
Excerpted from Jan. 24, 1994 issue of
"For the People News Reporter" (A Biweekly Newspaper)
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MARCHING TOWARD A POLICE STATE
by Robert W. Lee
[Excerpts]
 
The phrase "police state" has an ominous ring to those who are 
not striving to impose or maintain one. From the days of fascist 
Sparta to the Nazi Gestapo or the Soviet KGB, the lessons of 
history teach that dictators and oligarchs must centralize police 
powers in order to impose their wills and maintain control. 
Often, the would-be dictators themselves incite the violence that 
then serves as an excuse for centralizing police power and 
disarming the citizenry in order to "solve" the problem.
 
That is what Adolph Hitler did to facilitate his rise to power. 
One result, described by liberal historian William L. Shirer 
(CFR) in *The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich*, was that on 
"June 16, 1936, for the first time in German history, a unified 
police was established for the whole of the Reich -- previously 
the police had been organized separately by each of the states -- 
and Himmler was put in charge as Chief of the German Police. This 
was tantamount to putting the police in the hands of the S.S., 
which since its suppression of the Roehm 'revolt' in 1934 had 
been rapidly increasing its power... The Third Reich, as is 
inevitable in the development of all totalitarian dictatorships, 
had become a police state."
 
Gun control also played a crucial role in solidifying Nazi rule, 
confirming that dictatorship thrives best where the people are 
disarmed, since there is then little chance of mounting an 
effective, broad-based challenge to those in power. Section II, 
Paragraph 3, Part 5 of Hitler's March 18, 1938 "Weapons Law," for 
instance, asserted that a license to manufacture guns "must not 
be issued if the applicant -- or if one of the persons proposed 
for the commercial or technical management of the business -- is 
a Jew." In contrast, Section IV, Paragraph 12 provided that a 
"firearms acquisition permit is not needed by," among others, 
"Officials of the central government" and "the states." Moreover, 
Paragraph 19 exempted those "to whom a firearm is supplied for 
official purposes," including persons "in the service of the 
central government [and] the states... the S.A. [and] the S.S."
 
Hitler realized that in order to establish a dictatorship he had 
to control the police powers and he had to confiscate the guns. 
But he did not tell the German people it was his intent to 
enslave them. By the time they realized what had happened, it was 
too late.
 
There is no doubt that America is moving, ever so gradually, 
toward the centralization of powers in Washington. Police powers 
are no exception. More federal involvement in law enforcement and 
more restrictions on the private ownership of firearms [are 
alarming trends.]
 
One recent manifestation of America's drift toward a national 
police force is the final report of the National Performance 
Review (NPR) headed by Vice President Al Gore. Said to be a 
blueprint for "reinventing government," this report recommends 
"the designation of the Attorney General as the Director of Law 
Enforcement to coordinate federal law enforcement efforts." [Some 
observers contend that this scheme] would actually create a 
national police force for the first time in our history.
 
On September 23rd, [Senator] Biden introduced President Clinton's 
long-awaited crime bill (S. 1488)... Perhaps the singularly most 
ominous provisions of the President's $6 billion crime package 
are its calls for further federalization of state and local law 
enforcement agencies. Although it would be virtually impossible 
to convert a nation with 40,000 independent police forces into a 
police-state tyranny, such despotism would become inevitable 
should the central government gain control of those forces. The 
pending legislation calls for the expenditure of $3.45 billion 
over six years to fund 50,000 additional police officers under a 
"Cops on the Beat" community policing program. The Senate bill 
would also authorize college scholarships to generate a Police 
Corps of up to 20,000 recruits annually. The Cops on the Beat and 
Police Corps proposals would be giant steps toward ultimate 
federal domination of our nation's police departments.
 
The best policemen come from the communities they serve and have 
the interests of the local citizenry first and foremost in mind. 
The President's army of federally financed policemen -- who would 
have few or no established roots in the communities they serve, 
and whose loyalty would run to the central government that pays 
their salaries or financed their education -- would stand in 
stark contrast to that ideal.
 
Charles "Bud" Meeks, executive director of the National Sheriff's 
Association, recently noted the extent to which the federal 
government has already infringed upon local police power. "By 
passing statutes in an effort to make [the crime situation] 
better," he observed, "we're getting closer to a federal police 
state."
 
