LETTER: Like a mob playing army, ICE is step to ‘tinpot dictatorship’

To Ozaukee Press:

Is it just me or is there a disturbing similarity between what’s happening with ICE in this country and a certain group in the early 20th century whose members also concealed their identities and roamed the south to intimidate, or worse, those who didn’t look like them, prayed to a different god or were presumed to be, by nature, rapists and thieves?

With their mismatched uniforms and tactical gear, much of which was no doubt

bought online or at military surplus stores, they look and behave less like a trained police force than what they are—an angry mob of malcontents intent on bullying those foreigners and eggheads they feel have taken over their country.

Let’s call them what they are—state-backed vigilantes playing army with deadly consequences. If you put photos of them side by side with the Jan. 6 rioters you would be hard-pressed to tell the difference.

With the prospect of the introduction of the U.S. military to go along with the Minneapolis Police Department, the National Guard and ICE, will it surprise anyone if the combination of ego, testosterone and guns results in one of those groups turning their guns on another? If that happens we will have taken yet another step toward tin-pot dictatorship.

David Merrifield

Port Washington