Bob asks: What good are police?

From the Personal Liberty Bob Livingston Alerts, Friday June 5th, 2020.

When we break down George Floyd's death under the boot of a police officer, we see firsthand the fallacies of both the Left's and the Right's arguments in support of police power.

The anti-gun Left would have all of America disarmed and under police protection. Or, as New York Congressweasel Jerrold Nadler once stated, "One of the definitions of a nation-state is that the state has a monopoly on legitimate violence. And the state ought to have a monopoly on legitimate violence." The "state" means local, state and federal police agencies.

Few subjects cost me as many "friends" and readers — among law-and-order conservatives, especially — as when I point out the abusive and tyrannical nature of police power and the LEO (legally entitled to oppress) class. Doing so inevitably results in all manner of vitriol, scorn and calumny hurled my way — as well as threats to unsubscribe.

Both law-and-order conservatives and progressive/statists suffer from cognitive dissonance regarding police. 

Conservatives claim to eschew and distrust big, tyrannical government, yet nothing symbolizes big government, tyranny and loss of liberty more than the military and LEOs, whom conservatives hail as heroes. 

Progressive/statists love big government and trust government implicitly as being beatific, and then seem to think of the police as the Gestapo and the military as baby killers. Some of them are now calling for police forces to be disbanded.

Police power is government power and vice versa. Government by definition, by nature, by history and by practical existence is police power. Government would not and could not exist without police power. When governments lose their police power, they collapse.

There are now dozens of federal police forces, none of which are sanctioned by the U.S. Constitution — not that the Constitution matters in the District of Corruption, or much of anywhere else anymore, for that matter. Beyond Homeland Security, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, even the Departments of Education, Departments of Agriculture and the Federal Reserve have armed and militarized police forces. But our focus today is on state and local police.

Enforcers

Police are often decked out in full military gear — black or camouflage uniforms, helmets, flak vests and tactical boots and armed with military weapons, including RPGs — indicating they are prepared to use whatever force is necessary to "enforce" the "law."

While the vilest offenders are SWAT teams who batter down doors in the middle of the night and throw flashbang grenades into babies' cribs, little girls' rooms and old ladies' living rooms under the guise of prosecuting the "War on Drugs," even regular patrol officers now become violent at the least provocation. Thanks to YouTube and similar content-sharing sites, more of these incidents are coming to light. However, capturing video of these incidents has put the person doing the filming at risk from the police, who often unlawfully and forcibly take the phone or camera.

It's not unusual for the person taking the video to be roughed up and/or threatened with arrest or actually arrested in the process. A list of recent incidences of police brutality and other police misconduct can be read at sites like CATO's National Police Misconduct Reporting Project, CounterCurrent News and social media outlets like Reddit's "Bad Cop No Donut." Those sites are populated with new instances daily. Those who claim police abuse incidents are isolated and rare are propagandized and deceiving themselves — or lying on behalf of the police state.

Who is policing?

I could find no direct statistics on the number of veterans becoming police officers, but increasingly, ranks of the local police forces are being populated by former or current military. That was accelerated beginning in 2012 under the Department of JustUs' COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) funding program requiring that all patrol openings on local police forces be filled by veterans with at least 180 days of active duty since 9/11. That program lasted three years. And many agencies still give preference to veterans in hiring practices by adding extra points to entry exams and through other means.

Some people see military service as a direct path into law enforcement careers. And almost all people moving from military to the ranks of the LEO (legally entitled to oppress) class are now "combat veterans," given that we have been at war during the entire lifetimes of those in their early- to mid-20s that are now entering the workforce.

An article on Military.com discussed whether the transition from military to police is a "natural transition." Sentiment among combat veterans was mixed, with some saying "the profession is the least suitable career choice for veterans who are still working out emotional issues from deployments. And some veterans consider a career in law enforcement because they consider it one of the few viable options in a challenging job market."

However, police continue to actively recruit veterans, according to Military.com:

Veterans face challenges that civilians do not. Some are unsure how to express to potential employers how skills learned in the military translate to the civilian job market. Some return with post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury and wonder if those conditions will be a deal-breaker if they reveal them when interviewing for a job.
So the notion of taking military skills to a civilian agency that has a similar structure can be appealing. And that's a two-way street. Several job fairs for veterans have been held in the Bay Area over the past few months. They all seem to feature multiple law enforcement agencies looking to hire.
"The veterans we're trying to reach out to, they have the set of skills, the discipline and the training where they would easily transition from the military to civilian law enforcement," said San Francisco police officer Gregory Pak, who manned an information table at a Hiring Our Heroes job fair in Walnut Creek in April, and on the USS Hornet in Alameda in August. "It's a win-win."

