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Comment by iambateman | Hacker News Reader

If every police station in the country is equipped with military-grade weapons and vehicles, what happens in the event of despotic leadership?

Suppose someone rises to power with little regard for legislative oversight and activates the sleeping military at home. It might start with a real (or faked) terror event coordinated across several major cities. It wouldn't take much at all, 5-10 cities, and suddenly: 1. Internet & cell communications are shut down 2. a national state of emergency is declared 3. A curfew is issued 4. Dissidents are squashed via a military police force with little recourse themselves. 5. Everyone is required to have location-aware implants "for safety."

With a little fear, a government could take full, permanent control of their citizens via aggressive laws and more aggressive enforcers. Would it even take two weeks?

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Radley Balko’s book, which is cited in the article, "Rise of the Warrior Cop"[0] actually makes a very good argument that the 3rd Amendment which prohibits the quartering of soldiers during peacetime was referencing this exact situation, wherein a group of government controlled "peace officers", which are essentially military personnel, are in constant deployment inside the United States of America keeping tabs on it's citizens. He argues that it has nothing to do with literally being forced to give up your bed to a soldier, but entirely with the state housing soldiers within it's walls. With the gifting of Tanks, M16s and other paramilitary gear to ordinary police officers, we're essentially creating another branch of the armed forces.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/dp/1610392116/

The sad thing is, this is unnecessary. Why be a despot, when you can be a "democratically elected leader"? The masses will love you, so long as you don't explicitly say that you are a dictator, no matter how violent and bloodthirsty you are.

At least that is what is happening today...

Perhaps I'm naive, but I never understood why a despotic US President would need all of these weapons and vehicles. I mean, they're a nice convenience, but they're complete unnecessary for a takeover.

My thought would be that you just need the presidency and maybe six high ranking military officers. You then declare a presidential address where you announce that you're declaring yourself dictator for life. If anyone objects, you'll nuke Moscow. Of course, Russia will respond by annihilating the entire US, so objecting to the take over is essentially a death sentence.

Let the citizens have their guns. They can't shoot an ICBM.

Sounds like a B-movie plot.

The problem is, the newly-appointed tyrant would need everyone in the military to play along with the blackmail. All it would take is a few rogue Air Force pilots to shoot down that ICBM.

Never underestimate the ability of human beings to go along with, and justify in their minds, a bad idea.

How does any tyrant do the things they do without enough people willing to go along with it?

Actually, your idea of rogue Air Force pilots shooting down an unscheduled launch of an ICBM is classic B-movie material. As long as there are three pilots and there's some love triangle sub-plot involved. Plus, one of them has to die in some meaningless and tragic way.

How on earth is an Air Force pilot going to shoot down an ICBM? A Minuteman III can reach speeds of 15,000mph.

Someone has taken Iron Man saving NYC from a rogue nuke a bit too seriously. If only we could shoot down ICBMs with fighters, my favorite military vehicle, the aircraft carrier, would be far more prevalent in the world.

With magical patriot fuel that provides thrust relative to the amount of ridiculous drama that has thus far been painted on the stupid propaganda movie reel. Likely when the meaningless death of the goofy but loveable sidekick has been concluded somehow and the ex quarterback pilot jock is sufficiently despairing and enraged at the same time while his high school sweetheart is crying over said death in some sterile but tense government control room and he can hear her on comms as he spurts out his last gasp of impotent rage doing the actually impossible thing and making watching vaccuous halfwit proles feel proud to be American.

Queue complete bullshit speech by sufficiently aristocratic looking political figure about lessons hard learned and tests successfully overcome.

Swelling music, much tribalism, wow.

Roll credits.

despots are many things but not suicidal.

Why are the enforcers that are keeping the police in line so quick to go along with the despot?

Or do you really think that the police in the U.S. are equivalent to a disciplined, no-questions-asked unit of the Federal government?

(I don't think a majority of the military could be encouraged to act directly against the citizens of the U.S., never mind the police (preempting snide replies, against the people in a nationally organized manner))

In that hypothetical scenario, the police would be responding to an attack (staged or otherwise). Later, the immediate security measures put in place in response to the attack simply wouldn't be wound down over time, maybe because of additional attacks against notable weak points of the existing security measures. Also, cell phone and Internet service would be shut down (ostensibly to prevent attackers from triggering remote detonators, which obviously could never have timers or dead man's switches), thus preventing the on-duty emergency security police from getting news from an outside source.

It's an interesting hypothetical scenario which exploits the good intentions of the police and military to do evil.

Yes, I get the gist of it.

I am not convinced it is plausible.

I agree, but not for the reason you gave in your comment. The police wouldn't know they're going along with a despot. They would don riot gear, block streets, and set up checkpoints in the name of safety from terrorists and looters.

Okay, you've covered the first 30 hours of your brand new dictatorship.

What happens next?

Nope, this country has way too many guns. They couldn't take us with only police.

What is the difference between using militarized police and actual military? If in the hands of a despot one is a problem, then so is the other. So I don't see how weaponizing the police changes this equation.

(Some other commenters suggest the police is more loyal to the local citizenry, in which case weaponizing the police could be seen as providing a counterbalancing armed force that could defend against a military assault on the populace)

Personally, I'm not concerned about either scenario.

If I had to generalize about the military and the police, I'd have a lot more fear for police. The veterans I've known by and large hate the government, which is ironic. But cops have zero compunction against violently attacking the people.

Especially because the police are not professional soldiers. They might think that that APC of theirs makes them invulnerable and pull some crazy shit. Actual soldiers with one APC would live in dread of rednecks with hunting rifles.

In Iraq you can buy an AK-47 for about the price of a pack of cigarrettes. RPGs, C-4, probably a ton of looted US militay hardware from the Pakistani border as well. The populace did not, and does not, want for access to heavy duty ordnance.

Mysteriously, this didn't stop Saddam Hussein ruling for decades.

I would not expect that the current ability to purchase weapons could impact past events (, unless the Iraquis have access to US army surplus time machines as well).

It should also be noted that most discriminatory and tyrannical regimes selectively arm or disarm segments of their populations, so as to effect greater control and stability. If one quickly examines the "Jim Crow" laws of the southern US states, it is easy to find many which were targeted at disarming the black population and others (, making the minorities vulnerable to lynching).

Police does not listen to federal or state officials. Each city has it's own police comprised usually of it's own residents. I doubt they will all side with the corrupt officials.

To what end?

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