At the risk of loosing friends in the law enforcement community I cant ignore the evidence any longer. The police in our country, (not every one of them, but a significant number) are acting more like paramilitary troops in an occupied country rather than the men and women we hire to protect and serve. The incident in New York, where a man who had broken up a fight was attacked by police and choked to death. And yes there is video of Eric Garner being murdered on the web. I have to suspect our lovely Homeland Security folks have been brain washing the police around out country into the everyone is a terrorist mentality. Put that together with proving military style armaments to local police forces and you have a recipe for a police state. In case you dont know what that is, pull out a few books on Germany in the 1930s, or the Soviet Union under Stalin, or Iraq under Saddam. It is an attitude that might makes right and the belief that the only way to have safety is through in iron fist. This has proven to be false time and time again but we Americans have never been very good at remembering history, or at least remembering it accurately. That task is even more difficult today with 24 hour propaganda machines like Fox News vomiting an endless stream of fear and lies and branding it news. The basic rights guaranteed in the Constitution are not just the right to have as many guns as you want and the misinterpreted idea that you can discriminate in any fashion and manner in business dealings with the public and call it Freedom of Religion. There is an important principal enshrined in that document and the Bill of Rights that prevents unreasonable search and seizure as well as a guarantee of due process of law and that is not being attacked on the street for breaking up a fight, or being run down and murdered by police for resisting arrest. The police are not judge and jury and especially not executioner. Until recent years we had one of the finest law enforcement communities in the world and now they are steadily becoming thugs with guns. Most of this change is a result of the insanity of The Patriot Act and the mistaken belief that we should relinquish our freedom in exchange for safety. Police will counter that the world is a more dangerous place and they need the firepower and need to be able to keep the public safe by selectively ignoring the laws. That is absolute drivel. Police gain respect by being trusted public servants not by being heavily armed. Once we relinquish our rights to this growing paramilitary force, we will find ourselves in an irreversible spiral. Before long we will be unable to walk down a street without being stopped for our papers and random beatings and murders will be the primary methods of law enforcement. End of rant.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 18:27:47 +0000
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