Police Abuse . . . is no little thing!
By WJ Anthony
The misuse of government police power is of great concern for people who hope and expect that the rules of law will be honestly applied in compliance with the intent of the law, and without prejudice by an officer of government.
I recently watched a fascinating Brasscheck video by Larken Rose, which brought to light this problem. Many words have been written about human rights and the role that government should play in securing the rights of an individual.
The Declaration of Independence clarifies the concern that many people may have about police brutality and the abuse of that power, when it is used against their human rights.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
The Declaration then continues: “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seen most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
If we think about those exact words, we see that the Declaration infers that police have certain power to help secure the unalienable right of the People to safely pursue Happiness.
Larken Rose would possibly insist that various levels of governments in America have become “destructive of these ends.” The “ends” in the Declaration are the Safety and Happiness of the People. That might mean for Larken, that governments have, in some ways, failed to secure the safety and happiness of the People by their use of unwarranted police brutality.
There may be several reasons why a government becomes destructive of the unalienable right of a person to be safe from violence, and free to live and pursue happiness. However, Larken’s point deserves an explanation, why today’s US society has been equipped with violent police powers.
Various levels of American government have obtained and now use the same military equipment and powers that had been used by police forces of totalitarian countries. With these powers, police can subjugate American people by illegal brutality and confined prison behavior and serious injuries.
When the People protested the illegal US war policies, that are based on lies by George Bush, and Congress ignored the People’s right to peacefully protest, the government used police brutality to reject the authority of the People to alter or abolish the war policies of American government.
The People had the authority, as stated in the Declaration’s second paragraph, to do this because the illegal US war policies destroyed the safety and happiness of innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan and also endangered the rights to safety and happiness of American people.
The reaction of the Iraq and Afghan victims to the illegal plan of the US president and Congress to bomb, invade, conquer and kill innocent foreign People followed the pattern of past US aggressions that violently subjugated People of other countries to illegal US military domination. Ironically, the Iraq and Afghan leaders also knew the words of the Declaration of Independence and that US presidents and Congress have always ignored that Declaration of America’s birth.
They also knew that the Declaration had also warned Americans, that to pursue happiness, the People need to govern their own efforts, and to do that, Americans need to lay a foundation for America’s government on such principles and organize its “powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
That vision of independent governance is what many of the leaders and governments of the small countries were trying to accomplish, when the US presidents and Congresses ordered the attacks and invasions of small countries in recent times.
When the Declaration was published, it promised the world that a new government would arise in North America, that it would be based on those words and ideas, contained in the second paragraph of the Declaration. But, the ruler of the thirteen colonies did not “institute” a government based on the Declaration of Independence.
Thirteen years after the Declaration was published, the wealthy landowners and officials of the former colonies took it upon themselves, without the consent of the People who were female, native People, African slaves or indentured servants, to create a constitution.
The Constitution did not speak of rights endowed by the Creator, or the equality of all people. It said that the government would have the power to coin money and tax certain endeavors, so as to fund government operations. What would those operations be?
The history of the United States of America is filled with accounts of Wars of all kinds. What was the structure and purpose of those wars? Compulsory subjugation of the identities and behaviors of native and other peoples were achieved by the threat and violent power of US military destruction.
Larken Rose aroused a profound complaint to a common problem. If we wish to survive in America, the misuse of military and police power needs to be stopped. That thought should cause us to ask, What causes the misuse of police power, and when did it start?
The USA, today, is said to be the sole super power. We are said to have the greatest military power the world has ever seen. And we continue to demonstrate some of that power in wars against small nations, throughout the globe, hoping that the major powers, China and Russia, and other governments will recognize our military and financial ability to threaten destruction, and in fear of our power they will appropriately submit to our policies of world domination.
For more than two centuries the USA has been building war machines that first threatened and then destroyed other human beings, numbered in the millions.
The Declaration of Independence reminds us that the purpose of any form of government is to effectively secure the unalienable rights of the people.
