Police state

I clipped this photo from The Atlantic.

That is pepper spray the cop is using. A chemical weapon. On people exercising their first amendment rights. How can any true American see this and not feel outrage?

As the Atlantic article points out, this is not a rouge cop. Rather, it is the nature of policing in the US. And this is why I say the US has become a police state.

This is not the country my family has lived in, fought for, built up, from the 1600s on both my mother's and father's side. This is not the land of the free and the home of the brave. Where do I see liberty and justice for all?

More people in jail than the evil of Soviet Russia which my grandfather so proudly fought against, as a admiral in our Navy, and most of them in jail for the crime of being poor and minority.

20:1 sentencing disparity between those who plea bargin instead of requiring their guilt to be proven in a court of law, as our Constitution demands it must-- does this create an incentive to plea bargin? you bet it does, especially when a) that is what their public defender tells them is their only option. In fact, some 95% of felony cases are settled with a plea bargin.