by Manuel Miles

Throughout history, the creeping establishment of police states has consistently followed a simple, effective strategy; start on a group that is unpopular, constantly propagandise against them to make them even less popular, and provoke, harass and persecute them in the name of “protecting the public”.  In fact, the State is often acting to protect its monopoly on coercion and various rackets.  In any case, this strategy permits it to grant itself tremendous, Draconian powers, while arousing little, if any, opposition.

This process has been well underway for years in the Peoples Republic of Canada.  In my own province of Alberta, the State, via its armed forces, has been terrorising selected citizens for years under the guise of “protection”.

When, for example, a group of citizens opened a chapter of a motorcycle club in Alberta, the State responded by spending an estimated $1.2 million on a three-day programme of harassment and intimidation.  The net result of this divergence of hundreds of police from their duties was a total of three “helmet law” citations, two of which were so spurious in nature as to be tossed out of court.  This expenditure allegedly proved that police forces required even more money to protect the State from the scourge of free association of the citizens.

Then, in February of 2000, Edmonton police decided to “serve” a warrant for the search and seizure of records related to gambling (which is a government monopoly here) by blowing down the door of a private residence and lobbing in “stun” grenades.  These grenades, by the way, have been responsible for many fatalities, and are especially dangerous to children, infants, the elderly, the sick, et cetera.  They are equally as “harmless” as a rubber bullet to the head.  Obviously, therefor, this is the weapon of choice when the cops have no idea who is inside a house.

[It is interesting to note that, since its opening of chapters in Alberta, the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club is almost never in “the news” except as victims of coercion (on the part of the State), and not perpetrators thereof.]

A police spokesman excused this fascist atrocity by saying that “It is a ‘fortified’ residence...” and “...we didn’t know what was going on in there.”  This clarification makes it obvious that if a home’s door is locked and the curtains drawn, the minions of the State may launch a military attack against its occupants.

Later, in the wake of the “Canada Day” youth riots in a popular pub district of Edmonton last July 1st, police instituted a policy of abducting people off the street, driving them to various locations and abandoning them -- all without bothering to charge them with so much as a breach of the rules of etiquette.  Police are no longer bothered with the trouble of attempting to prove that someone has broken a law.  Even the Gestapo had more restraints.

Now the public is being protected from clothing which identifies the wearer as a member of the Hell’s Angels.  The government mouthpiece media is busy propagandising that this “notorious motorcycle gang”, by opening a new chapter in Ontario, has committed an “aggressive expansion”.  [One shudders to think how the expansion NHL hockey teams with their bellicose logos and violent sport might be described should they run a lotto without government permission.]  Worse still, apparently, they have booked rooms in a hotel in order to have a convention and celebration.

Even in Canada this club is entirely legal, yet the Toronto police have taken it upon themselves to coerce businesses in the area to refuse service to members of the Hell’s Angels.  After all, in Toronto the Fair, sartorial splendour is the order of the day, as any visitor to Yonge Street can attest. 

The police have even been so obliging as to spend tax dollars (one assumes -- what do you want to bet that the cost did not come out of the Policemen’s Benevolent Association party fund?) on the mass production of posters saying, “No Gang Colours/No Gang Clothing”.  These “free” posters are being pushed by the armed minions of the State on local businesses -- businesses which need to be seen to cooperate with the cops in order to be “protected” by them.  [Speaking of organised crime, where have we heard of this “protection” racket before?]  One wonders how the media would react if shops put up posters saying, “No Curling League Logos/No Curling Jackets” or even “No Cop Badges/No Cop Clothing”?

The conventioneers will also be harassed by police imported from other provinces for this cop holiday, in addition to the foolish, non-productive antics of Ontario’s “special anti-biker squad”.  The monetary cost of this monumental nuisance operation will not be disclosed to the public, you can be sure, but the cops will be wailing at every level of government that they don’t have enough funds to “do their job”.

One cannot help but wonder how much less it would cost the taxpaying public if the armed forces of the state would investigate actual crimes against life and property by any and all who commit them, instead of harassing people who might wear the wrong size helmet, buy and sell drugs other than alcohol, or compete with the State’s monopoly on gambling.

Protecting the public is not the goal of the State, however, and such an emphasis would not expand the already atrocious powers of government over the citizenry.  Just as the Nazis persecuted the Roma (“Gypsies”) for denying the State a cut of their businesses by smuggling, and just as no one in Germany objected to their persecution (which led to 90% of all the Roma in the world being annihilated -- more than any other ethnic group targeted by the Nazis), so there are no voices raised against the harassment of the Hell’s Angels in Canada, because they are not popular.  After all, they’re not nice, they look nasty, and they make noise.  So why would anyone care? 

Why indeed.

January 5, 2002