It’s been a couple of months and a few major holidays since the Occupy Nashville fracas. Just in case you need a memory refresher, the governor created a new law out of the blue which made it illegal to protest on state property after hours. He then employed the TN State Police to arrest and detain members of Occupy Nashville while theatre patrons on the same property at the same time were allowed to move freely. During the arrests of protesters a journalist who identified himself as a member of the press corps was also arrested and detained. There were several days of this imbroglio and mountains of violations of the Bill of Rights. Most people were rightly incensed. Okay, many people. Because there were a few who felt that the Occupiers were such a scourge that the sacrifice of all our rights was completely justifiable. Needless to say I think those people are horribly wrong.
Anyway, fast forward to now. Rand Paul went through the BNA airport screening system that I hate so much. I cried when facing it for the first time last September and still shudder to think about it. All the lines and standing in the scanner with your arms above your head in the classic position of surrender while your (albeit blurry) naked image is piped to another room so that they can be absolutely sure you aren’t going to blow anything up.
Well, Rand Paul set off the scanner. When that happens, the standard procedure is to have a pat-down of your entire body–breasts and crotch included. It’s humiliating and violating and as much a violation of the Constitution as anything that happened in Legislative Plaza last November. Rand Paul* refused the pat down and was, like the members of ON, detained.
I keep reading on Twitter and Facebook that the general mood is that Rand Paul is a privileged d**khead who is whining about being treated like regular people. I read this from the same people who elevated Occupy Nashville detainees as heroes.
Frankly, I don’t see a bit of difference between what Rand Paul did and what the Occupy Nashville people did. Characterising one as a whiny son of priviledge and the others as crusading wunderkinds for the First Amendment is intellectually dishonest and tribalist thinking. “Rand Paul isn’t on our team so we can’t let him claim a place in the battlefront.” This type of position will do nothing but contribute to the rapid erosion of Civil Liberties for all sides of the political cube.
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* Not only is the airport scanning a violation of the Fourth Amendment, it is also a violation of Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution which opens with this:
They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same;
The thinking behind that is to prohibit folks on the other side of the representative’s position from creating actual roadblocks that would prevent the elected official from exercising his or her duty. So those who complain that Paul is just whining “Do you know who I am?” are actually missing the point. Yes he’s making a point that he’s a Senator. He’s making that point because he has the Constitutionally-protected right to travel without arrest or detention to AND FROM the Senate.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
Pretty much. Like I said on Twitter when I first read about it. I can’t stand Rand Paul, but good for him for standing up for his rights, which are my rights too.
To be honest, I know jack about him. I didn’t realise until yesterday that he was Ron Paul’s son. (I follow Ron Paul and he said something about “my son was detained…”) I don’t know enough about him to have an overall opinion of his politics or person. I just think what he did here isn’t getting the respect it should because of who or what he is.
Politically he’s kinda a cross between his daddy and your run of the mill Tea Partier. He’s probably best known for the little controversy he started a couple years back when he said he’d have opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act at he been in office at the time.
What Dolphin said. Which is the other reason (in addition to what Fancywabs has pointed out) that he’s not getting much sympathy as a supporter of civil liberties: he’s very much a “rights for me but not for the rest of you” sort of politician. That said, I do agree that the Constitution should protect all of us from this sort of thing. And if he had been going to or returning from the Senate, it would protect Rand Paul in particular.
I’m with Rand on the intrusion of the airport scanner / TSA nightmare. But failing to disclose the irony of the fact that he was travelling to a rally in support of taking away others’ liberty misses an opportunity to point out his hypocrisy in saying that liberty applies differently to him than to women.
“because he has the Constitutionally-protected right to travel without arrest or detention to AND FROM the Senate.”
Excellent point. And here’s to hoping that he (and other congresscritters) choose to reinforce ALL constitutionally codified civil liberties and not just those that apply to them.
In all the governmental encroachment of our liberties the past decade I have to ask: WHERE THE FRAK IS THE SUPREME COURT? Sure, the wheels of justice grind slowly, but I think the justice wagon has been stuck in a ditch for ten years.
With Republicans blocking an unprecedented number of judicial appointments under this administration, there are literally just not enough judges to handle the cases as they make their way to the supreme court in the first place. the judicial system is in crisis right now.