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Are was already in a Police state and we do not know it??

JEDIYoda

JEDIYoda

Lifer
This is just one of the many instances of the military and military materials being used against Americans who choose to protest!
The question needs to asked, Why? Look at how out of touch including those who kneeled with the protesters are with society!
The Police have powers that you and I will never have...the first being qualified immunity!
Why the fuck would you need qualified immunity if you were actually protecting and serving?
How in the hell can a Police officer shoot you and say I heard the word gun or i saw a gun that never existed after the fact and then they get to go home as if nothing happened!
Then we have the militarization of the police! Why does that not bother people?
Our prisons have become a for profit organization, which means without prisoners they close!
Then we have the eroding of our Civil Liberties! There are a lot of examples of the Police abusing and firing and arresting Media credentialed people!
If you have been watching the protesting you would have seen the CNN reporter and his tem get arrested........Then in Public a Police officer told the media to get out of the way and go home! Without the media IMO this would be mush worse!
Finally we have FOX who is also dividing the country and they are playing to the unfounded fears of all white people!
I can go on and on, but I made this short!
The news article below really pissed me off! To be clear I am not against nor am I for AOC! But she has a lot of good things that need to be said!
The future of this country is NOT us old foggies! The future is in our youth!
We need to make sure they have a future!
Peace to all my ATOT friends!! Stay safe!!

www.vice.com

AOC Wants to Know Why the Hell a Predator Drone Was Spying on Protesters

The military-grade Predator B drone was far outside the 100-mile operational zone of Customs and Border Protection.
www.vice.com www.vice.com
 
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America is just doing a grand experiment--can a "civilized" democracy arm themselves and the police to the teeth and survive? We are the only country who has so many guns per person (more than 1, we have 400,000,000 or so guns!) by a huge, huge margin...so at the least as we kill each other over "freedom" we let the rest of the world know if it works or not. So far I'd vote: perhaps not going that smoothly.
 
The danger of concluding we're already in a police state is that it understates the risk of just how much worse this can and will get if Trump is re-elected. Whatever we're in, it doesn't yet compare to places like Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, or modern North Korea. Just wait though. Allow Trump to be re-elected and we'll see.

It's probably more accurate to say we're inching closer and closer to it every day he remains in office.
 
woolfe9998 said:
The danger of concluding we're already in a police state is that it understates the risk of just how much worse this can and will get if Trump is re-elected. Whatever we're in, it doesn't yet compare to places like Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, or modern North Korea. Just wait though. Allow Trump to be re-elected and we'll see.

It's probably more accurate to say we're inching closer and closer to it every day he remains in office.
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The police state has existed since the 1950s, but most of the time the majority of Americans chose to entertain themselves instead of focusing on societal problems.

The police state is just the internal focus of Empire, whereas we we typically see Empire focusing externally. And it operates as long as Empire exists, regardless of whether it's a R or D in charge of local/city/state/federal office. Just go look at Civil Rights of the 50s an 60s, WTO protests in the 90s, Occupy in 2011, etc. Any protest that attempts to change the authoritarian nature of government is typically met with police state violence.

Usually, the state had the power to portray it as protester violence met with rightful state authority, but with almost everyone carrying around a video recorder (not just a camera, cameras don't often provide context), it's no longer possible for the government to declare all the violence as caused by protesters. And, please, understand that agents provocateurs are as old as time. The "rioting" that started this whole thing off was caused by rioters, not protesters, and some of those rioters were right-wing authoritarians stirring up trouble...see Boogaloo Boys, KKK, etc. See CoIntelPro from the 50s/60s/70s to see how they did it back then...CoIntelPro was ultimately deemed illegal.

CoIntelPro as a program was ended. The activities have continued, unabated.

It's not that we're going to become a police state, because we have been and are.

The danger is always that right-wing authoritarian civilians will join up with fascist leaders to actively subjugate political dissidents, giving the highest official (US President) the cover needed to drop all pretenses of a democratic-republican form of government and become a dictator in name. Blackshirts in Italy. Brownshirts in Germany. And here, it'll be CamoShirts. Just see pictures of these small-town right-wing authoritarians out marching around with their AR-15s to defend against Labor Unions Jews Communists Antifa and Liberal enemies of the state.

And, by the way, BothSidesDoIt™ enablers exist to make the transition from law to authoritarianism possible. Don't let their hem-hawing bullshit fool you.
 
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Y’all are funny.

I know it’s just some spoutin off, to sound like the most wokest or whatever, and who can crap on the country in the wittiest way. I get it. Erudite discourse here in the interwebs. Lol.

you think if ‘merica was truly a police state, al la 1930s Germany, Spain, or Italy, 50s ussr or anytime in DPRK the secret police wouldn’t be on the way to get you around 2am tomorrow morning? Kinda cheapens the suffering wrought the way you’re diddling the term about.

