its presidential candidate achieves one of the greatest electoral landslides in modern US history.And you were once such a good citizen.Thanks to Jon for the A2A (and my apologies for spending too much time on this and let the request expire).