My uncle Maurice Tudor has Alzheimer's and is deteriorating slowly away from me.  That doesn't mean much to you, as it shouldn't, but of course it means much to me.  Being the patriarch of the Tudor family was a responsibility he took quite seriously, and he endowed me with much history of the Tudor family in Arkansas.  Again, nice, but why should you care?  

A few years back, when Maurice, or "Mauce," as he preferred it to be pronounced, was still quite lucid, he started writing his autobiography.  It was mostly centered on the little Arkansas town of Marshall in the beautiful Ozarks.  Mauce told of his childhood days in the town square, school, and what life was generally like during the late thirties through the mid forties.  Of course some stories might be embellished, or recollections from one side of a two sided story, but what I read between the lines of his rare and magnificent look at his life's story was how differently people thought towards the government, such as it was.  

And there was government, make no mistake, but it was usually quite benign.  Arrests and court proceedings and lawyers did exist in post turn of the century Arkansas, even so, feuds and self protection (carrying pistols or other guns) was commonplace in the town square, and shootings did happen.  But peace was maintained mostly by the townspeople.  They wouldn't put up with gunplay from a fool, would not tolerate injustice, and woe unto the thief.  

The story also pointed out that even during prohibition years, moonshine was made and distributed all through the town square, even to the law officers of the day.  Prostitution was alive and well, and there were no end of drunks, fights, shootings, feuds, and other lawlessness.  It was only when life or property were jeopardized when the law got involved.  Victimless crime was often ignored--on purpose and regularly.  So please don't hand the old "gangs" and "drugs" line.  Moonshine and prostitution and drunkenness are no different, really, from what the police say they "face" today.

A glaring facet missing from these stories was any accounting of the militarization of the police.  In most towns, the sheriff or police chief was usually a local guy looking for reason and logical explanations for events, and reluctantly taking action in some issues where one would be arrested.  He might even have been friends with the guy going to jail, or classmates.  There were no SWAT teams, no tactics, none required.  There were "federal men" and they went after the moon shiners, but they were almost always "out of towners," meaning outsiders living in an insider's world.

And that is the crux of this article, not to aggrandize the life of my beloved uncle, but rather point out the change that happened and is happening to this place we live in called America.  The militarization of the police, the meddling into our lives, the constant trumpet of "zero tolerance," the lessening of individual freedoms, the restrictions of government restraints onto its citizens, all have had their impact, and all have demolished what all mankind desires – freedom and prosperity.  

My ancestry was wrought with poverty, and each struggled hard to make their living, and each left their offspring a little better off than the previous generation.  I am, perhaps, among the richest of my ancestral lines, except perhaps my fathers' generation (which includes Mauce).  However, my children's future looks less promising, and their generation's children will face extremely difficult problems that even my generation cannot fathom.  But I see the beginnings of the police state in my generation – and that is undeniable, unsettling, and worrisome.  Reading over the documents like the Patriot Act 1 and 2, current legislations pending before the House, Senate, and White House, I wondered just whose country we live in: ours or theirs?  I knew the answer then – theirs.  It has been theirs for a long time (my entire lifetime), it is simply becoming more manifest.  The liars are getting bolder.

In reading my uncle's biography, it is apparent that what changed in America was the way laws have been made and enforced.  From all I can make of it, since the end of WWII, the creation of Israel by the U.N. and the resulting chaos into modern times, governments of the world are all apparently going to be forced into a one world government by the U.N.  I cannot name any particular entity who orchestrated this, but the political elite (elected servants?) all seem complicit in its occurrence.  It will (apparently) take war to accomplish their heinous goal.  Nuclear war.  But the world will submit, and the USA will be its military police force, making us live by default in a police state.  Of course I am dismissed as a conspiracy theory loon by a wide variety of people.  Even in taking their word for it that I am just that, why the disparity then in the way laws are enforced now from pre-World War II era law enforcement during prohibition?  The tides have changed, and the law makers are our new masters.  You will comply.  Or else you will live your life in a new detention camp built by your (extorted) tax dollars.