human being. Yes, I am a man with a worldview, but I am also man with eyes and with ears. I am a man who cares about his country and its people, the people whom I disagree and agree with alike. And I am a man who seeks understanding and truth, and once I come to an understanding of what I see and hear, then I am obliged to speak it. Read this through the eyes of a man searching for understanding and truth. As Americans living in the 21 st century, currently the year 2016, one hundred and fifty years after the Civil War ended, and slavery having ceased, we are all tired of racism and marginalization. Especially, the African-American community. Yet where corrupt men live, evil persists, and racism is always existent. We have to fight it with justice, and love, but we do get tired of it. We yearn for the day that hate will end. And recently racism, namely racism within the justice system is brought to attention while watching the horrific videos of the Baton Rouge incident and in addition, the St. Paul incident. We do not know if
The Bigger Shadow Behind the Racial Discord
Between Law Enforcement and Community Nicholas Kallis the police in the videos were acting on racist intent or just seemingly over-stepping on what they should have been doing, but as humans we react. The reactions of many, including the outspoken Black Lives Matter group have reacted in protests, some peaceful and some violent. This, of course is not the first time in recent memory that racial protests have occurred, joining others like the 1968 protests and riots after MLK was assassinated. And most recently the Ferguson riots in 2014 and Baltimore lootings and protests in 2015. But this was different then Baltimore or Ferguson. The videos were extremely more graphic, there was dozens of protests across the country, hundreds of arrests were made, including the arrest of prominent Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson. And more hatred was poured out, as Micah Johnson, an Army Veteran and a Black Power activist shot twelve police officers, leaving five dead at a peaceful Black Lives Matter rally in Dallas. It was a bloody, and disturbing week as we got a glimpse at not only the hurt and hatred of Americans but also the division between Americans. People quickly jumped to their sides in defense of Black Lives Matter and their synopsis of police brutality or in defense of Police and avocation for the Blue Lives Matter hashtag. Yet, many Americans including myself, stood in the
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Between Law Enforcement and Community Nicholas Kallis middle not finding any clear ground. We agree racism is bad, but hate is not the answer. How can we address it? Are there laws within the justice system that need to be changed? How should we approach the issues of police brutality? Surely, most police officers are brutal and racist but serve this country with valor and honor as we saw in Dallas. These are the questions swirling around Americans heads currently. And the simple answer is that its not that simple. For every decision we make, reality, the very fabric of time is affected and changed. One has to look at arguments, counter-arguments, contextual factors, history, causes, actors, implications, and motives when looking at issues. And I want to suggest, before we bury local law enforcement and react on passion, we take a step back and look at what this current situation is serving to do. There seem to be something bigger than this, a battle of principles that has been waging since the creation of our country in respect to size and scope of government My thesis is this: That the racial discord and civil unrest following the Baton Rogue and St. Paul incidents will serve to allocate more, if not all of the Law Enforcement agency and its operations to the Federal oversight level. This will simply work to deepen the divide between the liberal and conservative views on the scope and power of
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Between Law Enforcement and Community Nicholas Kallis Government. With this said power, the Federal government could control law enforcement standards, criminal definitions, laws, and what defines a law breaker. One only has to look at the past, including recent police issues like Ferguson to get a glimpse at how the federal government will attempt to handle this situation from here. From there we take a look at the shifting cultural, and political values in our country, as well as clear federal growth with respect to connection with local law enforcement and breaking away from the Constitution. In the days of the Roman Republic, during times of crisis and war they would appoint an official as a temporal Dictator, one who had extraordinary executive power over the people for a set time of six months. After 9/11 the U.S. government was on edge, and so were the people, terrified of another attack from within. Now for decades prior to 9/11, The Federal Government provided billions of dollars in equipment to state and local law enforcement agencies (LEAs) through excess equipment transfers, asset forfeiture programs and federal grants. But since 9/11, it seems as if Congress and the Executive Power have taken Romanesque initiative to increase spending and support for Law Enforcement programs. This deepened the connection of federal
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Between Law Enforcement and Community Nicholas Kallis support to local law enforcement. From 2009 and 2014 The Federal Government provided nearly $18 billion to programs that provided equipment and tactical resources to State/local LEAs. Because of the rapid pace of growth of transference of equipment and training between the Feds and LEAs, as of 2014, training for the LEAs was not institutionalized, specifically with respect to civil rights and civil liberties protections, or the safe use of equipment received through the Federal Government. After Ferguson, the Government sought to encourage LEAs to adopt practices and standards that prevent misuse of equipment. And not only encourage but to provide equipment that is appropriate to the needs of their communities. But the connection of the Federal level and local level is much stronger. In December 2015, Obama signed an Executive Order ushering in a Task Force on 21st century policing. In the Task forces first report, it features 6 categories on how policing practices can build public trust and promote effective crime reduction, and it includes input from members of the community, law enforcement and civil rights/liberties officers. The Task force made several suggestions on actions the executive power could take such as The federal government should create a Law Enforcement Diversity Initiative designed to help communities
The Bigger Shadow Behind the Racial Discord
Between Law Enforcement and Community Nicholas Kallis diversify law enforcement departments to reflect the demographics of the community. As well the funding being influenced by whether the LEAs make an effort to improve their diversity, and cultural responsiveness. Like a child, the local police departments, will receive reprimand if they dont do what their father, the Federal Government commands. In May we saw a similar thing happen with public schools. The Obama administration sent out a mandate directing schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and facilities with the gender they identify as. If the schools choose not to comply, federal funding could be lost. It seems as if a similar thing could with the LEAs, if they dont adopt the federal standards then they could lose funding, and equipment from the federal level. As our culture embraces tolerance more and more and moves further away from freedom of speech, one must wonder if what police officers can do will be greatly regulated, and if not complied with maybe even terminated. During the riots in Baltimore, Activist and Rev. Al Sharpton called upon the president to federalize the police, demanding that the Justice department Take over policing in this country. The Feds showed up in Baltimore after the city was on fire, seemingly rescuing it from its ineffective police
