Are the people to blame for the current police state?

[Libertarian602]

12 odd years of war, and a surplus of military equipment is partially to blame for the militarization of police departments across the country. These weapons of war are no longer being used in places like Iraq, so in the infinite wisdom of those in the Pentagon, it was decided to start handing this equipment down to law enforcement.

[spacemonkey]

Well, if everyone was as nice as me, we wouldn't even need police departments, or even militaries. But they ain't, so we do.

[Indy]

We are totally to blame for the police state, because we say nothing about it.

Why? Simple answer: because more often than not, that police state is being targeted against people of color. Just like the drug wars (with which it often goes hand in hand).

So white people don't care if a SWAT team is bursting through the door of a black family's home because the dad sold a dime bag of weed. But when the law enforcement shows up at a ranch to displace some cows owned by a white tax-dodger--and that law enforcement is federal, meaning that the boss is black, well, then--every white guy with a military rifle in the region shows up and points their gun at the feds screaming about liberty.

I remember first watching shows like Detroit SWAT or Dallas SWAT on whatever channel that is. After a short time you realized that the majority of the segments are them executing a drug search warrant and you wonder if this wasn't overkill. And it wasn't in white neighborhoods I can assure you that.

We want our police militarized and armed to the teeth because we think this will keep those dark people from crawling through our windows. And to make sure, we arm ourselves to the teeth as well. We tell ourselves that this is necessary because Those People are so well-armed, police need that kind of firepower to keep up. The great irony being that the people who possess the most firepower aren't black--it's white guys in rural areas.

Oh, and to protect us from the other dark people, the tayerists. I think.

[Libertarian602]

Indy, when did you get the job of being spokesman for all white people and how they about the militarization of law enforcement in America?? Does it pay well??

Laughable....

[Indy]

[Mr. Shaman]

[Libertarian602]

Oh Gee, Mr. Shaman putting his foot in his mouth with his typical idiocy. Not Laughable, just sad really.

But here's for you and Indy's fake concern over police militarization.

http://www.cato.org/publications/white- ... ds-america
http://www.cato.org/events/rise-warrior ... ice-forces
http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/08/06/r ... ization-of

Sounding the alarm long before you and your butt buddies pretended to care about the issue.
New York Times reporter Matt Apuzzo:
[T]he criticism of the so-called militarization of police has largely come from libertarian quarters for several years. They have kind of been the lone voice on this, folks like the Cato institute.

[Libertarian602]

[Indy]

Of course, I'm totally over-generalizing, said Guy Who Apparently Doesn't Live in This Country.

How naive do you have to be to think that if street violence erupted in the tony white northern suburbs here you can be damn sure that something would be done about it?

But what it's black people shooting black people (well, black men to be precise) on the south and west sides, everybody shrugs because they're only killing each other,right?

Likewise, nobody cares about SWAT breaching a house in Detroit looking for crack but how long do you think that would continue if they were ripping the doors off a Kenilworth mansion to find some teenager's drug stash?

Protesters in the streets of Ferguson drew a totally militarized police response.

A totally militarized response to feds showing up at a Nevada ranch, where their loaded weapons were trained at law enforcement, drew nothing.

What if those who showed up were New Black Panthers, armed to the teeth? It would have been a massacre.

We tolerate the abysmal failure War on Drugs why? Because most of those snared in its net are people of color. We are the most incarcerated country on the PLANET. Why is this tolerated by all these freedom-loving, liberty-worshipping patriots here? Guess.

So yeah no shit I don't speak for all white people, but denying this is the reality is just sticking your head in the sand.

And why nothing changes.

[eynon81]