Thanks to the ever-increasing domestic dragnet, the 1st Amendment grant to protect public assembly is being violently infringed upon by the federal government.

Homes of potential protesters were raided before the RNC convention this weekend. Many were arrested having done literally nothing wrong but being in a political group. This is truly some scary stuff that’s not really being reported anywhere in the main media. These groups were infiltrated by the government and spied on beforehand.

This is obviously meant to scare those who would otherwise protest and speak up. And it’s working. I’d love to protest and be that involved but I don’t want to be beaten and arrested. I have a high aversion to such things.

It’s also scary to what it could mean if you keep taking this behavior and system and expand on it. I just read The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot by Naomi Wolf and loved it. Loved it and was truly terrified by it. It talks about all the steps fascist use to shut down a democracy and how close we are to that edge. Read it if you have time (or ask me to lend it to you). It’s a quick and enthralling read.

Speak out.

Updated: After a lunch conversation over this sort of thing I started recalling a bit about Alexis deTocqueville’s Democracy in America where he defines soft despotism. Do read the link, especially the exert from Volume II that is included in the wikipedia link. It’s got a great goodie in there predicting the general level of politics in this day and age.