‘Sadistic Guard’ Story Hints at Why Rights Enforcement Has Never Been More Needed

Who believes it will forever be impossible for such enforcers to exist in America? Who thinks there aren’t armed government enforcers here now who would do the same if so ordered? (Warsaw Ghetto Uprising – Photo from Jürgen Stroop Report to Heinrich Himmler from May 1943. The original German caption reads: “Forcibly pulled out of dug-outs.”)

“A sadistic prison officer who has cost New York State $877,637 in legal payouts over assault and sex harassment allegations is now under investigation over accusations he waterboarded two inmates and brutally beat them in their genitals,” The New York Daily News is reporting. “Lt. Troy Mitchell, with the help of other guards, is accused of pouring buckets of water over the mouths and noses of two shackled inmates at the Auburn Correctional Facility in separate incidents. He is also accused of grabbing and twisting their genitals and then punching and whacking their groins with a baton.”

So much for prohibitions against “cruel and unusual punishment.” But you kind of get the feeling the Constitution isn’t the first thing on these guys’ minds, even if they did swear an oath to it when they accepted the badge.

I have to include a couple qualifiers here, the first being I’ve always found the Daily News to be a subversive, citizen disarmament-promoting birdcage liner, and to caution that the accused are owed full due process no matter what they’ve allegedly done. That said, what with verified reports of NYPD sodomizing a victim with a broomstick or reports of Baltimore “gun cops” planting weapons and robbing / drug dealing “with impunity,” it’s not hard to find verifiable examples of extreme criminality in “law enforcement” that should alert us to another potential.

In some departments, corruption and/or complicit silence about it is so widespread as to make the “few bad apples” disclaimer suspect. And with such as these, who thinks state-sanctioned terror squads on U.S. soil are a now-and-forever impossibility?

There are still plenty of citizens who don’t “get it” and who ridicule fears that brutal tyranny could ever happen in America as paranoid ravings of the “tinfoil hat” crowd. That’s especially true when it comes to reminding them of past genocides enabled greatly by citizen disarmament.

Some relevant questions come to mind:

By what suspension of reality, by what denial of the observable and the probable, by what art, device or magic are we sheltered few immune from catastrophe? Are we certain, from our brief and privileged vantage point, that such things will never affect us personally? Is it not just plain stupid to proclaim that our familiar way of life will forever be the norm, when everything that has gone before us shows we are, instead, the extremely lucky beneficiaries of a rare and fortunate convergence of circumstances; and one, by the way, that has only been preserved under force of arms?

Of course tyranny :can happen here,” and there will be oath-breakers that are not only willing to enforce it, but who will embrace and revel in their presumed unchallengeable power to do so. And since we know those enforcers will come from the ranks of “civil authority,” it’s critical that Oath Keepers within those ranks do what you can — when you can — to share the truths about the Constitution with your peers now, while peaceable means of redress yet exist. They need to know that not only are rights infringements unacceptable, so too is not opposing those they see abusing authority.

Powers are delegated in the Constitution to effect the “mission statements” articulated in the Preamble, including “to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” The Bill of Rights was appended to “the supreme Law of the Land” to ensure that grand goal would be attainable.

The term “law enforcement” is ubiquitous.  Rights enforcement is less so, both in terms of usage and in real world application. That needs to change and the ranks of rights enforcers needs to grow.

There are plenty of tools to help make that happen right here on this website. What’s needed is for each of us to pick them up and use them. Regularly.

It would be especially helpful to see comments about recruitment efforts that have proven successful so that they canbe used as templates to build on, and also to hear stories about attempts that have been met with official resistance and intimidation. If appropriate, it may be prudent to flesh out specific details and name names in private conversations with Oath Keepers leadership to develop a plan to deal with that, and to see what can be done to safeguard against retaliatory actions and other official discouragements.

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David Codrea’s opinions are his own. See “Who speaks for Oath Keepers?”

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