Martial Law in Boston

This video is a shocking example of the total lockdown of an entire city and the virtual martial law that took over to find a single 19-year old. While watching it, remember that none of this ostentatious security theater helped to find the suspect. And it was only when the authorities eased the order for Watertown residents to stay in their homes that an individual called in with a tip.

Another Watertown resident posted this photograph on Facebook, taken from their home:

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This one, from AP, really gets the point across:

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Here’s Anthony Gregory on how fragile liberty is:

The police are conducting the most pedestrian, universally assumed valid function of government. They are going after a murderer who appears to be armed and dangerous and a continuing threat. And in this pursuit, they have turned several cities into what look like police states by any reasonable measure. This demonstrates that the core nature of the state, its monopoly on crime control, always holds the potential for a full-blown security state and a total abolition of public liberty. What matters most is a culture wary of state power in any and all manifestations.

Yes, the lockdown will eventually ratchet back, but I fear this is only a hint of what is to come. On the one hand, we can say the suspect allegedly committed a particularly insidious crime and poses an especially frightening threat, and so the police reaction is either no cause for alarm, or at least something that will pass. On the other hand, all it took was a couple people with a couple bombs made from pressure cookers, and they managed to provoke the kind of full-scale lockdown you’d expect in response to a genuine invasion by a fully armed and manned military force. Monday showed us how fragile life and social tranquility are. Today shows us how fragile liberty is.

50 thoughts on “Martial Law in Boston”

  1. I find it shocking how readily Bostonians accepted their fate. Applauding their security apparatus and embracing slavery.
    Land of the free to "stay inside your homes!"

    1. " They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."- Ben Franklin Unfortunately, our democracy has devolved into a technocracy/ police state.

    2. I truly feel for the precious few defenders of liberty who reside in Boston. However, I quite frankly feel that the majority of that city's residents deserve the police state that is the inevitable result of their liberal-"progessive" political affinities of the last half century (how many other cities of the Northeast are next in line to get a taste of the "New Order?" All of them, methinks). Bostonians have made their beds hard, now let them lay in them! After all, it's not like they gave a damn about this "freedom" shit to begin with.

      2. Hi liberranter:Straight up and well said. Boneheads will lay in those beds for certain. How's that old adage go? 'Lay down with the Gestapo and wake up in chains'? Pretty dang close anyway.

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  3. The lack of widespread public outrage at the excessive and lawless actions of the police is very disturbing. It sends a messge to goverment that it can institute a prolonged, even permanent tyranny in this fashion, and nothing would stop it.

    While the Tsarnaev brothers were dangerous, there's nothing in their resistance on Thursday night – that was directed toward the police – to indicate they were particularly dangerous to civilians. At least not more so than any other murder suspect on the loose. Yet this was widespread martial law in response.

    1. There should have been more outraged, their 4th amendment was broken when the police searched all the homes. While technically this wasn't actually martial law, it's still an invasion of privacy and illegal search of a home without probable cause.

      1. Most Amoricons today don't care one wit about the violation of anyone else's rights. It's only when their rights are violated that they scream bloody murder. This is why my sympathy meter points at the ZERO mark for most of this country's inhabitants.

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  4. Try researching what martial law really is. Only Congress and the President have the power to declare martial law. Martial is enforced by the active military. The active military had no role in the search. The national guard had a limited role and from what I could see only the military police were armed. Unless that is they were guarding a specific location. Governor Patrick asked that a voluntary shelter in place order be observed. Outside of the 7 block Watertown radius there were no enforcement mechanisms in place for the voluntary shelter order. In Watertown the police had to deal with this animal that wanted nothing more then to kill more innocent people. You ignorant freedom hating antiwar idiots live in a fantasy land of theories. The rest of us live in the the real world. We don't want our friends, kids and loved ones killed by some animal. This use of force was just' legal and supported by the vast majority of actual residents. Isn't the consent of the governed the ultimate sign of democracy? These animals only understand force. We should eradicate as many of these animals as possible. I wonder how long antiwar.com would last under sharia and a caliphate?

    2. You certainly represent your mindset well. Unfortunately it is a mindset shared by many Americans. I hope you enjoy the taste when licking the hand that holds your leash.

    3. Here is one part of the appraisal of the English king George III, from the Declaration of Independence. (In case you are unaware, this was a document published in America late in the eighteenth century to some acclaim.)
      “He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.”
      That is, the King of England is accused of enacting martial law in America and this is one of a list of reasons for revolution.
      Martial law is simply the rule of military authorities over an area without restriction – that is, it is no law at all, only the application of unrestrained force. Where in your fevered imagination do you get the idea that Congress or the President have any authority to impose such a situation? The present lot may have the power, but they have no such authority. Certainly not from the US constitution, devised by a group of men who generally opposed even the existence of a standing army.
      I hope that you may not just make such nonsense up, publishing so foolish a statement without expecting challenges, unless you are running for the modern Congress.

