I will be the first to admit when I use hyperbole or exaggeration to make a point in my writing. Unfortunately, I am using neither when I describe the City of Anaheim as a Terrorist State. Limited government is crucial because the state is incredibly powerful and inherently predatory. Governments have favored access to technology, the media, and, above all, information. A State (meaning any type of government) is naturally predatory because it can not exist without extracting resources from the public, i.e. taxes. When a government uses its inherent advantages to stay in power through the use of fear and intimidation, the social contract underlying its legitimacy is destroyed, and it becomes a Terrorist State.
Over the past year, I have found that it is difficult to engage the public on the issue of abusive government. People are certainly inclined to believe that the government is abusing its power, but at the same time, they have no appetite for the specifics. At the local level where government is closest to the people, the public responds to state abuse by withdrawing from the public arena. That is not surprising; the state’s reach appears endless, and feelings of helplessness and powerlessness lead to apathy and nihilism.
Because of the anxiety people have towards the state, perhaps, when people hear of government abuse close to home, it is comforting to write it off as a conspiracy theory or just business as usual. Doing so, allows one to escape a feeling of responsibility for what is being done in their name and with their money. Nevertheless, people do act to bring down governments, legally or otherwise. At some threshold, the public realizes that their government acts only to bring on instability by preserving itself; and for stability’s sake, the people replace the government.
In Anaheim, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the Terrorist State that has developed at City Hall under the Council Majority. Thanks to the regime’s own incompetent cruelness, it can now easily and credibly be explained how the city promotes insecurity when it exercises its power to put fear in the opposition. Of all things, this was made possible when the powers that be at City Hall mutilated a stuffed teddybear. The notion is so absurd that people can’t help but inquire, and when they make sense of the situation, the depravity of the Council Majority comes into view.
You can find my write-up on the twisted teddybear incident here. But suffice it to say, it revealed the isolation and moral ineptitude of Anaheim’s ruling clique. The adults running the city purchased a stuffed bear, lit it on fire, tore it apart to rip out some of its insides, and photographed it along with a mock candlelight vigil scene. Happening right before Christmas, the city’s propaganda department posted the photo on the night of a yearly scheduled candlelight vigil, held by the mother of a man shot and killed by the Anaheim Police Department. No one was fired, the Council Majority was largely silent, and the city passed it off as a joke.
Truth be told, the twisted event probably signaled the beginning of the end for the regime in Anaheim. After-all, what parent wants to spend the holidays with their kids telling them how mom/dad helped mock a mother who lost her son in a violent death. Moreover, to the extent the meaning of the episode sinks in, it puts everything the city does in a different light. All of a sudden, something that once sounded like a conspiracy theory begins to sound like a modus operendi. It does not take a skeptic then, to wonder why the Council Majority wants to destroy a memorial to another man killed by police to build a monument honoring its infamous police dogs.
So, forgive me if I ever sound paranoid. I must admit, when I heard that “gangs” came to Anaheim Hills and chopped down trees in a park, it is hard for me not to imagine Councilwoman Kris Murray and Anaheim Chamber of Commerce head Todd Ament dressed in all black running around with axes laughing at their own cleverness. That is what the Terrorist State does: it uses its authority to strike fear in the population hoping it will change the terms of the debate in a manner that is more conducive to reelection. Over the past year, the Council Majority has all but but begged Anaheim to riot. This of course, focuses the public’s attention on criminals in the streets, and not on the criminals at City Hall.
While spending and policy are high on the list, the Terrorist State is why the election in November is of paramount importance to Anaheim. It is impossible to get spending and policy right in the current political environment. The Council Majority uses fear to stifle debate, but only debate creates good ideas. Instability comes when the government no longer functions to effectually represent the people. In Anaheim, a vote against the Council Majority is a vote for stability.
If the City of Bell or Irvine’s Great Park Audit teach us anything about local government, it is that if YOU are up to no good at City Hall, YOU will be found-out and held accountable. Your children, friends and neighbors will, eventually, know that YOU stole from them, as well as every other taxpayer. So if you are like Angels player Adam Kennedy, who is appearing as a special guest at a fundraiser for the Council Majority, remember that you are being judged by history. YOUR role in the Terrorist State will not go unrecognized by posterity.
Good essay. The best part is that there is no mention of political party.
They mutilated not just any bear, but a Paddington!
So is it your position that because the Constitution says this…
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises…”
…the Founding Fathers purposely created a “predatory” government?
Of course they did. And they knew it, too. Hence the Bill of Rights.
The Bill of Rights did nothing to address Congress’ power to levy taxes.
“…the Founding Fathers purposely created a “predatory” government?”
The Bill of Rights was established to protect the citizenry from the behavior associated with predation: free speech search and seizure, due process, equal protection, etc., all hallmarlks of arbitrary, predatory government.
Without the Bill of Rights by now we would just be another banana republic without the bananas.
And none of that addresses this statement;
“A State (meaning any type of government) is naturally predatory because it can not exist without extracting resources from the public, i.e. taxes.”
Again, “predatory” is a strong, maybe hyperbolic word, but still I think Zenger and Lamb are making sense. This is why we needed the Bill of Rights, to become America.
Vern, I’ve focused narrowly on what Mr. Lamb said about taxes. I’m not disputing the importance, or the need, for the Bill of Rights.
What I’m suggesting is that linking “taxes” and “predatory government” are notions that fuel folks like Cliven Bundy. I see no daylight between that notion and the kinds of things Bundy espouses.
The Founders were not opposed to taxes, per se. They simply wanted representation in the Government that was levying them!
And of course, the kind/degree to which we’re taxed is a different issue.
