Laws and Law Enforcement

The thought has occurred to me recently, and I know I'm not the first person to think this, that in America, we no longer have policemen who protect and serve the citizens, but instead we have law enforcement officers, who ensure that the civilians obey the law.

Now, the difference between those two statements may seem like a semantic debate, but I'm a philosopher, you're reading my blog, and most good philosophers understand that semantics matter. So indulge me, this is going to get nitpicky.

To start off with, if one wanted to create a society that was free, stable, peaceful, and safe, the obvious option would be to enact laws that would ensure this, then to appoint well-trusted individuals to enforce the laws if need be. The laws would impinge upon the freedom of the individual as little as possible, to ensure maximum freedom, and would generally encompass things that were inherently destructive.

For example, to keep people safe, we make a law against initiating violence against others, with exceptions for self-defense against aggressors. That's a very simple law, enforcing it is easy. If two folks get into a fight, the guy who started it goes to jail. If there is an attacker, and a victim, and the victim is injured, the attacker goes to jail for a long time, and if the victim dies, the attacker goes to jail for life.

I'll save a discussion of the death penalty for another post.

So, that simple law should cover any imaginable form of violence. We'll add another law against acquiring goods without paying for them, and that would actually pretty much cover the list. OK, so we've got the laws, we've got a peaceful society because almost everyone follows the laws, and things work out pretty well. \

But at some point, we'll need some clarifications, and some passed-as-law definitions. Because we'll need an exception for "The guy broke into my house, and was trying to get into my daughter's room with a knife, so I shot him in the back", and other things like that. New definitions for "acquiring goods without paying for them" that covers copying music discs, etc.

OK, that's fine and dandy, and as our society grows, we'll need more cops, and that's fine too. More people means more crimes, and more criminals, because 1% of 300,000,000 is a lot more than 1% of 300, even if the per capita rates don't change.

Now, this is where our theoretical exercise takes a shift. At some point in this country, it seems that the term "law enforcement" became a priority, not "maintaining civil order".

The problem here is that protecting the average Joe from criminals is no longer required. The cops, legally, have no obligation to protect anyone from anything, and cannot be held responsible for not doing so. (See note 1) Now, if cops aren't here to protect us, what are they here for? Law enforcement, easily answered.

That easy answer is a huge problem, though. See, if we look at our theoretical society, the laws were first put into place with the sole intent of keeping folks safe. If from that we shift to "the laws must be enforced more than people must be kept safe", then we're inviting both absurd exercises in petty tyranny, and grand failures in the intent of the laws themselves.

For example, there's the case of Kelly Thomas, who was beaten to death by the cops. Here's the video, because if this doesn't make my case, nothing on earth will:

Now, let's examine what that video shows in the context of our theoretical society:

Was Mr. Thomas a danger to other citizens?

Well, by that video, he wasn't even a danger to the cops, since he can't be seen to even throw a punch at the folks who are hitting him. He apologized, and started pleading for help. If he wasn't a danger to them, then why was violence required, instead of a short, polite conversation?

Well, simply, the Law has become the sacred object, not the person the law is meant to protect.

There are two things that I believe inevitably result from that:

First, the people who are supposed to keep the peace and ultimately serve the people become the center of their own worlds. The law is sacred, the ones who enforce it become superior to those who break it because of this. It takes on an almost-religious aspect, and it's not hard to find an interview in which cops talk about themselves as being superior to the people they are supposed to protect.

Second, the person the law is supposed to protect becomes a dehumanized object. They stop being citizens, and become "sheep", "civilians", and other semi-pejorative terms. They, like Mr. Thomas, are mocked and beaten, because instead of being people that must be protected, they are viewed as people that blasphemed against the object that must be protected.

And once those two things have happened, people like Kelly Thomas, who are no danger to anyone, but break the law on a regular basis, can be beaten to death without any of the officers present saying "Wait, hold up. We're supposed to keep this man safe!"

None of the officers in that video were there to protect or serve Mr. Thomas. They were there to enforce the law, which Mr. Thomas was breaking. When he refused to comply with their demands, apparently because he wasn't capable of understanding them, they beat him to death, then laughed about it.

