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jack3566The Demise of Smalltown Police
Posted on May 11, 2008 by Lance
Good article at RadGeek on the militarization of the police over the last twenty years. Here, cops have nothing better to do than catch people speeding while they refuse to try to bust drug houses or solve the real crimes. I have spoken to a friend in Europe (Sweden to be exact) and he said that in his experiences there, cops never go after people for speeding. They’re solving real crimes and trying to keep the peace.
Filed under: Politics
I can believe that…… most likely the Drug cartels are paying them off. I wouldn’t doubt it for a second. This country is going to hell, sooner rather than later. Sad to say it but I use to love this country, now I feel sorry for it The government is as corrupt as the cartels We need a revolution, before it’s to late.
I would not be comparing to European police, however. Look at the Paris situation, where scores of cars still are torched at night and there are huge swaths of ‘no-go’ zones for the police, who are pretty corrupt themselves in the drug area.
I smell that Lance may be a disgruntled leadfoot. :D
Sorry, but the last time I took a speeding ticket (been a few years), I shrugged it off and went through the process. The law is what it is, it supposedly is for safety and the punishment is just a minor inconvenience (unless you’re dumb enough not to learn the lesson.)
As for a revolution now; you make me laugh. Revolution takes personal sacrifice, putting one’s cause well above ones’ comfort. I see no such tendency or drive behind the squeakiest of wheels, here or elsewhere. Whining is as far as it goes, to avoid the personal inconvenience of actually doing something.
I see the same so much in those who say, ‘Oh we have to help the poor people in Africa’; and you all know what I think of that is the Nike slogon (’Just do it‘). And that, dear friends, is far easier than any revolution.
Norm,
I’m sure that there are some drug cartels paying off cops somewhere; that’s what underground business operations tend to do. But as far as the topic of discussion goes — that is, the increasing aggressiveness and militarization of local police forces — the really payoffs here are coming from none other than the United States federal government, which has spent the past few decades as the prime sponsor, trainer, and supplier for paramilitary SWAT squads, “elite” task forces, and local patrol cops, through the mechanism of tax-funded federal grants, special training seminars and collaboration initiatives with federal law enforcement agencies, surplus equipment sales, etc. And while counter-terrorism and other so-called “Homeland Security” projects are now a driving factor in this process, the chief driving factor, over the past 30-40 years, has been the War on Drugs itself. If you want an explanation of why small-town police are increasingly trained to be belligerent, have the equipment and the desire to conduct paramilitary SWAT raids at the drop of a hat, are taking on larger and more powerful assault weapons just for ordinary patrols, and generally act like a case study of collective roid rage, it’s precisely because the Federalis have been juicing them for the past 30-40 years in order to use them as foot soldiers in the enforcement of federal drug policy.
I live in a suburb of Philadelphia and at the local tavern a man was beaten down by three men in plain view of most of the patrons. These “gentlemen” were in a group dining downstairs and someone had given this guy a t-shirt which he proudly wore. Somehow the “gentlemen” took offense to this and began beating him. When someone yelled to call the police, they replied that they were the police. They were from a nearby township. When the local township cops showed up, nothing was done. This is the sad police state we inhabit. Who polices the police??? I wasn’t there when it happened but no one jumped in to help this poor guy, especially after they pronounced their porcine identities. This filthy behavior is getting out of hand. I don’t care to see or hear any more deification of cops. Serve and protect, my ass.