The U.S. Constitution lists only one federal crime, treason, yet 
in recent years Congress has moved to make federal crimes of 
carjacking, vandalism of biomedical research laboratories, 
defacement of religious property, child pornography, and some 
3,000 other offenses that were once the province of state and 
local municipalities.
 
Step by step, the federal government, through the expansion of 
federal crimes, through funding, and through the growth of the 
regulatory agencies, is encroaching on local law enforcement. 
Syndicated columnist Samuel Francis reminds us that "over the 
last 30 years or so, the creeping federal incursion into law 
enforcement has yielded some 140 agencies at the federal level 
that have such a role... In addition, federal court rulings now 
govern much of what local police and courts do and how they can 
(and can't) do it, while more and more federal laws give more and 
more police power to the feds." And what good has it done? 
"...everyone knows the federal engulfment of law enforcement has 
failed miserably to control crime and make the country safe. 
That's because, by its very nature, effective law enforcement is 
local."
 
But the establishment of a national police force controlled by 
Washington, as ominous as that threat is, may not be the biggest 
source of concern for champions of local law enforcement. 
Suggestions have already been made for deploying U.N. 
"peacekeeping" forces in America.
 
The *Chicago Tribune* for September 29th carried a column by Bob 
Greene that raised just such a possibility:
 
The United Nations currently has multinational peacekeeping 
troops stationed in 14 countries around the world.
 
The precise missions vary, but they all have one thing in common: 
The international soldiers are there to help bring tranquility 
and safety to places that can't do so on their own.
 
So perhaps there is one more place where a U.N. multinational 
force is desperately needed: The United States.
 
"Preposterous?" Greene asked. "Maybe not. Maybe it is an issue 
for the 184 member nations of the U.N. to discuss. Sending 
soldiers from around the world onto the streets of our own 
country? We probably haven't come to the point where we need such 
action yet, but we're veering perilously close."
 
Such a step would fit perfectly with what the new world order 
architects have in mind. On July 14th of this year, Senator Biden 
introduced Senate Joint Resolution 112 urging the President to 
initiate discussions leading to negotiations to establish a 
standing United Nations army. Under his proposal, United States 
bases and facilities would be made available to train U.N. 
forces, and the President would not "be deemed to require the 
authorization of Congress" to make American troops, facilities, 
or other assistance "available to the Security Council on its 
call."
 
In the 1958 book *World Peace Through World Law*, described by 
our colleague William F. Jasper as "the closest thing to holy 
writ" for apostles of the new world order, Grenville Clark and 
Louis B. Sohn (CFR) proposed a socialist world government 
predicated on a revised U.N. Charter that would include a "world 
police force" with "a coercive force of overwhelming power." This 
force would be "the only *military* force permitted anywhere in 
the world after the process of national disarmament had been 
completed." In the second edition of the book released in 1960, 
Clark and Sohn added the warning that "it must be recognized that 
even with the complete elimination of all [national] *military* 
forces there would necessarily remain substantial, although 
strictly limited and lightly armed, internal police forces, and 
that these police forces, supplemented by civilians armed with 
sporting rifles and fowling pieces, might conceivably constitute 
a serious threat to a neighboring country in the absence of a 
well-disciplined and heavily armed world police."
 
The handwriting, as they say, is on the wall, and it could hardly 
be more clear where the Pied Pipers of the new world order intend 
to march us. To sum up, the current and other recent presidential 
administrations have [been] working with patient gradualism to: 
1) strengthen the United Nations militarily; 2) reduce our 
national defense capability; 3) establish a national police 
apparatus; 4) finance local police with federal tax dollars (and 
shackle them with accompanying federal controls); and 5) impose 
gun controls that will most affect peaceful citizens.
 
It is time to wake up, become informed about what is going on, 
and start fighting back with every remaining legal and moral 
means at our command. And a good place to start would be to 
support our local police and keep them independent of federal 
control.

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(This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the
Patriot FTP site by S.P.I.R.A.L., the Society for the Protection of
Individual Rights and Liberties. E-mail alex@spiral.org)

