A very well presented summary of the ways in which the U.S. government is taking the steps other totalitarian governments have throughout history.
What is happening right now is a corporate state conspiracy, pure and simple. Whatever that means to you, be prepared to respond to it when it crosses whatever threshold of human dignity you’ve decided upon.
I’ve had an interest in police culture and practices for a long time. I haven’t run into a huge amount of officers in my life, but I have seen some really good ones and some really bad ones. I’m just interested in what motivates them, I guess - it seems like most cops are bored most of the time.
And as I learn more, a trend towards belligerent behavior seems to emerge. It angers me for the obvious reasons, but the truly helpful and respectful cops stick out in my head and lead me to ask, “Why is this happening?” Many people have been collecting the evidence for this trend and asking the same question (Radley Balko’s blog is excellent in this area). I’ve heard a lot of answers: some blame the drug war, others blame the influx of military into law enforcement ranks, and still others blame it all on standard-issue government evilness. But I found another, more direct and provable answer in an article at PoliceLink.com entitled Street Survival Insights: Behavior Traits that get Cops Killed; Long Known, Still Ignored.
The long and short of it is that a study was done fifteen years ago and, while the conclusions were speculative and hard to prove, five traits of behavior likely to get cops killed were dreamed up arrived at. Of these five behavior traits, the very first three have directly to do with friendliness, openness, and generally acting like a human being among equals:
Friendly.
This adjective was frequently used to describe the murdered officers, along with “well-liked,” “laid back,” and “easy going.” While a friendly demeanor “does much to promote a positive image for the officer and the department, overly friendly behavior at an inappropriate time” can backfire, the researchers warn…
Service-oriented.
“Tends to perceive self as more public relations than law enforcement,” the researchers said of the prototypical slain officer. Of course service is part of your job. But on the street, your “customer” is not always right. To protect and serve the community, the researchers remind, “officers must realize that they need to protect themselves first” and not indulge a “misguided sense of service” that results in “placing prisoners’ comfort over their own personal safety.” In policing, your success—and your safety—often depend on your ability to get people to do what they don’t want to do.
Hesitant about using force.
Victim officers tended “to use less force than other officers felt they would use in similar circumstances,” the researchers found. And they customarily “used force only as a last resort;” their peers said they themselves “would use force at an earlier point in similar circumstances.” Courts have clearly confirmed that it’s justifiable in situations you reasonably perceive as threatening to employ even pre-emptive force to stop a threat; you don’t have to wait until you are assaulted or injured. Yet some trainers are noticing that some officers today seem so hesitant about using force that it appears they are more afraid of being sued or thought overzealous than they are of being murdered!
If you’re wondering why the relationship between community and police has been eroding so consistently for so long, you need only read that article. Law enforcement professionals have been told for fifteen years that several of the core behaviors that comprise civil society are likely to get them killed. We should not be surprised that they are not friendly, respectful, genuine, or judicious. The attitudes that embolden officers to embrace militarization, treat the community like occupied territory, and abuse their privileges are the result of some vague conclusions of research conducted by the FBI - not exactly the paragons of community-level law enforcement.
But one of the sad answers to my question.
Alexander Cockburn at Counterpunch fucking nails it - isn’t he on “teh Left”?
The Virginia Tech terrible massacre should prompt a radical review of the utility of SWAT teams which now infest almost every community in America. Each time there’s a hostage taking or a mass murderer on the rampage, one sees the same familiar sight: overweight SWAT men, doubled up under the weight of their costly artillery, lumbering along in their body armor and then hiding behind trees or cars or walls while the killer goes about his business. SWAT teams perform most efficiently when shooting down unarmed street people menacing them with cellphones.
The answer is to disband SWAT teams and kindred military units, and return to the idea of voluntary posses or militias: a speedy assembly of citizen volunteers with their own weapons. Such a body at Columbine or Virginia Tech might have saved many lifes. In other words: make the Second Amendment live up to its promise.
In 2005 I listened to some earnest ACLU type at a meeting in Garberville, an hour from where I live, deliver a judicious speech about Taser guns–a new toy for the cops, whereby a person can be zapped with 50,000 volts. The ACLU guy was torn. On the one hand, he reasoned that the Taser — being purportedly, though not actually non-lethal — is better than a 12-gauge or high powered rifle. On the other hand, there is the possibility of “improper use”. His answer: more regulation. He didn’t entertain the actual course of events, namely that Tasers have now been added to the means whereby the police can kill or terrorize people and that regulation will be zero.
The left complain about SWAT teams, but doesn’t see that the progressives bear a lot of responsibility for their rise. If you confer the task of social invigilation and protection to professional janissaries–cops — and deny the right of self and social protection to ordinary citizens, you end up with crews of over-armed thugs running amok under official license, terrorizing the disarmed citizens. In the end you have the whole place run by the Army or the federalized National Guard, as is increasingly evident now with the overturning of the Posse Comitatus laws forbidding any role for the military in domestic law enforcement.
I cannot tell you how happy I am seeing somebody on the left identify progressivism as part of the problem. The central task in the evolution of leftism in this country, now, is to rid itself of the vestiges of progressive thought - managerialism, professionalism, large-scale organization as an end in itself - and get back to its decentralized, populist roots.
Now, if we can just get some left wing militias in this country, we’ll be all set.
There’s some scary stuff on PostSecret, but this takes the cake:
More about Rex 84 here.
One other random tidbit: isn’t “continuity of government” an usurpation of the human rights asserted by the Founders - by definition?
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
If the government is rendered unable to lawfully govern - regardless of whether that is the result of invasion or civil insurrection - then that government can be considered dissolved and no longer a legitimate authority (assuming for the moment that it ever is). I mean, if the government has lost any ability or interest in defending our persons, why even recognize it? If an invasion occurs successfully, then it’s over - and resistance is far more likely to occur in a decentralized, guerrilla fashion than as an activity coordinated by the same incompetent and spineless bureaucrats we deal with today. But moreover, is there any real difference between our “public servants” operating as a sort of Vichy regime for hostile invaders and being a hostile sovereign, independent government? Under either scenario, ignoring the State is the only sane option, regardless of the stakes.
I wonder if the U.S. government has any super-secret military plans to encourage and coordinate the smooth transition to “new Government” being instituted by the People. Of course, I’m sure they have all sorts of plans for new government that they’d like to institute.