Perimeter Access
So the question is, Why? Why is the RNC doing this? Or, more to the point, is it the RNC that is doing this? There was a rumor abroad that the stepped-up security (it reminded one ex-military observer of Bagdhad) was not the RNC’s doing but the federal government’s. Anarchists, you see, had threatened to disrupt the proceedings, so someone declared the event a national security emergency and clamped down hard.
What sort of threat do the anarchists actually pose? you might ask. I asked, and haven’t gotten much of a reply. I’ve been looking around for anarchists but have so far failed to turn up even one. Maybe anarchists, like the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz, are deathly allergic to water. Some paranoid, conspiracy-minded folk have put it about that the onerous, spirit-dampening security was foisted upon the event by scheming Obamanites deliberately to taint the party spirit. I do not necessarily endorse this low thinking, I merely acknowledge that the idea has been floated and talked about. And I note further that, as the poet Delmore Schwartz once observed, even paranoids have enemies.
The security arrangements at the convention are over the top, onerous, and almost comic in their look-at-me,-I’m-wearing-SWAT-gear swagger. But maybe the most disconcerting aspect of the affair is the two-tier, us-and-them, plebs-and-elites aroma that suffuses the event. Almost everyone is herded, cattle-like, through the security maze. Anyone who is let into the fenced-in enclosure has a bouquet of badges hung around his neck. But some few have badges that bear the legend “perimeter access,” and they get special treatment. A tiny elite is ostentatiously whisked through on golf carts or in limos, just as they are in various Latin American or Soviet-era despotisms. It’s the ostentation of the disparity that rankles.
People like me — knuckle-dragging, right-wing haters — often bemoan the cancerous growth of government. Usually, we’re talking about the government payroll, the government debt, the proliferation of government agencies, the explosion of government rules and regulations and the regiments of bureaucrats needed to force “compliance” with all those rules and regulations.
I hope you packed your New Balance shoes!
Re: the Book of Mormon in the hotel room, I believe all the hotels in the Marriott chain have been doing that for a while.
Marriott is a Mormon and the B of M has been in his hotels for years! Mitt Romney is called for him, Willard Mitt Romney!
“An innovation put in place by the sensitive souls running the RNC or is it a wider-ranging development?”
I’ve seen it elsewhere. Doubt it was done for Romney sensitivity.
Security has gotten tighter everywhere, even for Superbowls, so I doubt the level in Tampa was done by the RNC. I suspect the Democrat’s convention will have the same level of security. Which, in fact, is not for actual security but for the appearance of security.
We allow the left to completely control our debates. Now we are surprised that they are trying to control our convention. When Obama reveals plan to upstage the convention with Shoeless Joe, or his own campaigning, can we even feign surprise when the TSA lookalikes are installed with a vengeance for RNC “security”? Palease….
They aren’t “TSA lookalikes” – it is the actual TSA searching people on the streets of Tampa. How do like that expansion of power?
http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/23/tsa-agents-spotted-at-florida-paul-ryan
The rest is government bullying probably subtly amplified to make Republicans look like Nazis, and the general security theater we have come to know and hate since we hugely overreacted to 911.
As the power and size of the goverment increases, the rights and liberties of the individual decreases.
Well said: “Over the last couple of decades we have let our politicians arrogate more and more of the trappings of despotic power to themselves. It’s unattractive and, I’d say, downright un-American.” No need of further comment!
Jorj X. McKie and BuSab, anyone?
“Over the last couple of decades we have let our politicians arrogate more and more of the trappings of despotic power to themselves. It’s unattractive and, I’d say, downright un-American. I hope that when Mitt Romney becomes President, he will do something about it.”
That is the nature of politics and government – to aggrandize more and more power to themselves. I’m afraid, if history is any guide, that there is little we as individuals can do about it. Government has a natural tendency to grow, to become obese, and to demand more and more. Will Mitt Romney do anything about this phenomenon if and when he becomes president? Unlikely, highly unlikely. Politicians like the trappings of power and are reluctant to get rid of it.
You are right, Roger, the growth of the police power is a sure sign of despotism regardless of the form of government.
