An Inappropriate Confidence

This week my favorite local bar was raided by state police. I don't go there all that often, but it's an axe-throwing joint where I sometimes like to go and throw axes with my son. Armed stage agents of North Carolina's Alcohol Law Enforcement (yes, "ALE") raided the bar to check IDs, give breathalyzer tests to the staff and search staff's persons and belongings for contraband. Apparently working at a bar in North Carolina allows the police to do that to you.

It's been nearly twenty years ago now that the police shot and killed my eye-doctor in a similar raid for a local-bar-oriented offense, in his case alleged gambling at Applebees on sporting events with friends (and a fake friend who was a police detective). He never hurt nor even threatened anyone, and the 'crime' was both nonviolent and mutually consensual. Prosecuting such a crime -- even legislating such a crime -- is already morally dubious; but arresting such a person violently at gunpoint is immoral even if you don't negligently shoot and kill them. Their overconfidence with their weapons killed a good man. He was a husband and father, and kind to my son when my son was a boisterous child in his office.

The bar raided in this week's instance is not (in spite of the axes) a violent or dangerous establishment. This was not a biker bar where the patrons might be expected to be armed, not that police should be raiding those either. Mostly this joint is a local college bar. That apparently was the source of concern as ALE also raided another college bar in town and did the same things there. Both bars also employ mostly college students. None of the students needed to be raided by armed agents of the state in body armor, putting their lives at risk for... what? Not checking IDs with sufficient fervor? Possibly being drunk on duty -- at a bar?

The presence of these agents came to my attention before the raid because they were acting so suspiciously. They arrived in town in unmarked cars with civilian plates rather than government ones, but concealed police lights in their undercarriage. In this way they were acting exactly like the ICE agents, backed by other Federal agents and local police, that I saw in DC running raids on communities with large immigrant populations. They too were raiding parties to stop people from having fun at gunpoint. The jackbootery is spreading, apparently, even to state police with Democratic governors; it is a bad trend. The only purpose of such a raid on a bar full of college students is to teach them that the government is allowed to treat them that way, and that submission to such agents is expected of them as American citizens. 

I dissent. I deeply resent not merely the actions but the existence of agencies like this. They endanger us all for no good reason. All such agencies should be abolished outright, as should the laws that support their existence and function.