MILITARIZATION OF POLICE AND THE USE OF DEADLY FORCE

I think there is ample evidence of the Police getting out of hand.  Especially in light of huge increase in the number of laws, many times contradictory, which are written at all levels of government and the extreme tactics which are being employed to enforce these laws.

Herewith is an article from the Washington Examiner which describes the militarization of our police forces: 
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/23/police-militarizing-without-any-checks-power-exper/?page=all#pagebreak

How many of you live in small communities which have large and extremely fortified police forces?  How many of you even know how fortified your police force actually is?  Have we really reached the tipping point where the idea of justice is a police force which willingly uses force to strip us of our constitutional rights in an attempt to enforce the law?

How many of you remember the response to the Boston Marathon bombing when the police force cordoned off entire blocks of the city and forced the residents out of their homes as they searched their homes without a warrant?  Does anyone think that show of force was justified or constitutional?  Can you imagine what would occur if a home owner refused to willingly leave and allow police complete access to  their PRIVATE residence?  At the least they would be removed by force and charged criminally.  If they were the least resistant, they would be physically assaulted or worse by the officers who are supposed to "Protect and Serve".

Why do we need an NSA gathering spying on every citizen of the US?  why do we need the CIA, FBI, DIA, TSA, Homeland Security on the national level and State, city, local and sherriff departments on the state level?  all in the name of protecting us when in fact, they do not protect, but instead are in many cases a part of the problem?  Why do we need so many distinct forces, all becoming extremely militarized to protect our streets when they are never available when a crime occurs?

What ever happened to the concept of a police force which is there to "protect and serve" the community at large?  Does this protection extend to the killing of citizens without a trial by jury?  Is it right for the police force to in essence become the supreme law of the land wherein they become judge, jury and executioner with impunity?

Most people have heard about the shooting of unarmed Michael Brown by a white policeman in ferguson Missouri and the riots which occurred in response.  How many of you know about the shooting of an unarmed white young man in Utah by a black policeman a week earlier?  Not many, I'll wager and there was certainly no reaction by the president, US Attorney general and the race baiting Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to this incident.  Now assume that the evidence of the Black Utah cop shooting the unarmed white kid proves to be indictable while the White Fergusons cop shooting the young black man is found to have been in self defense and thereby not indictable.  I'm willing to wager that then you will see Jesse, Sharpton, Holder and need I say Obama leading the riots.

But I digress.  Is either incident right or warranted?  Is the use of extreme, ie... deadly force by police because a young man refuses to immediately honor the orders of a police officer acceptable in our country?  

Is it right that in America, where the violent crime rate has declined for the past 5 years we have seen a 3 fold increase in the average number of killings by police during this same period?  Prior to 2006, FBI statistics show the incidents of lethal force to number under ten a year nationwide.  From 2006 to 2009, they increased to an average of 50 per year.  From 2010 to the current they have averaged over 100 per year. This during a time when the incident of violent crime has been decreasing.

Certainly there is reason for the police to use deadly force in the most extreme cases, but why does it seem that the use of extreme force is occurring with more frequency at a time when the incidence of violent crime is decreasing?  Is this a result of the militarization of our police force?  Is it a result of attempts to enforce the plethora of laws which are overburdening our society?  Is it a case of the police becoming too arrogant? Or is it as simple as the police encountering violent criminals more often than in past years?

We will probably n ever be able to answer these questions to any degree of certainty, but we must look at what is happening in our country and how this country based on the ideals of self governance and personal responsibility has become a country wherein almost anything one does on a daily basis can be construed as being illegal in some manner, shape of form and might be met with lethal force for not complying immediately to one of the myriad "officials"ndemands.

Just something to think about.

A DIFFERENT SET OF RULES

Got into a discussion yesterday with some who claimed that the "privileged class live by a different set of rules than the ones we are forced to adhere to." When I asked what the different rules were being forced on us, I was told I was one of the privileged and out of touch.

I think you all might find my reply interesting:

My issue is with this notion, which the President is exploiting that if you work hard and become very successful thorough your sacrifice and efforts you should be denigrated rather than celebrated for your achievement. That just isn't the American way.  We should all be celebrating success. Pushing and prodding each other to be the best we can be and to gain as much success as we are able to achieve. This idea that we don't build the companies we sacrifice and work

 15 hour days to grow is just a load of crap as far as I'm concerned. I build companies from scratch. I put my personal capital at risk. I sign on the dotted line for the loans and place my personal assets up as collateral. I am the one who meets with the investment groups and gives up pieces of my success in order that the business can grow and hire more people. When the vendors don't pay on time, I write the checks to my staff from my personal accounts. I work alongside the staff doing the same job, but I don't leave at the end of the day.  I am the one who doesn't get paid when the money doesn't come in on time.  I always have to pay my taxes up front whether I make a profit or not and I am the one who has to negotiate the labyrinth of regulatory minions and pay the cost of conforming to regulations even the bureaucrats don't understand just so I can keep the doors open.  It is my responsibility to pay the cost of insuring the business against even the slightest regulatory infraction just so we can continue to operate. Yet, I'm always the last in line to receive any compensation.

