“And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a
timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with
timbrels and with dances.” — Exodus 15:20
At the climax of the 1984 film Footloose, Kevin Bacon’s
loose-footed protagonist uses the biblical tale of Miriam at the
waters to persuade a council of uptight fundamentalists to overturn
the town’s blue law prohibitions on popular music and public
dancing. This being Hollywood, the council leaders quickly relent,
recognize the error of their ways, and there was much rejoicing
(and Kenny Loggins).
Whether a similarly upbeat conclusion awaits the individual
dubbed the “Jefferson 1” remains to be seen, but already the U.S.
Park Police have shown themselves far less amenable to reason —
and to the notion of dance as a metaphor for the soul’s urge to
breath free — than was John Lithgow’s fictional preacher.
Organized by Bureaucrash, the youth-oriented libertarian
affiliate of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Thomas
Jefferson Dance Party looked to revive the dancing-as-freedom meme
with a dedication to many free marketeers’ favorite founding father
on the occasion of his 265th birthday.
The plan was simple enough: Freedom-loving individuals, invited
by way Facebook, would gather in the Jefferson Memorial just before
midnight, April 13, and spend ten minutes bopping, swaying and
moonwalking to honor the author of the Declaration of
Independence.
So as not to disturb any fellow memorial visitors, the group —
which numbered about 20, fewer than the 25 that would require a
permit — opted to wear headphones and listen to their own iPods.
As it turned out, the half-dozen or so unrelated onlookers who
happened to be on-hand (the park is open 24 hours) appeared mostly
amused by the spectacle.
SECURITY PERSONNEL MOST assuredly were not amused. Within two
minutes of the event’s start, they began moving to disperse the
crowd, ordering the dancers to leave immediately, forcibly laying
their hands on some and hurling profanities at others.
A few party-goers attempted to explain the nature of the event,
but memorial staff were in no mood to discuss political theory. At
11:59, just four minutes after the event’s start, U.S. Park Police
had detained and were handcuffing the aforementioned “Jefferson 1”
— 28-year-old occasional Spectator contributor Brooke
Oberwetter — ostensibly for unauthorized dancing.
Or, as former Bureaucrash chief Jason Talley puts it, “One
minute I’m taking video of people celebrating the freedoms etched
in the walls surrounding us, the next we see armed agents of the
state putting chains on a friend of ours.”
Questioned about the arrest at the scene, security and park
police alternately posited that Oberwetter’s crime was disorderly
persons, or disturbing the peace, or they refused to offer any
rationale at all. While her compatriots protested and sang Happy
Birthday to Jefferson from the memorial’s steps, the tall, willowy
blond was led away in handcuffs, placed in the back of a police
van, and brought downtown to be booked and processed.
When she was released nearly five hours later, Oberwetter was
cited for “interfering with an agency function,” a charge unique to
the National Park Service. USPP Public Information Officer Sgt.
Robert LaChance, reached early April 14, did not yet have any
details on the incident, though he confirmed that he had received
other inquiries about it.
Even as Oberwetter — who declined comment for this story — sat
in a dank holding cell, the story was already making the rounds
online, picked up by bloggers like Radley Balko, Julian Sanchez and
the Atlantic’s Megan McArdle. A Facebook group dubbed
“Free the Jefferson 1” attracted more than 300 members in its first
24 hours, and Oberwetter’s case drew an offer of representation
from Alan Gura, lead plaintiffs counsel in the District
of Columbia v. Heller Second Amendment case currently
before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Not all of the reaction has been positive. Among the hundreds of
comments to posts about the story on sites like fark.com have been
dozens, most by ostensibly “liberal” contributors, that have
focused on Oberwetter’s race and presumed socio-economic status as
excluding her from sympathy.
Others simply presumed there must be more to the story — that
she must have been intoxicated or boisterous or abusive toward the
police.
A VIDEO OF THE INCIDENT posted by Talley to YouTube tells a
different story. In it, a calm, demure-looking Oberwetter has
this exchange with the security guard who requested her
arrest:
GUARD: Exit, exit, exit. Lady, I’m not
going to tell you again.
OBERWETTER: I’m just…what did we do?”
GUARD: Exit. Exit, now…
OBERWETTER: What rule are we breaking? It’s
against the rules to dance?
GUARD: Yes it is. Read the sign inside the
memorial. It says quiet.”
OBERWETTER: I’m standing here being very
quiet.
GUARD: You’re dancing in here. That’s
disorderly.
The camera then tracks away from as Talley has an exchange of his
own with a guard, only to return, not quite a minute a later, to
the site of Oberwetter being handcuffed against the columns, the
statue of Jefferson looking down on the scene.
Skeptics are free to question what was said in that last minute,
though witnesses reported the only additional question Oberwetter
posed was “why?”
But assume the worst. Assume, upon being approached by an agent
of the state and given a patently ludicrous instruction, she was
less than perfectly respectful or cooperative, perhaps a bit
irritable or even abusive. Ought that be grounds for arrest?
In 2008, apparently, it is. Citizens now routinely grant police
the same broad latitude in the exercise of power normally reserved
for baseball umpires. Walk on eggshells. Show utter submission.
Don’t dare question any direct order. Anything less than that, and
you could find yourself locked in a cell.
Jefferson himself observed, in his Preamble to a Bill for the
More General Diffusion of Knowledge, “experience hath shewn, that
even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power
have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into
tyranny.”
Now, there’s a sentiment truly worthy of a memorial.
