Militarized police: Cra, cra, out of control
Installment 17 of The New Bossism of the American Left
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Installment 17:
As always, a reminder to new subscribers that this is the latest installment from my 2015 book The New Bossism of the American Left. I am serializing it because my forthcoming book, Globacracy: How a massive globalist bureaucracy is shaping a one-world state, builds upon this book.
Today’s installment concerns the increasing militarization of police, which continues apace today. As in 2015, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) continues to call for a halt to the shipping of military tanks, weaponry, helicopters and drones to civilian police.
In 2020, Paul updated the information found in this chapter: “According to the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), which operates within the Department of Defense, ‘More than $7.4 billion worth of property’ has been transferred to law enforcement through the Law Enforcement Support Office (LESO) program. DLA also reveals that ‘as of June 2020, there are around 8,200 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies from 49 states and four U.S. territories participating in the program.’”
That’s an ever-growing web of law enforcement that is increasingly federalized and armed with military firepower, the perfect storm for abuse. This has paralleled an increasing trend to federalize crime—turning protesters into domestic terrorists—and both the right and the left have been targeted. Indeed, since The New Bossism was written, the Department of Homeland Security has made “domestic terrorism” a major priority, pumping $50 million in the last three years into coordination and training with local law enforcement, with $20 million more for this year. Presumably, the training will be how to use all that military hardware sitting around your county sheriff’s department, or at other local law enforcement. Here’s how DHS describes the program’s importance:
Lone offenders and small cells of individuals motivated by a range of violent extremist ideologies, of both domestic and foreign origin, represent the most persistent terrorism-related threat facing the United States. Domestic Violent Extremism has emerged as one of the greatest terrorist threats to the homeland, and has grown into a focal point for the Department’s counterterrorism efforts.
So who is defining what domestic terrorism is? Unfortunately, it’s DHS and the FBI—two agencies that literally can’t be trusted to tell you the truth about what they had for lunch—and who have targeted everyone from Occupy Wall Street on the left to parents at school board meetings on the right.
Meanwhile violence escalates in the streets, pretext for even more federal involvement. Here’s how Sen. Paul responded to that in the wake of violence in Portland:
While I respect the determination to preserve law and order, sending in federal forces to quell civil unrest in Portland further distorts the boundaries, results in more aggression (including pepper-spraying and repeatedly striking a Navy veteran whose injured hand will need surgery), and has led to reports we should never hear in a free country: federal officials, dressed in camouflage, snatching protesters away in unmarked vehicles.
Sending the feds into Chicago won’t make the situation there any better, either. Nothing you’ll read here excuses the actions of those who have destroyed lives and property in a mockery of peaceful protest—actions I have condemned. But many of us have been inspired by seeing protesters confronting these rioters, making the difference between righteous cause and opportunistic destruction even more stark.
Restoring lost trust is essential to reducing the tension and returning to peace. This means stopping the federal militarization of our local law enforcement and keeping federal agents and troops on the national posts where they best serve our country.
Even worse, there’s so much military equipment making its way into state and local government that there’s enough to have non-law-enforcement agencies get in on the act, such as funding drones for local zoning offices so they can surveil your property to make sure you are compliant with land-use laws.
The barn door for abuse is wide open. Now Installment 17: