Friday, September 20, 2013

Ineffectiveness of the Police State

In a post 9/11 world, we've been asked to trade liberty for security.  It's a false choice, as giving up liberty isn't increasing our security.  It's simply implementing another threat against us, overzealous police forces.  As police departments militarize, interactions with citizens are more likely to be drawn up like battles, which puts said civilians at risk.  Meanwhile, they don't stop petty crime or large scale attacks.

Last night in Chicago 23 people were shot including 13 in one place.  Oh, and the same number over Easter weekend.  And 19 in one night last August.  It's a frequent headline in that city, more than a dozen people shot in a day.

Yet, Chicago has more police per capita than any other city in the country.  And those cops shoot a lot of citizens.  Chicago also has some of the toughest gun laws in the country.

Add all that up and we have a large police force more brutally enforcing stricter laws than anywhere else in the country.  In a country that's trending towards a police state Chicago leads the way.  And yet, it's citizens experience the highest murder rate in the nation and the one of the highest violent crime rates.  It's citizens have given up liberty and it has not made them safe.  In fact, I think an argument can be made to the contrary.  The citizens have lost civil liberty and personal freedom and even civil rights and the tradeoff is they are at higher risk to be a victim of crime or a victim of the police.  That's a terrible tradeoff.

No comments:

Post a Comment