A policeman is a charlatan who offers, in return for obedience, to protect him (a) from his superiors, (b) from his equals, and (c) from himself. This last service, under democracy, is commonly the most esteemed of them all. In the United States, at least theoretically, it is the only thing that keeps ice-wagon drivers, Y.M.C.A. secretaries, insurance collectors and other such human camels from smoking opium, ruining themselves in the night clubs, and going to Palm Beach with Follies girls…Here, though the common man is deceived, he starts from a sound premise: to wit, that liberty is something too hot for his hands—or, as Nietzsche put it, too cold for his spine.
– H.L.Mencken
Not until 1829 did the United Kingdom officially inaugurate the use of police forces with law enforcement powers. This may have dovetailed nicely with van Creveld’s assertion that emergence of the state as we know it today was coincident to the creation of a large bureaucracy to give the King eyes and ears to stretch his control of the realm.
Formal police departments were created in 1838 and 1845 respectively in Boston and New York City and even these early states of police development in these united States were plagued by corruption as Grigg has so ably documented for us.
There were attempts to professionalize the police forces starting in the 1920s but even these started to surrender early to the inevitable corruption in the nexus of swimming with criminals and the invariable temptation by the government to pass an avalanche of population control measures disguised as laws to fence in and micromanage the behavior of individuals and groups. Whether the huge cavalcade of malum prohibitum laws passed, rules to empower the national security garrison state or the erection of legal barriers to competition, the mission of police quickly spun out of control to embrace every possible human activity. The storied notion of a police state quickly metastasized into the present state of America today. While all of us are subject to being caged for the rest of our lives on trumped-up charges that no reasonable man can apprehend even outside the Kafkaesque world of terrorism jurisdictions, the sheer profligacy of laws on the books begs the question of how to defend yourself against an assault by the state without very deep pockets and competent legal counsel to fight the infinite resources of the state.
It takes years for the wheels of justice to creakily come around to indicting and ultimately punishing the armed tax-eaters even when they shoot innocent civilians in cold blood, if held accountable at all. The combination of the militarization of Mayberry and the spread of no-knock warrants to the terrorism venues in the 2000s and the ratcheting up of the drug war have led to the terrifying society we live in today. Police work is one of the least dangerous professions in the world today yet the costumed agents of the state are the most lethal government instrument in every American city. The legions of stories of police brutality are so numerous that a library could be created documenting the incidents. The police have become so brazen because they quite literally have a license to kill if one were to examine the punishments meted out to misbehaving police officers in departments across the land. Paid administrative leave, reemployment at competing departments and very little sentencing for misbehavior unless it becomes too obvious an embarrassment such as the Katrina incident mentioned above.
While initially the patina of the pursuit of true criminality was the object of police forces and their supporters, this quickly turned onto a curious regime of thug worship and absolute obedience to these officers of the law. That is why the American gulag system today is three times the size of the peak population of the Russian gulags under Stalin when one considers the Americans on probation, parole and in cages. Most of these confined Americans are in on non-violent drug offenses or political crimes like gun paperwork violations or the participation in consensual crimes like blackmail, gambling or prostitution.
There are mountains of original research available for an academic entrepreneur who wants to make their mark.
- How many times have resisting arrest offenses been committed by folks with no criminal record nor a history of violence?
- How many shooting incidents involving police have been justified by the force employed?
- How many innocent civilians have been maimed or killed in no-knock warrants on the wrong address?
- Why should ordinary Americans be brutalized by the police for non-violent offenses?
- Why are non-lethal means so often lethal in application whether through tasing, strangulation or other means?
The list is endless and the police apologists are out in force constantly speaking to the fine upstanding young men and women putting their lives in the line. What ridiculous propaganda.
We have reached a tipping point in America where every member of every American family is a potential victim of the armed tax-eater colossus astride the population. I penned an essay several years ago calling for the reduction and elimination of ALL police forces in these united States because we simply cannot sustain the risk against our remaining freedoms with these armed government bureaucrats growing in power with every year.
Police forces yesterday and today are the primary means the state uses to reduce and consume what freedoms we have left. There is no other institution outside of tax collection agencies that has the breadth and scope of power to turn the whole nation into a very large jail cell. Do you really think that nice young man with the buzz cut and bloused combat boots who stops you for a traffic violation does not have the potential to maim or kill you and get away with it? If you do you are naïve. Traffic law is all about revenue and nothing more and nothing less. If it were about safety, why not simply assign insurance points for bad drivers instead of fining them? Because the fines are the entire reason they do what they do. The speed camera debacle in Arizona put the lie to the government droning about safety. The cameras did not reap the revenue expected, in no small way due to brave civil disobedience on the part of the drivers, and the entire system was eliminated. But I thought it was about safety? Police are empowered to forcibly remove your blood on the roadside in the state of AZ to test for blood alcohol content. Exsanguinations indeed. You read that right; the armed tax-eaters here can extract your blood AGAINST your will at a traffic stop, for a thought crime, because that is what drunk driving is. It is an industry much like the seatbelt laws; yet another pretense to pull over drivers and see if there is an opportunity to either enhance revenue and/or put another citizen behind bars for an undetermined amount of time.
