{"id":603,"date":"2020-03-12T17:48:11","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T17:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/?p=603"},"modified":"2020-03-12T17:48:11","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T17:48:11","slug":"this-is-a-test-how-will-the-constitution-fare-during-a-nationwide-lockdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/?p=603","title":{"rendered":"THIS IS A TEST: How Will The Constitution Fare During A Nationwide Lockdown?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Authored by John W. Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute.<\/p>\n

\"corv19_lockdown.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes a remarkable force to keep nearly a million people quietly indoors for an entire day, home from work and school, from neighborhood errands and out-of-town travel. It takes a remarkable force to keep businesses closed and cars off the road, to keep playgrounds empty and porches unused across a densely populated place 125 square miles in size. This happened \u2026 not because armed officers went door-to-door, or imposed a curfew, or threatened martial law. All around the region, for 13 hours, people locked up their businesses and \u2018sheltered in place\u2019 out of a kind of collective will. The force that kept them there wasn\u2019t external \u2013 there was virtually no active enforcement across the city of the governor\u2019s plea that people stay indoors. Rather, the pressure was an internal one \u2013 expressed as concern, or helpfulness, or in some cases, fear \u2013 felt in thousands of individual homes.<\/a>\u201d\u2014Journalist Emily Badger, \u201cThe Psychology of a Citywide Lockdown\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a test.<\/p>\n

This is not a test of our commitment to basic hygiene or disaster preparedness or our ability to come together as a nation in times of crisis, although we\u2019re not doing so well on any of those fronts.<\/p>\n

No, what is about to unfold over the next few weeks is a test to see how well we have assimilated the government\u2019s lessons in compliance, fear and police state tactics; a test to see how quickly we\u2019ll march in lockstep with the government\u2019s dictates, no questions asked; and a test to see how little resistance we offer up to the government\u2019s power grabs when made in the name of national security.<\/p>\n

Most critically of all, this is a test to see whether the Constitution\u2014and our commitment to the principles enshrined in the Bill of Rights\u2014can survive a national crisis and true state of emergency.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what we know: whatever the so-called threat to the nation\u2014whether it\u2019s civil unrest, school shootings, alleged acts of terrorism, or the threat of a global pandemic in the case of COVID-19\u2014the government has a tendency to capitalize on the nation\u2019s heightened emotions, confusion and fear as a means of extending the reach of the police state.<\/p>\n

This coronavirus epidemic, which has brought China\u2019s Orwellian surveillance out of the shadows and caused Italy to declare a nationwide lockdown<\/a>, threatens to bring the American Police State out into the open on a scale we\u2019ve not seen before.<\/p>\n

If and when a nationwide lockdown finally hits\u2014if and when we are forced to shelter in place\u2014 if and when militarized police are patrolling the streets\u2014 if and when security checkpoints have been established\u2014 if and when the media\u2019s ability to broadcast the news has been curtailed by government censors\u2014if and when public systems of communication (phone lines, internet, text messaging, etc.) have been restricted\u2014if and when those FEMA camps the government has been surreptitiously building finally get used as quarantine detention centers for American citizens\u2014if and when military \u201csnatch and grab\u201d teams are deployed on local, state, and federal levels as part of the activated Continuity of Government plans to isolate anyone suspected of being infected with COVID-19\u2014and if and when martial law is enacted with little real outcry or resistance from the public\u2014then we will truly understand the extent to which the government has fully succeeded in recalibrating our general distaste for anything that smacks too overtly of tyranny.<\/p>\n

This is how it begins.<\/p>\n

The coronavirus epidemic may well be a legitimate health concern, but it\u2019s the government\u2019s response to it that worries me more in the long term.<\/p>\n

Based on the government\u2019s track record and its long-anticipated plans for instituting martial law (using armed forces to solve domestic political and social problems) in response to a future crisis, there\u2019s good reason to worry.<\/p>\n

