The United States is devolving into a police state where civilian federal agencies (including the Dept. of Education !) have shotguns, high-powered battle rifles, AR-15 assault weapons, submachine guns, and millions of rounds of ammunition, and the Pentagon is arming local police departments with military-grade weapons.
See:
- 40 federal agencies have armed divisions
- Dangerous trend of increasing militarization of U.S. police
- Marine Exposes Homeland Security Military Build Up: ‘Is Everybody Blind?
- Homeland Security uses 1,000 more rounds per person than the U.S. Army
In his 2013 book Rise of the Warrior Cop, journalist Radley Balko warns: “Law-enforcement agencies across the U.S., at every level of government, have been blurring the line between police officer and soldier. The war on drugs and, more recently, post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts have created a new figure on the U.S. scene: the warrior cop — armed to the teeth, ready to deal harshly with targeted wrongdoers, and a growing threat to familiar American liberties.”
See:
- Do you love freedom? Obama’s just designated you a terrorist
- DHS training video depicts gun-owning militia as terrorists
- US Army targets Tea Party movement as extremists in 2016 civil war scenario
- NJ cop says police don’t have to follow the Constitution
- Austin police chief calls on citizens to snitch on ‘gun enthusiasts’
- Obama directive to use military against U.S. citizens
- US military gives itself authority to police America without permission
More worrisome still is the fact that the Obama administration repeatedly identifies non-criminal peaceful American citizens as “extremists” and potential “terrorists” — members of the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party movement; the militia (whose existence is sanctioned by nothing less than the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution); conservatives; Christians; veterans; pro-lifers; those who love liberty; nationalists; pro-2nd Amendment; and Constitutionalists.
The dictionary defines “constitutionalist” as “an adherent or advocate of constitutionalism (the principles of constitutional government) or of an existing constitution.”
What can possibly be wrong, much less criminal, with being a Constitutionalist?
And yet we have video footage of a deputy in the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office of Washington state blithely informing an inquiring citizen that the intended targets of the police’s military-grade hardware, including Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) tanks, are those nasty, extremist, super-dangerous Constitutionalists.
The video below begins with the voice of a man off camera (the unnamed Spokane County Sheriff deputy) going over all the “nice” features of the MRAP tank.
Beg. at the 0:27 mark, a female citizen asks: “So I’m thinking that it’s totally appropriate in Iraq, but where, what kind of a situation in the U.S. would you see that happening?”
Deputy: “Well, we’ve got lots of Constitutionalists, a lot of people that stockpile weapons, lots of ammunition.”
According to The Free Thought Project, the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office has responded on Facebook by falsely claiming that the video is out of “context,” but you can see and hear for yourself that the deputy clearly identified “constitutionalists” as reason for the police needing armored military vehicles.
InfoWars observes that what the deputy said isn’t surprising “given reports that Spokane County sheriffs have received training from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group that ludicrously compares mainline conservative Americans to racist hate groups.”
Spokane Valley Republican Representative Matthew Shea is appalled when presented with the video footage. He said, “Will law abiding citizens who love the Constitution and Rule of Law be hunted down with MRAPs? Constitutionalism is fundamental to being an American. To hate the Constitution and those who support it means you are a traitor to this country. This is spitting in the face of all those heroes that fought, bled, and died so we might live free. The question should be, why aren’t you a Constitutionalist? Why don’t you believe in the rule of law? Why don’t you believe that the Constitution means what it says?”
Spokane County Sheriff’s Office is not the first to cite patriotic Americans as reasoning for military hardware:
- A police sergeant in Morgan County, Indiana admitted just last May that his department had obtained an armored vehicle in part because of returning military veterans, deemed domestic terror threats by Homeland Security in 2009.
- In August of 2013, Concord, New Hampshire Police Chief John Duval secretly contacted Homeland Security and demanded an armored vehicle due to the alleged “threat” posed by peaceful libertarians.
- A New York State Counter Terrorism Bulletin leaked to Infowars by concerned police that same year attempted to label anyone concerned with government gun confiscation as “far right” conspiracy theorists, even as admitted gun confiscation programs are used against law abiding citizens in states such as California.
- The MIAC Report, a federal training document famously presented to Missouri police in 2009, went as far as falsely tying supporters of former Presidential Candidate Ron Paul and the Constitution to “extremist groups” as well.
InfoWars concludes that “Despite a massive drop in police officer deaths, gun homicide and violent crime in the last 2o years, government agencies across the board continue to adopt military tactics in order to fight anything that represents traditional America. Luckily for Americans, peace officers who still respect their oath continue to serve throughout the United States.”
H/t FOTM’s maziel
~Eowyn