And I might add, a political party – democrat, republican, or whatever – can be just as despotic once in power as any one man or woman who might serve for a brief period as the front person. Power corrupts.
Notice they have dropped all pretenses of dressing like police officers? This is the standing / occupying army that the Founders feared and was forbidden by Congress with the Posse Comitatus Act.
I say, get all Bibles out of hotel rooms before Muslims start to insist on having Korans in the rooms as well. I say, just bring your own Bible with you.
You’re one of the problems in this country. Tearing us down, one brick at a time.
I read that Muslims will not allow Korans in hotel rooms because all real Korans have to be in Arabic and someone might read it while sitting on the john, which would be insulting to Islam.
“Festal”?
But anyway. I can only hope that our “need” for such security subsides over time, that more American leftists and anarchists and malcontents are dragged kicking and screaming into prosperity and freedom, that we drop this sensitivity to those who want to kill us, that we have more room in our prisons for those dangerous fools as dead-ender fatherless Black men shrink in number.
That looks more like a kukri than a machete. “Machete” scares the public more, so whatever.
It was a Kukri. And you’re right, the scarier it sounds, the better.
The Kukri is the traditional weapon of the Ghurkas and used by the British Ghurka Regiment still.
It certainly put the fear of God into the ones on the receiving end.
At the Republican Convention:
Media Hack #1 – I’ve never seen such a high level of security around a Party convention before.
Media Hack #2 – It really does show just how unpopular the Republican agenda is.
At the Democratic Convention:
Media Hack #1 – I’ve never seen such a high level of security around a Party convention before.
Media Hack #2 – It really does show just how dangerous the TEA Party activists are.
“I have no idea who is ultimately responsible for the unpleasant and unnecessary security nightmare that has been assembled in Tampa.”
You’re a journalist, why don’t you find out?
1. This.
2. To be fair to Roger, he is more a publisher, editor, and cultural observer than an investigative reporter. However, IMO he is sufficiently influential in conservative media that he can and should get the ball rolling somewhere.
3. Let’s not forget that the latest big step toward a police state started under Bush. Though Obama is wrecking the country faster than Bush did, let’s not forget that Bush was wrecking the country too.
Perhaps the author hasn’t bothered to read the comments on various left-wing blogs that attack Mitt and all Republicans at the convention, with horrible and descriptive threats. I have and they are even uglier than during the last election cycle.
A direct threat was made publicly by some group (occupiers I believe) to SHUT DOWN the EMS capabilities that support the convention, that would provide emergency medical care for any sort of medical emergency.
Libs are so very fond of talking about their empathy, but it only reaches as far as other libs. A little bit of hypocrisy, wouldn’t you say? They publicly rant about destroying any opposition, then try to convince people that they ‘care’. Pathetic.
I’m waiting for the hotel chain that starts placing the Books of Bokonon in the nightstands. Fair is fair, y’know.
I’m assuming that as long as hotel chains are not government owned, free enterprising, you know, they have the legal right, called “liberty,” to place any books in their rooms they please.
Police stop protestor with large anti personnel machete strapped to his leg.
Protestor signs are legal length and size but are made to crush skulls and bat away police riot shields.
This is an example of the weapons found already, on the anarchist and on the rooftops and in alleys.
What else more lethal is out there?
I can make some guesses.
Makes me think perhaps this security is actually needed.
“dead-ender fatherless Black men shrink in number”
WTF?
With any luck, the Black family will be strengthened, Black communities will produce fewer criminals, and Black men will not be “over-represented” in our prison population as conservative policies improve educational, social, and financial opportunities for everyone. That the f.
Roger, regarding your question about why you have a Book of Mormon as well as a (Gideon) Bible in your hotel room: Are you by any chance staying at a Marriott? They’ve been doing that for years and years, now. (J. Willard Marriott– after whom, I believe, Willard “Mitt” Romney was named– is/was LDS.)
Haha, Obama is afraid some angry person will falseflag Huckabee
There’s a very easy way for Romney to energize both the small-government conservatives and many in the public: Promise to abolish the TSA in the first 100 days of his administration. Few public agencies are more loathed and less competent; such a declaration would put Obama and his media allies in the very uncomfortable position of defending the indefensible. And it would allow Romney to distance himself from Bush, who is still widely disliked by both moderates and small government types.
