Former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) believes that the government’s response to the Boston Marathon bombings, which included the near-shut down of the city, was more frightening than the actual attack, which killed three people and injured over 200.
“The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city,” Paul wrote Monday. “This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.
“Forced lockdown of a city. Militarized police riding tanks in the streets. Door-to-door armed searches without warrant. Families thrown out of their homes at gunpoint to be searched without probable cause. Businesses forced to close. Transport shut down,” Paul wrote. “These were not the scenes from a military coup in a far off banana republic, but rather the scenes just over a week ago in Boston as the United States got a taste of martial law. The ostensible reason for the military-style takeover of parts of Boston was that the accused perpetrator of a horrific crime was on the loose.”
Paul argued that these measures were ineffective in catching alleged bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev because “Only after this police state move was ended did the owner of the boat go outside to check on his property, and in so doing discover the suspect.” Government’s job “is to protect our liberties,” Paul argued, not to keep Americans safe.
Paul wrote in a blog post on the website of Lew Rockwell, a close associate and former chief of staff who likely authored some of the racist and homophobic material in Ron Paul’s infamous newsletters.
h/t Politico
