Op-Ed Pages #5: “We don’t want no more police!”
[Note from Steve: Everyone seems to be addicted to knee-jerk reactions these days. Here’s mine, although it’s a call for sanity.]
I hope sanity prevails, but the subtitle here is a statement made by a protester in Minneapolis; it indicates temporary insanity, at the very least. “Defund the Police” is the new mantra, although its real meaning is often unclear. When the mayor of Minneapolis was asked if he would end the the MPD, yes or no, his answer was the only sane one: “No!” The protesters then booed him as he left the angry mob.
This isn’t a productive discussion, folks. Let’s look at it logically (I know that’s hard for many people who are drunk on adrenalin): Who would run toward and not away from the action when a mass killer like the one in Las Vegas opens fire? Not that woman on the stage in Minneapolis, that’s for sure! Who would pursue a man who raped and killed his victim? Maybe those people who booed the mayor, forming a lynch mob. Who would arrest the DUI driver who just killed your kid? Not anyone in that Minneapolis crowd. And who would protect cities from terrorist attacks? Those dead after the 9/11 attack and other terrorist incidents would see no justice.
A few bad cops doesn’t make a whole organization bad. We’ve seen cops marching and embracing protesters of George Floyd’s murder. Good people watch that video and are horrified. But good people also know that police departments are necessary…and it’s better that they’re local police departments instead of something like the Nazi SS, East German Stasi, and so forth. We need more community policing, not federal policing, but we’re likely to get the latter if anarchy rules the day.
If you think an ordinary citizen is trained to do all I mentioned above, you’re an idiot. Period. I saw that someone even suggested social workers should assume policing duties. Huh? If true, that’s more insane than asking school teachers to carry guns so they can stop school shooters. People must be trained to perform the tasks mentioned above. Policing is a profession, and local police departments are filled with well-trained and caring professionals for the most part. Ever heard the expression “You’re throwing out the baby with the bath water.” It applies here.
Whatever the status of your local police department, it is the product of an evolution over centuries. If you know the history of Ireland, where you were only fined if you shot a local Irishman but beheaded if you shot an English occupier (around the thirteenth century, if I remember correctly), you’d think the Irish wouldn’t want cops around either. But they do. Their Garda is an excellent deterrent for all the crimes mentioned above. A similar evolution exists in most democracies. A corrupt and oppressive police force characterizes autocratic states.
A well-equipped and well-trained police force is an absolute necessity in a sane, modern, and democratic society. Otherwise, you have anarchy and chaos. Or maybe those who cry “Defund the police!” want to see looting and destruction of property continue. Most people aren’t criminals; we have to protect them from those who are.
Ending police departments, or even slashing their budgets, will just cause a huge backlash. People’s stupidity is all too often rewarded. We got Trump in 2016 that way. We’ll get him again in 2020 if we give him a “Law and Order” platform. Defunding police departments is not a liberal cause: It’s human stupidity in action, but Trump loves it! Defunding police departments will lead to a police state with Trump as dictator. Is that what you want?
I’m on the side of that Minneapolis mayor, no matter how much Trump says he’s weak. There are no simple yes or no answers here. But at least that mayor’s smart enough to know that without a local police force, we’d first have anarchy and then a backlash to that leading to a police state. Sane people ignore the Hobson’s choice the protesting woman gave the mayor. They fix what’s broken and keep what works. And the City Council in Minneapolis should know better. How did they ever get elected?
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Comments are always welcome, even if you disagree (just keep it clean).
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
June 9th, 2020 at 10:47 am
You can reform the police all you want but none of it will matter in the spur-of-the-moment situations when it’s one individual (or two or three) police officer versus a citizen. The attitudes and beliefs of the officers have to change. I think the cops know who these “Chauvins” are. But they’re allowed to go on and do what they do. They need to root them out, and replace them. One great step would be to make all police officers graduate from a four-year program in criminal justice, where they would have to take assessments and classes with a diverse set of candidates, before being hired by any police department. Weed out the white supremacists and racists before they ever hit the streets. You won’t get a hundred percent of them, but you’ll get a bunch. And who knows? Maybe some people will have their eyes open to the wider, culturally diverse world that exists out there. Too many come from insular communities where their only contact with an African American person is through the images of gang bangers on television.
June 11th, 2020 at 6:37 am
Hi Scott,
A thoughtful comment…and I agree with you. The “good cops” need to learn they can’t let things slide, and that can’t just be left to “basic training” i.e. police academies. “Refresher courses” must be given, always reminding them that they are guardians of the public, working to protect them (that’s why I like the Irish name Garda). And when someone among them does harm, it won’t be tolerated. It’s a bit like what’s happened in the priesthood–letting priests get away with child molesting and moving on to a new parish is unconscionable. BTW, in the atrocity involving Mr. Floyd, there might have been some bad history between Chauvin and his murder victim when they worked together in the night club; his brother hinted at that in his testimony before Congress. That could imply pre-meditation.
r/Steve