What percentage of the US population knows that we're a police state?

[JanMichael]

Regarding our prison rate, both in raw numbers and proportionally, as well as the fact that we've militarized most local police forces.

How many? I say about 20-30%.

What do you think?

Oh, by the way, I know plenty of cops who are progressives and super liberals (this isn't a cop hit post!). That's not my point. I'm talking about the militarization (weapons, tactics and policy) of local police and the prison system which rivals, if not exceeds, the Soviet Union (and China now) at the height of Stalin's purges.

[elocs]

1. Do we make a guess based upon your assumptive declaration and premise?

What exactly is a police state?

From Answers.com:

A state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic, and political life of the people, especially by means of a secret police force.

Politics: police state

A nation whose rulers maintain order and obedience by the threat of police or military force; one with a brutal, arbitrary government.

From Wikipedia:

police state


The term police state is a term for a state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic and political life of the population, especially by means of a secret police force which operates outside the boundaries normally imposed by a constitutional republic. A police state typically exhibits elements of totalitarianism and social control, and there is usually little distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the executive.

Regarding the U.S., how does your declaration that this is a police state square with the definitions?

[undergroundpanther]

4. a police state

can keep the veil of democracy to serve it's ends. Just because we have DU does not mean people are not disappearing and laws changed.
Yes I think we are in a police state but a disguised one.

My neighbor got disappeared.Taken away never heard from again.

http://aboutfacts.net/People63.htm
http://badamerican.wordpress.com/category/police-state/
http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/PoliceState.html

[elocs]

5. Your neighbor disappearing is somehow proof this is a police state?

Good luck with trying to convince people that this is a police state based upon other countries that are generally recognized as being police states either now or historically.

[undergroundpanther]

17. There wasn't much to convince

It was obvious to all who saw it, it was not just a simple arrest ,and add to it the uncanny silence in the local paper about such a show of force..


Another incident: One of my friends makes a zine.It's a thing he does for fun. He has been putting out this zine for years. It is about local goings on in Elicott City called the Gossip Rag, it's very funny too.Anyways, one week he did the Gossip Rag with a Muslim theme and called it The Muslim Rag.(it was long past 9/11) and he had people put towels on their heads for the interview photos.( guess who was Tater Al Habeeb)

Because some jerk off at Kinkos got paranoid and he called TIPS or some other stupid hotline . My friend disappeared he was taken away. To an office run by homeland security, they grilled him all day released him that night but not after a billion tests and nosing around.A few days before he was picked up, he had fallen off a ladder while doing a mural and he had a back brace on, and they thought he was wearing a bullet proof vest!!

I can tell you more things like this. Yeah it IS a police state maybe it's not in your face yet, but I don't need anymore convincing of it myself.

This country is a police state,If you observe how poor people,different,young or non-mainstream people are treated in certain cites and towns you might feel differently.

In Baltimore they got "the sunshine boys" and the Bumblebee cops.

[elocs]

19. Anecdotal evidence. Just because you believe this is a police state does not make it one.

Words have meanings and the accepted definition of "police state" does not fit this country. However, you are free to believe whatever you like, but your belief does not make it fact.

[RedCappedBandit]

15. Aye

It might be shrouded and hidden, but this country is a police state none the less.

[question everything]

2. We are not

If we were, there would be no DU, no investigative reporting, Scotty would now be in jail, instead of doing the rounds, you would be in jail for even posting this.

Please be more careful in you inflammatory remarks.

[tom_paine]

9. You are wrong. Totalitarianism has again shed it's skin and come up with something new

Ph.D and respected political scientists Sheldon Wolin has finally put a name to something so few of us have seen growing since the Day the Old Republic of America died, 12/12/2000.

It's called Inverted Totalitarianism, and it differs from Classic Totalitarianism in several different ways while still achieving most of the same goals. Read this.

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/20080515_chalmers_johnson_on_our_managed_democracy/

Here's my take on it, and the last seven years. Inverted Totalitarianism is something of a hothouse flower. It's "kinder and gentler" method of command and control through media saturation and massively improved propaganda/advertising techniques, can only exist in nations with massive wealth and cheap energy.

If these fail, and they certainly appear to be doing so in Amerika and that doesn't even count the hardships involved with coming Global Warming and Climate Change, then when the belt tightens, my opinion is Inverted Totalitarianism will quickly lapse to it's earlier forms. Americanized, of course, like Imperial Rome, with lots of Plausible Deniability and talk of how free we are for the plebes - so I highly doubt that, even then, we shall fully emulate the insanity and "full speed ahead evil" of the Nazis. Though I cannot fully discount such an eventuality, what with us now being thought of as vermin by an expanding segment of the population.

In any case. You are wrong and your self-denial gives aid to tyrants.

Please read Johnson's article, and Wolin's book, if you are so inclined. Read about the system which now rules Amerika, Russia and China. China being the "least inverted" and "most classical", yet rapidly mixing in pseudo-freedom for their Upper Class much like here in Amerika, where our freedoms are the exact width of a stage curtain, easily whisked away as if they were never there.

And that's now. Things haven't even gotten that bad yet, relatively-speaking, economicially or environentally.

[question everything]

20. In anycase, you are wrong

Please give a single example of a police state, or a totalitarian - straight or inverse - regime where comments like these can be tolerated. You obviously do not believe in these concepts yourself, since you feel free to post your comments.

I tell you where I am careful about what I say or write: when I am on my employer's system of computers and phones. These are the company property and I am very careful on not saying or typing personal things, or even visiting websites that I don't think it is my employer's business to know.

