Thoughts on the Po-Po, continued

Note: As before, this is in response to a response to a comment which inspired the original Thoughts on Cops. This post was slightly edited to remove identifying features, since I know the person who I am responding to.

I am not going to be so vain as to pretend that everyone will agree with me, or even so vain as to pretend that I'm sure I'm right. Too much in our society has been, not politicised, but "partisanised"---there are two and only two sides to every issue, and everyone knows where the two parties fall on every issue.

I believe that through faith and reason we can, and must, test our beliefs and our convictions, our prejudices and our preferences. If our "culture" (to agglomerate all of the foregoing into one blob) is correct, and we reason properly, and use our faith, we can show that "I don't just think this is the way it ought to be because that's how I was raised" or "because it's good for me."

So bear in mind, I'm going into this with the upfront flashing admission that "I could be wrong on this."

In modern America, the breakdown is that Democrats are for "civil rights" and Republicans are for "law & order." There are wide variations across the spectrum for each party. The Democrats run from basically “self-loathing Americans” to race hustlers to thoughtful people concerned about the state’s exercise of police power. On the law and order side, the spectrum is from la ley de fuego to thoughtful people who think that actions should have sure and certain consequences. There is something to say in favor of every one of those positions, somewhere along the way.

If things were all black and white, a rat could run the world. Things are rarely black and white, and we have to use our reason (and our faith) to make choices about what to do. Being a human ain’t for sissies.

(Maybe in honor of Barry O’s “post-racial” campaign I ought to use green and red, instead of black and white. Or maybe red and blue . . . . )

I think you’ve misunderstood my intent. One of your closing lines is that Helping criminals escape justice ain't helping them. I’m not quite sure where you got the idea that was what I was in favor of. I’m not sure where you get that, actually.

I do wish we could get back to the Mayberry days of Sheriff Andy and Deputy Barney. As I distinctly mentioned in my diatribe from last week, I’d not begrudge Sheriff Andy a high-cap Beretta and level III body armor, and I certainly wouldn’t want Barney packing a single .38 Special RNL in his shirt pocket.

For the purposes of this discussion, here are some of my historical beliefs: everything started to go to crap in the 1960s. (By which, really, I mean 1964-1973.) The hippies, the War, the white dudes on high ground with rifles, MK ULTRA . . . Heck, ‘68 was like 1848----just a year the world went crazy. Society’s level of cohesiveness really broke down (for all kinds of reasons), and the American government and people collectively went schizophrenic. The part of society that was dangerous got larger, and a lot of it got more dangerous as well, which started a cycle of escalation as the police forces of America have, since the 1960s, progressively upgraded their arms, equipment, training and tactics, while the liberals have carried out their long march through the institutions, which meant that people who got caught very frequently got off, or got less punishment than they deserved. And, of course, civil service laws and civil rights for civil servants came marching along too. Don’t have a stat at hand right now but I’m pretty sure that the majority of union members in America today work for the government in some form or fashion.

“A Republic, madam, if you can keep it” is what Ben Franklin allegedly said to the lady outside the hall in Philadelphia. Well, that ain’t what we have any more.

Remember that this whole diatribe arose out of Rob’s post about the Peelian principles, particularly the 7th (or 9th), and most important, about the police being the people and the people the police. The loss of that feeling, the loss of what Rob’s post called the “most important” of the Peelian principles—that’s what my diatribe was about, and I was mourning it’s loss. Apparently you interpreted that as my favoring letting criminals escape justice; I assure you that this is not the case. I have said several times that I like and admire cops, for doing a hard job. (Your post was titled “Walk a mile in my shoes” and I’ll tell you straight up, Frank (not his real name), I don’t think I could.) I like knowing that there are cops out there keeping an eye on the bad guys, I admire the courage and the dedication cops show, I cannot imagine the horrors and depravities and human monsters they have to deal with on a regular basis. Even in small towns in the heartland of America.

I hate to be all childish, but I was really just quoting Spiderman, “with great power comes great responsibility.”

Now, I think that the foregoing was reasonable in tone, explanatory, hopefully, and amiable if not conciliatory. That’s not nearly all I have to say, however. Right there towards the end of your post, you said that Most of the time I'm nothing but the town's daddy, telling people how to act when they should have learned that at home.

That’s pretty much where we part company, right there.

You ain’t my daddy, Frank (not his real name). That job’s been filled. The post is empty now, but “that jersey’s been retired.” You ain’t my daddy, Frank (not his real name), and the people that wear the badge in the various jurisdictions to which I am subject? They ain’t my daddy, either. The mayor of Houston, Bill White? He ain’t my daddy. The governor of Texas, Rick Perry? He ain’t my daddy. And George W. Bush ain’t my daddy either.

