MORE REPRESSION OF INDEPENDENT THOUGHT IN JOHN ASHCROFT’S AMERICA:

Animal rights protesters vandalized the home of two UCLA researchers last week, according to a police report filed by the victims.

On-campus demonstrations that coincided with World Week for Animals in Laboratories were followed by protests in some researchers’ neighborhoods Monday.

John Schlag, a neurobiology professor, and Madeleine Schlag-Rey, a neurobiology researcher, two targets of animal rights activists, said their home was damaged by protesters.

At 10:15 p.m. Monday night, Schlag said they heard a lot of noise on the street, followed by loud banging and kicking on their door.

“The way it proceeded … we felt that the door was going to be kicked in,” Schlag-Rey said.

The Schlags, whose research focuses on the mechanisms of human sight, filed a police report with the Los Angeles Police Department that listed a broken street lamp and a broken door window as a result of the vandalism. Neighbors told the police that the suspects were wearing masks and dark clothing.

People told me that if Bush became President, we’d have masked thugs banging on professors’ doors in the middle of the night.

And, what do you know, we do.

UPDATE: Okay, not everyone got this:

Your sense of irony may be a little TOO subtle, Glenn. When I read the entry entitled, “MORE REPRESSION OF INDEPENDENT THOUGHT IN JOHN ASHCROFT’S AMERICA:”, I sat down to rip out a protest letter. I mean, Bush and Ashcroft have plenty of policies that should be opposed, but how do you hang this around their necks? Then I detected the irony (I think).

Then there was this:

Maybe I’m just a bit dim, but I don’t get the connection between the animal rights thugs and Mr. Ashcroft. I understand you have concerns with civil liberties with him as AG, but to suggest some kind of link between the two is pretty far off the mark.

I think it’s fair to say that the animal rights groups are very far to the left and antigovernment while Mr. Ashcroft is fairly conservatives.

The post was not consistent with your usual quality.

Apparently not. I was paraphrasing the famous joke: “They told me if I voted for Goldwater we’d have half a million men in Vietnam. And sure enough, I voted for Goldwater and. . . .”