The police actively search out for criminals. This means that the police will hunt rather than chase, the difference being the latter is something that is caught in the act while the former means going out and looking for trouble. Of the numerous abuses they commit, it is very rare to see police officers receive the same punishment that we would if we had committed those crimes.
The legal system which processes the accused is stacked against them. If you are accused of a crime, nobody ever assumes you are innocent from the start, in most cases. God help you if a child ever accuses you of sexual assault because you will end up paying the price for it, even if you are 100% innocent and the evidence is clearly in your favor. But even in all manner of crimes, you will be found guilty because often times you can’t prove your innocence. If you contest a traffic ticket, for example, and the officer shows up, you will end up paying the price because a judge holds the officer’s testimony in higher regard than your own. Justice is not blind. That’s probably the biggest load a crap that has been fed to us.
Our own legislatures seek new ways in which we can become criminals. They do this by passing laws, always making some meaningless excuse that usually appeals to our emotions rather than our common sense, and they routinely trample our God-given (or natural) human rights in doing so. Every law that is passed within any legislature that doesn’t solely repeal any other law is nothing more than another tyranny we have to fight.
Certainly all these things have brought on what can only be described as a police state. Now, when I say that the United States is a police state, I don’t mean it is a totalitarian state. What I mean is that our government has focused its efforts in ensuring that the state’s power is expanded through the oldest recognized function of government: protection of its citizens from fellow citizens.
But this things did not come to pass simply because the government was able to usurp it. A government is nothing more than a collection of selfish individuals with a monopoly on violence to be used against its citizens, usually in matters of justice and protection against foreign invasion. It is not some omnipresent entity despite the romantic notions that the Left applies to it. This means that whatever power any government has assumed, no matter what form it may take, is power we have allowed it to gain.
A police state, therefore, is nothing more than our own attitudes about what government should be doing to us. The pain brought on by the police state is nothing more than something we have inflicted on ourselves.
For example, when the USA PATRIOT Act was passed, many conservatives (including myself at the time, I am ashamed to say) believed that such a law necessary to fight terrorism. And besides, if you didn’t break the law, you had nothing to worry about. What I didn’t realize at the time, is that the Fourth Amendment was written for the very purpose of preventing the government from having the authority to do such a thing. This is because any amount of power in the hands of an organization which holds the monopoly on violence will abuse that power. So it should come as no surprise to any of us when Janet Napolitano decided that libertarians were terrorists and tried to add all of us to the watch list. With the USA PATRIOT Act in place, God only knows what would have happened if she succeeded.
And so, we find a nation that would rather have the government take care of personal security rather than a willingness to take the risks that are necessary for liberty. If your first inclination is to look to the government when faced with a economic, foreign, or social problem, then you are a Statist and support the police state in a passive manner. The United States wasn’t founded on the idea that the government is the solution for these kinds of things and until the vast majority of Americans come to realize this, we will never be truly free.
Until then, our own personal fears of what may happen and a total lack of proper risk management will keep us under the thumb of Statists and oppressors whose faux concern for us will maintain their power.
Related articles
- The United States is a Police State, part 3 (swiftfoxmark2.blogspot.com)
- The United States is a Police State, part 2 (swiftfoxmark2.blogspot.com)
- The United States is a Police State (swiftfoxmark2.blogspot.com)