And Going, and Going...

Back when I first started Nobody In Particular, nearly 17 years ago, my first real post was about some activists who met in Lake Forest Park, Washington, and their idea that the modern United States was, or was on the verge of becoming, a police state. At the time I chalked up their attitude to a combination of paranoia, wishful thinking and a certain freedom to not have to consider that political stands that they took might have consequences.

But after more than a decade and a half of encountering any number of other people who like to tell themselves that the United States has become a genuine police state, I've come to realize that a certain level of narcissism can also play into the mix. I noted back in 2006 that "I don't understand what they are doing that would make the Federal government think them enough of a threat to actually do something to silence them." I suspect that I just should have asked them; they likely would have told me. I suspect that I wouldn't have agreed with their assessment that whatever actions they were taking were really that much of a threat to the status quo, but that's beside the point. The fact is that the activists themselves see their actions as a threat to the wealthy and powerful. There are times, I think where people cast themselves as the "scrappy underdog" out of ego as much as anything else.

Recently, I came across a post on LinkedIn from The Epoch Times, pitching their latest media project, a movie by Dinesh D'Sousa (who else?) that claims (wait for it...) that the modern United States has become a police state. Part of the rationale seems to be a bit of revisionist history and selective understanding of the law. People sent to prison after the rioting in Washington, D.C. on January 6th, 2021 are apparently "political prisoners," rather than people who committed some fairly obvious felonies.

In any event, a number of people were quick to cosign The Epoch Times' assessment of the situation; mainly, I suspect, because the anti-communist Times tends to see the American Left as only one step away from being the next iteration of a communist dictatorship. This gives them common cause with movement Conservatives (such as Mr. D'Sousa) who see any social program that benefits someone other than themselves (or those they favor) as a death knell for Truth, Justice and the American Way. (Not to mention their own cultural and financial interests.) And like other people who see a police state where it's hard to otherwise conclude that one exists, they see their agitation as some sort of existential threat to a power structure that, in all likelihood, barely pays any attention to them. And in that sense, warnings of a creeping police state are self-congratulatory, calling on people to pat themselves on the back for being able to push the current system into wrongdoing in order to save itself.