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I think you've illustrated my point.
You're so accustomed to crying police state at every police action you see that you don't differentiate between situations that require stronger police action and situations that clearly don't.
Locking down an entire city with thousands of "officers", military vehicles and "assault rifles" is clear not warranted when trying to arrest an unarmed pot smoking teenager (who as it happens wasn't even in the lockdown area).
What are you even talking about? What does this even have to do with pot smoking teenagers?
I don't think you are delusional.
Judging by some of your phrasing, I would hazard a guess that you are likely ex-military and you resent the way police officers (let's throw TSA in here too) manhandle and abuse people in general.
I would agree with that but I wish you would've just said that - although this is just speculation.
I don't think that makes us necessarily a police state however.
First things first this is a terrorist attack though and not a routine DUI checkpoint.
When a bomb goes off, in a major city no less, you're going to have panic and civil unrest.
You also don't know who or what is behind the attack. You don't know if there will be another attack. You don't even know that some misguided angry residents are going to start a mass riot in the confusion and fear. You do know that many people died and bombs were involved.
Well on the day of the bombing, you have to keep in mind they didn't know who the perpetrators were and what they were potentially up against (more attacks, large terror group, crazy militia).
You say that this response was unwarranted only because now you actually know, in hindsight, who was involved and their motives.
There is a difference between police using their powers abusively and police actively using them to subvert your freedom.
The line is hard to draw when police are conducting "random" searches and things of that sort but that's not what you are saying.
Everybody has mixed feelings about these. On one hand you can't make it difficult for police to apprehend suspicious individuals and the other hand you can't have police harassing whomever they please without any proper cause.
You have to understand this distinction between abuse by individuals and systematic oppression.
You are not being systematically oppressed but you may often be the victim of abuse by individuals of a particular organization.
Not every police officer is out there trying to influence your politics.
Not every NSA analyst has access to your phone calls and emails.
Not every CIA operative is running a black site torturing people (well this one is more systematic abuse actually but these operations are generally confined to specific departments and indicative of the overall organization).
My point is that these guys clearly overstepped their bounds (and they've been doing this for 50+ years) but these organizations serve legitimate purposes and having these organizations is not tantamount to being a police state.
Now, why are police so heavily armed?
Well 9/11 is a good one to start with.
Drug cartels and violent gangs are heavily armed and dangerous to deal with.
There's also the Miami FBI shooting which started the trend of arming police heavily.
Again draw the distinction between police using increasingly military style tactics and weapons and police systematically abusing you.
Riots and demonstrations are another place where we don't properly draw distinctions.
In many peaceful demonstrations, police don't actually manhandle anybody or bother anybody. They're simply there in case things get out of hand (as they often do with large groups).
You've also seen cases where police have beat people or pepper sprayed them for no reason at all.
Then there are cases where demonstrations turn violent and police are actually (believe it or not) acting in self defense and then things wildly escalate out of control.
There are actually good examples where we have acted like a police state and/or engaged in systematic abuse.
Some of the systematic abuses from the federal government and many local police during the civil rights movement is a good example.
The Rampart scandal probably qualifies.
Waco and Ruby Ridge also have disturbing police state elements, although they attempted peaceful resolutions many times at first.
There's plenty more that are legitimate cases where I think it's appropriate to say police state.
Again all I'm saying is to tone down the rhetoric and examine issues more thoroughly.
