Kurt Nimmo
Sir Robert Peel is considered the father of modern policing. He was influenced by the legal philosophy of Jeremy Bentham. Bentham called for a centralized and politically neutral police force for the maintenance of social order and protection of people and property against crime.
In the 1850s, in response to public fear of a paramilitary police, Peel organized the cops along civilian lines and made them answerable to the public. Peel and London’s Metropolitan Police Service went out of their way to make sure police uniforms did not resemble military uniforms (blue instead of red). Police were armed with wooden truncheons and rattles to signal the need for assistance. “The police are the public and the public are the police,” was one of the Peelian Principles.
It took Lincoln and the Northern War of Aggression to mutate the role of police in the United States. Police forces became paramilitary, whereas before the war police were non-uniformed and lacked a paramilitary hierarchy.
In 2005, the Peelian philosophy was finally discarded when the Supreme Court ruled the police do not have a constitutiuonal duty to protect citizens.
Due largely to the federal government and the Pentagon, police across the country are now militarized. In 1997, the National Defense Authorization Act included the 1033 program authorizing the Defense Department to dispense surplus military equipment to municipal police departments. Following the 9/11 attacks and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the federal government doled out a staggering $34 billion in “terrorism grants” to local police forces.
Across the United States, police now represent a bona fide military force. Peelian Principles of community service are a thing of the past. Police recruitment (see above video) dwells on gun play, SWAT raids, and attack dogs. The idea that the police “must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public” is a remote and archaic concept. Soldiers do not “maintain the respect of the public.” They kill people and break things. They occupy countries and enforce martial law.
The state considers the American people the enemy. Urban Shield, ASCO and a multitude of related “drills” and “exercises” are not about preventing terrorism — they are about acclimating the American people to living in a police state.
Via Infowars