The “Founding Fathers” believed that government tends towards autocracy and depredation – unless its power is curbed by the vigilance of the people who create it. They did the best they could and would be no doubt dumbfounded by the levels of taxation that we are burdened with; even worse they would be ashamed of the unfathomable debt with which we are saddling posterity.
I would humbly submit that the very enormity of our national debt represents a sort of predatory behavior by the insatiable appetite of our government.
And I would humbly submit, Mr. Zenger, that with regards to taxes, that’s not what Mr. Lamb said. And I just got done saying I’m not debating the degree to which we’re currently taxed.
But the belief that a government that taxes its citizens is predatory (that is a narrow point…the one Mr. Lamb seems to be making. I’m not weighing in on our current debt) is crazy talk. Mr. Lamb is welcome to come back and convince me that he doesn’t really believe that.
It’s like saying that a dentist that inflicts pain on a patient is inherently a violent person.
certainly a dramatic adjective! but it is what it is, and i agree w/ dz
There’s a dude named Cliven Bundy. You may have heard of him. You might enjoy his writings.
Well done Daniel! How do you suggest to motivate the populous though? I agree they are apathetic and probably feel helpless. How do we get real citizens to run for public office, who want to truly serve Anaheim citizens and not bow down to the “powerful Disney?” In my opinion Disney is the one pulling the strings.
I don’t yet know the answer to that question, but I am pretty sure the change has to come on the micro-level, you know, like culture. I am still thinking… Do you smell it burning wherever you are?
Hi Daniel, I see that you have unfriended me, and if that pleases you then that’s okay by me. Nonetheless, I still like you, and I think this article is your best. It belongs on the front page of every newspaper that serves Anaheim. Keep going, killer!
!!! I did not unfriend anyone or anything! lol. I just put my FB on pause while I decide what to do next. And I tweet now…
“If the City of Bell or Irvine’s Great Park Audit teach us anything about local government, it is that if YOU are up to no good at City Hall, YOU will be found-out and held accountable”
Huh? That is so not the lesson being taught.
Sorry, DSL, but calling Anaheim a “terrorist state” is pretty much the dictionary definition of “hyperbole.” And that is where I have to get off of the bus.
I’m spending by far most of my work hours right now fighting against kleptocracy in Anaheim and I’ve spent plenty of time working on trying to restrain excessive use of police force (and the less kind words for it as well.) I take what is happening there extremely seriously.
But to compare what’s happening in Anaheim to what has been happening in other parts of the world, including the Central American countries whose children are fleeing on top of dangerous trains to throw themselves at the mercy of the U.S. — I’m sorry, but that’s just a loss of perspective and it belittles the suffering of others.
If this is a test to see who would stand up and say “no” at what point, you now know where I stand. This would have been a far better article without the overreach.
I did not draw any comparisons. This is more about what could be going, or what could go on if current trends continue. How should I react to the lack of transparency? When I am not sure, just give City Hall the benefit of the doubt? I stand by my choice of words, and I also stand by my non-excusatory, forward thinking, tone.
AND of course, kudos to the great work Greg and Cynthia are doing!
What do you call it when the police can kill with impunity, make up any tale they want, and laugh about it? If you were victimized you might be inclined to view this as a form of terror.
The “kleptocracy” seems to have its own praetorian guard whose mission is not only to tamp down unrest but actually comes at the kleptos’ beck and call the kleptos are pushing one of their scams – like the ACC bonds.
Unease?
Fear?
Trepidation?
And I am rooting myself in a well-established tradition of sensing the oncoming of some subtle distopia
Orwell, Huxley and (maybe) Snowden.
Automatic assault rifles and dogs for curfew enforcement of minors?
Those developments are sad, nasty, and absolutely worth fighting.
Terrorism? If you want to stretch the term completely out of shape, maybe you could make a case for it. But that’s not even the claim here.
Terrorist state? A systemATic and pervasive program of terror? No way — and calling it that it’s an insult to people who have suffered under one. If Anaheim were a “terrorist state” (putting aside that it’s not a state at all), you and I would already be dead and Public Comments would be followed by mass arrests on any flimsy pretext that they could get the journalists to swallow.
It doesn’t need to be called a “terrorist state” to be worth opposing — and engendering argument about whether it is a terrorist state loses people to boredom, confusion, and eye-rolling. It is what it is. It’s bad enough to demand change. It’s bad enough to avoid useless and pointless distraction, just because one wants to place oneself next to Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi.
We’re part of a civil rights struggle — and that’s more than honorable enough without needing even the slightest exaggeration. Bubbling grandiosity rather than grim determined persistence is part of what kills political activism.
to paraphrase senator al frankin, who used to be seriously funny but is now just seriously self righteous, one has to look beyond politics and policy and ask one simply question, “what is in it for me, (insert name)”
anaheim makes it safe for me to take the grandkids to disneyland, they protect my friends living in the anaheim hills and they make sure that my rental properties are secure…..who’s side do you think that i am on
Thought provoking essay but confusing. To reduce the sorry state of affairs to solely to the agenda of a council majority is an oversimplification. Why was the repressive, militarized actions of the APD concentrated in certain neighborhoods? Why demonstrators were kept from marching to Disneyland? Is the mutilation or creation of symbols more reprehensible than resisting reforms? Is the opposition afraid of the council majority, so ” In Anaheim, a vote against the Council Majority is a vote for stability.”?
Pack up and move…and take your contribution to local tax revenues & economy with you. If enough people did, then where would the thugs be? (without funds)
This post is peppered with a whole lot of police pictures. Take them away and you’re left with a claptrap against the state, taxation and the council majority with minimal mention (actually none) of police.
Smooth move, but the essay adds very little to the debate over Anaheim and understanding how power operates in the city.
`g
*We knew a police officer once…..that was a Peace Officer…..did we say once?