Words&Dirt

“While as a nation we have mostly done a good job of keeping the military out of law enforcement, we’ve done a poor job, to borrow a bit of martial rhetoric, of guarding our flanks.  The biggest threat to the Symbolic Third Amendment today comes from indirect militarization.  Instead of allowing our soldiers to serve as cops, we’re turning our cops into soldiers.  It’s a threat that the Founders didn’t anticipate, that nearly all politicians support, and that much of the public either seems to support or just hasn’t given much attention.

No one made a decision to militarize the police in America.  The change has come slowly, the result of a generation of politicians and public officials fanning and exploiting public fears by declaring war on abstractions like crime, drug use, and terrorism.  The resulting policies have made those war metaphors increasingly real.”

––Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces, by Radley Balko, pg. 41-2

“The only way to prepare for a trip like this, I felt, was to dress up like human peacocks and get crazy, then screech off across the desert and cover the story.  Never lose sight of the primary responsibility.

But what was the story?  Nobody had bothered to say.  So we would have to drum it up on our own.  Free Enterprise.  The American Dream.  Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas.  Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism.

There was also the socio-psychic factor.  Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only real cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas.  To relax, as it were, in the womb of the desert sun.  Just roll the roof back and screw it on, grease the face with white tanning butter and move out with the music at top volume, and at least a pint of ether.”

––Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, by Hunter S. Thompson, pg. 12