I know Peretz personally and he's one of the most rational people I've ever met. There's some question as to whether he should've left the scene or not and I think there's some discussion to be had there, but what happened afterwards is unquestionably wrong. This is who the police stripped naked and put in jail: http://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2013/spring/featured-storie... This is not a person we should fear. I und…
The police cannot be trusted, and that is not childish nonsense. It is a rational response to the fact that the police consistently act like thugs, and the problem is only getting worse. One of the most important problems is that the mechanisms for righting these wrongs are almost wholly ineffective or out-of-reach. Peretz talks a little about that in his piece. The most practical thing you can take away from this is…
Not to sound overly pessimistic, but "reform" isn't usually how citizens extricate themselves from a police state. Totalitarian governance is inherently insular and well protected from peaceful reform, using the state monopoly on violence to maintain and cultivate its will.
The antithesis of peaceful reform also conveniently starts with "re," but I can't seem to remember what it is... Re... rev-o-something, I think. ;)