What's the matter with Kansas?

I don't go to big music festivals anymore. I don't really enjoy huge crowds and nowadays the police take all the fun out of attending.

According to Douglas County Jail records, more than 80 people from 28 states were arrested on alcohol and drug violations during the festival, which police had warned would be more heavily patrolled than in past years.

What is the point of this? Don't the local LEOs have actual criminals to track down? Surely even in Kansas there is property crime and murders and rapes and drunk drivers that really do endanger the public more than a bunch of kids who want to get a little high and listen to music. Maybe even engage in such subversive behavior as dancing and sliding in mud. I mean really, do these young people look dangerous to you?

You'll notice they were charged with violations, not causing trouble. Read that as simple possession and the police misconduct as described in the forums was appalling. Unwarranted searches of campsites without the the campers even being present for the search. Profiling of concert goers for road searches. Patrolling the parking lots with drug dogs. Hard to believe they still call this a free country.

And yet they get away with it because no one complains. Apparently the ACLU can't find someone willing to be named a plaintiff to test the constitutionality of the blanket searching. It almost makes me wish I had gone. The hippies of the 60s would never have sat still for this. We would have been demanding the ACLU take the case.

The festival organizers paid the state $30,000 for use of the park and $8,000 for water-line improvements. Their festival was ruined by these guestapo tactics. They should get a refund. And next time you wonder why young people have no respect for the law, remind yourself of how little respect they get from law enforcers.

[graphics gratitude] (They lie when they say hippies are smelly and ugly). [hat tip JackL]