Your Papers Please...

And they say we don't live in a police state. I caught this off of Drudge Report.

Woman Arrested, Cuffed for Eating Candy

It appears now that if you don't finish eating your candy bar when told, then you are deemed a terrorist. I'm just waiting for the day when we give any law enforcement the finger, the courts will allow them to shoot us on site.

The transit police officer asked for Willett's identification, but Willett kept walking. She said she was then frisked and handcuffed.

"If she had stopped eating, it would have been the end of it and if she had just stopped for the issuance of a citation, she never would have been locked up," Transit Police Chief Polly Hanson said Thursday.

Metrorail has been criticized in the past for heavy-handed enforcement of the eating ban. In 2000, a police officer handcuffed a 12-year-old girl for eating a french fry on a subway platform.

In 2002, one of their officers ticketed a wheelchair-bound cerebral palsy patient for cursing [anyone recall the movie "Demolition Man?"] when he was unable to find a working elevator to leave a station. Unflattering publicity eventually led the police to void the ticket.

Willett was the second person arrested this year for eating or drinking, Hanson said. In addition, police have issued 58 tickets and given more than 300 written warnings.

I was in Tokyo in 1981. They had is still have the cleanest subways in the world. Funny, I don't recall any eating bans back then. I remember seeing people eating, drinking, and smoking both in the station and on the train. Most people were well mannered and threw away their trash in the proper receptacles. On top of that, they had plenty of maintenance engineers on hand as I keenly observed.

I recall being threatened with consequences for not eating my food by my parents when I was a kid. But again, my parents weren't the govt. I also recall being threatened in boot camp with consequences if I did not finish my food in a certain amount of time, but I don't recall this nation being in one big boot camp; or are we?

Now it appears that if we refuse to give identification, we will be summarily arrested as a potential terrorist. We are being conditioned for eventual absolute rule. That last time I recall this happening with frequency was in the former Soviet Union, and before that -- Nazi Germany. Of course, it still happens in the PRC (China), but again; we're supposed to be strategic partners -- buddies? Maybe we're just learning from them?

I was watching a movie this week, "Escape from New York." The movie was made in 1981 starring Kurt Russell and Donald Pleasence among others. The setting is 1997, and the USA is portrayed as an imperial police state. The movie portrays the police state starting in 1988. This movie is off by just a bit. It appears our police state began in 2000. (that is pre 9/11 folks) But again, Waco was in the 1993. The first World Trade Center bombing was also in 1993. Perhaps it's been going on sooner than we all think. It's just a bit more subtle.

And the frog slowly, but surely boils...