A few years ago I was on a road in southern Honduras. I had been there one or two weeks working a case and was, finally, going to the airport, headed home, obliviously driving a convertible Mustang in one of the world's poorest countries.
I came up on a checkpoint and was questioned by a policeman. At some point he asked for a bribe. Instead of giving him some pittance, I scolded him: He was a disgrace! A policeman! He was one of the reasons his country was sliding into the abyss....
I had just screwed up terribly.
There was no mistaking the evil that emanated from him. Clearly he was contemplating killing me. His face became contorted. You could see the pure evil engulf him. And for an excruciatingly long three or five seconds, I savored the prospect of a violent death.
But it wasn't my time to die, maybe because I hadn't embarrassed him in front of the other officers or maybe he just didn't have the time.
The debate about Alex's murder now centers around the fact that he had a gun. "Why bring a gun to a protest?" is, on a loftier philosophical plane, a valid question. You can debate it back and forth and in that process the truly salient point - that he was the hapless victim of murder, that the gun is just an after-the-fact rationalization, is lost. It wasn't his exercise of his right to carry a gun that got him killed. It was the lack of respect for the first amendment.
The things we take for granted as birthright appear now more and more like ignorant fantasies. The rules of engagement have changed and we must take note of that.
This administration sees us as something to be dominated, not governed. Alex had no way of knowing that we were playing by new rules, but now, we do. We need to stay on our toes. Do not underestimate what they will do, how they will deny, fabricate, justify or cover up and what they will use against you. Stand tall but be wary.
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