YES! ABOLISH THE TSA! That would win Romney the 2016 election, if he can get elected and do this.
If you’re staying at a Marriott property, then I think the Book of Mormon next to the Bible is standard. If you are not at a Marriott then it does indeed sound like something deliberate.
I’ve been seeing Books of Mormon in motel rooms for the past decade; I’d say about 25% of the motel rooms I’ve stayed in have had them. Most of my travelling in that time has been east of the Mississippi, usually in the South or Mid-Atlantic.
While some express concern about the issue of safety at the Republican convention, I continue to express grave concern about the direction of the Romney broadcast campaign for president.
The more he refuses to attack Obama on a myriad of fronts, the less time Romney has to turn his campaign around from defense to offense. In a defensive campaign, Romney gets slaughtered. In an offensive one, Romney runs roughshod over president Crybaby and liar personified.
Regardless of the success of the Republican convention, Romney’s broadcast commercials attacking Obama are crucial for a Romney win. If this media wasn’t so biased in favor of Obama, Romney might be able to run a half-assed campaign and still win.
With the media acting as Obama cheerleaders, Romney playing defense plays right into Obama’s dirty hands. Whoever’s in charge of the Romney campaign is a third grade political hack who can’t adapt to Obama’s style street fighting.
…a maze of high fences and security check points and patrolling guards from, I’m told, 60 separate law-enforcement agencies.
Security checkpoints and 60 different security forces? That’s not an America I recognize.
While there is ample blame to go around for the politicians, the security cordon for the RNC convention is just another predictable outcome of the tactics, mostly used by the left, of taking advantage of the security lapses in our formerly-high-trust society. I’m not even talking about the big stuff, like taking away other people’s property during the Occury movement, I’m talking about the accumulated wear and tear, all of the small threads that have been pulled from our social fabric. Every time a Code Pink protester strips of a camouflage t-shirt and proceeds to shout down a speaker, every pie to the face or glitter bomb that is tossed at a right wing author is another thread removed. Eventually, we arrive at the now reasonable expectation that some malignant person will try to take this a step further. At that point the social fabric unravels, trust shuts down, and security guards with metal detectors move in.
This is not just an inconvenience. Low trust has a negative effect on productivity in a myriad of ways. If you think a contractor is ripping you off, you have to take extra time from work to verify the job. In a low trust world, would I ever leave my wife and kids alone when a repairman is expected? The list goes on and on because a calculation of trust is part of thousands of little decisions every day.
I’d argue that high trust was woven into the fabric of what America has been. I don’t think that trust is gone gone, but it’s going, and like many things, it might seem gradual right up until a tipping point is reached. Then it’s every man for himself. Pray we never get there.
Fear wins all the time UNLESS it is forcefully rejected.
Trust in fellow humans, trust but verify. These precautions, hyper-security, dehumanization, immodest, are not a Reaganesque verification. They are brutality — immodesty is a form of brutality, over-intrusiveness is a form of brutality — easily fills the vacuum that allowing FEAR to rule human relations provides.
Yes, we were a high trust society, David McCune, you have made some very good points. LOW TRUST ROTS SOCIETY.
Let us NOT ACCEPT LOW TRUST police procedures, not give into fear. I will not. I do not.
For what its worth. Mitt Romney is named after Willard Marriott
This does not surprise me in the least. Over the last two decades, it has become glaringly obvious to anyone paying attention that the only difference between the Republican party, or at least the part of it that runs the show, and the Democrat party, is essentially the difference between National Socialism and Communism. With this election, we are making the same choice that the German people did in 1933. This Youtube video compares Romney and Obama (or whatever his name really is), in their own words, much more effectively than I can:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWDJEc92d38
View it if you dare. This will be our last free election. We have one last chance, a slim hope, of turning the tide, but only if a majority of Americans wake up and stop letting the talking heads frighten them into voting for the lesser of two evils again. We’ve been doing that for several decades, and where has it gotten us, other than robbed blind and herded toward a cliff? When you vote for the lesser of two evils, you will get exactly what you voted for, more of the same evil. The only difference between the poisons we are being offered is that one will kill us a little faster than the other.
