Ode to Border Patrol

On eastbound interstate 8 one night
I encountered an all too familiar sight
A random checkpoint, like you’d expect to see
In the USSR or Nazi Germany

Why do I have to stop and show my papers. Hey!
Aren’t we still in the USA?
I haven’t crossed any borders today
In fact, isn’t Mexico 50 miles away?

We have to search you, for our dog has said,
“Woof! Woof! He has drugs or a body that’s dead!”
“I’d like to know what that means, if I may!”
But the dog was quickly ushered away

And if we’re still living in a free nation…
Where’s your warrant upon oath or affirmation?
Aren’t these the rights for which our forefathers died?
“Why not let them search you, if you’ve nothing to hide?”

This isn’t liberty; the way you behave
Would make the founding fathers roll over in their grave
Don’t you love America; what makes you so bold
To trample the constitution you’re sworn to uphold?

Have Jefferson and Adams been forever replaced?
By Janet Napolitano’s ugly face!
Has Homeland Security reached new heights
That it supersedes the Bill of Rights?!

That I’m an American is plain to see
You’ve already run my plates and know I live in Tempe!
I’m an American citizen on my way home from work
If I won’t consent to searches, does that make me a jerk?

I’m not required by law to open this door!
I’m protected by amendments five and four!
My pleas were met with a laugh and a jeer
“Don’t you get it? your rights don’t matter here”

“We’ll search without a warrant, and if you won’t say ‘yes’
Then we’ll just call the DPS!”
So the DPS arrives on the scene
In order to assist the federal goons in green

Officer, I’m innocent; What have I done!
If I’ve broken a law, then please name one!
Be reasonable, officer, will it really hurt?
To bring the dog back out and see if it will alert?

Do you protect the citizens of Arizona anymore?
Or have you simply become the federal government’s whore?
But the Border Patrol knew the truth, you see
They knew that dog wouldn’t alert to me

“I’ll place you under arrest, if you won’t bow
For failure to obey me right now!
I told you before, I’m an officer of the law
When I say ‘jump,’ you say ‘how high’

“In fact, by now you’ve sealed your fate
I’ll tase you for twenty seconds straight!”
Unfortunately I was fooled by Agent Diaz’s lies
“There’s gonna be glass, so cover your eyes!”

He really just wanted me not to see
The ambush to my left being laid for me
Officer Mitchell broke the passenger window with a smile
Then decided he might as well tase me for a while

The border patrol’s five swings of the baton
And now my driver’s side window was gone!
And as the electricity continually flowed
My driver’s side window began to explode

And because he felt I had given him sass
Agent Spoonamore shoved my face in the broken glass!
My head was pressed into the glass on the door
Blood gushed out of every pore

Fifty thousand volts flowed through my chest
A regular police brutality-fest
Next I was rolled to the ground, and to my dread
A border patrol agent stepped on my head!

I remembered a quote from a book I had read
1984, and here’s what it said:
“If you want to know the future of the human race
Just picture a boot stamping upon a human face”

They finally searched my car, and what did they find?
No drugs, no bodies, and nothing of the kind
“Then they let you go, I assume?”
No, my next stop was the emergency room

So after all the stitches were added to my head
And the nurses had cleaned up all the places I’d bled
I was taken to the station of the DPS
Then from there to the jail where I was told to undress

They had underwear in two sizes: extra-large and small
So I took extra-large and made my single phone call
I was put into cell where the lights are on 24-seven
And lay down to sleep with my stitches eleven.

And so we’ve reached the end of my tale
Me sleeping soundly in the county jail
What was my crime? What had I done?
I stood up for my rights as an American.

- Steven L Anderson, 2009