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Time to end American police state

I was a child in the 1970s, my first impressions of government was that it was bumbling and incompetent but harmless for the most part. The last time the feds bailed out the auto industry, the government ended up with a bunch of Chrysler K-cars – this was a fuel-efficient, practical choice. This last bailout has all federal agencies driving huge, gas-guzzling, fancy, expensive SUVs, and local police have MRAVs.

Police say these mine-resistant tanks just add a little more safety. This sounds reasonable except for two things. First, in the whole history of American police, not one officer ever was attacked with a land mine. And second, the gas mileage of an MRAV is expressed in gallons per mile – not miles per gallon – and parts for the constant breakdowns come at Pentagon prices ($500 for a toilet seat).

The government claims it is broke, and old people need to work forever and eat cat food, but suddenly, it has multiple fleets of the same luxury SUVs that the Kardashians drive? The automakers themselves say in internal marketing memos that SUV drivers are “greedy, selfish, unconcerned about community, prone to violence and overly concerned with false image,” and they market to those weaknesses. So why on Earth does government need most of its fleet to be SUVs?

When they had K-cars, a person driving the speed limit never got passed by a car with federal plates. Now, federal plates blow past me like I was standing still all the time. Cops are much more violent now and will steal cash from drivers when no crime is committed. The Canadian government recently issued a travel warning to its citizens about American police stealing cash saying not to drive the exact speed limit, and not to drive under the speed limit, and not to drive over the speed limit.

The whole three-page pamphlet makes American police sound like banana-republic death squads and basically discouraged any visits. It’s time to end the American police state, before it gets even scarier.

Nels Werner

Cortez



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