Collectively, police inflict more terror than foreign terrorists do according to the 2004 National Safety Council report, which showed that Americans are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist. (1) This report was highlighted by News Blaze in 2009 in a report that also determined that: “You are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack, 11,000 times more likely to die in an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane, and 6 times more likely to die from hot weather than from a terrorist attack.”

Despite these facts, terrorism is said to be our biggest threat by politicians who want to continue the racket of war. We will have spent about 1 trillion dollars of taxpayer money “fighting terrorism” by the end of this year. This money goes to weapons and policies that terrorize other nations and civilians in them accepted as “casualties”. Innocent people and human rights groups in America are often labeled domestic terrorists when they oppose the state to justify any and all kinds of mistreatment.

If you’re not well acquainted with the reality, take a look at this video of just a few of the many recent examples of police brutality in America:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuU1tpi8f7g&feature=player_embedded

Police are armed individuals who have the license to use force when they deem it is necessary, and when they shoot, beat, and harass innocent people, courts generally side with them. Despite their badge inscription that states they must “protect and serve,” you don’t see police handing out food to the hungry, (more often they arrest those giving out free food) or befriending the poor, the sick, the addicted, the elderly, sex workers, trans people, and minorities. Instead, they prey on them. When on the rare occasion a cop, like Larry Deprimo as an example, actually does something to help someone, they make headlines because it is so rare and because one of the major purposes of corporate media to cheerlead police, justify their existence, and demand politicians increase their budgets.

Individuals only need to pass a brief psychological test and a background check and have a GED or high school diploma to join the police force in the United States. They then go through four months of police academy and after successful training they have the license to detain, arrest, and even kill individuals with impunity and earn about $55,000 a year doing it. As a result, some very prejudiced, hateful, violent people become cops.

There are five results for the police psychological exam: fit for duty, unfit for duty and in need of extensive treatment, no diagnosis, unfit but treatable, and invalid evaluation. The last is a result of a lack of cooperation or inconclusive test results.  Those who are deemed unfit are allowed to reapply and they then know how to pass, which allows them to do so even if they have exactly the same mindset.

Police candidates are not screened for prejudices, violent tendencies, or poor judgment before becoming cops. Most cops believe they have a right to question anyone, for any reason, at any time. This has even been legislated in some states with “Stop and Frisk” Laws. (See here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/13/nypd-stop-and-frisks-15-shocking-facts_n_1513362.html and here: http://www.nyclu.org/content/stop-and-frisk-data.) Police define reasonable suspicion, and so they can question anyone. People found innocent after reopening a trial (usually because of a new piece of evidence that surfaces) and who have spent years in prison also aren’t offered reparations or even apologies.

The same rules don’t apply to police. We, as citizens, can’t ask cops (much less FBI, DEA or CIA operatives) what they’re up to when they’re staking out a house. They feel they are above the law and that they don’t need to follow the same rules that rest of us do. Some also don’t honor their legal requirement to give their names when asked or even their badge numbers, and riot squads are granted even more anonymity. They are often virtually indistinguishable since their gear makes them look like faceless grunts. But when individuals in the Occupy movement try to hide their identity with harmless masks or bandannas, they are viewed as potential criminals or even terrorists.

It is a double standard that police are granted privacy and the right to anonymity when the rest of us aren’t, especially when they are afforded far more power than the rest of us. On many occasions when police murder civilians, police departments won’t even release the names of the pigs to the public to protect them. When we allow states to operate in secrecy, we are throwing ourselves at the mercy of the state. We are entrusting an institution that extorts us for money via taxation to police and regulate itself. Laws have been passed to prevent police from even being filmed so that we remain ignorant of the atrocities they commit and so that no justice is afforded to victims of police brutality. The same kind of surveillance we are subject to doesn’t apply to cops, and it is telling that police regularly destroy the phones of bystanders filming their actions in an attempt to skirt responsibility for their actions.

As the adage goes “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” and the reverse is true as well. Police are admired by a large portion of the population but they are more dangerous than terrorists, and terrorists are vilified while police are lionized. Terrorism is just violence with a political motivation and that describes every oppressive function of government from police, border patrol, militaries to prisons and immigration detention centers.

Police and the state itself must be abolished. Violent or asocial behaviors will never be eradicated by force. Nothing good that lasts can come from a state built on genocide, slavery, and stolen land. Communities and associations can only be built voluntarily with respect for each other’s autonomy. Only then will violent and asocial behaviors diminish.

Footnote:

(1) News Blaze: NSC Study Shows You are More Likely to Killed By a Cop Than a Terrorist. February 21, 2009. Link: http://newsblaze.com/story/20090221100148tsop.nb/topstory.html.