Rand Paul isn’t that naive given his constituency. While he should really cool it with the “police oppress blacks” thing, because it isn’t true, he’s speaking to a lot of whites who are dealing with all of the downsides of police militarization with none of the benefits.

The fact is that democrats – including blacks – are the main beneficiaries of the police state, while it’s just another burden for working class and flyover whites. Sure, you need guys in bulletproof vests with ballistic shields and M-4 assault rifles busting into gangsters’ crackhouses to make urban neighborhoods livable, but you don’t need them breaking down doors and shooting the family dog in front of kids whose parents who grow a few pot plants in the garage. Also, you don’t need jumpy vets with PTSD gunning down mentally ill homeless people who aren’t coordinated enough to instantly obey police commands.

There’s a real disconnect here because white communities simply don’t need the same kind of policing as urban communities. I sympathize to some extent with whites who live in minority white areas like LA and NYC, but their stopgap policies just perpetuate the problem, and for most whites they are terribly oppressive. Yes, throwing tons of people in jail works. So does suiting up cops like special forces soldiers on a raid in Sadr City. But it’s a crappy society to live in, and it’s really a tax for the benefit of the Matt Yglesias crowd.

From what I understand, a lot of cops feel the same way, and would be happy to go back to the days when a whistle, a uniform and a shillelagh were enough for the job in the vast majority of cases.