Modern police pose the threat standing armies once did

Evidence

The main agents of the criminal-justice system are the police, and modern police represent the salient sort of threat to republican values that the standing army was taken to constitute among traditional republicans. Charged with the job of ensuring public order, guarding against crime, and apprehending criminals, police forces are nowadays given enormous powers, they are exposed to huge temptations to abuse those powers, and their use of the powers is subject only to very imperfect controls. — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 707

Categorization

• XREF: The Quis custodiet parallel and police-as-dominating-force echoes republican critiques of standing armies and the dictatorship-of-the-guardians problem. — connects to: Army refusal to police civilians led to dedicated political police forces; Repression by army rather than police changes totalitarian logic; Police replace armies because totalitarian rule treats conquered peoples as domestic traitors — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 942 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Police replace armies because totalitarian rule treats conquered peoples as domestic traitors #expands (0.82) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 942
• Army refusal to police civilians led to dedicated political police forces #expands (0.80)
• Militarized manhunting combines warfare and policing into a new state violence #expands (0.78) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 164
• Repression by army rather than police changes totalitarian logic #qualifies (0.72)