Published Tuesday, January 7, 2014 at 3:22 pm

Dear Editor,

When politicians lie to us it’s excused as politics but lie to them and it’s a felony. Americans can “speak” in meaningless ways, where permitted, but do it with friends, without a permit, at a government/corporate building, and there’s often a different reaction. Either is constitutionally legal, free speech, but one will be punished. Officially, it will be for not having an assembly permit, and harassment. Unofficially, it’s for unapproved speech, but we don’t call it that so it’s different, right?

If thugs attack you for protesting, or arrest you and let someone in jail do it, kidnap your kid or call child protective services telling them you’re an unfit parent for being arrested, put you under indefinite house arrest or on a no fly list, follow you instead of your internet traffic/email, GPS location, activate your phone as a listening device, and access the snail mail leaving your home; both are police states.

“Consumers” say; “The fact that someone living in America can call America a police state without consequence shows that we’re not a police state.”

Alternatives to the movie idea of a police state aren’t less invasive. Because “our government” takes extra steps in bringing that boot down doesn’t make it any less a boot. If you don’t stand out, you might not experience any state apparatus landing on you, and everything’s groovy.

America differs from obvious police states because you expect justice. You trust government enough to hope for reform. You listen to the prestitutes, no matter how much you distrust them. What else explains why people surrender liberty and money for broken promises?

Because of the militarization of American police you are many times more likely to be killed by them, than terrorists. America, 5% of the worlds population, holds 25% of its prison population, half a million more than China, which has a population five times greater.

Americans don’t know that they’ve probably committed several crimes daily. Laws have exploded in number and become impossibly vague so that almost anything is criminalized. Consider “obstruction of justice”; interfering with the operation of a law enforcement officer, which could be actions, words or a facial expression that an officer finds offensive.

Before Snowden’s NSA disclosures “consumers” wouldn’t have believed America’s invasive police-state surveillance. Billions have been spent without catching one ‘terrorist’. You’d think they might have accidently stumbled over one. Their aim is control thru paranoia.

“Consumers” ignore America’s growing oppression believing freedom comes from political procedures; the ‘right’ to vote, run for office or petition a congressman. These “freedoms” exist to serve the state and keep you from demanding the real thing. “Participation” makes the state seem legitimate; No matter who you vote for government doesn’t change.

A police state is generally thought to control citizens aggressively, like attacking OWS protesters or identifying “enemies” using things like no-fly lists; outright persecution follows Surveillance and lists.

Most Americans don’t know about the National Defense Authorization Act which says you can be snatched off the street without charge, denied a lawyer, held indefinitely, never indicted and never released. This NSA identified “enemy” could disappear and who would know? We’re one false flag event away from martial law. The government never makes mistakes, right?

Police, using military gear, increasingly act like an occupying army in hostile territory like after the Boston bombing. With police playing battlefield soldiers and whole neighborhoods becoming suspects, this won’t have a happy ending.

Government agents can break down your doors, kill your dog, damage your possessions and terrorize your family; your home isn’t your secure castle. Police can forcibly draw your blood, strip search you, and probe you intimately; your body isn’t yours. Obvious disrespect comes to your home with tens of thousands of SWAT raids across America every year, even in small towns, pursuing small-time suspects; early morning, no-knock raids for suspected drugs, to serve a warrant or, wrong address often kills citizens and family dogs. You’re in your home, its dark outside and your door caves in without warning, what do you do?

I know someone, in this state, in his seventies who answered his door to find several police in street clothes that didn’t immediately identify themselves. The very large officer in charge forced his way into the home. The homeowner was told they were coming in to search for alleged marijuana operations. He could allow the easy search, or they‘d hold him and his wife while they got a search warrant which would take at least 6 hours and then “you’ll get the hard search”. Why not arrive with a search warrant if their information was credible? Protect and serve?

A 17 year old Durham boy arrested for second degree trespassing shot himself in the head, in the back of a police cruiser, while his hands were cuffed behind his back, after having been searched. http://www.copblock.org

Automatic obedience comes from interesting claims; cops are more decent and trustworthy than citizens, as are their bosses, and power doesn’t corrupt. Government workers are somehow a better class of beings while doing state business. Lies, threats, and violence become righteous when delivered by men with badges. Politicians, well-known liars and money-whores, magically produce pristine moral results in their official acts.

Cops believe that they’re “good men” doing righteous work. It isn’t always so. The average Nazi cop wasn’t a fanatic, but a family man, who believed he was acting admirably, enforcing the laws of the state. Does a good man choose to use a badge to “legally” abuse his neighbors at gunpoint, and if he does, what do we make of him?

Force is America’s instrument of choice, in our foreign and domestic activities. The result isn’t peace, justice, or prosperity but a state that harasses and imprisons its citizens while ranting incoherently about freedom.

“You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” Ayn Rand

Craig Dudley