PHIL GIRALDI AND MILITARIZED POLICING

THIS IS A COMMENT I LEFT ON PHIL GIRALDI'S INTERESTING PIECE ON UNZ.COM  IT DEALS WITH THE MILITARIZATION OF US POLICE UNDER THE GUISE OF ANTI-TERRORISM.  YOU SHOULD VISIT THE ARTICLE ITSELF.   IT ALSO GOES INTO MY GENERAL VIEW OF AMERICAN POLICING TODAY.

“To be sure, there undoubtedly exists a growing critical consensus that the terrorist threat is largely phony, having been inflated by both political parties for political reasons.”  Phillip Giraldi

MY COMMENT:

Such terroristic threats that do exist are the result of federal policy. They allow massive immigration from Muslim countries. Then they insist that all the rest of us give up our liberties in order to control what the Muslims bring with them. In almost all of the recent cases of ISIS support, planned armed attacks, etc., recent Muslim immigrants are to blame.

This terrorism meme is employed in a thousand ways to control our ordinary behavior. I can’t drive anywhere these days without noticing all the surveillance cameras. I can’t enter the courthouse with a pen knife in my pocket. None off this makes the rest of us safer. It just establishes the habits of thoughtless compliance.

As you say, the National Guard should respond to civil unrest, formerly known as riots.

Giving the local cops MRAPs and such is just wasteful. I seem to remember that they were going to be left behind as a cost saving measure. I’d rather they rust out behind police headquarters than filled with Jihadi’s on their way to kill off some more Christians. I’m not particularly threatened by them. I will be if the local PD starts to arm up with heavy weapons. I don’t want the local donut boys in possession of mortars.

Your point about police militarization resonates with me. Cops and Soldiers had very different mindsets when I was a young Sheriffs Officer. We had many Vietnam vets in the departments in my vicinity. I don’t remember a lot of carry-over into how the law was enforced. However bloody Vietnam was, it was largely fought in the bush, against an alien population. I’m not as comfortable with being stopped at the side of the road by a cop/reservist just back from Iraq. Habits can be hard to break.

To be honest, to paraphrase Dr. Johnson, every man wishes he had been a soldier. This holds true for policemen as well. Given a choice between being/looking the cop on the beat, and looking (and perhaps) acting like a commando, the choice is clear. It’s only human nature. This is bad business.

Some of what you describe has a long history that only recently made itself felt. American policing began in cities and for a long time policemen were expected to enforce the norms and hierarchies of those cities. Policemen knew that they were to be restrained when dealing with “Citizens” while free to lay the stick about among unruly lesser orders. The old cops were not promoted solely on the basis of arrests. They were expected to keep order with a minimum of paperwork. In short police work and broad cultural norms were in tune. That’s how it was.

All that changed with the progressive era professionalization of police departments in places like California, and the so called Civil Rights Revolution. Both set the stage for police departments treating everyone the same. That is, impersonal and rule bound. Much of what people see as police rudeness and intrusiveness can be laid down to police procedure manuals written by lawyers and a desire to make arrests. Arrests end in convictions which are good for the lawyers.

Of course a great deal can also be attributed to the war on drugs, That became the war on drunks and is now the war on drivers in general.