Showing posts with label creeping fascism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creeping fascism. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

The Police State Edges Closer



Perpetually down in the mouth because they are expected to be accountable whenever they beat, shoot or kill a member of the public, police officers in the United States will undoubtedly be buoyed up by legislation that has been passed in Louisiana. The bill, clearly serving to minimize and marginalize the "Black Lives Matter" movement, is entitled "Blue Lives Matter" and would classify any violent attack on police officers, firefighters, and EMS personnel a hate crime.

Louisiana State representative Lance harris had this to say about the bill:
“I certainly do think there is a need for it. If you’re going to have an extensive hate crime statute then we need to protect those that are out there protecting us on a daily basis,” Harris said. “There is a concerted effort in some areas to terrorize and attack police and I think this will go forward and stop that.”
Not everyone agrees:
Anti-Defamation League Regional Director Allison Padilla-Goodman pointed out that crimes against police officers are already aggressively prosecuted under Louisiana law: “The bill confuses the purpose of the Hate Crimes Act and weakens its impact by adding more categories of people, who are already better protected under other laws.”
In fact, the notion of a hate law for an occupational category weakens real hate laws, which were enacted for a particular purpose:
“Hate Crimes are designed to protect people’s most precious identity categories,” Padilla-Goodman said, “like race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, and gender identity. Proving the bias intent is very different for these categories than it is for the bias intent of a crime against a law enforcement officer.”
As you will see in the following news report, something very similar to Louisiana's bill is now before Congress:



Just one more step, some would argue, in bringing the police state to full fruition.