I intend to vote my conscience, and write in the candidate I think we need. I won’t mention the name, as the mass media and RNC have so completely conditioned many conservatives’ gag reflex that to do so would be unkind. I still have hope, however slim, that enough of you (you know who you are) will open your eyes before November.
In 2006 my son came home for a 2 week leave from Iraq. I had the disgusting and nauseating experience of watching a former burger-flipping over-paid under-worked moron practically strip search my Army son traveling on a military ID.
I knew as soon as “Homeland Security” was created that we had let the foxes into the hen house. The terrorist sonsabitches won at that moment. Our way of life and travel was changed in that moment.
Every time I go through an airport checkpoint I grind my teeth in frustration. These clowns don’t make us safer. They take away the rights of Americans with the blessing of the gubmint that is supposed to protect our rights.
Coming back to DTW from a Dominican vacation on a late night flight in 2007 we saw two separate lines in the international terminal. One, the one for American citizes was moving at a snail’s pace with harassment the word of the day. The other line, for non-citizens (including those wearing burqas and Middle Eastern features) was breezing through so fast the officer’s stamp probably melted from the heat.
Security my ass. It is harassment, and if ObamaRx set up the harassment in Tampa it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
It was probably a different situation because we were traveling as a unit, but…
I returned from the ’91 Gulf War with a 747 full of other Marines. We stopped over in Maine to refuel and some guys had family meeting them there. As we were re-boarding the aircraft, the airport security guard thought about it – then saw a couple of hundred ornery looking Marines with sand still in their uniforms headed their way. They just opened the gate and got out of the way.
I guess the Republican elite will have to communicate privately by hand signals.
By the way, Romney should stop saying Obama is a nice guy. We’re supposed to be the truth-telling party, no?
I’d like somebody’s acceptance speech to end like:
No punk’s gonna drag our country down!
“…the growth of the the government’s security superstructure, all those motorcades, and tactical squads that descend upon cities, closing the airports, commandeering buildings, rerouting (and snarling up) traffic, and generally throwing their weight around and using the sharp, pointy edge of their police powers to intimidate and inconvenience people — the very people, they like to forget, who pay their salaries and in whose employ they ultimately labor…. the unseemly growth of government is as much a Republican problem as it is a Democratic problem.”
I agree, and I would applaud any politician who proposes to scale back the imperial trappings that have accrued to the presidency (and the other branches, to a far lesser extent) since WWII or so. Yes, national security is important, but no Old World monarch ever had (or has) the kind of infinitely-demanding advance team today’s presidents enjoy.
Major airports close, dozens of flights are delayed/cancelled, thousands of passengers disrupted, and for what? So that the president does not have to share the use of the airport tarmac with the citizenry. Among the silly things I have personally witnessed have been 10-12 lanes of interstate closed for an hour during Friday afternoon rush so that a motorcade (Clinton’s) could drive across town, and cleared NASA employees ordered out of a secure facility at 8am losing a whole day’s work so the prez (Bush the elder) could walk through the building for fifteen minutes sometime later in the day.
By what authority does the Secret Service order citizens off the streets or even out of their homes (e.g. during presidential vacations)? Will we someday be commanded to cast our eyes downward in the presence of the Dear Leader?
“Will we someday be commanded to cast our eyes downward in the presence of the Dear Leader?”
Only if ObamaRx is re-elected.
there IS such a candidate… he has vowed to disband the TSA, the EPA, balance the budget (and hs a five year plan that shows promise of actually WORKING), he currently refuses the “protection” proffered by the Secret Service whilst campaining, and has returned every check in payment for his current service as an elected federal level official, along with promising to return any checks received should he be elected president. But he has been declared, by the “powers that be”, unelectable. He is vigourously pro-life, believes in and supports the arming of American citizens everywhere, downsizing government on an unprecedented level, returning to a gold-based currency system, ending the private firm which has illegally set fonancial policy for decades (the Federal Reserve), repealing Obamatax, and the list goes on. Yet he is ‘unelectable”. But he IS the sort of candidate you indicate you could support……. compare and contrast with the current two lead “offereings”….. not a nickel’s worth of difference between them……….
