Happily Oblivious: Police State USA

"There is a dangerous trend toward using the actual military for policing, which made headlines earlier this year with the news that a US Army combat brigade would be assigned to a domestic role with Northern Command. The Army Times reported that the unit would assist civil authorities in times of emergency, and that it would be trained to deal with civil unrest. The claim was that this fighting unit would be trained with less than lethal technology for crowd control, but that they would have military arms on hand for self defense and unit defense. I find it hard to believe that a combat brigade would be using tear gas and clubs when the NYPD is handing out M4 automatic rifles to rookie cops.

Americans are being conditioned to think that authorities carrying automatic weapons on city streets is normal. If you want to reverse this trend towards a military police state, the time to speak up is now. People get used to what they see every day and if shock troops become commonplace on US streets, then people will get used to it before too long."