The Militant Libertarian

I'm pissed off and I'm a libertarian. What else you wanna know?

Monday, August 22, 2005

The Fascists Stop a Legal Concert and Call it a "Rave"

The news this weekend abounded with stories of an illegal "rave" party held in Spanish Fork Canyon near Orem, Utah. This party, we were told on the nightly news, was full of drugs and thousands of teenagers doing bad things. So the cops had to storm in and stop them.

OK, there's the official line. Here's what really happened.

The promoters of this concert sold tickets well in advance, had permits from both Spanish Fork City and from the Bureau of Land Management to hold this "illegal gathering." Fairly well-known DJs and musicians showed up to play the event. A crowd of up to 3,000 had been planned for with 700 advance tickets sold and over 1,500 more sold at the entrance.

The event was going off well with licensed paramedics, security, and other normal concert provisions being present and doing their jobs. As per usual, a few bad apples showed up to peddle drugs or other mind-altering substances.

Then the helicopters and SWAT showed up...

Notice this video (WMV, 8.4mb), shot by a stage hand at the event (who was "bootlegging" it on video), and how the cops are eerily dressed more like National Guardsmen or Army than they are police officers (which used to be called "keepers of the peace"). In fact, until I heard the guy announce who he was and why he was shutting down the DJs, I thought it was National Guard.

Listen to the SWAT man tell the cameraman to shut off his video. Watch people get tackled and arrested. This entire event, which was totally legal and had all it's proper "paperwork" in order, was shut down. Out of 3,000 in attendance (the news' estimate of the crowd), only 60 were arrested - most of them for drug charges such as possession and intent to sell. That's a whopping 2% of the total crowd being arrested while the rest of the legal concert-goers are screwed out of their event thanks to the cops and their raid on this so-called "Rave."

Take a good look, folks. This is fascism in action. Imagine that the concert-goers are just happy people gathering for a pagan fair in 1930s Germany... now imagine that those sixty who were arrested were Jews. Just because you don't like the pagans or the Jews doesn't mean you shouldn't be worried when they are arrested just for being pagans or Jews...

Think about it.

Video taken from http://forum.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=messageboard.viewThread&entryID=463794&CategoryID=69&Mytoken=20050822170638


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