He didn't behave eratically until the gestapo grabbed him for absolutely no reason. The police story totally contradicts all of the eyewitness accounts and the video. If you are being grabbed and you have done nothing to deserve it, it is a natural human reaction to pull away a bit. I give his initial reaction a total pass as he was likely in shock as any of us would have been in that situation. A little pulling away and they are suddenly sitting on top of you, which I imagine caused him extreme discomfort (especially if they were sitting on his wrists and ankles), so you may instinctively twitch a little more. I know I would. There were six of them on top of him and any resistance was clearly confined to that instinctive twitching, likely as a result of the pain. The guy told them "get off of me and I'll walk out with you". That is clearly audible in the video. I give the police lots of leeway in dealing with real criminals, but this was obviously not a real criminal or a dangerous person. It was a ridiculous and embarrassing abuse of authority. Perhaps even unconstitutional.

Makes me wonder if I've become so used to our rights being trampled that I have unknowingly changed my tolerance for such things..

I believe that. The trampling of our rights goes back to the New Deal, perhaps even the Civil War. Oppressive and constantly increasing "robin hood" taxation feeding a massive government monster contributes directly into this type of authority abuse, right down to the harrasment of decent citizens with excessive traffic enforcement, DNR property rights abuses...I could go on and on. It always amazes me that many of the people who are with me in my civil libertarian views also have no problem continually feeding the "government monkey" that empowers this nonsense with huge amounts of taxes, and then excercise a total lack of levity and reason when jumping to instinctively and first criticize (not that it should NEVER be criticized) one of the few areas where the constitution authorizes a reasonable excercise of governmnet powers, keeping our citizens alive/free. The media is largely responsible for this skewed perspective on our rampant rights abuses (for instance, there is no coverage of the genocide of the unborn). I hope stuff like this makes people think about these issues, but think about them critically and clearly.

I have a candidate for President now. He is Ron Paul. The only Constitutionalist remaining in Congress.

I was wondering if you were a Ron Paul man. You think he has a shot? It would be nice if he did...

I just recently made my decision. I am not completely comfortable with his foreign policy ideas, but frankly there is nobody else on either side that can hold a candle to his Constitutional and Christian principles, both of which I appreciate. Plus, I know when he sits down with military leaders who actually have a clue what is going on, he will come to understand the risky nature of some of those "total pullout" ideas. Does he have a chance? Yes, I believe he does, but not as a Republican. The Republican base does not have the character or balls to nominate him. He will run as (I) in the general and give these assholes a run for their money I think....