LibertyMinute February 18 2014

A SWAT team operated by North Carolina?s Wilson County Sheriff?s Office executed  a ?high risk search warrant? on a narcotics suspect. The operators, clad in black armor, bucket helmets, and balaclavas, found what was described as ?nearly a pound of marijuana? ? which would be the yield from one healthy plant ? and a single handgun.

A photograph taken by an embedded correspondent for the Wilson Times newspaper showed two of the masked SWAT operators in full military regalia. [One of them carried a ballistic shield on which was inscribed the word ?Defender.? It?s not clear what or whom those stormtroopers were defending.] Peace officers don?t dress that way, nor do they carry out military-style raids to arrest people suspected of non-violent offenses. Perhaps most importantly, peace officers don?t wear masks to hide their identity from the people they are supposedly protecting.

Back in the mid-1980s, a miniseries called ?Amerika? depicted theUnited Statesfollowing a takeover by theSoviet Union. Order was maintained in Soviet-occupiedAmericaby a cadre of black-clad stormtroopers whose faces were always concealed from the public.

Thankfully, that entertaining but lurid program over-estimated the Soviet threat to our national independence. However, it uncannily anticipated our descent into quasi-totalitarian rule. The Soviet-style enforcers we have to fear are found in our local police departments and sheriff?s offices.

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