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Police State Quotes

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Police State Quotes

“It is a bad habit of mind, a form of power-worship, to assume that things must be as they are, that they will continue to be as they have been. It soothes the conscience of the privileged, dulls the will of the oppressed. The first step toward change is the understanding that things can be different. This is my principal recommendation, then: we must recognize the possibility of a world without police.”

PolicePolice BrutalityAnarchismStatePolice StateState ViolencePolice Violente
Book:Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America
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“By “crime” I do not mean mere illegality, but instead a category of socially proscribed acts that: (1) threaten or harm other people and (2) violate norms related to justice, personal safety, or human rights, (3) in such a manner or to such a degree as to warrant community intervention (and sometimes coercive intervention). That category would surely include a large number of things that are presently illegal (rape, murder, dropping bricks off an overpass), would certainly not include other things that are presently illegal (smoking pot, sleeping in public parks, nude sunbathing), and would likely also include some things that are not presently illegal (mass evictions, the invasion of Iraq). The point here is that the standards I want to appeal to in invoking the idea of crime are not the state’s standards, but the community’s — and, specifically, the community’s standards as they relate to justice, rights, personal safety, and perhaps especially the question of violence. (...) Because the state uses this protective function to justify its own violence, the replacement of the police institution is not only a goal of social change, but also a means of achieving it. The challenge is to create another system that can protect us from crime, and can do so better, more justly, with a respect for human rights, and with a minimum of bullying. What is needed, in short, is a shift in the responsibility for public safety—away from the state and toward the community.”

PolicePolice BrutalityAnarchismStatePolice StateState ViolencePolice Violente
Book:Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America
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“It seems paradoxical that an organization responsible for enforcing the law would frequently rely on illegal practices. The police resolve this tension between nominally lawful ends and illegal means by substituting their own occupational and organizational norms for the legal duties assigned to them. Westley suggests: This process then results in a transfer in property from the state to the colleague group. The means of violence which were originally a property of the state, in loan to its law-enforcement agent, the police, are in a psychological sense confiscated by the police, to be conceived of as a personal property to be used at their discretion. From the officers’ perspective, the center of authority is shifted and the relationship between the state and its agents is reversed. The police become a law unto themselves.”

ViolencePolicePolice BrutalityPolice StateState ViolenceMilitarization
Book:Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America
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“A coward's gun is emptied when fear pulls the trigger, and hate is the ammunition of choice.”

YoungDeathHateFearAuthorityWeaponsRacismPoliceKillingScaredShootingChoiceRacistFearfulLaw EnforcementCowardlyGunsPolice StateAbuse Of PowerAmmunitionTriggerBlack MalesCowards
Book:From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence
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“laughter, that distinctively human emotion, laughter which springs from trust in the other, from willingness to put oneself momentarily in the other's place, even at one's own expense, is the special emotional basis of democratic procedures, just as pride is the emotion of an aristocracy, shame of a crowd that rules, and fear of a police state.”

HumansStatesEmotionDemocracySpecialEmotionalPrideSpringLaughterBasesPoliceShameDemocraticOneselfCrowdsExpensesWillingnessProceduresAristocracyPolice StateHuman Emotions
Author:Margaret Mead
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“The problem of South Africa is different than the world thinks. There is no native problem. The native worker gets more than white workers do in England! [...] The South African government is not a police state. It's easier on people than the United States government!”

PeopleThinkingWorldDifferentStatesProblemGovernmentWhiteUnitedUnited StatesEasierEnglandPoliceSouthWorkersNativeSouth AfricaState GovernmentPolice StateUnited States Government
Author:L. Ron Hubbard
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“The notion that Americans can be protected from "terror" by giving up the Bill of Rights is absurd. Democrats are complicit in this absurd notion. Many were intimidated into voting for police state legislation, because they lacked the intestinal fortitude to call police state legislation by its own name. The legislation that has been passed during the Bush regime is far more dangerous to Americans than Muslim terrorists.”

GivingHas BeensStatesNamesRightsDangerousGiving UpPoliceBillsDemocratNotionTerrorTerroristAbsurdVotingRegimesProtectedLegislationFortitudeIntimidatedBill Of RightsPolice StateMuslim TerroristsIntestinal Fortitude
Author:Paul Craig Roberts
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“It's very important to understand that 21st century authoritarian rule does not look like 20th century authoritarian rule. You're not going to have people in parade ground formations. You're not going to have a police state. You're not going to people with decorative armbands bullying people on the sidewalks. And the leaders won't stand at microphones for hours ranting at people. All of that is so 80 years ago.”

PeopleYearsLooksDoeImportantStatesHoursLeaderCenturyYears AgoPoliceBullying21st Century20th CenturyFormationParadesMicrophonesSidewalkPolice StatePeople Lie
Author:David Frum
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“The Baathist state did two things extremely well. One was create information-gathering intelligence networks and a filing system. There's actually a lot of information on a lot of people and that is a major achievement of a police state. The second one is the promotion of literature and poetry, and the arts generally. So this is a state that's producing mass police archives - surveillance - and poetry. And in fact a lot of the archives are about what poets are writing or what they should be writing.”

PeopleWritingArtLiteraturePoetAchievementPolicePromotionPolice State
Author:Elliott Colla
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“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”

IfsInspirationalWarReligionFightingFearFreedomLibertyEnemyLandPoliticianHistoricalLibertarianTyrannyOppressionAnti WarAntiwarPatriotFoundingOur Founding FathersPeace WarLimited GovernmentDemocracies HaveGreat WarTotal WarUs Founding FathersForefathersGuisePolice StateLimiting GovernmentFounding Fathers Anti ReligionRevolutionary WarGreat LibertarianTyranny Founding FathersPolitical OppressionFighting TerrorismSecurity And Liberty
Author:James Madison
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