How Far Is The US From A Police State?

Just how close is the United States to becoming a police state?  The events at the Republican National Convention, where 800 arrests took place, can answer part of that question.  Those arrests dwarfed the 152 arrests at the Democratic National Convention. The history of the U.S. since its emergence as a superpower in the 20th century addresses the rest.

St. Paul, Minnesota served as a testing ground for “riot” control during the Republican National Convention.  Both protesters and members of the media were beaten and jailed without discrimination or consideration of their First Amendment rights to assemble and for the press to report the news.  The great majority of protests were peaceful. Police used sticks, percussion grenades, tear gas, pepper spray and preemptive raids to create the aura of total control of the area around the convention site.  Merely by their appearance in the heavy, daunting gear of S.W.A.T. (Special Weapons And Tactics) teams, that made them seem as figures out of a science fiction movie, could they create fear among those gathered to protest the convention. (Historically, the origin of S.W.A.T. units came from Los Angeles as a response to the black militant organization, the Black Panthers, in the late 1960s.)  One member of the local police described the preemptive raids on the headquarters of one protest group as “awesome.”  Some members of the police in St. Paul used restraint.  One encouraged protesters to “speak your minds.”

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