An epiphany: Those who claim the U.S. is now a police state

[arendt]

4. Let's turn flame-bait into a useful discussion

Your position is as much a caricature as the "police state" position you attack.

Reality is much more nuanced. That is why people fear a creeping loss of rights - one situation at a time, one legal right at a time, until they have no rights left. In that sense, you and those you criticize are both half right. The thuggery is not yet a police state; but this isn't a real democracy anymore, and its getting worse.

I wrote a [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/09/953760/-The-Extraordinary-Rendition-of-Our-Rights diary about this in 2011] which emphasizes how the police state is turned on and off as the situtation demands. So, the quote below has ZERO to do with Boston:

When the elites want to take something from the serfs, they simply declare the legal equivalent of a free fire zone around the object they covet or the group they want to smash. For example, ACORN was stripped of its funding in what amounted to a kangaroo court. The fact that the charges were baseless (i.e., illegal) made no difference, because the GOP created a legal free-fire zone targeting ACORN. There were no "rules of engagement" (i.e., no due process); it was simply "kill them all". Barbarbism.

Strategic barbarism is a sword with two edges. The other edge is the refusal to enforce the law against obviously criminal behavior. Hence, we refuse to prosecute anyone involved in the Great Heist of 2008. When even the hard-right SCOTUS says to give Gitmo inmates a real trial, it just somehow never happens. Laws? We don't need no steenkin' laws.

And these "new rules" are almost always first used on "untouchables", terrorists, sex offenders, drug dealers. Who could object to catching them? Never mind how many rules we broke to do it. The end justifies the means. (Gee that sounds familiar, where could I have heard that?)

So, Boston has added the "preventative lockdown" to the creeping dismantling of our Constitutional rights. In another diary today, two lockdowns were reported in Colorado over thefts from a WalMart. Really, theft from a WalMart. Would you say it is a complete overreaction to lockdown (i.e., declare martial law) a neighborhood over a petty thief who probably is unarmed?

I beg you to drop the inflammatory rhetoric and discuss the impact of legitimizing lockdowns of entire metropolitan areas on our rights.