And according to Policemag.com:

Vets bring bona fide decision-making experience and solid leadership skills to the police ranks. And there's strong evidence that many police departments are realizing the value of veterans when looking to hire the best candidates for the job. Many recruiters know that a police force diversified with college-educated officers, military veteran officers, and some who have both been to college and to war is a win for everyone.

What is their skill set? Military people are trained to kill people and break things. They are trained that there is the enemy and there is "us," and the enemy is trying to kill "us." That fosters an us vs. them attitude that is not conducive to "peacekeeping" but is quite conducive to "enforcing," and is likely behind much of the abusive attitude LEOs exhibit toward civilians.

And it's not just civilians being abused by police. Studies have found that at least 40 percent of police officer families experience domestic violence. In other words, police are about four times more likely to abuse their spouses and children than the general population. If they so easily abuse their loved ones, it's no surprise they so readily abuse people they do not know.

And history has shown that fellow officers more often than not look the other way or outright cover for their fellow officers who are engaged in wrongdoing and overt crimes. Even officers who don't participate or who object to the unethical or illegal deeds of their fellow LEOs are loath to stop or report bad behavior, either out of "police loyalty" or for fear of retaliation.

Why were there three other police officers standing there beside former officer Chauvin as he was killing George Floyd and doing nothing about it?

Of course, blacks have for years been subject to special scrutiny and abuse by local police, but their complaints are usually dismissed by the majority that has been propagandized into believing that anyone falling on the wrong end of a police encounter must have been guilty of something and was, therefore, deserving of the abuse, no matter how egregious. Self-styled "law and order conservatives" are quick to dismiss the 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th Amendment rights of blacks and those who they think look like thugs or criminals or drug dealers whenever they have an encounter with police that ends badly. If they got shot, those "law and order conservatives" say, then they deserved it.

Destroying liberty

Police enjoy qualified immunity, but they also enjoy almost total immunity from abusing citizens, as a report in The Washington Post found. LEOs often aren't held accountable for their crimes because the police, district attorneys and judges enjoy a special relationship in that they are on the same "side" in most cases; and because the American public sitting on juries has been propagandized into believing that cops are paragons of virtue who put their lives on the line in deadly situations daily to stand between the vast marauding criminal element (and Muslim terrorists) and the people.

When police chiefs and other LEOs shoot and beat to death subdued suspects and/or those who aren't posing an immediate threat to them or others, they have likewise become the judge, jury and executioner. They have become the law. And in doing so they have destroyed the rule of law and liberty.

Until people — especially "law-and-order" conservatives — understand this, people and LEOs will continue to die.

As I mentioned, having written on this subject many times, I know you might ask, well, what is your answer to this problem, Bob?" Knowing it will be mostly be dismissed out of hand because of normalcy bias, the answer is private security. See here, here and here. Here is another possible solution, though I disagree with the idea of federal involvement.

You might ask, "So Livingston, who are you gonna call when you get robbed?" As of now, because I have no other options, if I call anyone it will likely be police. Hopefully it is to report there is a subdued robber in my home who needs to be picked up. I would not expect anyone to arrive in time to thwart a robber, and I expect my right to a firearm will not be unconstitutionally blocked.
Also, I do not advocate or endorse offensive violence in any form. Nor do I think all cops are bad people. There are certainly many police officers with good and honest hearts who become police officers with noble reasons. But when LEOs enforce tyrannical laws just because they are laws, or if they "look away" when their fellow officers cross the line, they no longer have good and honest hearts but become part of the system.

Remember, there are a lot of issues making headlines these days as the corporate media and the global powers work to keep you distracted. So, I want to caution you to remain vigilant. The media try to convince you that what they present to you is what's important. This is for the masses to be numbed down and dumbed down.


It's all there to distract you from the fact that we've entered George Orwell's 1984. Through the Federal Reserve the banksters and politicians have driven our economy to the verge of collapse. They've stolen our wealth. We have perpetual war, we have politicians engaged in doublespeak, and we live under medical tyranny and a police state.

Yours for the truth,

Bob Livingston