Previously on TheAngryPen:

09-12-2000 2 Parties

08-18-2000 Al’s Acceptance

08-10-2000 Gore’s Choice

08-03-2000 The American Dream

07-20-2000 History and Hollywood

07-13-2000 40 Acres and a Mule

07-06-2000 The God We Trust

06-29-2000 Lyrical Assault

06-15-2000 Bank Fees

06-07-2000 A Mixture Often of Incongruous Elements

05-24-2000 Social Security

05-17-2000 Governmental Good Intentions

05-10-2000 Johnny Reb and Disgusting Fatbodies

05-03-2000 Low Fidelity

04-26-2000 Jackboots and Black Helicopters

04-19-2000 Movie Trailers

04-12-2000 All Things Cuban

04-05-2000 Censorship

03-29-2000 Juries and Tobacco

03-22-2000 Several Things

03-15-2000 Gore the Reformer

03-08-2000 Mission to Mars

03-08-2000 Super Tuesday

03-03-2000 Little Johnny Murderer

03-01-2000 Bob Jones

02-23-2000 The Christian Coalition

02-16-2000 Valentine's Day

02-09-2000 Short-Sighted Political Parties

02-02-2000 Mosh Pits

01-12-2000 Al Gore's Personality

11-17-1999 Playboy

09-02-1999 The Demise of Heavy Metal

	TheAngryPen vs. Jackboots and Black Helicopters

Alright, let’s get one thing straight. First of all, the end result of the Elian Gonzales affair was a good one. The kid is with his father, where he should be, and a federal court ruling has been upheld.

However, we do not live in an “ends justify the means” nation. In the United States of America, the means are the end. When they wrote the Constitution, the Founding Fathers promised us, and the world, that in the United States, if a given end cannot be achieved within the framework of Constitutional guidelines, well then that end, no matter how just, is simply not worth what it would take to achieve it.

America was born as an example; this is a land of symbols that define us as free men and women. And now, alongside all our symbols of freedom, we have to hang a picture of an American SpecOps warrior in full battle dress pointing a light submachine gun at a five-year-old boy and his unarmed family. This is not freedom folks, that was not due process, and The Pen is disgusted and ashamed.

No one who has watched this administration for eight years should be surprised by what happened on Saturday. The Pen has never commanded troops in combat, or defused a dangerous stand-off or hostage situation, but He knows a flat learning curve when he sees one. Waco, Ruby Ridge, Somalia, Rwanda, Kosovo, and now Miami… these clowns haven’t learned a thing.

“But Mr. Pen, they had a warrant.” So what!? I watch Cops, I’ve seen a warrant served before, and I have yet to see an agent of any law enforcement agency burst through a front door without first knocking and saying “please.” Of course, it’s possible that they only show restraint like that when the cameras are on… but somehow I find that thought even scarier.

And what if they did knock first, then busted the hell out of the door with a metal battering ram anyway, after no answer was immediately forthcoming (at five in the morning)? Miami was not Waco. No one in that house was armed. No one in that house had threatened violence. And the kid was not in immediate mortal danger. The Pen happens to think that Elian’s Miami relatives were dead wrong, but the bottom line is that their actions amounted to nothing more than a peaceful protest of a specific US Government policy, and its resolution should have been treated as such. Would you send an armed SWAT team to meet Martin Luther King at the end of his march? Would you send them to meet the striking janitors in LA? Would you send them to meet a group of protesting students? Oh wait, we did that already didn’t we… that’s the only reason anyone has ever heard of Kent State.

All it would have taken was one teensy little mistake and we would have had a huge problem on our hands. Put yourself in those agents’ shoes for a moment and think about it this way: who’s to say, in the heat of battle, whether that "bang" you heard over the noise and confusion of the forced entry, was a door slamming and not a gunshot? It’s happened before. It could’ve happened this time. Sooner or later, it will happen again.

And while we're at it, what about the guns? I hear everyone on the Government's side of this thing saying “the gun wasn't pointed directly at the kid.” Well anyone who thinks this makes it OK, doesn't have a whole lot of experience with firearms. I have had guns pointed in my general direction (though accidentally rather than in anger), and let me tell you, the business end of that machine gun was plenty close enough.

Please, please, please, think twice before casting a vote in November to extend this administration for another four years. It could be your front door next time.