This is not a government with a rosy view of the future.<\/p>\n

To the contrary, the government\u2019s vision of the future is particularly ominous if a Pentagon training video created by the Army for U.S. Special Operations Command<\/a> is anything to go by.<\/p>\n

Obtained by The Intercept through a FOIA request, the training video titled \u201cMegacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity\u201d provides a chilling glimpse of what the government expects the world to look like in 2030, a world bedeviled by \u201ccriminal networks,\u201d \u201csubstandard infrastructure,\u201d \u201creligious and ethnic tensions,\u201d \u201cimpoverishment, slums,\u201d \u201copen landfills, over-burdened sewers,\u201d a \u201cgrowing mass of unemployed,\u201d and an urban landscape in which the prosperous economic elite must be protected from the impoverishment of the have nots.<\/p>\n

Add health contagions to the mix, and we\u2019re arrived there, ten years ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n

The training video is only five minutes long, but it says a lot about the government\u2019s mindset and the way it views the citizenry. Even more troubling, however, is what this military video doesn\u2019t say about the Constitution and the rights of the citizenry: nothing at all.<\/p>\n

In typical fashion, the government seems to consider the Constitution only when forced to do so. It complies with the dictates of the Constitution even less frequently. Indeed, the government\u2019s efforts to systematically lock down the nation and shift us into martial law have not been stymied one iota by the restraints imposed upon it by the Constitution: when it\u2019s not bulldozing its way through the Fourth Amendment, the government just sidesteps it (with the help of the courts).<\/p>\n

So what should you expect if the government decides to declare a national state of emergency and institute a nationwide lockdown?<\/p>\n

More of the same of what we\u2019ve been seeing in recent years.<\/p>\n

After all, like the proverbial boiling frogs, the government has been gradually acclimating us to the specter of a police state for years now: Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests. Drones. Lethal weapons. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Stun grenades. Arrests of journalists. Crowd control tactics. Intimidation tactics. Brutality.<\/p>\n

This is how you prepare a populace to accept a police state willingly, even gratefully.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t scare them by making dramatic changes. Rather, you acclimate them slowly to their prison walls. Persuade the citizenry that their prison walls are merely intended to keep them safe and danger out. Desensitize them to violence, acclimate them to a military presence in their communities, and persuade them that only a militarized government can alter the seemingly hopeless trajectory of the nation.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s happening already.<\/p>\n

The sight of police clad in body armor and gas masks, wielding semiautomatic rifles and escorting an armored vehicle through a crowded street, a scene likened to \u201ca military patrol through a hostile city,\u201d no longer causes alarm among the general populace.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve allowed ourselves to be acclimated to the occasional lockdown of government buildings, Jade Helm military drills in small towns so that special operations forces can get \u201crealistic military training\u201d in \u201chostile\u201d territory, and Live Active Shooter Drill training exercises, carried out at schools, in shopping malls, and on public transit, which can and do fool law enforcement officials, students, teachers, and bystanders into thinking it\u2019s a real crisis.<\/p>\n

Still, you can\u2019t say we weren\u2019t warned.<\/p>\n

Back in 2008, an Army War College report revealed that \u201cwidespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.\u201d The 44-page report went on to warn that potential causes for such civil unrest could include another terrorist attack, \u201cunforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2009, reports by the Department of Homeland Security surfaced that called on the government to subject right-wing and left-wing activists and military veterans to full-fledged pre-crime surveillance.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the government has been amassing an arsenal of military weapons, including hollow-point bullets, for use domestically and equipping and training their \u201ctroops\u201d for war. Even government agencies with largely administrative functions such as the Food and Drug Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Smithsonian have been acquiring body armor, riot helmets and shields, cannon launchers and police firearms and ammunition. In fact, there are now at least 120,000 armed federal agents carrying such weapons who possess the power to arrest.<\/p>\n

Rounding out this profit-driven campaign to turn American citizens into enemy combatants (and America into a battlefield) is a technology sector that has been colluding with the government to create a Big Brother that is all-knowing, all-seeing and inescapable. It\u2019s not just the drones, fusion centers, license plate readers, stingray devices and the NSA that you have to worry about. You\u2019re also being tracked by the black boxes in your cars, your cell phone, smart devices in your home, grocery loyalty cards, social media accounts, credit cards, streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon, and e-book reader accounts.<\/p>\n

