Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness...

Walton County, FL, a community so peaceful and crime-free that it was identified by Hollywood as being perfect to the point of seeming fake and thus became the idyllic American town where Truman from The Truman Show lived, has gone camo-military.

Walton County is the recipient of an MRAP for the low, low price of only $2,500.00. That’s right, twenty-five hundred dollars; a quarter of a million dollar vehicle for the mere cost to transport said vehicle to Walton, Florida. For the uninitiated, an MRAP is a “mine-resistant, ambush-protected” vehicle that had become surplus due to its de-activation from its normal use hunting insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you had an appointment in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, this would probably be the vehicle of choice; in Walton County, FL…maybe not so much.

So, why did such a peaceful community, the filming location of The Truman Show, need an MRAP? Walton County Sheriff’s Officer Mike Adkinson questions those opposed to its use as to whether they want to send law enforcement officers into harm’s way without the best protection available. On the other side, some in the community are concerned that the acquisition represents “an offensive intimidation method used to control and strike fear.”

While I have not checked, but I will endeavor to as time allows, one resident has offered that all available studies show that militarized police departments actually experience more officers getting hurt than normal. The question thus becomes, will the addition of more and more military-style hardware to our local domestic police departments create an atmosphere of safety and peace or is it more “likely to spur additional violence?”

One adversary of the program, used by Walton County, which brings such equipment to small-town America, for pennies on the dollar, thinks that the MRAP is an “implement of war.” Regardless of its use, can anyone argue with that evaluation? Of course, if you wish to borrow from George Orwell’s Ministry of Propaganda, we can call it “an implement of Peace.”

Is the Department of Homeland Security in the process of building a “domestic army” that will eventually be used by the federal government on its own citizens? Former Marine Corps Colonel Peter Martino who trained Iraqi soldiers thinks that the federal government is becoming more and more fearful of its citizens.

Colonel Martino, from Concord, NH, expressed concern at a local council meeting over a decision to purchase a BearCat. He disclosed that in the application to acquire the BearCat that the city’s police chief stated the vehicle was needed to deal with the “threat” posed by “libertarians, sovereign citizen adherents, and Occupy activists in the region.” I don’t know about you but that sure sounds like the plan is to use the vehicle against citizens to me.

In another instance, Indiana Police Sergeant Dan Downing admitted that the militarization of domestic law enforcement was, in part, “to deal with returning veterans who are now seen as a homegrown terror threat.” What was it our Dear Leader emphasized just the other day? “Leave no man behind.” Maybe the returning vets that Sergeant Downing is referring to would have been better off “left behind,” so to speak.

What we have here are local police forces “armed for war” against any and all comers. Is this what Independence Day represents to you?