Strip Searching Florence Is It Fascism Yet?

What is fascism?  Wikipedia, political science professors, demonstrators at 99% rallies may all have their definitions, but for the Phantom's money, it is a form of government which places the highest priority on authority, order and control.

In the opinions written by the Supreme Court in Florence vs the Board of Freeholders, the four liberal justices  joined an opinion written by Justice Breyer, who noted that American citizens arrested for driving with a noisy muffler, driving with a faulty headlight, failure to use a turn signal, riding a bicycle without an audible bell, violation of dog leash law have been strip searched.

What is a strip search?  You are required, if you are a male, to strip naked, to lift your scrotum, to squat down and cough, to expel the switchblade knife or dirty bomb you may have concealed in your rectum, all this after an officer has examined your ears nose mouth hair scalp fingers hands arms armpits and other body openings.  Then you get a shower with a delousing agent. If you are transferred to another jail, you undergo the whole process all over again.

Justifying all this Justice Kennedy noted "People detained for minor offenses can turn out to be the most devious and dangerous criminals." He noted newspaper articles about dangerous men who were stopped for minor traffic offenses; two turned out to be terrorists and one turned out to be a serial killer.

So now the Supreme Court of the United states justifies official abuse by an attitude of guilty and dangerous until proven innocent by rectal and vaginal exam. 

Justice Roberts, perhaps sensing this may be a slippery slope goes off in another direction, saying that even if 99% of those arrested are not terrorists or serial killers, "Some detainees may have lice, which can easily spread to others in the facility, and some detainees may have diseases or injuries for which the jail is required to provide medical treatment."

So now Justice Roberts says the strip search is for the arrested citizen's own benefit, to diagnose and treat occult illness, infestation, infection and smelly armpits.

If patriotism is the refuge of scoundrels, then assertions of health benefits must be the refuge of the guilty conscience. 

The fiscal cliff is a theoretical problem.  Working the kinks out of Obamacare is an important task.  But reasserting the primacy of freedom from abuse by own government has to be obvious to anyone who has the guts to confront this reality.

Every news conference with every public official from mayor to US Senator to President ought to begin with a question about what these officials are going to do to reverse this single decision to destroy the trust in government of the average citizen.

Remember, the first thing they did in the concentration camps in Poland and Germany was to strip the people getting off the trains naked and then they sent them to the "showers."  

What have we become?