Police State Quotes

“I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."

[From the Preface]”
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

“I love my country, not my government.”
― Jesse Ventura

“A utopian system, when established by men, is likely to be synonymous with a dystopian depression. The only way for perfect peace by man is absolute control of all wrongs. Bully-cultures find this: with each and every mistake, another village idiot is shamed into nothingness and mindlessly shut down by the herd. This is a superficial peace made by force and by fear, one in which there is no freedom to breathe; and the reason it is impossible for man to maintain freedom and peace for everyone at the same time. Christ, on the other hand, transforms, instead of controls, by instilling his certain inner peace. This is the place where one realizes that only his holiness is and feels like true freedom, rather than like imprisonment, and, too, why Hell, I imagine, a magnified version of man's never-ending conflict between freedom and peace, would be the flesh's ultimate utopia - yet its ultimate regret.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“The fact is that the modern implementation of the prison planet has far surpassed even Orwell’s 1984 and the only difference between our society and those fictionalized by Huxley, Orwell and others, is that the advertising techniques used to package the propaganda are a little more sophisticated on the surface.
Yet just a quick glance behind the curtain reveals that the age old tactics of manipulation of fear and manufactured consensus are still being used to force humanity into accepting the terms of its own imprisonment and in turn policing others within the prison without bars.”
― Paul Joseph Watson

“Indifferent to truth, willing to use police-state tactics and vulgar libels against inconvenient witnesses, hopeless on health care, and flippant and fast and loose with national security: The case against Hillary Clinton for president is open-and-shut. Of course, against all these considerations you might prefer the newly fashionable and more media-weighty notion that if you don't show her enough appreciation, and after all she's done for us, she may cry.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“If a police officer encounters you in one of those moments, he or she has every right to ask you two simple questions. Memorize these two questions so you will not be tempted to answer any others:

Who are you?
What are you doing right here, right now?

If you are ever approached by a police officer with those two questions, and your God-given common sense tells you that the officer is being reasonable in asking for an explanation, don’t be a jerk.”
― James Duane, You Have the Right to Remain Innocent

“The devolution of a Republic is democracy. Democracy is rule by an unrestrained majority which results in tyranny, civil agitation, and the inevitable descent into anarchy, ultimately requiring a police state to restore order.”
― Jeffrey Fry, Distilled Thoughts

“cashless society: (n.) dystopian civilization where you can be sure the real terrorists have won.”
― Sol Luckman, The Angel's Dictionary

“Despite the fact that there are many honest and capable police officers in our States, with the persistent events of brutality and incompetence in mind I am compelled to say that the US police department is one of the most unfit, brainless, gutless and backboneless police forces in the world. Defunding such police force won't do any good, we must legislate compulsory regular clinical counseling for each and every officer of the law.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Bulldozer on Duty

“A world without police is therefor a world in which the police are obsolete, useless—a world where they serve literally no purpose. Seen from this angle, we're already halfway there: the police are useless. They don't do what they claim, they don't protect and serve, much less prevent, care, or support. At the same time, the police do play an essential, indeed indispensable role in fabricating and upholding the world we inhabit today, premised as it is on the domination and exploitation of the vast majority.”
― Geo Maher, A World Without Police: How Strong Communities Make Cops Obsolete

“The government is just as corrupt as their police officers.”
― Steven Magee

“For years after the American Revolution, the public opposed to the creation of police departments, fearing that they would become forces of repression... Only in the mid 19th century, after the growth of industrial cities and a rash of urban riots - after the dread of the so-called dangerous classes surpassed the dread of the state - did police departments emerge in the United States.”
― David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

“If a prince holds on to his state by means of mercenary armies, he will never be stable or secure.”
― Nicolo Machiavelli, THE PRINCE

“It is only when you become a police corruption researcher that you realize how corrupt the police and government really are!”
― Steven Magee

“When police officers refuse to give you their badge numbers, it is a strong indicator they are engaging in fraud with you.”
― Steven Magee

“We also discussed whether these videos in some way contributed to a sense of European superiority, as if police forces in Europe were not endemically racist.

Which they are, Bobbi said.

Yeah I don't think the expression is "American cops are bastards," said Nick.”
― Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends / Normal People

“We humans lost our freedom the first time we hung a badge on a machine.”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, A Pause in the Perpetual Rotation

“I already met my quota for live bodies. We’re not pursuing the ones who showed sense.”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, A Pause in the Perpetual Rotation

“They rewrote the Constitution in 1984, the way you remember, but things were so bad by then that it was a lot worse, it didn’t even pretend to be a democracy anymore, it was a sort of police state, but it didn’t work, it fell apart right away.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

“For years after the American Revolution, the public opposed to the creation of police departments, fearing that they would become forces of repression... Only in the mid 19th century, after the growth of industrial cities and a rash of urban riots - after the dread of the so-called dangerous classes surpassed the dread of the state - did police departments emerge in the United States.”
― S.C. Gwynne, Empire of the Summer Moon

“I wasn’t thinking of the Viet Nam War but war in general; in particular, how a war forces you to become like your enemy. Hitler had once said that the true victory of the Nazis would be to force its enemies, the United States in particular, to become like the Third Reich—i.e. a totalitarian society—in order to win. Hitler, then, expected to win even in losing. As I watched the American military‐industrial complex grow after World War Two I kept remembering Hitler’s analysis, and I kept thinking how right the son of a bitch was. We had beaten Germany, but both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were getting more and more like the Nazis with their huge police systems every day. Well, it seemed to me there was a little wry humor in this (but not much). […] Look what we had to become in Viet Nam just to lose, let alone to win; can you imagine what we’d have had to become to win? Hitler would have gotten a lot of laughs out of it, and the laughs would have been on us … and to a very great extent in fact were. And they were hollow and grim laughs, without humor of any kind.”
― Philip K. Dick, The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick: 5 Vols.

“Their choice is clear. Stop fighting, turn in your weapons, declare allegiance to our 'New' Republic, and abide forever in peace and security in accordance with the Will of the People. Or... be destroyed.”
― C. Elmon Meade, The Demagogue Wars

“As a seasoned police corruption researcher, I understand why the public assassinate police officers.”
― Steven Magee

“The police are a heavily corrupted institution.”
― Steven Magee

“The police are completely okay with having large amounts of public complaints made against them!”
― Steven Magee

“I am fed up with the police lies!”
― Steven Magee

“There is no quality control in the police.”
― Steven Magee

“Calling the police is like playing a game of Russian Roulette, as you may land on the bullet of the corrupt police officer!”
― Steven Magee

“I have been telling people for years the police are incompetent!”
― Steven Magee

“Police professional standards are a very unprofessional group of people.”
― Steven Magee