How do we protect innocent and still keep peace in civil society?

By David McElroy · October 29, 2013

When police in a Sacramento, Calif., suburb were searching for a violent killer Saturday, they set up roadblocks in certain areas. This picture is what innocent suburbanites faced as they drove down neighborhood streets trying to get to or from their houses.

I think it’s a perfect example of the conflicts we face between two very strongly opposing views about law enforcement and the rights of innocent people. Do you think it’s right and reasonable for this random innocent driver — who wasn’t suspected of anything — to have this weapon pointed at him at close range under this circumstance?

I don’t think it’s reasonable, but defenders of police would say that it was necessary to protect police safety. Frankly, I’m a little more worried about the safety of the vast bulk of the public — who don’t deserve to have high-powered weapons pointed at their heads when they come to roadblocks in their otherwise safe neighborhoods.

There are two prevailing narratives about police today. One is that they’re all thugs who are drunk on the power of the state and are out to violate the rights of innocent people. The other is that they’re valiant and trustworthy servants of the people who are sacrificially doing a dangerous job to keep the rest of us safe.

I think there’s some true in each extreme, although people on the two extremes generally can’t see much middle ground.

Yes, I do think that a lot of police are out of control. How many incidents do we have to see of police being caught violating people’s rights, killing innocent people and pets, and lying about inconvenient facts to know that there’s a serious problem with police culture? I grew up with a lot of respect for police, but I’ve gotten to the point that I’m afraid of most of them. The attitude that I feel from most police officers I encounter today is one of disdain for the public — the belief that I’m a threat to them, not that they’re public servants working for me.

On the other hand, it’s crazy to believe we don’t need some form of a police force. (I’ve heard a lot of anti-police partisans assert that we don’t need any.) The truth is that some percentage of the population is violent and amoral. Those people are willing to use force or fraud to take things from other people and commit physical crimes. There’s no way around that. We need some way to defend ourselves against those people. Even when done with the utmost care, it’s a dangerous job and it’s going to claim the lives of some of those doing it.

So how do we resolve those two positions?

First, let me stipulate that the really best way is to get rid of the state and let property owners decide for themselves how they want to protect where they live. If some people want to live with no protection, that’s their business, but it’s pretty safe to assume that neighborhoods would band together to hire their own security and set the rules that are appropriate for them. Private cities and communities of various kinds could hire their own police or contract with private companies for protection. There are plenty of possibilities.

But we don’t live in that world. Not yet. I think we will one day. For now, we’re stuck with police who are employees of a coercive state. So how can we have peace and order in society while also protecting the rights of innocent people?

I don’t have any solutions, but it would be a start if each side of the debate could acknowledge that the other side has some valid concerns.

Can police and their supporters admit that there are growing reasons for many of us to be suspicious of them? Can they admit that there’s misconduct of various kinds among police — lying, planting evidence, ignoring suspects’ rights, treating some people (especially minorities) unfairly in many cases? Can they admit that many police officers have absolutely no respect for the people who pay their salaries and that they’re looking to intimidate us? Can they admit that the militarization of modern police makes it appear they’re going to war against the rest of us?

Can those on the other side admit that we need someone to play the role of protecting us from criminals and thugs? Can they admit that there are many good police officers who are trying to do do the right things? Can they admit that police officers are in danger in many types of places, especially unsafe urban neighborhoods? Can they admit that the insults they hurl at all police officers aren’t necessarily deserved — and that scorn should be reserved for the ones who actually appear to be guilty of violating our rights?

The people on these two sides are very far apart, but I think there needs to be dialogue. Unless each side can acknowledge the legitimate concerns of the other, that can’t happen, but I think it’s necessary if we’re to have some sort of reasonable conclusion to the increasing resentment and anger on both sides.

I hate to be pessimistic, but I don’t see much grounds for believing that dialogue, much less changes in attitudes, can happen. Unless change happens, though, we’re going to continue down the path we’re going down now — and it’s not one that I think benefits anybody.

Of course, ending the misguided “war on (some) drugs” would also cure a lot of these problems, but that’s another issue altogether.

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If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

Every time someone tries to tighten requirements around the use of absentee ballots, I hear screams from Democrats and others on the political left that such efforts are nothing but “suppression of black voters.” These protests have never made sense to me, especially because it’s never been a secret that absentee ballot fraud goes on all the time in certain areas. (Everybody knew it when I worked in politics.) The people who engage in such fraud are rarely caught — often because the local political establishment approves of the crime — but a Democrat who won a primary election in Clay County, Alabama, last year has pleaded guilty to this sort of cheating. Terry Andrew Heflin was running for a place on the Clay County Commission. He was caught ordering seven absentee ballots in the names of various voters and sending them to his post office box — after which he used the ballots to vote absentee for himself seven time. Did he have other people cast additional fraudulent ballots? We’ll never know. But in a primary in which he was able to win with only 141 votes, it wouldn’t take many fraudulent votes to change the election. The next time you hear “civil rights activists” claim that it’s just “voter suppression” to hurt blacks which is at the root of efforts to stop this fraud, remember Terry Heflin. If you care about fair and honest elections, ballot security and voter identity should matter to you.

A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

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