Has everybody gone bonkers?
Okay, that was rude. Anyone who visits my website and reads my blogs is obviously
the textbook definition of completely sane, as well as being beautiful, intelligent, and
beyond reproach.
But the other day, the picture you see here was posted on Facebook, aptly titled
along the lines of: "Can you believe this? Why do they need this in
Doraville, GA?"
Okay . . . I completely agree with that sentiment. Doraville, GA is a sleepy town with
less than 8,500 people. Why do they need a military tank?
But let me be candid: What really prompts me to throw in my three cents here is
some lady who commented on the Facebook posting. I won't name this
person, because I don't want to hurt her feelings or tarnish her
reputation, even though it's patently obvious she's too stupid to boil
water. But what she said was mind-boggling, idiotic, horrifying, and at
the same time revealing of a mentality that seems to be metastasizing.
Paraphrasing . . .
"Of course, they need this. What if it was your daughter who was kidnapped,
and being held hostage. They could use it to save her!"
Where do we begin?
Right off, let me point out that armored vehicles like this only protect the people
inside them, the law enforcement officials charged with leading an assault against
well-armed adversaries, be they bank robbers, terrorists, kidnappers, or
rampaging postal clerks.
They do not protect hostages!
Next let me invoke my credentials as a novelist, using a degree of creative
license and just a bare minimum of imagination, to explain to this mentally
challenged lady what I would have a kidnapper character of my creation do
if the police showed up in this tank. I can't claim much originality,
since this is usually how this sort of scene plays out in real life.
Right off, my psychopathic antagonist would give them notice: "Listen, you short
bus meter maids. You've got one minute to turn that 8 ton hunk of steel
around and beat a retreat, or I put a bullet in the girl's pretty head!"
Then, if whoever was in charge of the operation didn't get the message, instead
deciding to proceed with their fool's errand, my character would do
what any demented kidnapping psychotic would do. As the tank approached
the house, he would have one final going away fling by raping the girl,
capping off a quick but satisfying skrog by capping her (i.e. refer to
bullet allusion above), then blowing his own brains out, because even
though he's crazy, he's got pride, thus has no intention of being
captured and humiliated by a bunch of hayseed sheriffs in some
backwater county in Texas or Missouri or Georgia.
So, lady who sees all the potential merits in having gear designed for use by
our military on the battlefield in the hands of knucklehead local bumpkin
Andy Griffith police, whaddya think? How did that work out?
What is going on in America?
What logic prompts this kind of overkill?
What possible constructive purpose is there to the federal government giving
__ handing over free of charge! __ $500,000,000 worth of heavy-duty military
battlefield equipment to local law enforcement agencies, as it did in FY 2011?
First of all, the escalation of weaponry, that is, getting bigger and badder
machine guns, flame throwers, grenades, tanks and assault vehicles, just
ends up piling up more dead bodies, in increasingly smaller chunks of
human remains.
Second, what happened to American ingenuity? You remember that, I'm sure.
It's using the grey matter crammed into our skulls to figure out ways of
solving problems. In the hostage situation above, for example, crisis
management teams have psychologists and negotiators. They have marksmen
or stealth experts who can climb through heating ducts, and who knows,
maybe ways of making themselves invisible. What we have there is mind
power at work, as opposed to fire power. Which again alludes to the
simple fact, generally heavy artillery is not the best way of
extricating a frail young creature from a hostage situation __ at least
in one piece and still breathing.
So what is all of this stuff for? Why do small towns now have vehicles that was
designed for use in Afghanistan, not the corn belt or even the most violent urban
areas of America? Why is the Department of Defense giving this stuff to local
police units?
I think I know. But before I get into it __ that will be in Part 3 __ I would love to hear your
comments. Please stick to the topic. I don't want any 2nd Amendment
raving or political rants from either end of the spectrum. Please just
explain . . .
Why are the local police being militarized in America?
[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]
