Who Among Us Has Not Been an Asshole in Public?

If there's anyone left who thinks we're not a police state rapidly sinking toward Chile under Pinochet, with Abu Graibs, news this week that the punishment for being an asshole in public is now electrocution with 10,000 volts.

I am so sickened, stunned, horrified and terrified by this I don't even know where to start. So I'm going to let the Rude Pundit, in rare PG-13 mode, say it for me.

Click the jump for a taste of the whole thing.

Cross-posted at BluegrassRoots

To be sure, Andrew Meyer is an asshole. You get that from his writings. And if being an asshole is all that it takes for some to think you deserve a shot of electricity, well, let's march over to Fox "news" and let the voltage flow. No, no matter how many incidents of assholery are in Meyer's life, this doesn't fly. A prostitute can be raped, you know?

Yes, he did jump to the front of the line to demand to ask Kerry a question, but Meyer was tasered because he wouldn't knuckle under to the authority of the cops. He wasn't a threat, he wasn't violent, he was trying to comply (although you try doing anything rational when you're on the ground with half a dozen cops on top of you, yelling at you and an auditorium of people yelling about, some laughing at, what's being done to you), and he still got tasered.

Our country is so devoid of actual dissent and activism, so filled with citizens cowed by cops and security of all sorts treating us like criminals, that stepping out of line in the smallest way or slightly breaking decorum now seems to deserve a smackdown. Acquiescence is not only expected. It will be enforced. And so many of us are willing to participate in the enforcement, rolling our eyes and laughing at those who would dare misbehave.