Comment by Jtsummers
11 years ago
We may not have police disappearing people in the middle of the night or conducting summary executions on the street on a regular basis. They don't (well, they might thanks to the NSA and other sources) have extensive dossiers on every citizen. But we do have systemic racism and violence in the current system that leaves a large portion of the population in fear for their safety, and rightly so.
Cops conducting no knock raids for a low level meth dealer scarred a young boy and lied to his family about the severity of his injuries (claiming he'd just lost a tooth) [1]. Just check CNN for all the recent stories of unarmed black men, boys and teenagers killed by cops. An officer in Alabama paralyzed an Indian man who didn't obey his commands because he couldn't speak English [2] (at least he's been charged).
This may not be the same as police states seen in other parts of the world for the majority of Americans. But for many, we've already crossed that line.
[1] http://abcnews.go.com/US/family-toddler-injured-swat-grenade...
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/03/27...
> We may not have police disappearing people in the middle of the night or conducting summary executions on the street on a regular basis.
You don't need it. You have DA-s and mandatory sentencing ... as effective, but a lot more subtle and less visible.