"There's a reason why the military and the police are separate. One fights the enemies of the State, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, the people tend to become the enemies of the State." Discuss.
I've not really seen the military become police....I do see the police trying to become the military. Not to mention all these alphabet agencies getting their own armed response teams.
A military approach toward law enforcement, whether implemented by police or the military, does appear to lead to abuse of the people. By the way, if anyone here hasn't read Rise of the Warrior Cop yet, you should do so.
I believe it was ShootER who recommended that book to me. Haven't read it yet because I'm a cheap bastard and pre-ordered the paperback, which comes out next month.
I'm waiting for the movie to come out. I'd rather not see that than not read the book - it makes me seem smarter.
The military were expected to be police in Iraq, and we know that went well. As for militarizing the police, I see it as an unfortunate counter-reaction to the increased militarization of certain segments of the population.
Is that like when oldfella says, "certain demographics," or did you have a different segment of the population in mind? :flow2:
It's the segment that's arming itself against the "certain demographics" because, yanno, drug dealers and gang-bangers are out there in the bushes waiting to steal their Stuff. It's also the Cliven Bundy/Federal Farmer segment. Oh, and hoarders and the Tinfoil Hat brigade.
Those may be some of the reasons that Federal agencies are doing it, but the militarization of local law enforcement these days begins and ends with the War on Drugs. The employment of SWAT teams has moved so far away from how they were originally intended to be used it's pathetic.
Yeah, I'm sure the police are arming themselves because of all the 2nd amendment people... I'm sure has nothing to do with the cartels arming their drug dealing minions. It is cute how Garamet tried to carefully wordsmith it to not commit herself.
My guess is they're stockpiling as many new toys as they can on the assumption that first the weed laws will change, then others will follow.
They're "buying" it because it's cheap or free. There's an agency near here with about 30-35 certified officers. They filled out the grant paperwork and the DoD gave them four fully upgraded and up armored Hummers with than 5,000 miles on them and a fully equipped MRAP with less than 1,000 miles on it. I could make a case for the Hummers since they're free. Disaster type stuff. But an MRAP!?!? No way.
^Good question. I know a lot of stuff got folded into Homeland Security, especially in NY, following 9/11, but...
Well my step-brother got out of the Army and was not qualified to do anything (Besides be an asshole drunk) so he became a police officer.
http://www.wired.com/2012/06/cops-military-gear/all/ A lot of the terminology the writer uses is just plain wrong. But, the general idea holds.
A corporate-military-police state actually. "Continuum" may be the best example of what our future actually looks like.
And then buys replacement equipment for the DoD. Thing is, this might be for WoD, but the reason so much money became available for the equipment is more related to WoT, IIRC & IMO.
There is probably some decent money in supplying replacement parts to municipalities. My tinfoil hat says that they want to get the sight of military hardware on the streets normalized, but that's crazy talk.
I was typing on my phone and there were too many letters... It's bad when there is corruption. If the police were looking out for everyone, equally, the militarization of the police force would make sense because there would have to be a good reason for it (tautaology, "if they were good, they'd only do good things"). If you could contract a corporation to do what the government now does and hold them to a high standard of conduct (somehow?), we shouldn't have a problem. Right now it looks like the feds are giving out lots of money for police to buy new toys, and since there are some/many/all (take your pick) police personnel who are corrupt, we don't get protected and served. That didn't make much sense when I wrote it all out. I agree that government isn't the best solution for everything, but look at the effects of privatization of prisons--you get corrupt judges selling kids into the system, a system that has no economic incentive to reduce the number of prisoners.