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Between Law Enforcement and Community Nicholas Kallis force. And recently former Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said that the Department of Justice should investigate every case where the Police had to shoot someone with a gun. The savior-like view of the federal government to come to rescue of the minorities is relevant and the connection between LEAs the Feds has been firmly established. There is always room for danger, and a transforming creep into totalitarianism when the Federal government begins to oversee and allocate local law enforcement under their standards and regulatory measure. The grab of more and more power at the Federal level has been a slow grasp, but remember that liberty dies in small increments, law by law, Executive order by order, and mandate by mandate. And then it all comes to a head. One can spot when a government is rapidly moving to totalitarianism when its nations top political officials prove that they are above the law. Just this month, the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, Hillary Clinton was under F.B.I investigation for her handling of classified information. James B. Comey, the director of the F.B.I remarked how Mrs. Clinton was extremely careless in her handling and information, stating that it was possible for hostile foreign governments to have accessed her account, and said that someone else employed by the State Department
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Between Law Enforcement and Community Nicholas Kallis could have received disciplinary action for taking the careless steps she took. He then recommended no criminal charges against Hillary Clinton. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Supreme Court justice, the highest court in the land, said four years ago I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. In late June of this year, 7th Circuit Federal Judge Richard Posner stated that he sees absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the constitution. His reasoning, being that the men who wrote the constitution could not foresee the technological and cultural state of the 21st century. Posner forgets that the Founding Fathers were not intellectually stupid. They could foresee cultural changes, so they designed the constitution so that its principles, its truths and its values of Freedom, and liberty, sovereignty, and Government by the people would always stand the test of time. The actions of Clinton, remarks by Bader, and Posner, should warn us of the lawlessness the government could do with a federalized police department. In addition to this, reports give sight to the fact that the Federal Government has begun to militarize and arm its own agencies. A report titled The Militarization of America found that 67 Federal agencies from Fiscal year
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Between Law Enforcement and Community Nicholas Kallis 2006 to Fiscal year 2014 bought $1.48 billion in guns, ammo, and Military-style equipment. The report states "administrative agencies including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Small Business Administration (SBA), Smithsonian Institution, Social Security Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, United States Mint, Department of Education, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and many other agencies purchased guns, ammo, and military-style equipment." Apparently the Social Security Administration asked for 174,000 of .357 Sig 125 grain bonded jacket hollow-point. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) asked for 46,000 rounds as well. One must wonder why do the Social Security Admin. and the NOAA need hollow-point ammo? According to the Congressional Research Services report on Federal Tactical Teams in 2015, Non-Military Federal agencies employed at least 145,000 Law enforcement officers. Granted many of those 145,000 came from border-patrol or customs agents, but still tens of thousands did not. In contrast, The Marnie-corps enlists 180,000 men. Other reports say that 200,000 non-military federal
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Between Law Enforcement and Community Nicholas Kallis officers are authorized to carry guns and have arrest powers. its important to note that imperative to this reasoning is that chaos would be needed to cause federal allocation of the Local Law enforcement. We are seeing that right now in our country with racial strife. I am not saying and I do not attest that this is manufactured, I am simply saying that this racial discord and civil unrest is playing right into the hands of the Federal governments ambition to allocate Local Law enforcement and to govern more completely over the United States of America, and in doing so, with or without intent, infringing on the sovereignty of Americans. In the past five years, the ideological seeds of the past fifty years going back to before the Counter-culture movement, ideals of complete and total secularization and big government have been realized. We are seeing more and more that peoples cries for tolerance does not tolerant free speech that goes against their ideology. More and more hate speech is being defined as anything that disagrees with The LGBQT platform. Mircoagressions that are considered offensive as starting to be used today by colleges today to reinforce their ideology. Public institutions are starting to punish anyone who speaks out against what culture values today. The Nazis started ritual
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Between Law Enforcement and Community Nicholas Kallis book burnings in 1933 to purge the culture from any ideas that didnt line up with the Partys ideals. They had an ally with young students in the National Socialist German Students Association. Its not a far stretch to picture the purging of traditional constitutional ideals from the culture with the allies of socialist and communist groups in addition to the LGBQT. What we are seeing in the political world due to the ideological seeds rooted in the cultural, specifically in reference to the Constitutions validity and honor is a suppression of the values that America was built on; Freedom from overbearing government, self-evident truth. Morality, sanctity of life, and freedom of opinion and expression. Returning to the spark of this discussion, Black Lives Matters is committed to ending systemic injustices in the police department, but how many laws will they find that need to can be attributed to being racist and that need to be changed within the justice system? How long will they search until they turn to the federal government to help them end racism? And how long before they cry out for the government to take over local law enforcement well? One has to wonder what would happen if a growing lawless, and militarized Federal Government gained control over Local Law
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Between Law Enforcement and Community Nicholas Kallis Enforcement and moved away from the constitution and its Bills of rights and began to enforce the cultural ideology on its people. Just a thought.