Some positions in government have the authority to judge people and rehabilitate or punish people who violate the laws of government. These positions can be an aid to good government; they can also be a severe threat to the safety of a society and government if their powers are misused. Any government official could use or misuse the authority and powers of a position, whether the position is simple or elaborate.
Since US citizens are able to elect people to positions of public office, each of us holds the responsibility to support those positions and their powers of government; at the same time, we must do our part to change or stop policies or practices that violate the powers that governments derive from the consent of the people.
We the People have the power to elect people to public service and remove people from public service.
In Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg speech, he said that the Civil War was fought to ensure that government of the people by the people and for the people would not perish from the earth. In that war, as in all wars before and since, it was the people who did the killing and the dying. But did the people declare that war? Did the people declare all the wars since then… the Wows, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and… Iran?
Have you noticed, that no president has ever ordered that a questionnaire be sent, one to each American, which asked us to respond to the question: “Should the USA declare war on …?”
Has the Congress ever rejected a president’s declaration of war?
Might police brutality in the US be a product of our investment in wars? Might it be that the fruits of our warmongering have come home to roost?
Victims of the growing abuse of police brutality - on innocent civilians, who mobilize peaceful protests to oppose government violations - have met the brutal violence of police forces dressed for battle, (not to negotiate or dialogue), but equipped with gas masks and shields, bullet-proof vests, clubs, tear gas, dogs, chemical, electric zap pulse weapons, armored vehicles, including tanks with sound and electric assault weapons.
What this promises, is the escalation of civilian dissent, and social disorganization, resulting potentially, in violent revolution and the collapse of social order.
Is there a solution? Consider this …
The Veterans Preference laws, which give military veterans an advantage in tests, were an attempt to recognize the military service that veterans gave to their country. The result is that veterans obtain the opportunity to be employed in many public service positions, such as police, firemen, and postal workers.
The police positions are especially worthy of our concern, in that as law enforcement officers, they are able to use physical force to enforce laws as they are commanded. They also may be in a situational position where they can or must decide what level of force they should or could use to control a situation that requires their attention. In doing this, they are trained to be aware that when they are personally in a position of danger, they have the right to use self-defense measures, while carrying out their assigned responsibility.
This brings up the difficult consideration of employing military veterans for police duty. Their military training may have taught them the skills to use military force to resolve a specific hostile situation. Their military training may have included brutal close quarter life or death survival techniques, and veterans may have used them, to personally survive on a viciously brutal wartime combat situation.
The memories of that training and battle experience may cause the veteran, as a policeman, to revert to his behavior in military combat and transgress the rights of a civilian in a civil protest situation, when a remark or action of a civilian sparks a memory of a situation in the veteran’s combat experience, causing the veteran to react now in a manner similar to the battlefield but which is inappropriate now in the civilian situation.
The military skill of a veteran may seem to be an asset for more muscle power in a local sheriff department or city police department, but it could spark an instance during a lawful public protest, that creates a public safety disaster.
The web site and video of Larken Rose, at http://www.larkenrose.com eloquently brought this problem to light. The suggestion that emerged from reading his accounts suggests the need for an effective control of police behavior.
Since police are public employees and are sworn to public service, the behavior of police could and should be measured. This could be achieved by requiring each of the vote-eligible citizens, which the police are authorized to serve, to complete a public ballot that would review and invite any response that pertains to the job performance of each police person.
The ballot responses would identify appropriate or inappropriate instances of street enforcement behavior of each police person. The ballot could also allow input for recommendations or retraining or reassignment from street duty to alternative work.
Whereas most police behavior has been reviewed, as an in-house matter by internal police department investigations, the right of the People to influence changes in police policy has not been accepted by any governments. This ballot arrangement could help move police forces to modify the behavior of their personnel, who meet the public in traffic control, public, and domestic disturbances. The police departments need to have skilled persons who are trained with skills to successfully dialogue and negotiate alternative solutions to the imminent prospects of violent outcomes.
Thanks to Larken Rose for his stimulus.
I like the post buddy! I’m a bit at your site to be honest! I was never very good at wordpress anyway
I’m a a HTML person and doing my sites from zero