For those actively participating on Occupy’s frontline, the alarming nature of America’s increasing militancy is evident.  For those working from less exposed positions or who are supporting the movement from the background (either monetarily or with a talking campaigns to rally awareness and understanding), the brutality of police and local enforcement units are no less palpable – though less tangible.  But something happened recently that gives new meaning to the words “police state:” the arrest of one Brandon Raub.

Raub is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Completing four tours in total with the illustrious Marine Corps, Raub has been deemed by the government and military sane and competent to serve.  He returned home well over a year ago, and he is not exhibiting any signs of post-traumatic stress disorder or any other mental illness.  He lives at home with his parents who say that he is in perfect mental and physical health.  He does not own a gun, nor is he member to any violent or extreme outlier groups.  He is an average American with some fairly common notions about political degradation and conspiracies stemming from within our national government.

Raub writes a blog on a well-established page in which he calmly, intelligently, and eloquently evaluates the state of the nation and discusses America’s tragic fall from grace.  He also keeps a Facebook page, as most of us do, on which he also makes political statements and posts links to sites that support his ideas and perspectives, as most of us do.  While some of what Raub says or thinks borders on conspiracy theory, his makes no attempt to rally anyone to any action – only to put out information and ideas that he feels other might be overlooking.

Now, we’ve all met a conspiracy theorist or two.  I have a good friend who gets rallied around some pretty bizarre ideas, but he is completely harmless – a dedicated husband, a loving father, and an avid believer that the government is capable of and carrying out incredible plots behind closed doors.  The greatest danger he poses is that someone could unwittingly touch on a topic of interest and get him ranting at an otherwise enjoyable gathering.  Raub is not unlike the beloved conspiracy theorist in all our lives.

It is true that Raub made some isolated comments on his Facebook page that, if interpreted in one of many possible ways, could seem to have some ominous undertones, but they are not in any way distinguishable as threats against America or her people.  Nor are they much different from comments most people haven’t made regarding one frustration or another when in the moment.  We have all had those moments in which we were so frustrated that we exclaimed a politician should be “hanged for treason” or that we were going to “kill” something or someone.  None of this means we are emotionally unstable, just that we are emoting with hyperbole.

Well, in the case of Brandon Raub, his emoting earned him a FBI sponsored trip to the nuthouse.  Without placing Raub under arrest, the FBI – aided by local law enforcement – arrived at Raub’s home, questioned him regarding his comments and his belief that the government conspired (through inaction) on the 9/11 attacks, and eventually slapped him in handcuffs and remitted him to a local mental institution for evaluation.

Despite a local agency working to defend and assist Raub against this unjustified detainment releasing a statement from their employed health official (who has spoken with Raub) stating that Raub is in no way mentally incompetent or suffering from any delusional state, a local judge has ordered Raub be detained and subjected to additional evaluations and reviews for a minimum of 30 days.  It is like something from a movie that we’ve all seen:  The man who knew too much gets tossed into the loony bin where he pleads his case but only makes himself seem more insane…

The FBI is insisting that Raub is dangerous to society, that he has the potential to become violent, and they have labeled him a potential terrorist.  They claim that he is in need of psychiatric assistance, though I have yet to deduce why from reading Raub’s blogs and posts.  Though I do not agree with his views or buy into his conspiracy theories (all of which are among the more popular and common theories out there), I have not found anything that Raub says to indicate any potential danger to himself or anyone else.  So, why the “302?”

You have to ask yourself what Raub is saying or what he has touched on that makes him so dangerous, and if there isn’t anything that stands out in particular then the question becomes centered on what any one of us could say or do that would merit the same treatment.

People say crazy things all the time.  Saying something crazy and actually being crazy are two different things.  Then there is being crazy enough to be dangerous to people, which is something else altogether.  Plenty of people suffer from subtle, harmless insanities – we could probably each name a few in our own lives without much thought.  Even more legitimately, countless American Vets suffer from very real and very troubling emotional and mental disturbances.  Most of them can be found sleeping on the subway vents of cities all over the nation.  What makes Raub so special that he has earned a free stay at the nuthouse?

Millions of Americans subscribe to the idea that 9/11 was an inside job – or at least a gross act of defensive negligence for the purpose of capitalizing on the resulting fear, something the authors of legislation, warmongers, and the profiteers of military and surveillance technologies are still taking advantage of.  Americans have seen and heard it all, with most doubting the government’s ignorance and innocence in conspiracy theories such as vapor trails, HAARP weather related disaster, and so forth.  Even the picture perfect era of Camelot left us with Area 51 and rumors of alien encounters that many still adamantly insist are as much a part of our history of Abe Lincoln.  None of these people have been visited by the FBI and taken away in handcuffs.

What’s more is that in a nation where a madman in Colorado could acquire an arsenal of paramilitary status in fewer than 8 weeks – purchasing gas grenades, a gas mask, a flak jacket, and more than 6,000 rounds of ammunitions to accompany his weapons purchases made from only three different locations – doesn’t so much as raise an eyebrow, why is an unarmed veteran of the esteemed United States Marines suggesting the FBI had some role in America’s most devastating terrorist attack ringing more bells, raising more red flags, and earning a swifter response from the counter-terrorist community?  Since when is an idea, an opinion, a conspiracy theory more dangerous than a cold, hard, unrelenting bullet poised at the edge of a madman’s hostility?

I’ll tell you “since when.”  …Since corporations learned the psychology of thought provocation and the art of media manipulation for its promotion.  …Since politicians became nothing more than the warm bodies required to compose legislation for nationwide, company-first, profit-yielding, social reform.  …Since the rise of a new era of business: the business of industry, the business of war, the business of subtle social terrorism, the business of addiction, the business of exploitation…

When does it end?  Well, for Raub, they are hoping it ends with a quagmire of legalisms and paperwork hold-ups that will silence him from speaking whatever truth or rumors he feels compelled to put out there.  Whether the conspiracy theories are fact or fiction bears no impact on a new American truth: that the encroachment on human life and liberty in the US is real.  And when does that end?  It ends when we say it does.

Stand up and speak out on everything as often as possible, because it is easy to throw one man in a nuthouse.  It is impossible to silence a nation.