Let's see if we can guess who the subject of this quote is shall we?
I don't think anyone will be surprised to learn the woman was Janet Reno, and the case is notorious as a prime example of false child abuse allegation in the 80's day care hysteria.
"had Ileana isolated from the prison population and placed in solitary confinement, naked. Ileana described her treatment in a 1998 interview: “They would give me cold showers. Two people will hold me, run me under cold water, then throw me back in the cell naked with nothing, just a bare floor. And I used to be cold, real cold. I would have my periods and they would just wash me and throw me back into the cell.”
Late one night, the naked Ileana, according to her lawyer, received a visit in her darkened solitary cell from an intimidating 6-foot-2 woman. The woman told Ileana that she knew that Ileana and her husband were guilty. “But how can that be? We are innocent,” Ileana proclaimed. “Who are you?”
Of course the perfidy isn't limited to democrats. This is a symptom of the governmental system. When people are gven both power, and the incentive to abuse it, you can guarantee it will be abused.
I have said before. The government is only good for two things, stealing and killing. It does those things well, and all else is a shambles.
More in the extended entry...
The problem here lies primarily in the mentality of law enforcement, and especially prosecutors offices. This environment is explicitly adversarial, and increaseingly these supposed civil servants see their job not as serviing the public, but as an "Us vs. Them" competition, even to the point of war.
Look at any urban police department thse days and tell me these cops don't think they are at war.
Every time I hear a representative of the state, be it a police officer, fire fighter, prosecutor whatever, call a non state representative (i.e. every citizen other than them) a civilian I want to smack them.
Heres a very simple distinction for you. Cops are civilians. Firefighters are Civilians. Everyone who is not an enlisted man, warrant officer, or comissioned officer in the armed forces of the United States of America, is a civilian. Civilians have civil rights, military personnel (including former military personnel BTW) do not. We have rights under the uniform code of military justice.
Every time a cop calls a non-cop a civilian he is raising a wall between himself, and the rest of the public. The entire "officer protection" philosophy that is currently taught does nothing but raise that wall even further (BTW, I'm not saying that protecting officers isn't critically important, it's the millitant mentality it engenders that worries me, and that I believe is unnecessary).
The prosecutors role is even MORE adversarial, and is explicitly devised this way. It's called the adversarial advocate system, and it's set up so that the facts don't particularly matter, because its really just a game between two attorneys, with a judge and jury deciding the winner. Like any professional competitor, a prosecutor will do whatever it takes within the rules to win, and if that means completely ignoring rights, principles, and even basic decency, they can and will do so.
This is the system we have, and these are the people we grant power and authority to. In many places they are our only protection against the hostile elements in society, because we have allowed them to disarm us all in the name of "public safety".
So it comes back to, "Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" who watches the watchmen?
HT: Geek with a .45