All of this has taken place right under our noses, funded with our taxpayer dollars and carried out in broad daylight without so much as a general outcry from the citizenry.<\/p>\n

And then you have the government\u2019s Machiavellian schemes for unleashing all manner of dangers on an unsuspecting populace, then demanding additional powers in order to protect \u201cwe the people\u201d from the threats. Almost every national security threat that the government has claimed greater powers in order to fight\u2014all the while undermining the liberties of the American citizenry\u2014has been manufactured in one way or another by the government.<\/p>\n

We have made it way too easy for the government to lock down the nation.<\/p>\n

Consider that it was seven years ago when the city of Boston was locked down while police carried out a military-style manhunt for suspects in the 2013 Boston Marathon explosion.<\/p>\n

Six years ago, the city of Ferguson, Missouri, was locked down, with government officials deploying a massive SWAT team, an armored personnel carrier, men in camouflage pointing heavy artillery at the crowd, smoke bombs and tear gas to quell citizen unrest over a police shooting of a young, unarmed black man.<\/p>\n

Five years ago, the city of Baltimore was put under a military-enforced lockdown after civil unrest over police brutality erupted into rioting. More than 1,500 national guard troops were deployed while residents were ordered to stay inside their homes and put under a 10 pm curfew.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, it was Charlottesville, Va., population 50,000, that was locked down while government officials declared a state of emergency and enacted heightened security measures tantamount to martial law, despite the absence of any publicized information about credible threats to public safety.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to the present moment, with the world on the verge of a possible coronavirus pandemic, and growing numbers of Americans are already voluntarily sheltering in place in an effort to avoid falling ill.<\/p>\n

For those like myself who have studied emerging police states, the sight of any American city placed under martial law\u2014its citizens essentially under house arrest (officials used the Orwellian phrase \u201cshelter in place\u201d in Boston to describe the mandatory lockdown), military-style helicopters equipped with thermal imaging devices buzzing the skies, tanks and armored vehicles on the streets, and snipers perched on rooftops, while thousands of black-garbed police swarmed the streets and SWAT teams carried out house-to-house searches\u2014leaves us in a growing state of unease.<\/p>\n

Watching the events of the various lockdowns unfold, I couldn\u2019t help but think of Nazi Field Marshal Hermann Goering\u2019s remarks during the Nuremberg trials. As Goering noted:<\/p>\n

It is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.<\/p>\n

It does indeed work the same in every country.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it doesn\u2019t take much for the American people to be terrorized into compliance by the government\u2019s latest and greatest scare tactic, even if it means being stripped of one\u2019s constitutional rights at a moment\u2019s notice.<\/p>\n

This continual undermining of the rules that protect civil liberties has far-reaching consequences on a populace that not only remains ignorant about their rights but is inclined to sacrifice their liberties for phantom promises of safety.<\/p>\n

It may be that we\u2019ve already gone too far down this road. However, don\u2019t let this latest \u201ccrisis\u201d cause you to panic to such an extent that you relinquish your fundamental right to make decisions for yourself and your loved ones and willingly surrender what remains of your freedoms.<\/p>\n

This too shall pass.<\/p>\n

Remember, a police state does not come about overnight.<\/p>\n

Yet as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, no matter how it starts, with a questionable infringement justified in the name of safety or a nationwide lockdown to guard against a global pandemic, it always ends the same: by pushing us one step closer to a future in which the government has all the power and \u201cwe the people\u201d have none.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Authored by John W. Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute. \u201cIt takes a remarkable force to keep nearly a million people quietly indoors for an entire day, home from work and school, from neighborhood errands and out-of-town travel. It takes a remarkable force to keep businesses closed and cars off the road, to keep playgrounds empty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=603"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":605,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions\/605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}