So when I hear this foolish rhetoric that I don't pay my fair share, that I didn't build my company, that it wasn't through my efforts that the staff was hired and are gainfully employed I say BULLSHIT to you Mr. President and to anyone else who thinks I am wrong. It was my idea, it is through my creativity that the company began, I did build it, I do operate it and I do deserve all the success and profit which comes as a result of my doing so. 

And the different rules? Let's think of the different set of rules that the successful people live by: up at 5:30 a.m., put in a 15 hour day without complaint, on call all the time because the product never sleeps, wealth is opportunity so don't consume it, don't spend it on the frivolous, the business requires reinvestment. They delay gratification, saving and scrimping so they can hire one more worker because that's how the business will grow, that's how a new branch can get opened in a new city. NO TV, NO online games, never a drink during a weekday, seldom on a weekend (on call) - set aside eating at a sit-down restaurant today, regardless of working 20 hours straight after a 3 a.m., discussion about a distribution problem: one of the new hires has a little son who got injured during a little league game - discuss this because it takes priority and that's how you can make the new hire take a second look at you and feel like they can trust the vision of this company.  Yeah, some rich people live by a different set of rules and they never pay "their fair share".

And guess what, if there weren't a lot of people like me all across the country willing to do the same thing, America wouldn't exist. We are what America is all about,  we are proud of our accomplishments and we won't apologize for our success regardless of what you laggards may think.

Any comments?

THROW THE BUMS OUT!

If you step back and take an honest look, you’ll see that the unfortunate state of affairs in American politics has resulted from the reign of both political parties. The politicians, from both parties, work together in lockstep to advance their various agendas. Perhaps not as often during this cycle, but don’t let that fool you, this is only an effort to corral people into one party or another in order to maintain their power structure. Reality dictates that both parties logroll together and when necessary, one side “takes the hit” for political expediency. Whenever the illusion of accountability is needed, one or the other party makes a “sacrifice” in order to maintain the fictional separation between the parties. The system depends on the delusion that people can “vote the bums out.” I believe it is time to actually make good on this promise.

As long as we continue to elect the same people to hold the same offices, every government failure becomes the pretext for more regulatory interference in our lives. If you don’t get distracted by the spectacle, it’s impossible not to notice the pattern: Every political solution to any problem involves more regulation of your life and more taking of your money. If you fall for the political fallacy that we live in a country where government operates with the “consent of the governed” you end up with the faulty conclusion that America is populated by a citizenry which enjoys having its every action regulated by one or another branch of the government.

Americans, over the past 40 years have become the most regulated people on the planet. Consider that the Federal Register – for 2008 alone – had 80,700 pages of laws and regulations. This is before the addition of the hundreds of thousands of pages of laws and regulations at the state and local levels. Oh, and did I mention that the IRS tax code consists of more than 70,000 pages of regulations defining how much of your earnings are going to be confiscated by the government in order to enforce these regulations? The sheer annual output of all the federal and state “lawmakers” makes the 70,000 page IRS code seem miniscule by comparison.

The current administration claims this overburdening regulatory environment is necessary to “share the wealth” with the less fortunate amongst us. The most recent past administration claimed it was necessary to protect us from the “Axis of Evil” who mean to do us harm. In fact, the beneficiaries of this “sharing of the wealth” are the regulators. We don’t need to be told how to “share the wealth” or how to protect ourselves. The act of sharing is a voluntary act. That's what makes it sharing. If you're compelled by threat of imprisonment to give somebody something, then it's not sharing. Nor is it fair. Paying your fair share is what you do when you go out to dinner with friends. But when strangers whose salaries you're forced to pay decide, under threat of prosecution, how much of your money to take, in order to spend it on things you often detest, then fairness is not part of the equation. To show just how unfair it becomes, in other nations, if you’re fed up you can just leave, with no future consequence. In America, unless you properly complete the regulatory process to become an Ex-Patriot and remain outside of the country for the balance of your life, you continue to be forced to pay homage to the government or be prosecuted.

Millions of Americans are fed up with the lies, the debts, the taxes, the bailouts, the hypocrisy, the rip-offs, and the wars. The rise of the Tea Party is an acknowledgement that the average American understands that the system is rotten to the core and it is time to take back out nation. It is time to “throw the bums out” and return the citizen legislator to the halls of government.