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10/13/24: Still here, tomorrow gets a new post, one that I didn't want to write. Many things going on, not enough time in the day. I have a dozen articles that I need to finish. I am working on them. I promise.

The truth of defunding the police

I'm putting this one under "Duct Tape Alert" because I suggest you wrap your head in duct tape before going any further. That way when your head explodes you can find all of the pieces.

Think about it. A law is a government-defined rule that declares specific acts to be against the best interests of the people within the jurisdiction, with a penalty attached. It doesn't matter what the act is, you're told "Don't do this. If you do, we will punish you in this manner." 

All that being said, just because a law is passed by using the approved methods does not make that law proper or good, or advances the interests of the people. After all, it used to be legal for one person to own and control another person. Or incarcerate people based on their ethnicity.

We've all seen the hashtag #DefundThePolice. If you have blindly agreed with and followed along with this idea, I will now explain, clearly and as simply as I can why this is a terrible idea. and why it won't address the underlying problem that manifested the situations to create this response.

Police (and Sheriffs, Marshalls, Special Agents and the rest of them) are known collectively as Law Enforcement Officers. That's because their job is to enforce the laws on the books. Police are not part of the process to make the laws, nor do they have the power to choose on a large scale what laws are or are not enforced. They are supposed to enforce every law equally. Upon complaint by someone or they themselves witness a possible criminal act, the police investigate to see if a crime has been committed and arrest who they suspect committed said crime. At that point, the police hand the suspect and gathered evidence over to the prosecutors (part of the Executive branch, you'll see in a moment), who determines what (or if) charges are filed and the suspect prosecuted.

Now, this is where some second-order thinking is necessary. Where did these laws that police enforce come from? Do you know? The legislative branch! Be it your local city council, the state legislature or Congress, they are the men and women who create the laws of this country. And by the number of laws they pass, you'd think they're on commission, getting paid by the number of laws they create. And there are a lot of stupid and inane laws, like in Arkansas, Men are not allowed to ask women to dance during the month of July.

Now let's do even more second-order thinking and ask, "Who do the police work for?" The very concept of law enforcement is the purpose of the Executive branch of government. The Legislature passes the laws, the Executive enforces them. The executive branch is headed by the mayor, governor or president, depending on the level of government.  This person can and does direct their LEO's to provide maximum or minimum enforcement against individuals and groups. Then we have the prosecutors, who work for the Mayor/governor/president who exercise their own "prosecutorial discretion," which simply put, if the attorneys who prosecute people doesn't think the case is provable, or the department doesn't have the resources, or sometimes the prosecutor is sympathetic to the criminal or their cause, no charges are filed or any filed charges are dropped.

Right now there are so many laws on the books that it's impossible for you to go through your daily lives without committing at least Three Felonies a Day. The only reason we're not all in prison is it doesn't serve the interests of government. Unless you have earned the ire of the government. Then our lives and actions will be monitored and examined through a microscope until they find something they can use to make your life hell. Like Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who was accused of violating the Logan Act (the last time someone was charged under this law was 1852). Too bad the facts showed he didn't. Then Flynn was charged with "lying to federal investigators" (a catch-all crime, kind of like Article 134 of the UCMJ) and threatened with 1) his son getting charged with crimes, and 2) dragging the investigation out until Flynn's attorney fees from defending himself would bankrupt him.

Let's take a step back here to look at this in total. First, you have a group that pass laws like a drunken sailor spends money (apologies to my shipmates), an Executive branch full of bureaucrats that makes more regulations with the force of law, coupled with mayors/prosecutors who routinely make go/no go decisions to prosecute based on politics rather than law, that right there is a bad situation. This is how tyranny comes to our door.

To make things worse, the good and professional police officers who have positive ethics and morals, who possess the spine to not enforce illegal laws, end up leaving for other professions. The police you have remaining are basically bullies who do what they are told and don't think about such moral quandaries because their paycheck depends on them not thinking about if they are doing the right thing or not.

For the empirical evidence on how successful #DefundThePolice experiment went, every city that drastically cut funding to their police departments experienced the same result, tragically verifying the outcome of the experiment over and over again. Every city that defunded the police experienced massive spikes of crime. Why? Because the Bad People who hurt, rob and kill other people knew their chances of facing the consequences of such acts dropped to almost zero. And as I wrote in the prior post just below, San Francisco will start paying criminals to not commit crimes. Talk about rewarding bad behavior.

How to fix this? It's simple, just not easy. And these would be the first steps, there's more once we get these done.

Cut the number of laws. I am not saying eliminate all laws. I am saying every law or regulation on the books that has a penalty attached should be reviewed by a Citizen board, and discarded if it unnecessarily or unconstitutionally interferes with the freedom of Citizens.

Reform the police and government. No one likes law enforcement when they are on the receiving end of it. Much like no one likes to be on the receiving end of an angry Pit Bull. It is a necessary fact of life that in order to have a safe and orderly society, we must either have a good and moral population, or we have to have police. Considering the former is rapidly disappearing, we must choose the latter. By only putting and keeping laws that advance society in place, and clearly defining police actions and authority can we strike the proper balance between freedom and law. Pay officers better and quickly weed out the bullies and corrupt ones.

To reform the government itself, that's a simple answer. Don't ever re-elect a politician. I don't care how outstanding a job they're doing. One term and you're out. Our Founding Fathers did not see political office as a career choice. He (or she) can go through the process when the next election cycle comes around. Make them live off their own efforts, not just our taxes.

Weaken Qualified Immunity. If you are unaware of the term "Qualified Immunity," it means a police officer cannot be held personally liable for bad acts they made while acting as an LEO. I think this should be weakened, not eliminated. If an officer commits gross negligence, exceeding their authority and things like that, those actions should expose them to legal and civil liabilities.

Like I said, these are small but foundational steps towards a better police force, a better government in general, and a safer community.

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