Like is said, y’all are funny.
 
mistercrabby said:
Y’all are funny.

I know it’s just some spoutin off, to sound like the most wokest or whatever, and who can crap on the country in the wittiest way. I get it. Erudite discourse here in the interwebs. Lol.

you think if ‘merica was truly a police state, al la 1930s Germany, Spain, or Italy, 50s ussr or anytime in DPRK the secret police wouldn’t be on the way to get you around 2am tomorrow morning? Kinda cheapens the suffering wrought the way you’re diddling the term about.

Like is said, y’all are funny.
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I kind of already said that above.
 
mistercrabby said:
Y’all are funny.

I know it’s just some spoutin off, to sound like the most wokest or whatever, and who can crap on the country in the wittiest way. I get it. Erudite discourse here in the interwebs. Lol.

you think if ‘merica was truly a police state, al la 1930s Germany, Spain, or Italy, 50s ussr or anytime in DPRK the secret police wouldn’t be on the way to get you around 2am tomorrow morning? Kinda cheapens the suffering wrought the way you’re diddling the term about.

Like is said, y’all are funny.
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I would rather be funny than ignorant!!
No you just don`t get it! Ever hear of no knock warrants??
Ever have the police pull you over for your color for no reason other than you looked suspicious??
Do you actually know crap about what led to NAZI Germany being NAZI Germany?
You do realize Trump is beholding to the use of the military against peaceful protesters......sounds like Germany under Hitler to me....
You do realize that all the Police have to say is i saw a gun or i heard the word gun or i feared for my life and you guessed it -- RIP!!
 
JEDIYoda said:
I would rather be funny than ignorant!!
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Well, if your blathery reposte’ is any indication, you might be a winner- both at the same time. (-;

Yes, yes, inequities, injustice, insensitivity exist. Some are actually factual, salient and serious. It’s sweet the way you’re all fired up about them. However, to mangle Shakespeare “me thinks the poster doth protest too much”, in that making sweeping generalizations about how terribly awful it is to live in America and what a sucky country it is.

Distracts from all of us focusing on real solutions harmoniously to fix real problems.

In any case, I’m sure your response will by amusing.
 
The real danger is the fact that far too many people do not recognize or are willing to accept we do live in a police state already. Part of why many don't recognize this is purely demographics. I doubt there is a black man that doesn't know this all to well. The blue eyed blond probably was hassled much less in Hitler's time, just as the WASP is hassled much less in this country today.

The stupidity of some, which plays out as hate is sickening. Attacking a person that appears to be oriental because with their room temperature IQ they blame them for the coronavirus? All blacks are clearly up to something, right? The foot soldiers of this police state think so, and react thusly.

No knock warrants?
Asset forfeiture when no crime was committed?
Stop and frisk?
Driving while black?

Too many don't have any skin in the game, so they are immune to seeing this as they sip their starbucks swill. The draft ended, so anyone could keep their skin out of the game, like the rich and well connected did like cadet bone spurs. What is the mindset of a person that wants to be a cop? I want to go to work and deal with the absolute dregs of society, that sounds like a great life?

It is going to take the level of outrage and demonstrations that was seen in the late 60's which actually got us out of Viet Nam.
 
mistercrabby said:
Y’all are funny.

I know it’s just some spoutin off, to sound like the most wokest or whatever, and who can crap on the country in the wittiest way. I get it. Erudite discourse here in the interwebs. Lol.

you think if ‘merica was truly a police state, al la 1930s Germany, Spain, or Italy, 50s ussr or anytime in DPRK the secret police wouldn’t be on the way to get you around 2am tomorrow morning? Kinda cheapens the suffering wrought the way you’re diddling the term about.

Like is said, y’all are funny.
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Black people live in a police state. Just ask Breonna Taylor. What happened to her fits your description
 
HomerJS said:
Black people live in a police state. Just ask Breonna Taylor. What happened to her fits your description
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What happened to Ms Taylor is terrible and I’m very sad that it happened. Doesn’t = police state. No Knocks have been around for decades and it appears the police screwed up in this case.

I have no issue with finding a silver lining here to provide more regulation and training for how and when they are conducted.

The point of my original commentary is that trashing the country while you try to make your point diminishes your message as well as yourself in the eyes of many. Bad mouth the government all you want.

We can all agree the abuses mentioned in this thread need to be addressed. My gripe is with the sanctimonious tone and silly rhetoric.

