We've been on a war footing since 9/11 and have been waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq for over a decade. As a result we have cycled through a large number of soldiers through war zones and then after discharge a whole lot of those veterans have moved into law enforcement positions.
In the same time period beginning with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, a lot of Federal money went to local police departments for modernization and even more importantly your average US citizen does not realize that under the National Defense Authorization Act a vast amount of military hardware including machine guns and helicopters were transferred from the DOD to local police departments throughout the United States.
So what do you assume the end result has been to infuse our local police departments with so many ex-military fresh out of combat zones with a ton of military equipment and expertise? The result is that even the cops that are not coming directly out of a war zone are being drawn up into a militarized culture where your average cop on the street no longer understands or respects the conditions under which they may lawfully stop, detain, and question a US citizen. They act with impunity and the arrogance is as unmistakable as it is corrosive.
Meanwhile, your average citizen that does not come into contact with the police does not experience nor grasp the significance of these changes, but the folks who by virtue of their socioeconomic status daily are exposed to police are feeling the effects of living under the what must feel like an oppressive police state. These outbursts in the form of rioting should have been predictable. The militarization of the police is a powder keg placed right in the middle of vast dry tender. Even more troubling is that when you review the thousands of videos available on YouTube that over and over again demonstrate our police appear to be operating more under rules of engagement than they are the law it becomes clear that there is a very real problem here.
Something has got to give... and it is giving. The unrest is swelling and the ramifications for what we have done are going to demand a cruel amount of blood sacrifice before we can put it back again. The dogs of war are not a misnomer and there will be a terrible price to pay if we don't stop blurring the difference between police and military instead of excusing the descent because we, ourselves, in our comfortable homes and neighborhoods have not been affected by it yet. You may feel safer but tyranny will always make the few feel safer than freedom does, but history tells us that is devil's bargain to make and it does not end well.
In the same time period beginning with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, a lot of Federal money went to local police departments for modernization and even more importantly your average US citizen does not realize that under the National Defense Authorization Act a vast amount of military hardware including machine guns and helicopters were transferred from the DOD to local police departments throughout the United States.
So what do you assume the end result has been to infuse our local police departments with so many ex-military fresh out of combat zones with a ton of military equipment and expertise? The result is that even the cops that are not coming directly out of a war zone are being drawn up into a militarized culture where your average cop on the street no longer understands or respects the conditions under which they may lawfully stop, detain, and question a US citizen. They act with impunity and the arrogance is as unmistakable as it is corrosive.
Meanwhile, your average citizen that does not come into contact with the police does not experience nor grasp the significance of these changes, but the folks who by virtue of their socioeconomic status daily are exposed to police are feeling the effects of living under the what must feel like an oppressive police state. These outbursts in the form of rioting should have been predictable. The militarization of the police is a powder keg placed right in the middle of vast dry tender. Even more troubling is that when you review the thousands of videos available on YouTube that over and over again demonstrate our police appear to be operating more under rules of engagement than they are the law it becomes clear that there is a very real problem here.
Something has got to give... and it is giving. The unrest is swelling and the ramifications for what we have done are going to demand a cruel amount of blood sacrifice before we can put it back again. The dogs of war are not a misnomer and there will be a terrible price to pay if we don't stop blurring the difference between police and military instead of excusing the descent because we, ourselves, in our comfortable homes and neighborhoods have not been affected by it yet. You may feel safer but tyranny will always make the few feel safer than freedom does, but history tells us that is devil's bargain to make and it does not end well.