The first thing everyone has to come to grips with is that the police have way more power to intervene in our individual lives then they were ever meant to have. If you can’t understand or even try to open your mind to the fact that this is the reality of the world we live in, then you are a true statist. Read and educate yourself my poor American friends…
The first official municipal police force was created in the 1830’s in response to the industrial revolution between 1820 and 1840. The more we advanced industrially the more people came looking for work, thus, the natural increase in crime, and why policing became a government entity. Prior to this time period, we had “watchmen,” who were volunteers in the community who looked after everyone and their property during the night. The original role of policing, however, was not at all a pre-crime preventative measure, which is the nonsense we deal with today, but rather a watch-guard-just-in-case measure. It’s no different than anyone hiring private security to stand guard for them or their property nowadays. And yes, there is a difference.
Today, cops patrol all day and all night looking for anything and everything they can to give them a “legal” reason to stop and frisk you, stop and pull you out of your vehicle, etc. They have gone from protecting when requested to to interfering with everyone’s personal movements and lives in hopes of preventing something. That is called pre-crime, and is immoral as hell. I don’t recall anywhere in the 4th Amendment that says “the government can stop you for any reason they deem necessary, or set up and stop you at a checkpoint for whatever reason without a warrant based on probable cause.”
Having come from law enforcement myself, I can tell you that it’s not at all what the general public thinks it is. For the most part, it’s a bunch of power hungry thugs willing to violate any and every right you have in the name of “justice.” The police, at least in many jurisdictions, don’t give a damn about you personally, nor your individual rights. They will violate the hell out of them. They’re just there to “do their job,” even if that means violating the constitution, your civil liberties, etc., all in the misguided notion of “public safety” when you weren’t a danger nor were you going to be a danger to anyone. The days of “Protect and Serve,” are long gone. All we have now is “Harass and Violate,” at least in many jurisdictions, if not most.
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington D.C., has done a study on this that can be read here. The study is mostly based on statistics from the DOJ, and Bureau of Justice statistics. Here’s what they have found: law enforcement officers are almost three times as likely to sexually assault you than the average everyday person. Also, when you remove victimless crimes and only focus on crimes against persons or property, then guess what? Cops are just as likely to commit those types of crimes as anyone else, despite your occupation. To quote Frederic Bastiat, “If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?” The point is, and the real deal is, personally and professionally, cops are no better than the rest of us. End. Of. Story. Myself having worked in law enforcement, and also working on the civilian side of life, and having my God given civil rights violated on NUMEROUS occasions in my civilian career by police even when I had committed no crime, nor had done anything wrong at all…Yeah, I see it for what it is. Current law enforcement is nothing but a militarized enforcement arm of the state. To be clear, current law enforcement is the military occupying force by the state, within our local communities. I see it clearer than most anyone else for what it actually is. My perspective having worked on both ends of the spectrum is unique.
Not only are we equal as humans in our faults, but try dialing 911 and see if the police get there in time to prevent anything. I’m certainly not going to bet on that, because the facts show in only 5% or less of cases when you called 911 the police are able to arrive and stop whatever crime was being committed, or capture the criminal involved. This means 95% of the time or less, you are on your own. This is just ONE of the reasons why you have the right to own guns.
My conservative, pro 2nd Amendment friends ROAR at having the right to protect themselves via the 2nd Amendment and that they have it to protect themselves from criminals because “a cop is too heavy to carry around,” yet the very second you say you don’t need cops as much as people think, they’ll throw you under the bus. Are you hypocritical much, my conservative friends? I think so. You cannot say “I have the 2nd Amendment to protect myself and also if we need to overthrow the government,” yet at the same exact time, worship that very government (the police), you are talking about taking down should it come to government tyranny.
The way to end the “War on Cops,” while simultaneously allowing us to exercise our individual God-given liberties, is simple. Police need to stay at their station house or at another assigned static location until they are called for assistance, period. You are not needed for nanny state nonsense. Stay put until you are called and allow us our liberties to move about and go about our day without looking over our shoulder and worrying about getting a citation for some nonsense when there is no victim whatsoever. You cannot protect anyone and everyone. It’s literally impossible. Nationally there are roughly 1 million of you, and that includes corrections officers in comparison to over 300 million of us. Does that mean we want or need more cops? No, absolutely not or we would have a full on police state even more than we already have infringing on our rights every single day. Go out and spread yourself out throughout the community, but park and wait. Don’t patrol, don’t profile people, don’t do anything, but park, and wait. That is truly the most efficient way of policing. Do you realize how much taxpayer dollars go to just fuel your vehicles why you ride around looking for citizens to turn into criminals? When you get a 911 call, then go. I’ll support you on that all day long so long as there’s an actual victim, simply because your presence and intervention was requested. Until then, stay put, and sit in your patrol car. Leave everyone alone unless your presence is requested. It’s simple.
Featured image: Daily Wire (AP Photo / Nick Ut)
* Shane Foster has worked his entire career in military law enforcement, corrections, and as a private investigator. He has a unique perspective into how law enforcement operates from within its ranks, our judicial system, as well as our privacy laws and how every day our individual freedoms and liberties are gradually taken away from us and our individual rights abused on a regular basis.
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