A standing army by any name stinks as much
Unless you’re living under a rock, you probably realize that “police brutality” no longer hurts only black people and potheads. Cops attack expectant mothers, grieving families, diabetics, children and “possibly intoxicated” but “helpless” white men. Barely a week passes without another atrocity from these alleged “public servants” hitting national headlines.
So you might think that attempts to end cops’ abuse would merit enthusiastic cheers from all us potential victims. Au contraire. When Personal Liberty, WND and others publicized a group in New York City that wants “to create ‘no-cop zones,’ and maybe even disarm the police,” readers protested that society cannot function unless badged bullies stalk among us.
Yet police as we know them boast a history as brief as it is sordid; prior to their advent, criminals didn’t run any more rampant than they do now. In fact, they were in considerably shorter supply since no wars on drugs or terror and no FBI, CIA or DEA manufactured them. Bonus: Americans enjoyed immeasurably more freedom when there was no “law enforcement” and few laws to enforce. Coincidence? I think not.
Although organized police didn’t begin plaguing American cities until the latter half of the 19th century, several colonial towns suffered policing in the 18th century. And then, as now, conflicts between cops and citizens erupted. You’ve no doubt heard of the most famous example: the Boston Massacre of 1770.
Historians like to blame the Boston Massacre on competition for work, since the British soldiers stationed in Boston often eked out their paltry pay with odd jobs. Obviously, that deprived Boston’s poorer classes, the sort who depended on day labor rather than a steady position of employment. The contest supposedly increased the friction between the British Army and the populace.
But the plain truth is that the Redcoats were policing Boston. And our ancestors, unlike their supine descendants, deeply resented it. The regiments London’s administration foisted on Boston in 1768 were supposed to quash its clamor over the Crown’s policies while collecting “revenue” for it. If that sounds familiar, it’s because those remain a modern cop’s primary duties.
Police then and now guard “the peace.” We define that as an absence of criminal assaults on our persons and property, but the state doesn’t. “Peace” to government means a lack of protest against its coercion. To this day, cops have no legal obligation to assist any individual regardless of how perilous the threat confronting him. Butthey ruthlessly suppress demonstrations against government.
Or, more accurately, cops have no legal obligation to assist any serf. But if a sufficiently notorious politician visits your neighborhood, you’ll see plenty of uniforms scrambling to protect him, whether diverting traffic from His Highness’s route or controlling crowds of the curious or angry.
Policing’s other duty may be even more essential in the state’s eyes. These hired guns “raise revenue” for their employer. The Redcoats in pre-Revolutionary Boston searched colonists’ homes for smuggled goods on which the buyers had paid no tax; they also re-installed at musket-point the Customs officers irate Bostonians had driven from their town.
The only thing that’s changed in 230 years is the boldness and shocking rapacity with which cops rob us. Writing in Police Chief Magazine, one such capo nakedly lusts after our wealth. We are not citizens to be protected; we are “revenue streams.” And a cop’s most important task is to “generate” new or more lucrative geysers from us.
The author lists 20 suggestions, including “police department-run firearm safety classes” (for an astronomical sum, civilians, too, can learn to shoot defenseless citizens as they beg for their lives). Even more callous is the acknowledgement that though “the public is already feeling the detrimental financial effects of the economy,” “generating new income streams could provide the resources necessary to … expand police services [sic].” (Emphasis added with great disgust.)
And mayors of places such as Edmondson, Missouri, bluntly order cops to extort more money from us if they expect a raise: “The tickets that you write do add to the revenue on which the P.D. budget is established and will directly affect pay adjustments at budget time.”
No wonder the Founding Fathers despised “standing armies.” They understood that the Redcoats were there to protect the British Empire’s functionaries and “revenue stream” at the colonists’ literal expense. Nor did they fool themselves that the soldiers were their friends. They saw these enforcers for what they were: dire enemies to liberty, civilization, peace and prosperity.
Along with other hallmarks of tyranny, policing disappeared from America when the Patriots triumphed in the Revolution. However, in the 1810s, Britain confronted unrest in another of its possessions: Ireland. The chief secretary for that troubled region, an MP named Robert Peel, created the “Peace Preservation Police.” Predictably, “peace preserving” equated to quelling dissent against government’s policies.
When hard times and more unrest struck London, Peel already had his template for neutering it. People had long distrusted and disdained soldiers. They knew an army protected the king, not them, from enemies external or domestic.
Furthermore, Britain drew its ranks from the gutter, almost literally. It recruited soldiers from society’s lowest rungs, then abused them like the outcasts they were. More fortunate folks steered a wide path around the dehumanized paupers and criminals that comprised the British Army.
Peel’s perverted genius lay in creating an army distinct from this discredited one. His soldiers were no longer feared pariahs; rather, according to Peel, “the police are the public and the public are the police; the police are the only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the intent of the community welfare.”
Peel’s “members of the public” were so successful at “peace preserving” that rulers of American cities imported the idea. A standing army pretending to protect the citizens it repressed while robbing them on the state’s behalf appealed irresistibly to politicians then and now.
Tragically, it appeals irresistibly to the army’s victims, too.
–Becky Akers
http://personalliberty.com/a-standing-army-by-any-name-stinks-as-much/
My comments: A Police Department under Local Authority is worrisome enough but today, Obama is attempting to FEDERALIZE every Police Department. Now, that is truly a problem.
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