Ken's Weblog

People should not fear their governments; governments should fear their people.

Tag: police state

  • Self-destructive Cops

    NYPD Punishes City by Not Citing, Arresting Citizens as Much. Oh, No!

    Right now in New York City, guys selling black market cigarettes are much, much less likely to be harassed and arrested (or worse) by the New York Police Department.

    […]

    They provide an info box showing, in addition to the huge drop in minor offense summonses, a 94 percent drop in citations for traffic violations, a 92 percent drop in parking violation citations, and a 66 percent drop in overall arrests.

    [Hit & Run]

    Last month I noted that it was a mistake for cops to be so happy about having proven that cops can’t be held accountable by the system. Apparently not satisfied with that level of stupidity, we now have a bunch of cops demonstrating that all it takes to lift their boots from the necks of an entire city of millions of people is to kill a couple of them. In other words, having proven that peaceful revolution is impossible, they’re now out to demonstrate that violent revolution not only works, but doesn’t even take much effort.

    I’d ask what they’re thinking, sending a message like that, but from what I’ve seen cops are so completely oblivious to the opinions of anyone but cops that they’re probably incapable of understanding what they’re doing.

  • Grand juries are rubber stamps

    Protests in US over chokehold death case. Grand jury declines to indict white policeman who killed black man in July by wrapping his arm around victim’s neck. [Al Jazeera English (AJE)]

    This completely unsurprising event follows closely on the equally unsurprising lack of indictment of the cop in Ferguson. From the reaction to both events, it’s pretty obvious that most people have no idea what a grand jury does. To put it simply, a grand jury does exactly what the prosecutor tells it to do. This has led to a fairly well known saying that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich. The Simple Justice blog addresses the Ferguson case in a post titled The Ferguson Lie.

    The cops and their apologists (what L. Neil Smith called “cop suckers”) are certainly happy, but they shouldn’t be. As John F. Kennedy said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” The government has just given the rest of us two very clear illustrations of the impossibility of peaceful revolution.

  • No surprise, unfortunately

    Georgia Grand Jury Rejects Criminal Charges Against Drug Warriors Who Burned and Mutilated a Toddler [Hit & Run]

    When I was a kid we heard stories about how people in the Soviet Union lived in fear of a midnight knock on the door, and I just couldn’t understand what that was like. Today, I remember those stories and am amazed by how polite and restrained those Russian cops were compared to American cops.

  • Terrorists in the U.S.

    “I just happened to glance over and saw this huge chainsaw ripping down the side of my door.”. “I just happened to glance over and saw this huge chainsaw ripping down the side of my door.”

    […]

    If the purpose of these raids is to take dangerous people by surprise before they can shoot back at police, how exactly does taking the door down with a chainsaw fit that strategy? [The Agitator]

    As several people pointed out in the comments on that post, there is really nothing more ideally suited to making an armed citizen empty their gun through their front door than some maniac cutting through it with a chainsaw! As tactics to use against an armed drug dealer, I can’t think of anything more incredibly stupid.

    On the other hand, what this sort of thing is very good for is terrorizing a mother and her very young daughter and making sure that they will never make the mistake of thinking they live in anything other than a hideously oppressive police state. That, I think, is the real purpose of these raids–they’ve got nothing to do with policing, and everything to do with state terrorism.

    Sadly, it could have been even worse. They’re not called the Federal Baby Incinerators for nothing.

  • History continues to repeat itself

    Training the Police State’s Next Generation.

    Remember when the Boy Scouts were merely about helping old ladies across the street, learning how to tie a decent knot, and excluding gay people?

    Meet the post-9/11 Scouts.

    The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.

    “This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.”

    The training, which leaders say is not intended to be applied outside the simulated Explorer setting, can involve chasing down illegal border crossers as well as more dangerous situations that include facing down terrorists and taking out “active shooters,” like those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses. In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout.

    “Put him on his face and put a knee in his back,” a Border Patrol agent explained. “I guarantee that he’ll shut up.”

    This is really despicable stuff.

    [The Agitator]

    It’s not at all surprising, though. It’s natural for any oppressive police state to create its own analog to the Hitler Youth and Young Pioneers.