Land of the “Free”: More US-Born Americans Detained at Border, Asked for “Papers Please” as “Liberty Lovers” Call for an Even Bigger Police State

The most confounding development since Donald Trump took office is the mounting number of people basically begging for a bigger police state than we already have here in America… but more on that in a moment.

Stories are coming out of all corners of the U.S. with much more frequency in recent months about people being “stopped and frisked” without any probable cause whatsoever, American-born citizens being detained for hours at the border for seemingly no reason at all (unless profiling based on nothing more than a foreign-sounding name is now legal “probable cause”), and ICE has increased random “stings” in cities nationwide where people are just rounded up and detained in large groups to check everyone’s papers… please (except for the “please” part).

Cases in point include an American female Olympian who happens to be Muslim with a Muslim name who was detained for two hours at the border without any reason given. Fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad won a bronze medal during the 2016 Olympics. She also “won” the honor of being detained for an extreme vetting session based on…?

Come on. We all know what it was based on.

For those wondering, despite mainstream media reports, this woman was actually detained right at the end of Obama’s final term before Trump was sworn in.

Another recent case involved a US-born NASA scientist who went to South America for a couple of weeks to race solar-powered cars. He left while Obama was still president and returned under Trump’s America. The man was detained and forced to unlock his smart phone for border patrol agents before they would let him back into the country… again, seemingly based on nothing other than his last name, as the agents did not even bother to look Sidd Bikkannavar up in the system to find out he was born here and has worked at the Jet Propulsion Lab for a decade.

Meanwhile on the streets, a naturalized US citizen from India named Aravinda Pillalamarri who has lived here for 30 years now was simply out for a walk in late January steps from her home in her town of Bel Air, Maryland (which is, just by the way, 90% Caucasian) when she was stopped by police who demanded an ID because of a “suspicious person” call. Not legally defined probable cause, mind you, and there is no law requiring anyone to show ID to police while out walking when they are not suspected of an actual crime.

The comments on these kinds of stories on The Free Thought Project website are horrifying in my opinion.

It’s everything from things like this:

To this:

Idiotic blind obedience to authority aside, were you aware we live in a country where a person cannot even go for a walk without being detained and forced to show “papers please”? Well it’s happening with increasingly frequency in recent months to the point that we might as well not even have a Fourth Amendment anymore.

While the Olympic medalist believes she was detained for no other reason than having a Muslim name, I know I’ve personally been detained at the border and grilled and had every personal item in my car right down to my dirty under (it was a road trip) riffled through by a border agent with an obvious attitude problem who apparently just wanted to make our day hell because he had no reason to suspect us or any probable cause whatsoever and he treated us like total criminals anyway just for trying to come back into our own country after spending three days in Canada.

I’ve since been told we were probably flagged in the system because we’re activists with the alternative media, but somehow I bet he just treats the majority of people that way because that is the level of tyrannical police state we are at in this country.

Here’s what is making it worse to the point of intolerable, though.

As Brandon Smith of Alt Market recently pointed out, comments begging for MORE tyrannical police state are becoming all too common these days, and in a scary twist, becoming that much more common in supposed “liberty movement” circles:

As an alternative analyst I am privy to trends in the liberty movement and in conservative circles that might not be immediately obvious to casual readers. Already, I am witnessing calls among conservatives to abuse government power to defeat the Left. I have seen comments such as:

“Trump should use the NDAA to imprison these leftists indefinitely…”

“The only solution is to throw the leftists into FEMA camps…”

“Trump needs to shut down the leftist media…”

“Sometimes it is okay to bend the rules of the constitution if you have the right president…”

And comments like this are popping up everywhere in liberty media boards. Now, I recognize that some of this talk is being posted by paid disinformation agents and provocateurs, but, I have heard regular conservatives and patriots, people who are long time proponents of the Constitution, echo similar sentiments.

When did we get to a point where so called “patriotic liberty lovers” are the ones begging the hardest for tyranny? Begging state agents to basically light the Constitution on fire? Begging to have their rights stolen along with everyone else’s?

That’s perhaps the most frustrating, disturbing development of all.

Guess they’ll be the ones now arguing that if we aren’t doing anything wrong, we have nothing to worry about, right?

Yeah, good luck with that.

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

~ Pastor Martin Niemöller

(H/T: Quinn Sysmith)