Liberty Minute July 31 2013

The City of Concord, New Hampshire is about to receive a $258,000 federal homeland security grant to purchase a BearCar armored vehicle for its police department.

In its application for the grant, the department claimed that the vehicle is necessary as a counter-terrorism tool, insisting that ?the threat is real and here.? The police cited ?groups such as the Sovereign Citizens, Free Staters and Occupy New Hampshire,? as well as ?several homegrown clusters that are anti-government and pose problems for law enforcement agencies.? 

In other words, the police wanted to acquire a paramilitary vehicle for the purpose of intimidating people who are critical of the militarization of the police.

Back in 1995, Tony Cooper, an instructor in terrorism negotiation at the University of Texas-Dallas, warned of what he called a ?curious crusading mentality among certain law enforcement agencies to stamp out what they see as a threat to government generally [and] an exaggerated concern that they are facing a nationwide conspiracy and that somehow this will get out of control unless it is stamped out at a very early stage."

In the age of the Homeland Security State, paranoia on the part of the police has become a lucrative procurement strategy.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.