Is Ameristan a Police State?

[Revoltingest]

If it is happening we would see these videos. The only videos I have seen where drug dogs were called by otherwise compliant people were black. I've looked for videos where it happens to a white person just so I can see some objectivity. I haven't seen one. Maybe you have.

The use of dogs is a common way to violate the need
for a warrant to search a vehicle. Dogs are prone to false
positives because of poor training (both dog & handler) &
difficult roadside circumstances. Dogs can also be cued to
alert when desired. They're no more reliable than flipping
a coin.
In this video they do it to an out-of-state cop who sees thru
the drug sniffing ruse. Notice also that both the driver &
passenger are white.
An expert debunks the TN cop's tricks.

 

[Revoltingest]

On to #2....punishment without a trial.

Civil forfeiture is the act of government taking property
because it's suspected of being purchased with tainted
money, or it's used in the commission of a crime. Also
cash that might have been ill gotten gains.
So cops take your cash if they discover you have a
lot of it (no suspicion required). Or they take your
car if they suspect you had drugs. Then they're done.
You don't have to be convicted or even charged with
a crime. But to get it back, you must spend a great
deal of money to sue them....a process that can take
almost a decade. The cost & time are so great that
most people just give up.
Cops & government have a powerful incentive to steal
your money.....they get to keep & use it. Some police
departments are dependent on this income, so they
encourage such armed robbery by their cops.

Problems....
- You've a right to due process, but they deny you this.
- You've a right against warrantless seizure, but they
deny you this.
- You've a right against excessive fines, but they deny
you this.

https://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/other_pubs/assetforfeituretoemail.pdf
Civil Forfeiture Reform: Examples of Abuse
Civil-Asset-Forfeiture Abuse: Why It Should Be Ruled Unconstitutional

 

[Revoltingest]

Tennessee is particularly bad for armed theft by cops.
But my home state also has many dumb thieving cops.
These state cops openly bragged about stealing a
motorist's money on Twitter.

 

[Revoltingest]

Here's an interesting case where a cop is fired &
excoriated for not killing a suspect who posed little
danger. While de-escalating a guy threatening
suicide, another cop shot & killed the guy.
The peaceful cop was fired & viciously accused of
cowardice by fellow cops & the city.
It illustrates that good cops can be the exception.
The good news...
He filed suit, won, & got his job back.

 

[Kooky]

@Revoltingest
Thank you for doing this, by the way.

 

[Revoltingest]

10 years in jail waiting for his trial.
No end in sight.
Too few public defenders is one excuse.
But no one in the justice system is accountable for this
unconstitutional denial of a "speedy" trial, so such
travesties just continue unabated.

This Georgia man has been jailed for 10 years without a trial

In 2013, Maurice Jimmerson was charged with murder. Ten years later, he still hasn't received a trial. Even though two of Jimmerson's codefendants were

reason.com

 

[Friend of Mara]

About the title...it's not clickbait. But don't get all fired up
thinking I equate Ameristan to N Korea or Nazi Germany.
I don't claim that level of oppression.
It's more isolated, ie, imposed upon an unlucky segment
of the populace who run afoul of an element of government.

Some elements of a police state / fascism / oppression....
1) Coerced confessions.
2) Punishment without a trial.
3) Court system rigged against some.
4) Applying laws & punishment selectively.
5) Punishment out of proportion to the offense.
6) Laws designed for disparate effect, ie discriminatory.
7) Great discretionary power granted to law enforcement.

I can add to the list, but those are more than enuf
to start a discussion....perhaps too many.

Most people won't ever experience these problems, so
it's not a "police state" to the people who don't attract the
worst kind of the wrong kind of attention from government.
But some people do get caught in government's meat
grinder.

It's a big topic with many aspects & illustrative examples.
I'll start with #1.

Cops use coercive techniques to get confessions, even
from people who didn't commit the alleged crime.
How do they do this?
In the old days, they'd beat confessions out of civilians.
That's greatly subsided, & been replaced with far more
subtle & sophisticated techniques....which actually have
SCOTUS approval.

