Cultural Change?

"Local and national authorities need to find ways to assure Americans that a safe society is one in which well-trained law enforcement is the best answer to controlling crime and assuring safety."
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This isn't "wrong" in the same way that 2+2=5 is "wrong." IMO, it illustrates how "where you sit tells me what you see."

Remember Hillary and the whole, "It takes a village..." thing? That wasn't "wrong" either but lots of people got very excited about it. Hillary's side thought they were emphasizing how important community was in a child's development. Which reminds me of that excellent book, "Once Upon a Time When we were Colored." He makes the same point. A black teenager of his time couldn't go to town and "act the fool" or commit a crime because everybody in town knew everybody else. Just because your parents couldn't see you, your aunt or great uncle could. Somebody in your church could. So in that sense, Hillary was totally right. But people on the other side interpreted Hillary to mean that the community raises the child, not the parents. Values are to be taught to our children by teachers we don't know in schools. Or by other strangers.

This police thing is the same way. Depends on whether you want to view society as a statistical entity or as individuals. I don't really think many of us are true anarchists and want LEO's to totally go away. We just want them to leave us alone until and unless we commit a crime. I think the basic statement made at the beginning is true... it takes a professional and highly trained police force to maintain order _throughout the community._ Most of us don't really want to live in a Hobbesian society. The infamous "state of nature" where the strong rule based on their power. Where there is no legal structure to protect the weak.

But our side sees that argument as somehow dismissing the role of the individual. And it does... but that is because they are arguing "in whole" rather than just a single case. Yes, society is better off with police protecting us. But that doesn't mean that I can't protect myself and my family better in my particular case.

It's the whole statistics thing. How many murders would there be every year if there were no police at all? I would have to conclude that there would be more _in general_ throughout society without them. But I might still be able to protect my family individually. So I would consider the system to be working while someone looking at the broad strokes would consider it a failure. Works the other way too. If we had a truly vast police system and there was only one murder in the entire USA in a year, we would have to consider that a statistical success. Unless that single murder was one of my children and I wasn't able to protect them because society had deprived me of that right.

Gregg
 
"Local and national authorities need to find ways to assure Americans that a safe society is one in which well-trained law enforcement is the best answer to controlling crime and assuring safety."
Click to expand...

This isn't "wrong" in the same way that 2+2=5 is "wrong." IMO, it illustrates how "where you sit tells me what you see."
Click to expand...

Emphasis added.

I do not agree. I cannot read Dallek's quote as anything other than a threat. To be sure it is a threat well-dressed in diplomatic language.

The explicit threat is the promise that my best defense will be a telephone with which I can call a government agent who will decide how to handle the imminent and deadly threat against me. Dallek does not argue that he promises a good defense, only that your options will be so limited that the defense he prefers will be your best remaining one.

If you doubt the quality of this assertion as an explicit threat, recast it to pertain to the First Amendment.

Local and national authorities need to find ways to assure Americans that a safe society is one in which well-trained information officers are the best answer to the dissemination of information to the public.

That is a tremendously ugly sentiment.
 
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When they have enough police to eliminate crime than I'll stop worrying about crime and start worrying about the police:D
 
Notice that they did not say "prevent crime". They said "control crime". I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.
 
"I'm the only one professional enough ... " :p


Seriously, I think more and more Americans understand that 911 is a rapid response body bag service, that cops can't be everywhere to protect you because if they were, event's like Sandy Hook should never have happened.
 
Notice that they did not say "prevent crime". They said "control crime". I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.
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It means that if crime were actually prevented, they'd be in in for budget cuts.... can't have THAT!

See Sir Robert Peel ......
The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.[
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I get USA Today on my phone and I read that thing the day it was published.

I remember thinking to myself, "What crap." (Can I say that here?) This is a utopian vision of a world where we can be protected from cradle to grave by a benevolent government which will always be on hand to protect you.

I live in a peaceful small city with a small police force. The police station is about 10-15 minutes from my door. I keep a cell fone in my nightstand to call 9-1-1 if I need help. It's right next to my 1911, Surefire light, SOG fixed-blade knife and spare mag.

The idea is for my wife and I to still be alive when the officers arrive. Heaven helps those who help themselves.
 
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