If this were indeed a police state, you and your family would be fixin to get sent to a re-education camp or worse and your friends and coworkers investigated.

In the immortal words of Sgt Hulka, “Take it easy, Francis”.
 
HomerJS said:
Black people live in a police state. Just ask Breonna Taylor. What happened to her fits your description
Click to expand...

I have a soft spot for people that are forced to live in fear for their lives every single day. My people, the Irish, were treated like this by the English for centuries and it didn't stop when we came to America. That is until we were deemed white enough around the same time as the Italians.
 
mistercrabby said:
What happened to Ms Taylor is terrible and I’m very sad that it happened. Doesn’t = police state. No Knocks have been around for decades and it appears the police screwed up in this case.

I have no issue with finding a silver lining here to provide more regulation and training for how and when they are conducted.

The point of my original commentary is that trashing the country while you try to make your point diminishes your message as well as yourself in the eyes of many. Bad mouth the government all you want.

We can all agree the abuses mentioned in this thread need to be addressed. My gripe is with the sanctimonious tone and silly rhetoric.

If this were indeed a police state, you and your family would be fixin to get sent to a re-education camp or worse and your friends and coworkers investigated.

In the immortal words of Sgt Hulka, “Take it easy, Francis”.
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I guess this comes down to the question of what are the definitive qualities of a police state. Surly there must be some stage of police state before the 'police can find anonymous internet uses and black back them in the middle of the night' stage that is never the less still a police state. Certainly police states do not instantaneously form with immediate and complete control over a population. One must imagine that they must work their way up to re-education camps. Perhaps, just as an example, they start by putting immigrant children in camps? That would seem to be a reasonable stepping stone to putting adult citizens in camps?
 
MtnMan said:
The real danger is the fact that far too many people do not recognize or are willing to accept we do live in a police state already. Part of why many don't recognize this is purely demographics. I doubt there is a black man that doesn't know this all to well. The blue eyed blond probably was hassled much less in Hitler's time, just as the WASP is hassled much less in this country today.

The stupidity of some, which plays out as hate is sickening. Attacking a person that appears to be oriental because with their room temperature IQ they blame them for the coronavirus? All blacks are clearly up to something, right? The foot soldiers of this police state think so, and react thusly.

No knock warrants?
Asset forfeiture when no crime was committed?
Stop and frisk?
Driving while black?

Too many don't have any skin in the game, so they are immune to seeing this as they sip their starbucks swill. The draft ended, so anyone could keep their skin out of the game, like the rich and well connected did like cadet bone spurs. What is the mindset of a person that wants to be a cop? I want to go to work and deal with the absolute dregs of society, that sounds like a great life?

It is going to take the level of outrage and demonstrations that was seen in the late 60's which actually got us out of Viet Nam.
Click to expand...

You and Nick (above) are making assertions without bothering to define where free society leaves off and "police state" begins. Tellingly, neither of you have bothered to make a comparison with known authoritarian states both past and present. Because doing so would reveal your argument as shambolic.

Authoritarianism exists by degrees, not as an absolute. Throughout our entire history, we've existed somewhere on the spectrum between absolute freedom and absolute authoritarianism. The most important thing for people to understand right now is that we're moving in the authoritarian direction faster than we ever have, and it will be faster still if we get a bad result in November.

Conversely, if we're "already in a police state" as you're claiming, then it really doesn't matter who we vote for in November, does it? Except it does matter. A lot.

I'm always amused by people who come on the internet and claim we're in a police state, and rail on against whatever the current government is as authoritarian. The irony is that these people know that they can do this without fear of the FBI showing up at their door the next day to prosecute them for sedition. Otherwise, they wouldn't be saying it in the first place.

The very right to come on a discussion forum and criticize the government as authoritarian is ironically something you're taking for granted, not me. I'm well aware that we currently have this right that billions throughout the world do not have, and I'm also well aware that this right could be taken away.

Possibly soon.
 
mistercrabby said:
Distracts from all of us focusing on real solutions harmoniously to fix real problems.
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In a lifetime of attempting to understand what makes me tick I made what I would call an interesting discovery. All of my opinions that I grew up believing were the truth and the good turned out to be lies. This was very disappointing to say the least and caused me to live for a number of years in a depressed state of grief. And I believe also that the inescapability of the pain I felt, owing to my ruthless honesty, drove the discovery that beneath that numb feeling of depression was a terrible sadness, and below that white hot rage. Well well well, who would have known that beneath that rage was the memory of loss over which I had never been able to grieve. But no matter about that, the important thing I want to tell you is that all of the things I believed in that made me feel worthwhile because I believed in the good, when they were swept away were replaced by something better and all of the joy I thought I had lost came back.