…the most effective security is usually the least obtrusive… we have let our politicians arrogate more and more of the trappings of despotic power to themselves. It’s unattractive and, I’d say, downright un-American.
Amen. Un-American in all directions and harder by the day to distinguish the US from Borat’s Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. All the usual elites have walk-on or speaking parts, driven as always by ego. The saddest aspect of it all is that most are too smug or too dumb to know or care, clueless participants in a colossal outrage far beyond the comfort zone for MSM and delegates alike.
Who knew we had 60 security organizations, all needed to ‘supplement’ normal police operations? Yet there they all are, at the trough, strutting their double-overtime stuff, plus fat per diem payments plus expenses, all funded by the taxpayer and safely protected by Dear Leader and Dear Wannabee Leader. If Romney stays silent on this mess, consider yourself warned.
The pitiful anarchists and trust-fund revolutionaries playing at Guy Fawkes are mere stage props. The real action is all about keeping the proles — that would be us — numb, dumb and down. “It’s for our own good”.
We get the leaders we deserve, so stop whimpering.
The RNC has been assiduously building a climate of fear in the US for the past decade.
Hmm. This sounds like far more security than I’ve seen in DC when the IMF or some other lefty-designated bastion of evil decides to hold a meeting. Purely a coincidence that it will hamstring the convention and inconvenience the public as much as possible, right?
There’s no amount of your money that the political class won’t spend to protect…themselves.
I hate it as well, but the left is known for their disruptive actions. 60 years ago you could have just pummeled them, but today they’d record the whole thing and their sympathetic judges would make sure you went to jail.
I was driving home from work one morning and I saw what I thought was a local cop, but as I approached the SUV I realize it said “Department of Homeland Security” and “Federal Police” on the side. That was an eye-opener. So, I do agree that it has gone way to far, but let’s look at this from another angle.
Why do we need a convention? I’m a military veteran of 20 years, and veteran of both Desert Storm and Enduring Freedom, so I have deep respect for the flag. That being said, I’m sick of these moronic love-fests that are the conventions, on both sides. I expect it from the 2-minutes hate crowd on the left, but it annoys from the “freedom” crowd to watch them gather around the stage, waving their cheap plastic flags, in their idiotic straw hats, chanting like myrmidons. Stop showing up to these spectacles and there will be no need for all this security. Stop feeding these politician’s egos. We all have televisions and internet. You want our vote? Then start selling us on why.
Let’s see. I spent all day watching decent men in tan protect people like you from adolescent idiots, addicts, and unstables who want to blow people’s faces off to please the likes of Medea Benjamin.
How about a little appreciation?
Perhaps this is, at long last, a realization that we’re attempting a political convention as nation actually at war against an infiltrated enemy whose name is Islam, an enemy who makes no secret of the fact that they, being Islamists, repeatedly have declared war against us Americans. They have their Soviet styled “cells” right amongst us in plain sight. We don’t know who these myriad guys are, where they are; they’re blended over time and mix well. They’re well trained.
Perhaps the seeming over-caution is a tactic against the inevitable shrieks of “Where was Security?” when a suicide-vest wearing nice-appearing young man blows himself to smithereens along with all of those milling around near him near some I.D. choke-point.
Perhaps all of the invoices for the total dollar cost for all of this Security should be bundled up and promptly sent to the C.A.I.R. and the A.C.L.U. before their knee-jerk wails and shrieks of “racism’ and “discrimination” even start.
Equal Opportunity Invoicing, call it.
This tense atmosphere is all very, very sad, but I applaud the show of latent force. I think the need is genuine. Hopefully, nothing happens.
Doesn’t anyone see a parallel in Tampa with all of the extra visible Security in London for their Olympics?
Again, we’ve got to pull our heads out of the sands and realize that we Americans are targeted by Islamists. They’ve said so themselves.
After a decade of this new warfare, Wake up! Our attention spans have shrunk to near nothing.
Even if it disturbs the aesthetics.
Uh….the book of Mormon in the hotel room is an old school Marriott thing, is it not?
“There was a rumor abroad that the stepped-up security (it reminded one ex-military observer of Bagdhad) was not the RNC’s doing but the federal government’s.”
So, it is an overload of security to put the mild-mannered Republicans in a bad mood? A sly, smiling, deceptive way of over-loading the guests with delays so everyone arrives in a tif, dismayed at the slow lines and over-protectiveness?? Sounds like a smart move. No one to complain to, except each other.
Have you considered how the presence of the media creates a situation where more security is needed at a political convention? Have you ever noticed how a group of protesters will mill around somewhat aimlessly until the television trucks are set up and the cameras are rolling?
Ever since the 1960s, protesters want to see themselves on the television screens of America. I am not advocating any restrictions on the first amendment, but if there were no media present, there would hardly be any need for security measures against the, largely, leftists and anarchists.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Warrant: The Disturbing, Unchecked Rise of the Administrative Subpoena BY DAVID KRAVETS 08.28.12
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/administrative-subpoenas/
Let’s see, the PATRIOT Act, NDAA, Congress requiring FAA to allow drones over civilian airspace, SOPA, PIPA, TSA groping, Red Light cameras, all brought on by the government. R and D alike, (though Barry Goldwater spun in his grave over PATRIOT Act, under W, Denny and Trent)….we are becoming a police state devoid of civil liberties. Shame, these agencies keep pushing the envelope, and soon this will all just belnd into the background….Private sector too…”Loyalty cards” with 4 cents off a can of mushroom soup if you give a swab of your DNA, share all that with Big Corporate which is Big Government and you end up with so what do you have to hide that you don’t want all this info gathered on you???? Wait for Balloons over metro areas just watching, pattern mapping hey what were you doing at the gun store/liquor store/mosque/gentlemen’s club?
Can’t remember the last time I bothered to look in a drawer in a hotel room.
I was a Delegate to the last Republican state convention, held at a convention center and hotel in a major city. I am licensed to carry a concealed handgun in my state. No signs or prohibitions against it, not a “prohibited place”, so I carried.. all three days, everywhere I went. No one “made” me, no “security checks” anywhere, a sense of openness, trust, fun, comaraderie, everywhere I was. I came and went just as I do everywhere else in this state where carry is not prohibited. I did so needlessly… as there were NO hints of anny trouble, not within the convention venue nor walking about the city in the area.
I was part of the “security team”, ready to rise to the need, should one present. None did, thankfully. NOW.. I don’t know Florida law, whether carry would be otherwise allowed in that facility. But it certainly seems I’d have my right to arms infringed were I attending that convention in Tampa, what with al the TSA and other good squad security charade. WHAT IF about, oh, say, twenty five percent, of the credientialled delegates to the RNC were to carry their personal side arms? What chance would there be of any crazies getting away with much? Allow ONLY authorised persons on the convention floor, must show photo ID to GET your credientials (unless you are black, then you are too “something” to get it, per Eric Holder ahd Company), then merely check credetials to enter. In the area off the Floor, let the attendees police and assure the safety of all around them. Simple evvective, cheap. And the “gubmunt” can’t make a media side show out of their “security precautions”……. what a sick joke. And what a waste of money, hiring, paying, transporting, housing, moving about, all those “extras”.
I am glad they’ve searched the area and removed some “suspicious stuff”. Not sure about the guy with the big knife…. on what basis was he arrested, what basis the “law” he “violated”? Would I have been arrested lawfully carrying in that same place? How have the public been informed, if those areas are “weapon free zones” anyway? Signs? Now they are weapons free zones, everyone is at the total mercy of government for “security”. Think Aurura, Sikh Temple in Wisconsin, FRC offices in DC, the streets in New York and Chicago… ALL gun free zones, and all the scenes of gun violence within the last month or so. That “government security” really works, as to the “gun ban” laws in place in ALL those venues.
Security is EVERYONE”S work, when we abdicate to someone else, our security level goes WAY down.