Again, there’s spoilers in here, so if you ever plan to watch this, stop reading.
For the rest of you, Red State is Kevin Smith’s latest film and he certainly departed from his standard fare. The basic plot is that 3 teens try to hook up with a prostitute only to get drugged and abducted and wake up bound in a crazy old redneck church. The church is supposed to resemble Westboro Baptist, except here they ritually murder homosexuals and perverts. One of the kids escapes, runs into their stock pile of automatic weapons, and eventually a big shootout occurs at the compound involving the ATF.
The story is basically Westboro meets Branch Davidians, with an interesting patriot act theme at the end.
I thought the movie was pretty mediocre, but the ending message tied it all together and made kind of a fucked up point at the end.
The ATF got the order to kill everyone in the compound so that there would be no witnesses. This included the hostages. One young woman pleaded not to be killed and that there were enough witnesses to testify and put them all away for good. A *plot twist" occurs, and they end up arresting the remaining survivors.
So…what about that trial? Don’t need one. Since they are religious nuts accused of killing people in the name of religion, they are “domestic terrorists,” and as domestic terrorists there’s no need for a trial.
That’s what’s been messing with my head this morning. It’s not that I care that “the bad guys” get locked up for being bad guys. It’s that everyone gets locked up, including people that may not have been taking part in the “terrorist acts” or were actually victims of the leadership, no trial, no investigation, and no way to report that the feds were killing hostages…and its all legal.
It’s all legal because they are terrorists. First we need to water board them, then we extract information from them, and then we lock them up for good. Makes sense to me, homeland security 101, what’s the issue?
I’m not sure I grant your premise, which seems to be that the Patriot Act somehow says that the govt can arrest and imprison domestic terrorists without due process. As far as I know, that’s simply not true. The Patriot Act certainly broadened the definition of terrorism as it pertains to domestic crimes, and gives the govt some broader powers in how they investigate those crimes, but investigation is still required, as are trials, for domestic terrorism, despite what the latest Kevin Smith movie might portray.
Oh, I will agree that the movie is fiction, and I take it with a grain of salt.
Can you clarify what we are and are not allowed to do? I mean, didn’t the feds just assassinate a US citizen without due process because he was a terrorist?
In all seriousness, I’m curious as to where the line is drawn.
"Can you clarify what we are and are not allowed to do? I mean, didn’t the feds just assassinate a US citizen without due process because he was a terrorist? "
A person isn’t a domestic terrorist just because he’s a terrorist and an American. Domestic terrorism is roughly defined as a terrorist act committed by an American on American soil.