At approximately 11:45 a.m., on March 19^th 2010, a friend and I were walking between sections of Parking Lot A on the George Mason University Fairfax campus.  We encountered a two-lane street that bisects the parking lot. My friend paused at the near side of the intersection to adjust a load she was carrying and began to cross the street.  Under my arm, I was carrying a non-partisan political sign that I had previously displayed at a rally in opposition to contentious legislation.  At the time of this incident, I was not intentionally or overtly displaying the sign.

At the point where I was crossing the street, there is a narrow divider between the two lanes.  As I crossed the first lane, I noticed a small-size, blue SUV approaching in the second lane.  I stopped near the divider to yield to the vehicle.  After I was stopped in-place near the divider, the driver of the SUV stopped about 15 feet short of my crossing path.  The driver of the SUV then motioned to me to cross in front of his vehicle that was now at a complete stop.  In an expeditious fashion, I began to cross in front of the stopped vehicle.  When I was about two steps into the lane, I heard the engine of SUV rev, the horn sounded, and with my peripheral vision, I sensed the SUV rapidly approaching.  I quickly ran out of the path of the SUV.  As the SUV proceeded beyond me, a man leaned his head out of the open passenger side window and laughed.  I shouted a remark at the man.  The driver and the passenger of the vehicle were both male, in their mid-twenties, and had features indicating they were of Middle-Eastern descent.

There was a manned police cruiser near-by.  The police cruiser approached me.  I asked the officer if he saw what happened.  He said (paraphrased), “I didn’t see what happened but I’m gonna’ go talk to them.”  The officer pursued the SUV into a parking lot.  I returned to the other side of the intersection to speak with my friend and asked if she saw what had happened.  She indicated that she had.  In the distance I noticed that the police cruiser was following the SUV inside the parking lot.  I did not see the police officer approach the driver nor did I hear the police officer address the driver via a loud speaker.  Then I did see the police cruiser move toward the exit of the parking lot.

Having recovered from the stress of the moment, I recognized that the driver had committed an act of assault upon me.  At this point I decided to file a report of the assault with the police authorities on the scene.  I attempted to flag down the police cruiser as the officer was exiting the parking lot.  A by-stander noticed my call to the officer.  The by-stander gained the attention of another near-by police officer in a separate police cruiser.  This second officer, a female, responded, approached me and inquired regarding my need.  I described to her the incident and indicated my intent to formally register a complaint against the driver of the SUV.  As I was discussing the situation with the second police officer, the first police officer approached and took charge of the conversation.

Paraphrasing the officer, “Sir, the President of The United States is speaking in that building right over there.  His speech on this campus will occur without a single incident.”  At this point, another police officer joined to listen and hover over me.

I respectfully remarked that the speech by The President of The United States was not germane to the incident of assault.  I calmly restated my intent to lodge a formal complaint against the driver of the SUV.

The officer responded (paraphrased), “We are just here helping out, you would have to contact the University police… but I’m gonna’ tell you right now, they are going to tell you the same thing, that there will be no incidents on this campus today, and if you press it with them they will arrest you for trespassing.”

He continued, “You look like a very smart man, so you should understand exactly what is going on here.”

Yes, dear reader, I do understand exactly what is going on here, and perhaps you do too.  I do not know why the driver wanted to play ‘chicken’ with me as a pedestrian, but the police plainly stated why they were not going to do anything about it.  They were directed to ensure the metrics of the big event told a story of perfection, maybe fake, but perfect.

There was nothing about my actions, my manner, or my speech that should provoke a university “student” motorist to harass me.  There was nothing about my actions, my manner, or my speech that should provoke sworn police officers into non-action, avoidance, and moral inversion when I attempted to report a crime.

This incident is only one data point among a universe of flashes of conflict, deceit and thuggishness that have descended upon us.  Why are things this way today?  Perhaps stated as concisely as possible, things are this way today because America made a very serious mistake.  America has given ultimate political power to a visible and invisible cabal that is antithetical to the values, principles and the rule of law of American society.  The ruling group has effectively dispensed with the principles of our former success.  In exchange, they have adopted, and now communicate to society, that the power of the state is all that matters while justice, decency, and virtue are merely artifacts of the past.

The way out of this wilderness can be found only by critical choices and commitments made by individuals; choices that will require decent people to get off of the sidelines and prepare to sacrifice a few of their personal indulgences in order to be responsible citizens within a self-governed nation.

When a nation fails to sustain an understanding of the distinction between good and evil, that nation has arrived in a place of great peril.

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