And this is what many people - also on DU - do, and some live to regret it.

[nomorenomore08]

3. Well, it certainly FEELS like a police state, at least in my more paranoid moments.

Not that there's any hard-and-fast definition of what constitutes a "police state," but I tend to think that those who vehemently deny that Bush's America fits the definition, are in some degree of denial.

[The Straight Story]

6. It's what people really want - we fear each other, what we do in our homes, and both sides

peddle fear (of both terrorists and what others do and how it affects others).

We want more control so we gave it to them and they took the rest.

[no_hypocrisy]

7. What percentage cares?

[tom_paine]

8. You think it's 20-30%? After seven years of much "Paul Revere-ing"

and much discusion with many many different people from most classes and walks of life, races and religions, I can safely say that my own guess, based on those numbers, isn't 20-30%, but 2-3%.

And 2-3% may be extremely generous, but we'll leave it at that.

I know people who have all the facts about the Bushies, aren't trapped in any way by the Bush-Limbaugh Propaganda Machine, and they STILL refuse to see it.

I'll believe it when white people start getting sent to the Gulags, one friend told me. He just cannot believe that there is another new form of totalitarianism besides Classic Totalitarianism, like so many others, and he can't believe things are too bad if it hasn't affected him personally.

I am sorry to be a Debbie Downer here, but there is a huge portion of your 20-30%, I believe, and I do not think that such as they can be counted among the people who truly see what is going on.

If we are to take your question strictly, and not include people who dislike Bush for "Old American" reasons yet fail to see or deny that they see what is going on as the tendrils of this new thing, Inverted Totalitarianism, finishes slithering it's chains arounds us, then the number is likely 2-3%.

Actually, the more I think about it, it's probably closer to 0.5-1%.

Don't blame the messenger because reality sucks.

Here's hoping you and yours are all well. :hi:

[opihimoimoi]

12. Yup...1 %

Most are in denial, apathetic, or, ignorant....

[AwareOne]

10. 8%, in answer to your question

If we are not a police state, then why are the Local Police, the State Police, the Sheriffs office, the DEA, the FBI, Homeland security, U.S Marshals, Capital Police, Air Marshals, the CIA, ATF, Border Patrol, Coast Guard, Game Warden, Forest Rangers, the Secret Service, Marine Patrol, Fish and Game, Beach Patrol, Airport Security, Port Authority, and the Mall Pinkerton Cop all trying to arrest me? Did I forget any? Step out of line just once, and remember you are on camera most of the time now, and they will make your life a living hell.

[stray cat]

11. Check out a police state and then check back in.

We have our problems but having been in countrys with soldiers with machine guns on every corner (where in general it is quite safe)this place is far from a police state.

[tom_paine]

16. In the Classical Totalitarian sense, yes, that is true. But we are dealing with a new form of

totalitarianism.

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/20080515_chalmers_johnson_on_our_managed_democracy/

It is called Inverted Totalitarianism, and it is now not only ruling Bush's America, but also Putin's Russia. And Communist China, as it undergoes it's "superpower shift" is relaxing it's Classical Totalitarianism for the new version pioneered by Bush and Putin.

Oh, they are still the one member of the Big Three triad of Inverted Totalitarian Nations that most clings to it's Classical Totalitarian roots, but they are moving more towards the softer control of Inverted Totalitarianism that offers a better opportunity to create the techincally-educated upper middle class, as well as deliver goods and services. But what China, Amerika and Russia have is not truly freedom, even though the instruments of brutal Classical Totalitarianism, such as you mention, are not evident in the daily lives of most.

drmordue, with all due respect, your answer is correct.

You are just asking the wrong question.

[G_j]

13. that is pretty high

certainly the record breaking prison population has an idea..

10 per cent?
:-(

[BeHereNow]

14. The question requires the stipulation of...

How many Americans have actually read the
Executive Orders and Signing Statements
over the last eight years.

I don't think many, even here on DU, can give you
accurate results with out reading all of them.
Starting with the very first.
Most on DU have not.

Let's not even discuss the number of DUers
who have not read the Patriot Act.

Or the entire PNAC document, "Rebuilding America's Defenses."
Or, Antony Sutton's "Trilaterals Over Washington."

Given the minority that have read those,
I say less than .05 of the population,
and think that a generous number.


BHN

[undergroundpanther]

18. The notion of full spectrum domination

sounds like a police state to me.
I read the signing statements, PNAC,all of it and it disgusts me, it scares the crap out of me and pisses me off royally all at the same time.

Signing statements, PNAC, Immigrant round ups,Highest number of people incarcerated,Ice Centers,my neighbor goes poof, friends harassed,Me put in cuffs because I was depressed by cops and I wasn't even resisting or under arrest..yeah I agree,it's a damn police state.
Just try to step out of the 'normalcy zone' and you'll see.

[kentuck]

21. And if there any possible points of invasion or insurrection...

We will put a military post.

[mmonk]

22. 0%

I would say it's less than one percent. Otherwise, we'd already have change.

[MonkeyFunk]

23. In a real police state

you don't get to publicly bitch about being in a police state.

[mmonk]

24. Depends on the controls.

When elderly members of a Quaker group are on a state's enemies list, one has to wonder don't you think? The last figures on the no fly list handed over to the government that have is over 900,000 American citizens. Around 8 million citizens are on a list to observe should there be a national emergency (considered possible threats). These are not the practices normally associated with a free society.