{"id":130200,"date":"2014-07-14T19:52:24","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T19:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=130200"},"modified":"2014-07-15T14:34:16","modified_gmt":"2014-07-15T14:34:16","slug":"dont-like-life-american-police-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/dont-like-life-american-police-state\/","title":{"rendered":"What I Don’t Like About Life in the American Police State"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Whitehead<\/em><\/p>\n

There’s a lot to love about America and its people: their pioneering spirit, their entrepreneurship, their ability to think outside the box, their passion for the arts, etc. Increasingly, however, as time goes by, I find the things I don’t like about living in a nation that has long since ceased to be a sanctuary for freedom are beginning to outnumber the things I love.<\/p>\n

Here’s what I don’t like about living in the American police state: I don’t like being treated as if my only value to the government is as a source of labor and funds. I don’t like being viewed as\u00a0a consumer and bits of data<\/a>. I don’t like being spied on and treated as if I have no right to privacy,\u00a0especially in my own home<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I don’t like government officials who lobby for my vote only to ignore me once elected. I don’t like having representatives\u00a0incapable of and unwilling to represent me<\/a>. I don’t like taxation without representation.<\/p>\n

\"little-miss-liberty\"<\/div>\n

I don’t like being bullied by government bureaucrats,\u00a0vigilantes masquerading as cops<\/a>, or faceless technicians. I don’t like being railroaded into financing government programs whose only purpose is to increase the power and wealth of the corporate elite. I don’t like being forced to pay for wars abroad that serve no other purpose except to\u00a0expand the reach of the military industrial complex<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I don’t like being subjected to scans, searches, pat downs and other indignities\u00a0by the TSA<\/a>. I don’t like\u00a0VIPR raids<\/a>\u00a0on so-called “soft” targets like shopping malls and bus depots by black-clad, Darth Vader look-alikes. I don’t like\u00a0fusion centers<\/a>, which represent the combined surveillance efforts of federal, state and local law enforcement.<\/p>\n

I don’t like being treated like an underling by government agents who are supposed to be working for me. I don’t like being threatened, intimidated, bribed, beaten and robbed by individuals entrusted with safeguarding my rights. I don’t like being silenced, censored and marginalized. I don’t like my movements being tracked,\u00a0my conversations being recorded<\/a>, and my transactions being catalogued.<\/p>\n

I don’t like how the presidency has developed into a neo-monarchy replete with all the luxury and lasciviousness of the feudal lords of old.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Whitehead There’s a lot to love about America and its people: their pioneering spirit, their entrepreneurship, their ability to think outside the box, their passion for the arts, etc. Increasingly, however, as time goes by, I find the things I don’t like about living in a nation that has long since ceased to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":130201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18,1616],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-130200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news","9":"category-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}