I have two little daughters, and Frank (not his real name), you ain’t their daddy either. I am. When you say that most of the time you’re nothing but the town’s daddy, you’re taking my job, or you’re trying to. And that don’t sit well with me.

We here in America, I thought, believed that the order of sovereignty was from God to us and only then to the state. It is a hard thing to be a servant of the people. You have to give up some of your rights when you do it, to get the delegated power of the people. (Think for a moment about the socialist, rigidly hierarchical and generally unAmerican structure of our military. You ain’t got no rights in the military.)

I used to think that the folks here were pretty much all in favor of limited government. To me, that meant “limited government” in toto. It didn’t mean cut off the liberal social programs while leaving the massive regulatory-enforcement apparatus in place, nor vice-versa either. I used to think I wasn’t alone here, or even in the minority, when I thought that liberty and freedom had been slipping through Americans’ fingers like sand through an hourglass. The thing I liked and admired about the West, the frontier, was that men and women came together of their own free will and accord, made contracts and alliances such as were mutually beneficial, and were basically responsible for themselves. I never thought the West was about the rugged individualist, but the “rugged individualists working together.” I thought that capitalism and self-interest and reason and faith and freedom and liberty spurred people to responsibility and productivity, and that the dead hand of government should rest lightly on the people, ever so lightly.

Because in the end, everything you can be cited for is a capital crime. Take driving without your seatbelt on. Sounds odd to call that a capital crime, doesn’t it? Well, there’s a fine involved. Most people just pay it and that’s that. But what if they don’t pay it? Eventually someone’s going to put out an arrest warrant on them. And then, what if they don’t want to be arrested? What if they, you know, resist arrest? And what’s worse, what if they do so, you know, effectively? (Like with a Mozambique. “Hmm, forgot to armor the head. Seems like an oversight.”)

Now, that’s an awesome power, the ability to kill in the name of the collective, but we have delegated it to you. We have said, as a society, “here, take care of these things for us, here is some of our God-given power/authority/sovereignty, use it with discretion.” If we have given you license to kill, you must exercise your franchise sparingly.

At the same time, the list of regulations (and thus the list of crimes, for noncompliance) grows and grows and grows. Why we can’t have unlicensed taco trucks in the city! The wiring might be bad. The ingredients might be bad, there might be slime in the ice machine! (That’s a Houston-specific joke that can’t be explained.) And behind every one of those regulations is an inspector, and pretty soon the Houston department of health will have a “special response team.”

You said that your job was to stand in loco parentis. That means that you’re the daddy and we’re, what, the child? I didn’t think that was what America was about. I’m no Al Sharpton and I think that crime should be punished (and quick and hard, too). I think American society is deeply sick, fundamentally dysfunctional and deeply unserious.

Now, here’s some more ritualistic Maoist debasement, abasement, and self-criticism. Umm, self-explanation. You guys face the worst of the worst, and evil doesn’t wear horns. You can never know, when you make a traffic stop, “Is this Joe Friendly, lifelong stable member of society, dues-payer and church-goer, or is this Joe Dastardly, lifelong dirtbag, coke dealer, arms merchant and al-Qaida wheelman?” And so, naturally, you tend to err on the side of caution. You stand behind and to the side of the driver’s side door, so you have the angle on him and he doesn’t have the angle on you. Your partner adopts the cover position, for the exact same reasons. Drive-time talk radio hosts say that when a cop pulls you over, you ought to put your hands on the ceiling of the car.

Officer safety.

Dude, I can so understand.

But I can also so understand why the Iranians are still pissed off about that whole “overthrow their government” thing (google Project Ajax), and that doesn’t mean I wanted them to get away with the hostage crisis, their covert nuclear arms program or their meddling in Iraq.

Well, Frank (not his real name), that means that you’re looking at your employers as if they’re a potential enemy. I can understand, and I can sympathize. No, wait, I can’t. When you look at “civilians” collectively as if they might be the enemy, you run a real danger of making that a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can be Officer Friendly or you can be Officer Fascist, and I’m pretty much going to obey you in any event. I would take things from cops that I would take from no other man, but it’s not because of respect or admiration. I do it out of fear. I don’t do it because I think the man with the badge is my daddy, I do it because the man with the badge could burn me down if he chose to, and probably get away with it.

And I wish things weren’t that way. That’s pretty much all I’m saying.