US Police are acting like military rather than local police. The smallest towns in New Jersey have swat teams at taxpayer expense. The whole argument against standing armies was that they promoted war or they were a waste of funds. I have seen the police call in numerous squad cars to chase a teenage boy drinking beer on a step to a house. Then there was the report of two young boys shooting potatoes into a lake using a pipe and hair spray. The swat team held the two boys under 13 on the ground at gun point.
The Economist has now written about how America’s police have gone paramilitary. Look at police in Washington, DC and you will see they carry machine guns. There was one in the train station just walking all tough looking with bullet-proof gear giving the impression if you jumped up quickly you would be shot. The image of the policeman who helped children or got the cat out of the tree without shooting it from the 1950s, captured by Norman Rockwell (1894-1978), are gone. This is what the propaganda of “terrorism” has done to our society. We have lost the age of innocence completely.
