Felony Friday: The Silver Lining To The Ferguson Occupation
Why didn’t Boston get your attention?Why did Americans sit idly by as their fellow citizens were forced to “shelter in place” and heavily militarized police systematically raided homes?Occupants were forced to run from their own property, treated like trespassers in their own home. Every person was presumed guilty until the raid on their house was complete.When the “shelter in place” was finally lifted, a normal, everyday guy found the suspect on his property. The police state measures didn’t even work!But this was an insignificant detail. The people cheered the military occupation of an American city. The damage was done.The tireless minority that spoke out against tyrannical militarized police tactics, which trampled the liberties of thousands of American citizens, were ridiculed and called unpatriotic.Don’t say we didn’t warn you that an American police state was lurking in the shadows, waiting for the opportunity to pounce.Turn the page to August 2014.Americans should not have been surprised when heavily militarized police forces sprung up in Middle America. They should have expected a small town in Missouri to have stockpiled enough military equipment to take over a small country and to use these resources to crush the liberties of American citizens.Police departments across the country have been stockpiling military weapons, vehicles, and gear for years thanks to a government program that transfers these items from the battlefield to your local community police department.The events that led to the military style occupation were tragic.This past Saturday, a Ferguson Police Officer allegedly shot and killed an unarmed black male. The details surrounding the shooting death of eighteen-year-old Michael Brown are still not clear. Eye witnesses have claimed that the recent high school graduate had his hands raised above his head when he was shot. As of publishing time, five days after the shooting, the officer involved has not been named and no arrests have been made.After the shooting a vigil for the victim was set up. The vigil turned into protests. The police responded with huge numbers of officers to control the crowd as the protests spilled into Sunday. As night fell on Ferguson on Sunday, the protests devolved into destructive and violent chaos.A riot was occurring in Middle America. Stores were looted and a convenience store was burned to the ground. The images and videos from Ferguson were disgusting.The response by the police was straight up Orwellian. Protestors were confronted by police officers dressed in full military fatigues. Two reporters were assaulted and arrested by police officers in a local McDonalds. Police bombarded a news crew from Al Jazeera America with tear gas and rubber bullets. The streets were full of military vehicles as cops fired rubber bullets at protestors. Snipers trained semi-automatic rifles on unarmed civilians. Again, the images and videos from Ferguson were disgusting.The tragic event that triggered the protests and riots, which led to the appearance of the militarized police, could have easily occurred elsewhere in this country. I do not say this to minimize the life of the young man who was allegedly shot dead by a police officer, but rather to illustrate how easily these events could have unfolded in the city you call home.As a writer focusing on felonies in this weekly column, I am inundated with stories of police violating the individual rights of citizens. Almost none of these events make it into the “standard” American’s media stream.Just last month police officers in New York City choked a man to death while arresting him for selling loose cigarettes. There were protests, but no riots. Thankfully no police in military garb showed up to “regulate” the protests.There is no excuse for the destruction of property or stealing, but this behavior is not a justification for turning an American city into a war zone. Protecting property rights does not justify violating civil rights and vice versa.John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute wrote an exemplary commentary asking if we have reached a tipping point in the Police State. Here’s an excerpt from the article, but I recommend reading the entire piece.
And finally, there’s the American people. Whatever the threat to so-called security—whether it’s rumored weapons of mass destruction, school shootings, or alleged acts of terrorism—it doesn’t take much for the American people to march in lockstep with the government’s dictates, even if it means submitting to martial law, having their homes searched, and being stripped of one’s constitutional rights at a moment’s notice. Americans will unfortunately march in lockstep with the police state, that is, until suddenly they are the ones being held at gunpoint, terrorized and stripped of their rights. At that point, as Ferguson makes clear, it’s almost too late to dial back the police state.Clearly, the American homeland is now ruled by a military empire. Everything our founding fathers warned against—a standing army that would see American citizens as combatants—is now the new norm. The government—local law enforcement now being extensions of the federal government—has trained its sights on the American people. We have become the enemy. And if it is true, as the military asserts, that the key to defeating an enemy is having the technological advantage, then “we the people” are at a severe disadvantage.
Whitehead is correct. The police state has arrived. The only question is: are we able to roll it back before it is too late?Local police departments are stocked with military equipment and the appearance of government agencies are now indistinguishable from the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, or Air Force. But have the events in Ferguson provided the American people with a sufficient glimpse into the horrors of living under a police state that the momentum of police militarization can be halted?As Whitehead says in his article, reform of local police must start in your local community. This issue is not going to be solved by bureaucrats in Washington that are owned by the military industrial complex. They want to maintain the cycle of war, rinse, and repeat. With the rinse step denoting the sending of “obsolete” military weapons, equipment, and vehicles to police departments at home. The only way to stop this cycle is to stop your local police department from acquiring these military grade items.Educate your neighbors. Find out who makes the decision to militarize your local police and put a stop to it.While the events in Ferguson have been hard to watch, there might be a silver lining to this otherwise tragic and destructive situation. Perhaps, the American people now understand how quickly a police state can be assembled and how quickly individual rights disappear when this occurs.Lions of Liberty Podcast Episode 13: John Whitehead- The Police State Is HereCheck out our past editions of Felony Friday!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
