The police state is a failure. Let's move on.

Much has been made about the failures of the martial law that gripped the Boston area last Friday during the manhunt for one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects. The extreme measures that virtually shut down the entire city actually allowed the bombers to get what they wanted. Do you really think terrorists want people to feel less fearful? Terrorism is called terrorism for a reason.

I'm not criticizing law enforcement's overall response to the bombings - but there's clear grounds for criticizing the martial law aspect, which contributed nothing to catching the suspects.

That the police state measures are receiving so much criticism is proof that at least people are coming to their senses. But the American police state is not brand new. Lockstep law in our streets made its biggest strides in the '90s. And it was cheered by The Media.

What good did it do? By the time of 9/11, America was no longer free. It was a right-wing police state. Did that prevent 9/11? By that time, we had less freedom than at any other time in ages. Although corporations were deregulated as never before, personal liberty was only a memory. What did this bring us? There were more fatal terrorist attacks on American soil in only a few years than in a period of decades that came before. Ordinary crime soared to record levels too (the right-wing blogosphere's revisionism notwithstanding).

After the Boston Marathon bombings, New York City's union-busting Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg sniffed that Americans' interpretation of the Constitution will "have to change." Tough shit, Bloomby. You don't get to decide how I interpret the Constitution, especially parts of the Constitution that are thoroughly unambiguous.

The debate is over: The police state has failed. The fact that the Boston Marathon bombings took place at all proves it. Time to live our lives and stop being scared of our own shadows.