“What in the world does NASA need a SWAT team for?”

Good question.

That and more in a piece titled “Why Have Police In America Turned Into Such Ruthless Thugs?”

It’s a very worrisome question I have struggled to understand, because when I was a kid, cops were cops, and many people saw them as friends of the law-abiding.

No more:

Once upon a time, the police were one of the most respected institutions in America, but now most Americans fear them.  Almost every single day there are multiple stories of police brutality or misconduct that make the national news.  Just this week, there have been stories about police killing a baby deer at an animal shelter, about police killinga 95-year-old World War II veteran in a retirement home, and about police using legal technicalities to “legally” steal massive amounts of money from innocent citizens.  Why are police acting like this?  Why have police in America turned into such ruthless thugs?  In the case of the baby deer that was killed, 13 armed agents stormed the animal shelter up in Wisconsin where it was being cared for.  Is this really the kind of country that we want our children to grow up in?  A country where Bambi is hunted down by armed thugs working for the government?  Sadly, the story about that deer is not an isolated incident.  The truth is that police all over the country kill animals every single day.  In fact, police in Chicago have shot 488 animals since 2008.  No wonder people are so afraid to have the police come to their homes.

Increasingly, police departments all over the United States are being transformed into military-style units.  These days, even very minor violations of the law can result in a SWAT team raid.

You know the rest. It’s almost a broken record. People like me complain and write blog posts, and it only gets worse.

And how could it not? After all, we’re all outlaws and felons now. You know things are really bad when statists like Jim Sensenbrenner (author of so many insane laws that he is part of the problem) agree with libertarians like Harvey Silverglate:

According to Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), “Today, there are roughly 4,500 federal crimes on the books. And still many more regulations and rules that, if not abided by, result in criminal penalties, including incarceration.”

The problem with a significant number of these offenses is that one can commit them without ever meaning to do so or with any knowledge of wrongdoing.

Harvey Silverglate, a practicing attorney in Boston, Massachusetts, newspaper columnist, and civil liberties advocate, detailed this disturbing fact in his book, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent.

When everyone is a criminal, and the cops are a military wing of the police state, the result is chaos masquerading as law and order.