As we once suffered from crimes,
Now we are suffering from laws.
-- Tacitus, Annals
More and more federal agencies, including some supposedly with purely regulatory functions, have their own armed divisions. Investors Business Daily described how far this trend has gone.
Back in 2008, candidate Barack Obama slipped a little-noticed line in a speech, proposing a national police force reporting straight to him.We have had civilian security forces for two centuries, called police. The only problem (in the minds of centralized government pushers) was that almost all of them were under state and local control, not Washington control. For really rowdy moments, the National Guard has been on call.
"We cannot continue to rely only on our military," he said. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."
Even after the creation of the F.B.I. -- if kept within strict limits, a reasonable response to interstate crime -- you didn't worry about the mailman calling in a SWAT team if you didn't tip him at Christmas. The IRS could only threaten you with legal proceedings if they thought you were fiddling your taxes.
But the ex-Messiah has gotten his way and more. Not only one national police force of which he is commander-in-chief, but dozens.
Again, from IBD:
The Environmental Protection Agency also has a private army. In late August 2013, armed EPA agents joined agents of the Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force and swarmed gold mines near Chicken in the Last Frontier State. In groups of four to eight, they even wore body armor and carried guns while investigating a supposed violation of Section 404 of the Clean Water Act.
That raid drew attention to the fact that some federal agencies, including the Library of Congress and the Federal Reserve Board, have divisions employing armed officers. Other federal agencies participating in the operation were the Fish and Wildlife Service, Coast Guard, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Park Service and, yes, Bureau of Land Management.
That's right: NOAA, whose dangerous job is to forecast the weather, monitor the atmosphere and keep tabs on the oceans and waterways, has its own law enforcement division. It has a budget of $65 million and consists of 191 employees, including 96 special agents and 28 enforcement officers who carry weapons.
Some 70 federal agencies, including those not associated with national security or crime fighting, employ about 120,000 full-time officers authorized to carry guns and make arrests, according to a June 2012 Justice Department report.NOAA must be expecting stormy weather.
The Agriculture Department recently put in a request for 320,000 rounds. Not long ago, the Social Security Administration put in a request for 174,000 rounds of ".357 Sig 125 grain bonded jacketed hollow-point" ammo. NOAA put in a request for 46,000 rounds.
3 comments:
Eventually these groups will combine forces and arrest citizens who don't willingly forfeit their guns. These citizens will be viewed as a "National Security Threat" and non-compliant by the government and media... There will be blood.
Up until about 18 months ago I had the same attitude about police as you did, generally supportive. Even when I heard of abuses I thought ''no one's perfect, there's going to be bad apples''.
The 'Boston Bombing' was what changed my attitude picture seeing this out your front window, camo, body armor, humvee brought back from Iraq, and what is likely a full-auto M16.
In an American city that could arguably be called the birthplace of the American Revolution no less. If the ''redcoats'' were in Boston today would they look and act like this?
It truly saddens me to see what still call themselves 'police' transformed into a standing army and a hostile one that thinks of us as their mortal enemy but what other conclusion can there be?
My initial reaction, expressed in a posting that I am now embarrassed about, was that the police response to the marathon bombing was sensible and efficient. If no one knew where the perps were, whether they had other explosives, or what they had planned, you could make the case that telling the population to "shelter in place" was better-safe-than-sorry advice.
As I have learned more and seen how the response turned into an overt military action, though, I have become disturbed by the behavior of these "armies of occupation."
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