“When people live in the United States, they ought to have their head up – they ought not to live in fear. Everytime they see a police car, they shouldn’t run and hide. Nobody ought to live like that in this country.”

Ha ha ha ha!!! Governor Huckabee!

I like Governor Huckabee – I really don’t have any major gripe against him, but at this point in the campaign I really don’t have a desire to learn much more about where he stands on each issue (remember, as an independent I can’t vote in New Jersey’s primaries without declaring a party – which I won’t do). But let me make this comment about Governor Huckabee’s quote up there…

As a person with a larger-than-normal degree of empathy, I can appreciate the fact that illegal immigrants are forced to live in a manner that many of us find abhorrent. Yet while I find the Governor’s statement to be a great political quote and one worthy of repeating, I wonder when a candidate will step up and make the same, truthful comparison about the good old boy system that has ravaged New Jersey and many other areas of this country.

In other words, I lived through some of the worst abuses of civil liberties that I’ve ever seen when I was a college student renting a home in Ocean Township, New Jersey. Police officers sat outside of our house, they routinely followed my roommates into the driveway of our home and questioned them at all hours of the day (and night), they would open up the front door of our house at 2am and walk through and tell us they were “just checking” even when only 2 people were home. It was a disgusting abuse of power that took place 6 – 8 years ago and to this day my roommates and I have a great disgust for the Ocean Township law enforcement and a much greater disgust for the anti-college student feeling in Ocean Township.

We ARE the people who see police cars with “Ocean Township” on the side of them and we attempt to run and hide because we know that in this town you can be arrested (or at least given a big money ticket) for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s happened to my former roommates, it’s happened to our friends, and it’s happened to me damn it. And I don’t buy the crap that we were “rowdy college students living in family neighborhoods.” Bullshit on that! We weren’t nearly as rowdy as the “family” that lived two doors down from us with the high school-aged daughter who was selling drugs to half of the town. Our rent (our very HIGH rent, I might add) paid the same taxes the rest of the town paid. And, we added a great deal to the local economy.

So I love Governor Huckabee’s comment that no one in America should live in fear of the police. But what happens when the local police (or an entire state’s police system) has turned into nothing more than a civil liberties abusing fundraising arm of the politicians? It’s disgusting and if America really wants “change” then we all need to start by no longer permitting the vast abuses of power that we see at the local level.

Unfortunately for you, but fortunately for me, I have not had any ridiculous experiences at Work Out World (WOW) in Ocean Township. I’m sort of sickened that I’m going to another gym in Ocean Township since I do everything I can to NOT contribute to the town’s economy (I’ll always be bitter from how they treated my friends and I while we were college students – police brutality and destroying civil liberties definitely leaves a mark on you). The new gym is nice and I’m amazed at how packed it is at 6:30am in the morning.

One of the complaints that I read about WOW before signing up was that there are too many members and that there are times when the lines for equipment are half an hour long. I thought that I would experience this problem yesterday morning when I pulled up to the gym early in the morning and I saw a packed parking lot, but I didn’t have a problem getting on a treadmill at all. The early morning workouts have been nice so far, but I think I’m going to change up my training schedule each week or every other week so I’m not always working out first thing in the morning or later in the evening. I guess it depends on my schedule at work.

One weird coincidence popped up this morning, though. Yesterday I thought I saw some kid (I say “kid” but he’s got to be my age) who used to hang around one of my ex-fling’s houses. He looked different (older), but after Day Two at the gym I’m pretty confident that it’s him. So that was sort of weird.

COLLEGIANS: WE’RE NOT ALL ROWDIES

As any fraternity leader can tell you, press like this is very exciting in the Monmouth University area. I understand that most college areas are against students from the very start, but the “witch hunt” that goes on around Monmouth University is extremely frightening at times. Not only are the civil liberties of our these young men trampled on a weekly basis, but the local governments back the actions that you’ll read about in the article. And remember, I’m a guy who routinely had police just walk into his house at all hours of the night after the majority of the roommates were asleep. They were “just checking” – sound a little fascist to anyone?

I’m extremely proud of the Sigma Pi guys at Monmouth University. It’s not easy to put yourself out there like these guys have. I remember getting all different types of great responses to my student loan article last year, but I also remember getting some really vicious, unintelligent responses, too. I applaud the effort that these guys are putting into making the reality of their situation work.