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Texas and Florida Have Become National Models for Using the Police State To Wage Culture War Battles
Texas and Florida Have Become National Models for Using the Police State To Wage Culture War Battles
From library books to abortion, gender, and even food, the culture war is now feeding the police state.
C.J. Ciaramella | From the November 2025 issue
Essentially, the librarians are my suspects," the Texas police officer tells a school superintendent in the body camera footage. "If they are the ones that are choosing the books and putting them in there, you know, they're the ones carrying the criminal liability."
The Hood County constable was in the middle of a nearly two-year investigation of several school librarians for distributing allegedly obscene books. Local news outlet KXAS obtained the body camera footage and the nearly 800-page case file of the officer's investigation last year, which concluded after the district attorney declined to file the charges that the constable had taken the liberty of drafting up.
No librarian has been arrested in such a case yet, in Texas or elsewhere, but the incident illustrated a larger trend: On issues such as library books, abortion, gender, and even food, the culture war is now feeding the police state.
This phenomenon started in the states, and none have pursued it with more intensity than Florida and Texas, where governors and legislatures have competed to show that they're fighting the hardest against what they call "woke" excess and leftist hegemony. Now this style of governance—using criminal law, mass surveillance, tip lines, and the threat of police violence to wage the culture war—is going national.
Snip...
https://reason.com/2025/10/06/culture-war-police-state/?nab=1&itm_source=parsely-api
From library books to abortion, gender, and even food, the culture war is now feeding the police state.
C.J. Ciaramella | From the November 2025 issue
Essentially, the librarians are my suspects," the Texas police officer tells a school superintendent in the body camera footage. "If they are the ones that are choosing the books and putting them in there, you know, they're the ones carrying the criminal liability."
The Hood County constable was in the middle of a nearly two-year investigation of several school librarians for distributing allegedly obscene books. Local news outlet KXAS obtained the body camera footage and the nearly 800-page case file of the officer's investigation last year, which concluded after the district attorney declined to file the charges that the constable had taken the liberty of drafting up.
No librarian has been arrested in such a case yet, in Texas or elsewhere, but the incident illustrated a larger trend: On issues such as library books, abortion, gender, and even food, the culture war is now feeding the police state.
This phenomenon started in the states, and none have pursued it with more intensity than Florida and Texas, where governors and legislatures have competed to show that they're fighting the hardest against what they call "woke" excess and leftist hegemony. Now this style of governance—using criminal law, mass surveillance, tip lines, and the threat of police violence to wage the culture war—is going national.
Snip...
https://reason.com/2025/10/06/culture-war-police-state/?nab=1&itm_source=parsely-api
3 replies
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