In politics Mr. C was telling us about our rights if we are ever stopped or arrested by the police. He then went on to tell us that oftentimes the police don't actually care or know about your rights, and this has led to him being taken by police several times as a youth.
He tried to put it as delicately as possible. The majority of the police force is made up of high school dropouts or people who couldn't get into uni - the same stuff of criminals, although the police force offers a more legal form of violence. And it is true - the police seem to be the people outside the law, and are running errant at that.
And you hear dreadful stories - police setting their dogs on illegal immigrants whilst yelling racial slurs, dumping quadraplegics and the mentally retarded out of their wheelchairs, shooting a woman in her home on a fraudulent no-knock warrant, and then planting drugs in the house when they found none of her own. You hear stories of youths being kicked and punched into police cars, and girls being beaten and raped in holding cells.
Policemen are intimidating people. Whenever I see them out and about I shudder, especially if they're carrying Tasers. I don't mind guns so much, it's the Tasers I'm scared of - really, they should be made illegal.
Men are unreliable creatures, and should not be given such power over the lives of other men. You give a man a shiny gun and a horse and yes, there will be blood! We train policemen only caring about whether they know how to fire a gun or not, we don't bother with establishing whether they have a conscience or no.
I just don't feel comfortable with the fact that after three months training people, who are as likely to be thugs as policemen, are given a nice uniform and a gun and let loose into the streets. Policemen are often complaining of poor work conditions and bad pay, and although I know some of them are genuinely there for the greater good, the majority of them need to clean up their act.
1 comment:
I'm terrified of Tasers (within reason) because of many of the stories on Four Corners, and because they have an electric shock. (and because they stop hearts).
Under what circumstances are we allowed to use that sort of power on another human being? Doctors and psychiatrists are strongly regulated if they are to do the same thing.
And if I were to have a high school dropout roughhousing with me (and worse) I most certainly would want to know my rights.
Having said that, some states are trying to get better training, especially for the administrative side of the Force.
"To uphold the Right": but it is a Kohlbergian stage 1 or 2 sense of right. (as in "Might is right").
One of the more forceful arguments in Objectivism is probably about force, and how police and the government use (and misuse) it.
From the Lexicon: Physical Force
Retaliatory force, from the same Lexicon
And one example would probably be as security for parties.
The police are there to be there when the military (who are much more highly trained) are not practicable to be there: that is, within the borders.
There are fewer violent offences, so the police (and of course the people) must be doing something right.
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