      1. "Under Article I, Section 8, Clause 15, of the Constitution, Congress has the power "[t]o provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel Invasions." Article II, Section 2, Clause 1, of the Constitution declares that "[t]he President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States."

        source: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constit…

        "Article VII. [The governor of this commonwealth for the time being, shall be the commander in chief of the army and navy, and of all the military forces of the state, by sea and land, and shall have full power by himself, or by any commander, or other officer or officers, from time to time, to train, instruct, exercise and govern the militia and navy; and, for the special defence and safety of the commonwealth, to assemble in martial array, and put in warlike posture, the inhabitants thereof, and to lead and conduct them, and with them to encounter, repel, resist, expel and pursue, by force of arms, as well by sea as by land, within or without the limits of this commonwealth, and also to kill, slay and destroy, if necessary, and conquer, by all fitting ways, enterprises, and means whatsoever, all and every such person and persons as shall, at any time hereafter, in a hostile manner, attempt or enterprise the destruction, invasion, detriment, or annoyance of this commonwealth; and to use and exercise, over the army and navy, and over the militia in actual service, the law martial, in time of war or invasion, and also in time of rebellion"

        source: http://www.malegislature.gov/laws/constitution#ca…

    4. If this wasn't actually martial law, then law is still in place soooooooooooo 4th amendment was broken here (the search of a home without probable cause or a warrant) just in case you didn't know your own rights as an American citizen.

    5. Sharia law and a caliphate will never happen here. Talmudic law now reigns supreme in the USSA. But you already know that, don't you, Shlomo??

    6. The only ANIMAL act that has been proven were your security monsters,including your previous idiotic president choosen by your type.

    7. Hilarious! I needed a little humor this morning, and having my day started by reading the ignorant rantings of a clueless, fascist, xenophobic bigot was just what I needed.

      Thank you!

  6. As far as the aftermath, David Ortiz got nationwide praise and no reprisal from the FCC for dropping the F-Bomb. However, watch his comments. He starts by thanking the mayor, governor and police for their efforts[insert rousing applause] the then utters The Word and says "nobody gonna dictate our freedom:". Really Dave? Just what did you think the government did by placing over a million people under house arrest? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUQUFm2icyQ

    And, I love the sign being held up by the woman at the end…sheesh…

  7. If only King George III had commanded SWAT teams, the Boston Tea Party would have been suppressed, and our kids would be singing "God Save the Queen" in schools!

  8. The lack of widespread public outrage at the excessive and lawless actions of the police is very disturbing. It sends a messge to goverment that it can institute a prolonged, even permanent tyranny in this fashion, and nothing would stop it.

    1. Glad you like the Gestapo-like tactics of the government in Boston and the surrounding areas, mass house-arrest and military vehicles randomly entering and searching at will because guess what Jimmy-james…you be next…

      1. Jimmy is one of those Amoricon sheeple I mentioned previously who has no qualms about someone else's rights being violated, but God and Satan forbid that his own be trampled upon.

    2. Exigent circumstances are what you see because you want to. I see a generalized search.

  11. The "Black Marias" (security vehicles) Solzhenitsyn wrote about in 'Gulag Archipeligo' are here in the new Soviet States.

  12. What is going on in the US has nothing to do with the SS, or "Communism" folks. This is American Democracy at work plain and simple. It is a system where everyone is a free and equal citizen but those who have all the wealth and power have more rights than everyone else and can do things like place an entire city under house arrest to catch one 19 year old kid who was probably acting on the advice of an FBI provocateur. The Modus Operandi of the FBI has been to set gullible people up for terrorism charges and then claim there is a terrorist danger, rack up a bust and keep the hysteria of the War on Terror going. Gulags are just prison labor camps, everyone has them. There was a juvenile prison in Georgia that murdered under 18 kids, and possibly in the hundreds. The US rounded up Japanese Americans and put them in internment camps. The British would send their prison slaves to work to death in Australia in places like Moreton Bay. No regime or republic is a saint or free from repressive violence. The question is what to do to humanize the situation we are given and break down this cycle of violence and political repression.

    2. We dont set a line at all, we end goverment and have a well educated citizenry, then make near impossible to take control and you will find that these issues will die out, we dont need a goverment to have an ordered society but the goverment needs us.

  14. Pingback: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Lockdown Sets Dangerous Precedent For Civil Liberties - Liberty Crier
  15. Pingback: TOR Radio: May 4, 2013 (Tsarnaev Family Connections and The Grand Chessboard) | Traces of Reality by Guillermo Jimenez

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  20. The lack of widespread public outrage at the excessive and lawless actions of the police is very disturbing. It sends a messge to goverment that it can institute a prolonged, even permanent tyranny in this fashion, and nothing would stop it.

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