Whatever the rights and wrongs of what’s going on in Ferguson, Alabama – and I’m too far away to give you any special insight on that – one thing that’s now obvious is the militarisation of the American police.
This is not a healthy trend, says John Stossel.
Libertarians warned for years that government is force, that government always grows and that America's police have become too much like an occupying army.
We get accused of being paranoid, but we look less paranoid after heavily armed police in Ferguson, Missouri, tear gassed peaceful protesters, arrested journalists and stopped some journalists from entering the town…
[A] man identifying himself as a veteran from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division reacted to video of police in Ferguson by tweeting, "We rolled lighter than that in an actual war zone."
If authorities arm cops like soldiers, they may begin to think like soldiers -- and see the public as the enemy.
Speaking at last year’s Casey Conference, Defence attorney Marc Victor argues the police state Americans see is the result of law routinely violating individual rights, of which people take no notice. Olivier Garret calls Victor’s speech (below) “a jaw-dropping overview of … how degraded the US has become.”
Never in my life have I seen a round of applause like this one… and at an event normally composed of conservative, introspective investors to boot. But most surprising of all – and I must admit in my bias here they were applauding a lawyer. A defence lawyer at that.
“If you live here, know that you live in a police state.” If you don’t, maybe think yourself lucky, and swear to make sure it never happens here. Or, to be more accurate, to stop it accelerating.
2 comments:
Was it Harry Browne (deceased) who in the 1970's wrote about "United Socialist States of America"? Perhaps it was he who wrote about "alphabet soup of gov't dep'ts"; and the numbers of them that were armed [?]
{Non sequitur, but for some reason Neil Young's "Tin soldiers and Nixon coming; we're finally on our own; this summer I hear the drumming; 4 dead in Ohio" started playing in my head}["Ohio"]
Steven
I support the Police in this matter.
As Dirty Harry so eloquently put it "Nothing wrong with a little shooting so long as the right people get shot"
If lots of thugs and robbers (the deceased, for instance) think they are going to do whatever they like and cower decent, respectable, law abiding, good citizens into submission just because they are Negroes - they are mistaken.
Good on the Police for keeping these protestors in line and showing who is (and who is not) in control of the streets; the good citizens of Fergusson can sleep easier knowing they have a Police force unprepared to surrender to scum.
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