In short I had actually been a bigot and the reason I couldn't see it was because I believed that my bigotry was the good and I held on to it because I believed that if I didn't believe it was good, it would make me a bad person. The world I grew up in was of dark ignorance and I never had a chance. And if you didn't believe in what you were told you would be lost. Fear any deviation from law.

So what comes to me in reading your post and where I might find some suggestions as to some light be shed, I fixed on the above, selected from your post. I know you believe it is good to focus on real solutions, and I believe also that doing so is good. But I think we could differ on what real solutions might be. When I tried to prove absolutely that the bigoted ideas I believed in were true, and I am using the word bigot discriptively and not as a put down, I failed because, as I said, I wanted a proof that held up to my merciless scrutiny. I would suggest then, if you wish self understanding, to examine for yourself the truth of what you personally believe to be real solutions that harmoniously fix real problems and try them out on me.

What is important to me about your posts here is that you do want what is good. I don't think you are bad to believe what you do. But I do believe that we make a lot of unconscious assumptions that simply are not factual.

For example, I have observed that a lot of times when people use the word reasonable, what they are really saying is, 'what doesn't make me experience discomfort, but discomfort, I think, caused me to break down walls the were a prison I had not seen.
 
sandorski said:
This isn't a Free State

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Why, because some scruffy looking pontificator on younoob with 75,000 views puts out a police brutality porn video?

Geez Looeeze is that the best ev you got for your claim that the USA is a police state ?? You’d get laughed out of middle school debate class.

You tube! Y’all get funnier by the post.

Keep trying, maybe you’ll get an hbo stand up special !
 
Moonbeam, there is a lot to unpack in what you wrote. Appreciate the honesty and self reflection. A couple of thoughts...

Moonbeam said:
What is important to me about your posts here is that you do want what is good. I don't think you are bad to believe what you do. But I do believe that we make a lot of unconscious assumptions that simply are not factual.
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Crabby— I don’t believe in unconscious anything. Assumptions, bigotry or any of that subliminal “ you don’t even know you’re racist” baloney. It’s the conscious thoughts we have that matter, and most importantly, how we act or not on them. I agree we have conscious assumptions that aren’t factual. Those we can discuss and debate and deal with.

Moonbeam said:
For example, I have observed that a lot of times when people use the word reasonable, what they are really saying is, 'what doesn't make me experience discomfort, but discomfort, I think, caused me to break down walls the were a prison I had not seen.
Click to expand...

Crabby— maybe so. To me reasonable could be a bit of a waffle. But reasonable can also be the way forward, balancing various viewpoints in a democratic way.

Again, very thought provoking post. I’m going to read it again.
 
mistercrabby said:
Why, because some scruffy looking pontificator on younoob with 75,000 views puts out a police brutality porn video?

Geez Looeeze is that the best ev you got for your claim that the USA is a police state ?? You’d get laughed out of middle school debate class.

You tube! Y’all get funnier by the post.

Keep trying, maybe you’ll get an hbo stand up special !
Click to expand...

...because the video has multiple examples of Cops acting like Thugs. You know, the kind of things that make Police States, Police States.

All you got is your opinion and a Post.
 
woolfe9998 said:
You and Nick (above) are making assertions without bothering to define where free society leaves off and "police state" begins. Tellingly, neither of you have bothered to make a comparison with known authoritarian states both past and present. Because doing so would reveal your argument as shambolic.
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A police state is when the police exceed their authority, we live in a police state.

The right to have $10K in your pocket and not have it confiscated under some asset forfeiture bull shit. Maybe you just sold a vehicle to a guy who paid you in cash, and haven't been to the bank yet (oh wait that won't work, deposit 10K in cash and they have to notify authorities) but you got stopped for some stupid traffic violation like a burnt out tag light, and some cop that thinks he is also judge and jury decides you are going to do something nefarious with that much money (a third of his annual income) and confiscates it as evidence of some unknown possible future crime. It happens.

When you finally (if) get your money back, maybe after you spend another 10K in legal fees and it finally gets resolved 2 years later.

That's a fucking police state genius.

PS why you have $10K in cash is none of the governments fucking business in the first place.
PPS getting stopped for something as completely trivial as a burnt out tag light also means you live in a police state. Tag lights are totally bogus anyway, either it is daylight (DoH) plus every tag I have seen is reflective and still clearly visible.

footnote: I sold a truck to an individual yesterday, and when he came to get it, he paid me in cash. Thus I am well aware. The last vehicle I purchased, I paid the seller in cash. 100% absolutely legal, except in the eyes of some cop with an ego or a point to prove.
 
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