Some cop tools....
- Offer light sentences instead of severe ones in exchange
for confession.
- Lie about incriminating evidence.
- Interrogate in a manner that induces stress, eg, threats,
fatigue, memory corruption.
- Entrapment to creating new prosecutable offenses.

Some info about false confessions (no paywall)....
Speaking of Psychology: False confessions aren’t always what they seem
Videos for those who prefer....

I think the fact that within any situation in which you are involved with a police officer they, at least in that moment, have unilateral control over you means that we live in a police state. A cop could command you to take off your shoes and do jumping jacks and by the grace of the red white and blue you better follow those instructions if you don't want the two for one entrance and exit wound warning shot special.

Or that if you do something that isn't actually "illegal" but a cop can stop you anyway and force you to undergo an impromptu little investigation where again you are under their unilateral control with no recourse. People, and by the definition under the law innocent people, are killed by the police every year in numbers that are shocking and by and large almost nothing is done about it. Even if an investigation is done and even if it is deemed as wrong often nothing is done.

So yes we don't have a secret police or big brother or the CCP here in the US of A but we still live under the spurred boot of the law in every sense of the word. Unless you have obscene amounts of money. Something about that seems to ward off the cops otherwise anime protagonist levels of bull**** power.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Is there any non- police state?

At the policeman's ball! ...and at the other policemsns ball as well!

 

[Revoltingest]

This is an example of how we live in a police state
for some people at some times. Driving along
committing no violation, cops stop this man, &
admit there's no violation, but they thoroughly
investigate his history, search him, search his
car, & interrogate him about his travels, job,
& living arrangements, hoping to find something.
These cops are obviously trained to use illegal
stops to hunt humans.

Notice also a common cop trick...force them
to stand outside in inclement weather (winter
cold in this case) to coerce agreeing to an illegal
search. They'll sometimes even place the victim
in the cop car with the windows down, & the
heat off, using refrigeration to coerce behavior.

 

[Revoltingest]

Over an election, a judge threatens a lawyer & his
clients for having an opponent's sign in his yard.

Oshkosh attorney files misconduct complaint against Winnebago County Judge Scott Woldt

"I am shocked Judge Woldt behaved like this," attorney Matthew Goldin told the Wisconsin Judicial Commission.

news.yahoo.com

Excerpted....
The judge indicated that these consequences were both to me and my clients," Goldin wrote in the complaint. "He indicated he would take out his anger and fury on myself and my clients. Then he said I could write him a check for $28,000 to pay for the contested judicial campaign and then we'd be square. I told him that would be unethical."

The judge should be arrested & prosecuted.
But I wonder if there'll be any serious sanctions at all.

 

[Revoltingest]

Man posing no thread with hands up is shot
by cops. He survived, but unable to work
after surgery on his gunshot wounds.

 

[Revoltingest]

Criticize the cops, & record them beating someone.
What happens?
Beat & arrest the person recording.

 

[Revoltingest]

This is typical of corrupt cops & their departments.
Dozens of cases of complaints against 1 cop, all are
ignored by the department until a prosecutor sees
that he lies on his reports. Even so, the lying cop
continues to serve as a witness for the prosecution.
How many people were railroaded by him, & sent
to prison?

 

[Revoltingest]

Man is arrested because cops mistook
him for someone else with a warrant.
He protests that he's not that person.
So he's locked up in a mental institution
for 2 years, & drugged....to cure him of
his delusion about not being someone else.
No efforts were made to determine who
he was.
A psychiatrist investigated, & quickly found
out he wasn't who the cops thought.
**** government.

 

[PureX]

I agree that many Ameristans approve of this type of "law & order".
They're trained by TV. They should instead be spending more
time on youtube watching auditor channels.