And people wonder why I have no respect for cops outside that which I'd give to a lion if I saw one while on a safari in Africa. Cops have become, because of this "We enforce the law" mentality, the newest iteration of street thugs, and maintain their position through brutality and fear.

If you don't doubt me, go down to the police station and ask what you should do if a cop is performing an unlawful arrest on you. If the answer is ANYTHING other than "You have the legal authority to resist unlawful arrest, and you may do so", then they're not cops, but tyrants.

When faced with tyranny, conduct yourself as you see fit. That's a choice I won't try to make for anyone.

Note 1:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeShaney_v._Winnebago_County

You Vs. Reality, a five-round bout.

Let's be honest for a second: None of us especially like reality. We've all got our own versions of what we think reality should be, and every last one of us at times wishes it would come true. It's a pretty basic part of being a thinking being, if we're capable of human thought, it's occurred to us that things could be better than they are.

For example, my life does not consist of days spent blowing things up with an Incom T-65J X-wing, then coming home just as Kahlan Amnell is done cooking me a steak dinner. That bums me out, because if reality was what I wanted it to be, Luke Skywalker and Richard Rahl would both be jealous of my awesomeness at the same time.

But reality is. It simply, fundamentally, IS. It is what it is, and our wishes, fantasies, and daydreams simply do not factor into what it is.

A year and change ago, I spent 50-something hours in a psychiatric ward, and I didn't go there by choice. I met a few people there, some of us were simply depressed, and needed to get healthy, but some of the others were trying to fight reality. My roommate was convinced that he could convince the doctors that he was fine if he could just get outside and prove it.

That's called being delusional. He refused to accept the reality of his situation, and instead of playing the game so that he could get out, he tried to resist. Dude wouldn't take his meds, and he probably stayed inside for a while after I left.

On the other hand, while I will forever try to avoid playing by the rules that human society sets, knew better than to try to resist playing by the hospital's rules. The reality was that resisting would only have made things worse, and escape would have become impossible. When the cops woke me up to take me to the hospital, the reality is that I was going. The only way to escape was to get better, and to do so in a way that minimized the damage done to my life.

Resisting the cops would have resulted in handcuffs, charges, and a permanent loss of my firearms. Not taking my meds, or aruguing with the doctors in the ward would have resulted in me staying there longer. Staying there any longer than I did would have resulted in me going before a mental-health judge.

I accepted reality, and my place in it, then played the game and got better, so I could get out.

Fast-forward a year, and I find out that I'm ineligible to get an FAA pilot's license because I'm diagnosed bipolar. Now, bipolar's not the worst thing in the world to live with, it's far better than having AIDS or cancer, and it's better than being stupid, but the FAA still thinks it's not worth the risk to let me fly a plane.

Here's reality:
1. I have bipolar.

2. I take meds.
3. The FAA does not like bipolar.

4. The FAA does not like meds.

Now, naturally, I don't like that reality. However, none of that can be fought. I could go-off meds, and try to fight points 1 and 2, or I could try to cheat the system, to lie on my physical, and try to fight points 3 and 4. Either of those, if reality shows up, mean that I lose the ability to fly anyways, and face a judge for falsifying data on a federal form.

I can't fight reality.

So tell me, again, what the point of being bummed out about this is? I mean, it's a pretty natural occurrence to be bummed out because reality isn't what I want it to be, but to sit around and mope seems pretty useless. It's not productive, because the only thing that sitting around and moping will do is pile up reasons why reality sucks.

Instead, I'm going to look at what else reality is:
5. I'll graduate Tech without paying a penny for tuition.

6. I'll finish up my final Bible credits debt-free.

7. Not everyone in NASA is an astronaut, nor is everyone in the MAF a pilot.

8. God keeps providing.

I think it just comes down to a matter of perspective. Yeah, reality sucks, but it could be a lot worse. I don't get to be a MAF pilot, but I'll be more deployable, and will have to work less to arrive at MAF HQ without any debt. I may never get my T-65, but that's not what life is about anyways. Life is about doing the job, not reaping the rewards.