Fred Woodworth has been publishing a journal call The Match out of Tucson, AZ for over forty years and he has column in there call “Who the Police Beat”. He has been sounding the alarm on police brutality for that entire time and the reading is hard to digest when you read incident after bloodthirsty incident of maimed and killed people brutalized and worse at the hands of the police. They are out of control and they are the starkest indicator that any patches of freedom left can be erased overnight.
Many have sounded the call that the military is increasingly the greatest threat to ordinary Americans but the cops are. They will obey and do what they are told. Why else would you see incident after sickening incident of women severely brutalized at the hands of the police? These are only the reports that surface in the news and there most likely are plenty of incidents that simply go unreported.
It is time to stop the idolatry and hero worship of one of the worst offenders to the shredding of human liberty. I would submit we don’t even need line officers at all. How often do the cops actually stop crimes in progress? How often do they arrive at the scene after the crime has been committed? How often are the incentives for maltreatment of civilians codified in their procedural rules?
In my worldview, of course, no government police functions would exist. Period. All would be handled by private Dispute Resolution Organizations (DRO) and David Friedman has even gone so far as to illustrate quite convincingly that the incentives are so perverse in government policing that it should be razed and eliminated entirely.
Peace officers used to have a charter to pursue criminality and most notably malum per se laws but those days are long gone. I have outlined in detail before the absolutely insane raft of laws in America that has made everyone a potential criminal. Don’t believe me? Try traveling by air or refuse to stop for the flashing revenue officer in your rear view mirror. Watch what happens. We have quite literally become hostages to the police state. No one is out of danger.
Again, I am not calling for police reform or better protections for citizens or revamping the criminal justice system, I am calling for a wholesale elimination of the entire system from cops to the corrupt court system with the robed government employees to the penal colonies that dot the landscape. I am calling for an armed citizenry unrestricted in weapons choice and employment against initiated aggression.
So until the day arrives when we are liberated from the horrific occupation of the thin blue line, quite literally the largest street gang in America, how do you protect yourself?
Know your rights. Never, never, never talk to the cops. They quite literally do not know the law and the system coddles their ignorance by piling on charge after charge if they are intent on getting you caged. Watch the ACLU video on Flex Your Rights. Alan Korwin has written a brilliant book that all of us who tote guns everywhere should read and has a unique approach to the Miranda warning. Always refuse a search. Period.
Get competent with firearms and carry. Call 911 and die. Never call 911 because you are simply inviting a fishing expedition. Cops are historians and detectives even more so. Your protection is up to you and the cops have no legal duty to protect you as an individual. You are on your own and when they arrive they will most likely accost you. Get competent with empty handed martial arts especially very effective zero to sixty defensive arts like Haganah.
Know a competent defense attorney ahead of time. It pays to hire the very best and it is prudent to shop now before you need them.
Record the cops’ behavior if the opportunity arises. Sunshine is a fine antiseptic for misbehavior on the part of the armed tax-eaters and they hate it. There is plenty of technology for both video and audio recording.
Work to convince people that freedom is an obligation that does not require we be yoked by armed tax-eaters who are a far greater threat to average Americans than any criminals.
I don’t hate cops, I simply don’t need them.
“The police cannot protect the citizen at this stage of our development, and they cannot even protect themselves in many cases. It is up to the private citizen to protect himself and his family, and this is not only acceptable, but mandatory.”
– Jeff Cooper
Police should not have access to lethal weapons, EVER.
The Police have one job, really – to apprehend criminal *suspects* (i.e., Those Who Are Innocent Until Proven Guilty), not to act as Judge, Jury, and Executioner – otherwise, why do we have Judges, Juries, and Executioners?
Last I knew, beating, shooting, or killing an innocent person is a crime.
Perhaps we should take a page out of their book – shoot first, ask questions (or not) later. . .
I agree that all police should be stripped of all weapons and if they think they are in danger, they can request assistance from a citizen.
Per shooting first, that simply violates the non-aggression prohibition on initiated violence.
I agree that police should not be allowed to carry guns. Or Tasers. I would go one step farther and suggest that cops be subject to the same laws as the rest of us. As I see it, a cop’s #1 duty SHOULD be protecting the public; #2, upholding the law. Notice I did not say “enforce the law.” Any bully with a gun can “enforce.” It takes a certain amount of honor and courage to “uphold,” and you can’t uphold anything by holding yourself above it.
Is the police man a public servant, government servant or political leadership servant? Or money power full man servant?
Whoever he is, he does not have YOUR best interest in mind.