Harassment, spying, whatever. Conservatives usually believed police to be too busy with actual trouble makers to get themselves concerned with Joe Average Citizen Who Generally Means Well.
Ok thanks.
My point has been that if you empower government to “get” the hippies, or whomever you don’t approve of you are building a power structure that can be used against you when the wheel turns and the other guys grab power. That is the basis of our Constitution. A great distrust of government power.
Old parable:
A great Mongolian King raided countless other tribes and enslaved their peoples. He was so proud that he used captured princes to pull his yurt. One day as he was traveling across the steppes, he noticed that one of the princes who was pulling his yurt was looking at the wheel next to him, and watching it go around. The great King was amused, and asked the prince pulling his yurt “why are you watching the wheel go round? The enslaved prince answered: “I notice that what was once down, is now up, and what was down is now up.”
From that day forward the Great King never used princes to pull his yurt.