What do you think of the violence in America? Police brutality and the surveillance state?

To play devil's advocate (for absolutely no reason other than what other kind of answer were you looking for here), I think America's only problem is trust in its fellow man, and this is largely exacerbated by the media who over-report on violent acts.

Not that they shouldn't, of course, but you look at the crime statistics in the 70s on anywhere in the planet and the murder and kidnapping rate was way waay up, yet hope/community seemed to reign supreme in the streets because no one paid attention to the minor violent occurences happening out of sight around them.

Not saying that ignorance is necessarily better, but I think fear is the main enemy of the people and the media knows it and wields it to the absolute delight of the government and their corporate sponsors.

That fear culture is definitely creeping into the UK via what I'd call US interference (no doubt with plenty of helpful spoonfuls from Russia and/or China), and people are definitely turning on each other... but you don't see it too much in the cities