TV entertainment exists to make money, not teach Americans how to be Americans. Or how to be anything else. It's just a reflection of what we like to see; of what excites us. And what we like to see and excites us are "bad guys" being caught, humiliated, and obliterated. We like and approve of the 'authority of violent righteousness'. We stock pile guns because our minds wallow in fantasies of being ultra-violent self-righteous authorities unto ourselves. Obliterating any "bad guys" that we deem threatening to us in any way. Add to that the fact that we live in a culture that makes every other human among us our economic competitors or our potential economic 'marks' to be exploited for our own gain by whatever means is legal, and you have a recipe for a kind of ongoing social/cultural warfare, where violence is increasingly being seen as a reasonable response to ever more contentious interactions with others.

It's not only the cops abusing and killing Americans, it's other Americans doing it at an alarming rate. And all of that violence is being done in the name of our sick fantasies of self-righteous authority. Lone rangers wandering through life dispensing just retribution as we see fit, as though ordained by the gods. You laugh, but this is at the heart of America‘s love of violence, acceptance of fascism, and obsession with guns and warfare. And it's all being fueled by culturally approved (and even mandated) greed and selfishness.

 

[Kfox]

About the title...it's not clickbait. But don't get all fired up
thinking I equate Ameristan to N Korea or Nazi Germany.
I don't claim that level of oppression.
It's more isolated, ie, imposed upon an unlucky segment
of the populace who run afoul of an element of government.

Some elements of a police state / fascism / oppression....
1) Coerced confessions.
2) Punishment without a trial.
3) Court system rigged against some.
4) Applying laws & punishment selectively.
5) Punishment out of proportion to the offense.
6) Laws designed for disparate effect, ie discriminatory.
7) Great discretionary power granted to law enforcement.

I can add to the list, but those are more than enuf
to start a discussion....perhaps too many.

Most people won't ever experience these problems, so
it's not a "police state" to the people who don't attract the
worst kind of the wrong kind of attention from government.
But some people do get caught in government's meat
grinder.

It's a big topic with many aspects & illustrative examples.
I'll start with #1.

Cops use coercive techniques to get confessions, even
from people who didn't commit the alleged crime.
How do they do this?
In the old days, they'd beat confessions out of civilians.
That's greatly subsided, & been replaced with far more
subtle & sophisticated techniques....which actually have
SCOTUS approval.

Some cop tools....
- Offer light sentences instead of severe ones in exchange
for confession.
- Lie about incriminating evidence.
- Interrogate in a manner that induces stress, eg, threats,
fatigue, memory corruption.
- Entrapment to creating new prosecutable offenses.

Some info about false confessions (no paywall)....
Speaking of Psychology: False confessions aren’t always what they seem
Videos for those who prefer....

(Bold mine) A police state is something that is applied to ALL of its citizens; not just those few who fall through the cracks. Looks like you've answered your own question; it is not a police state due to your claim that it is not the experience of most citizens.

 

[Revoltingest]

(Bold mine) A police state is something that is applied to ALL of its citizens; not just those few who fall through the cracks. Looks like you've answered your own question; it is not a police state due to your claim that it is not the experience of most citizens.

Answering my own question still allows for debate.

 

[PureX]

(Bold mine) A police state is something that is applied to ALL of its citizens; not just those few who fall through the cracks. Looks like you've answered your own question; it is not a police state due to your claim that it is not the experience

(Bold mine) A police state is something that is applied to ALL of its citizens; not just those few who fall through the cracks. Looks like you've answered your own question; it is not a police state due to your claim that it is not the experience of most citizens.

There is no such thing as a police state in which the police don’t hold themselves to be above the law.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

(Bold mine) A police state is something that is applied to ALL of its citizens; not just those few who fall through the cracks. Looks like you've answered your own question; it is not a police state due to your claim that it is not the experience of most citizens.

So having bird **** on your car is falling through the cracks?

 

[Kfox]

So having bird **** on your car is falling through the cracks?

What did I say to give you that impression?