Freedom to Yell

I've been reading a bit about the Professor Henry Gates arrest in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for what boils down to being black and yelling at a policeman.

Paul Gowder at the blog Uncommon Priors gets to the real essence of the issue - it should not be illegal to yell at the cops:

The racism is actually the least interesting part of this story, just because we all already know that none of this would have been happened had he been white.

No, the real interesting issue is this “disorderly conduct.” The cop’s stated reason for arresting Gates was that he was yelling at him in front of other people. Let me repeat it. That was the stated reason for the arrest. So riddle me this: since when do we live in a society such that yelling at a cop is sufficiently plausible as grounds for arrest that the cop can actually write it in the arrest report?

Let’s not be confused here: the cop did not claim that Gates was getting violent, or that he posed any threat to the cop or anyone else, including himself.

Another example of how far the police state has really evolved in USA. Remember the British historian that Atlanta police wrestled to the ground and arrested for jaywalking?