Official oppression
Bernie Ellis, who had the TBI pay him a visit on bogus charges of terrorism over a comment he left online, is filing complaints against TN’s secretary of state. The comment that started it is here.
Glenn notes that the SecState’s involvement in Tennessee’s Official History is a bit ironic.
June 29th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Could we possibly man-up a little?
The police can come by and ask me any questions they want, any time, and I won’t feel oppressed at all. As a matter of fact, one stopped me on the street and asked me if I’d seen a stray “dog” running around (we have coyotes here) just a week ago. And just two evenings ago, I was supervising a dozen kids at the playground, and a black “tactical” car stopped, checke me out, one of the officers said “Hi”, I said “Hi” back, and it moved on.
You know, we pay these guys to do these kinds of things.
June 29th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Your analogy might be valid if your local SecState sicced them on you.
June 29th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
It is ridiculous to send the state police to investigate a political opponent who has the temerity to support the concept of paper ballots and who likes to refer to the seminal event in Tn history regarding our insistence on fair elections.
On the bright side, this incident should likely end any notions of Hargett’s being elected to a state-wide office (if he harbors any such notions).
What is funny is seeing lefty rags seize on this story involving a heavy-handed Republican while completely ignoring similar tactics by the Obama administration (e.g. military exams referring to political protests as low level terrorism and Janet Neoploltano’s viewing war vets as being particularly likely candidates for domestic terrorism).
June 29th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Too bad most American men today don’t have the cojones of Tennesseans of sixty years ago.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
All right. But I was talking about the police and Bernie Ellis. It did not sound to me like they oppressed him all that much. I hope he offered them a drink of Jack Daniels or at least some cool spring water while he was talking to them.
As for the Secretary of State, I also hope the TBI has a “dipshit list” and he goes on it along with the old ladies with 13 cats who call in saying that the Kaiser wants to crawl through their bedroom window in the middle of the night.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Wah. Threaten violence against people, then cry when the police come to see you. Ooooooh, it’s the fascist state oppressin’ me! What a bunch of whining little babies.
[Show me the threat – Ed.]
June 29th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Unc, can you POST the wording of what this guy said? I followed your link, and so help me it looked like a reasonable political statement. I’m beginning to think I’m seeing the wrong comment.
June 30th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
How about every time you lunatics say you will resist with arms police who come to your property to enforce laws you happen not to agree with? A threat against those officers who are carrying out the work of the society of which we are all members (whether you like it or not).
[Still can’t show the threat, huh? Just name calling. And show me where we say that we will resit. – Ed.]
July 1st, 2009 at 6:51 am
My thanks to SayUncle for bringing attention to Tre Hargett’s failed attempt to intimidate me by filing a false “terrorist threat against a government official” charge against me that the TBI found to be unwarranted (and said so publicly). It has now been over a week since the TBI visit to my farm and Tre is still quivering behind his mouth-piece, Blake Fontenay, refusing to answer any questions from the media about an attempt to use the TBI in a highly inappropriate way, something that the TBI resented as much as me.
As one law enforcement officer friend of mine said to me afterward, “The TBI is not about to allow themselves to be used as the Secretary of State’s gestapo or KGB. That is, as long as the TN Republicans don’t appoint a new TBI head (which they are moving to do). When that happens, we might all experience change we should be afraid of.”
I appreciate the Columbia Daily Herald publishing an excellent story on this abuse of power on June 30, which hit the AP wire yesterday afternoon. Here is the link:
http://www.columbiadailyherald.com/articles/2009/06/30/top_stories/01ellis.txt
I also appreciate “Nashville Is Talking” for publishing an excellent summary of the on-line coverage of this story, including the efforts of two reporters to get to the bottom of this failed attempt at political intimidation and to catch Tre’s mouth-piece in a series of lies about it. Here’s that link:
http://www.nashvilleistalking.com/2009/06/secretary-of-state-makes-unsubstantiated-terrorist-threat-claim/
As for my reference to the Battle of Athens making Tre so nervous (I wonder why?), this is how the Tennessee Blue Book, a publication by the Tennessee Department of State, describes the Battle of Athens. BTW, Tre Hargett’s picture and signature are on the inside cover of this book. Maybe he should read it sometime.
The Battle of Athens
Returning servicemen and women helped to bring about a crisis of the old political order in Tennessee. In the town of Athens on August 1, 1946 – primary election day – a pitched battle occurred between ex-GIs and supporters of the entrenched political machine in McMinn County. For over six hours the streets of Athens blazed with gunfire as armed veterans laid siege to the jail where the sheriff and 50 “deputies” had holed up with the ballot boxes. This so-called “Battle of Athens” actually represented an opening salvo of a statewide political cleanup, in which reform-minded opposition challenged local bosses and machine politics. The GI victory demonstrated to Congressman Estes Kefauver and other up-and-coming politicians that the old strategies of boss control in Tennessee had finally become vulnerable.
Finally, to Justin Bane, what can I say that Galileo, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain (all “suspected terrorists” in their day, no doubt) have not already said before: “Tis better to be thought the fool and remain silent, than speak and remove all doubt.”
You were saying, Justin….?