Did you know that in America you are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist?
Seriously. That bizarre and unsettling fact is based on statistics from a 2004 National Safety Council report, the National Center for Health Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, and 2003 mortality data from the Center for Disease Control.
Completely unwarranted, unjustified, and often deadly police violence against the American people is an epidemic of absurd proportions. It's an absolute scandal how bad it is. I probably follow a lot more political groups and pages than the average person, and I almost can't scroll through my streams without seeing video of another obvious act of flagrant police abuse on a weekly basis. If any other organization, or even broad group of similar organizations as in the case of police, had so many, such violent scandals so often, we would not tolerate it.
No private industry could get away with this much scandal without being sued, and fined, and prosecuted, picketed, and protested into non-existence. The reasons for the epidemic of abusive police violence are manifold, but high among them is the complete lack of liability that police officers face because of the role they play as the foot soldiers of the Just Us system, and the pervasive double standards for behavior that people have for the government over the rest of society.
Think "foot soldiers" is an overstatement or mis-characterization? Donald Trump has ramped up the unprecedented militarization of police that began under Barack Obama, selling hand me down military armament from the United States Department of Defense to state and city police departments, as well as the Nazi-as-hell-sounding Department of Homeland Security ("the homeland" is fascist terminology bro), and let's face it, the DHS wasn't put together by the U.S. in 2002 to be used against Muslim terrorists– it was designed to be used against you.
That's why the TSA, under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security, searches every single American who wants to get on a commercial airline, every day, in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which promises:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
If this was a truly free country, and truly a country of laws, there wouldn't be stop and frisk happening non stop from all our airports to the streets of New York City.
But the United States has never let the Constitution stop it from doing whatever Americans will let it get away with, and the terrorists made a pretty spot on calculation that most Americans today are weak and cowardly enough to allow (and even cheer on) our government to treat all of us like we're the terrorists.
As we careen out of control toward a dystopian police state, dim witted Trump voters are driving around with Don't Tread on Me stickers on their pick up trucks right next to Blue Lives Matter stickers (which essentially says, "Please, please tread on me").
They think they're for limited government, and acted like they were worried about the police state when Obama was president, but all it took to calm their naive MAGA hat wearing asses down was to elect a socialist, ex-Democrat, former Clinton pal from New York City who cribbed all his campaign lines from Ronald Reagan.
Being pro police in an age like ours is incredibly naive. Gone are the days of kindly local police like Andy Griffith looking out for their communities. Police used to look like this:
Now they look like this:
That's straight up Galactic Empire style Stormtroopers.
These bastards are doing 20,000 no knock raids a year, just breaking into people's houses (often because they were reported to have the completely harmless leaves of an illegal plant in their possession), shooting their dogs for barking, and sometimes shooting them in their own beds as they rouse from sleep in terror, and wreaking all kinds of havoc and chaos like utter criminals.
America doesn't need this shit. To add insult to injury, we're forced to pay for the nefarious exploits of these state and local police departments as well as the federal Gestapo, out of our own earnings, money we created through our own efforts, whether we want to pay for it or not. The result is total financial crisis for many state budgets, which are buckling under the weight of the massive expenditures secured by the rent-seeking police unions.
We should just abolish the police completely and let people use their Second Amendment right to defend themselves from criminals. It's not like it will do you any good anyways to try to dial 911 while being mugged or home invaded.
Besides, even if a cop was standing right next to you while you were being mugged, they are under no legal obligation to actually protect you, and there have been notorious cases of police standing by and watching while violent crimes happen right in front of them. They even won a Supreme Court case that ruled police in America have no legal duty to protect the public.
A better solution would be private security for hire with use fees on a case by case basis, just like hailing a ride. If you feel you need private security for any reason, there should be an Uber for armed residents in your area that you can hail to stop by with their gun on their hip to make sure that you are safe. Uber itself could even created a specialized, premium service that provides this private security, called Uber Blue.
It could make sure its private police are certified in gun use and safety, have guns that meet certain requirements, and have no prior history that would make them a liability for the company. They would have to undergo far more extensive training than drivers obviously, and hailing an Uber Blue would necessarily have to cost quite a bit more than hailing a ride because of the greater liability it entails.
The net cost to society, however, would be far lower than the cost of maintaining unionized, public police departments with no liability whatsoever for the actions they take, an absolute magnets for bullies who want the ultimate power trip.
There has already been a spate of reports of people hailing Ubers to take them to the hospital instead of ambulances, and finding that the Uber gets there faster despite not being able to run all the red lights, and costs them a hell of a lot less than the ambulance. Which is why they should also offer a service called Uber White, in which all drivers are also certified in First Aid and have certain standard First Aid equipment to provide medical assistance as first responders and then get the patient to the hospital.
This is a model for how private companies and the sharing economy made possible by the mobile infrastructure can begin to replace what we thought of as services only the government could provide, with better results, responsive to the markets' needs, at a lower cost, and with liabilities to keep them from overstepping their bounds. It's time for a free market, citizen police force. The "professional" tax funded one isn't working for us.
