FIH: When I was in the Army, I spent time in the 82d Airborne. The 82d, when I was in, was responsible for training for scenarios involving widespread civil unrest, rioting, etc, and one of the questions you were asked, was if you were able to fire on American citizens, if so ordered.

The US Army and Marines have “zombie invasion” training scenarios, so named because it’s far more palatable than telling those young soldiers and Marines that what they’re really training for is what happens if the shit hits the fan domestically and there is widespread civil unrest, including rioting.

If you watched Boston PD, the Staties and the FBI conducting house-to-house searches in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings and then juxtaposed that with videos of US soldiers and Marines conducting clearing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference, given that the weapons and tactics are nearly identical. Thanks to the billions that DHS has pumped into local and state law enforcement, we’ve now effectively militarized our police, with predictable results, including officers in Boston toting fully automatic M-4 rifles and screaming at residents to get out of their houses without showing any due cause for such an order.

I’m sure you’ve been paying attention to the news this week, as revelation after revelation has spilled forth about government eavesdropping and spying programs. This reportage isn’t coming from the tinfoil hat brigade, but, rather, the Washington Post, the NYT and The Guardian.

Now, I’m sure all of this falls under the rubric of “Keeping America Safe”, as Miz Feinstein gravely intoned, but you’ll forgive me if I view this with just a bit of skepticism and not fall all over myself in my haste to be a “Good German”.

Do I worry about approaching tyranny? No. It’s already here.