In no small way, the policies and actions of this administration, in its dealings with foreign countries, in its dealings with US citizens, have had the effect of taking the militarization of local law enforcement to, in my opinion, unprecedented levels.  Did it start with Obama?  No.  But he came into office with the power to change the Bush/Cheney policies that were eating away at individual rights here at home, policies many people believed he was opposed to.  And, instead of rolling back those policies and moving us back to a culture that prized individual rights, freedoms and privacy, he extended them.

If you have been doing any reading at all about the treatment of those arrested in the Occupy movement, you would know that local police forces have, at times, been indistinguishable from combat troops, and applying the force of their authority against citizens who have a constitutional right to speak out, whether against the corporatocracy or the government itself.

But don't take my word for it; read this account, part of which I will excerpt, below:

My name is Patrick Meighan, and I'm a husband, a father, a writer on the Fox animated sitcom "Family Guy", and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica.

I was arrested at about 1 a.m. Wednesday morning with 291 other people at Occupy LA. I was sitting in City Hall Park with a pillow, a blanket, and a copy of Thich Nhat Hanh's "Being Peace" when 1,400 heavily-armed LAPD officers in paramilitary SWAT gear streamed in. I was in a group of about 50 peaceful protestors who sat Indian-style, arms interlocked, around a tent (the symbolic image of the Occupy movement). The LAPD officers encircled us, weapons drawn, while we chanted "We Are Peaceful" and "We Are Nonviolent" and "Join Us."

As we sat there, encircled, a separate team of LAPD officers used knives to slice open every personal tent in the park. They forcibly removed anyone sleeping inside, and then yanked out and destroyed any personal property inside those tents, scattering the contents across the park. They then did the same with the communal property of the Occupy LA movement. For example, I watched as the LAPD destroyed a pop-up canopy tent that, until that moment, had been serving as Occupy LA's First Aid and Wellness tent, in which volunteer health professionals gave free medical care to absolutely anyone who requested it. As it happens, my family had personally contributed that exact canopy tent to Occupy LA, at a cost of several hundred of my family's dollars. As I watched, the LAPD sliced that canopy tent to shreds, broke the telescoping poles into pieces and scattered the detritus across the park. Note that these were the objects described in subsequent mainstream press reports as "30 tons of garbage" that was "abandoned" by Occupy LA: personal property forcibly stolen from us, destroyed in front of our eyes and then left for maintenance workers to dispose of while we were sent to prison.

When the LAPD finally began arresting those of us interlocked around the symbolic tent, we were all ordered by the LAPD to unlink from each other (in order to facilitate the arrests). Each seated, nonviolent protester beside me who refused to cooperate by unlinking his arms had the following done to him: an LAPD officer would forcibly extend the protestor's legs, grab his left foot, twist it all the way around and then stomp his boot on the insole, pinning the protestor's left foot to the pavement, twisted backwards. Then the LAPD officer would grab the protestor's right foot and twist it all the way the other direction until the non-violent protestor, in incredible agony, would shriek in pain and unlink from his neighbor.

Read the whole thing, if you can stand it.

Pretend it isn't about something that's happening here - pretend it's in one of those countries where the people are speaking out for freedom and democracy - places where Obama has expressed horror at the actions and treatment of citizens by their governments (although, I have to add that the US is, apparently, arming the Egyptian government as it continues its anti-democracy actions).

In other news, I'm never having kids :)

You might want to read up before MilitaryTracy gets here.

Please understand that I am not discounting or dismissing the good work Tebow does in hospitals - I'm sure many have benefited - but I have to believe that one who aligns him- or herself with or does work for, or is associated with, Focus on the Family, does so because he or she believes in the organization's principles and agenda.

And that, I'm afraid, casts Tim Tebow and his family in an altogether different light.  Well, at least for those of us who believe in a woman's right to choose, equal rights, separation of church and state, LGBT rights, and marriage equality - you see where this is going, right?