US Freedoms

Funny, the US "celebrates" the fact that some political hooligans had a "tea party" in Boston harbour and destroyed a year's worth of tea because they didn't like the taxes under the Townshend Acts. That bit of public disturbance is put in the pantheon of "patriotic acts".

But here is a flash mob at the Jefferson memorial who are engaged in "dancing" and they get roughed up and jailed because in America that kind of "behaviour" is unacceptable. What?



Personally I think it is stupid to "dance" at the memorial (just as I see the Boston "tea party" as stupid destructive behaviour), but this behaviour doesn't merit the rough handling and the hauling off to jail. This demonstration shows that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and what is unacceptable public behaviour to one person is considered an essential and protected right by another. Such arbitrary enforcement of "public order" brings the police to ridicule. If they had simply ignored the "demonstration" I'm pretty sure the whole thing would have passed unremarked by the wider public. But by taking people down -- literally throwing them to the ground -- gives an importance to the demonstration that wouldn't have been there in a more tolerant and free society.

It is ironic that this police "action" took place in a memorial to a man, Thomas Jefferson, who felt that demonstrations and disorder was a necessary part of a vibrant democracy.