DARREN WILSON IN GALT’S GULCH?
Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 4 months ago to Philosophy
DARREN WILSON IN GALT’S GULCH?
As a long standing Objectivist, I’m disturbed. In the last few weeks, there have been a number of posts and comment/reply strings on this site on the subject of Michael Brown’s fatal shooting by policeman Darren Wilson and the riots in Ferguson, MO. As well as the activities and statements made by those that support either side of the rightness/wrongness of the shooting, of the actions of the rioters, of the police response to the riots, of the St. Louis justice system’s response to both the shooting and the rioting, the militarization of the police, the involvement of professional race baiters (Sharpton, Jackson, etc), the involvement of the US Department of Justice, and the involvement of Obama. The statements and opinions expressed by the majority of the posts I’ve read have covered the entire imaginable range of support and as well, derogation of the participants involved.
During the same time, the media, both main-stream and alternate have fed us a continual stream of ‘information’ (more appropriately termed infotainment) structured to cater to their particular audience or produced biased episodes and articles supporting all and any of the above.
The major issue that I’ve gleaned from the majority of the coversations is that everyone seems to want very badly for their ‘beliefs’, from one side or the other, to be substantiated. To date, there has been very little factual information provided to the public from which rational, logical reason could reach conclusions, even the Grand Jury ‘evidence’. Commenters, many on this site, illustrate quite vocifirously their biases, their mistrusts of government and key government figures, but at the same time express their sincere hopes that they can trust in the fidelity, honesty, and virtue of the government police forces that they’ve entrusted to protect them, that police are ‘heroes’ for all of us, that what officer Wilson did was justified and right. But in all of the conversations, debates, and quoted infotainment on this Galt’s Gulch Site, I’ve seen very little Objectivist logical reasoning.
Three activities of late, as well as the referenced postings, comments, and replies here in the Gulch have generated for myself, a desire to reflect on and discuss further the questions posed so far and raised by the below.
1. One of course has been the Michael Brown killing, with an associated report by Reason.com: “Deadspin is Crowdsourcing a Police Shooting Database”, Anthony L. Fisher|Aug. 20, 2014 3:47 pm @ http://reason.com/blog/2014/08/20/deadsp....
It appears that researchers and others wishing to study and report on police shootings have discovered that there simply does not exist a publically available record of police shootings and killings in this nation. Why?
2. In the second activity fortuitously published by The Oklahoman on Novemeber 9th, substantiating the first item, it was reported that The Tulsa World had just completed such a study in Oklahoma, finding that to do so they had to search Oklahoma’s OSBI (Bureau of Investigation) records, the Highway Patrol’s records, the Office of the Medical Examiner’s records, local news reports, and Court records of law suits to generate such a study just for Oklahoma.
A brief summary of some of the report: In Oklahoma, with a population of 3.8 million a study just released reveals that 109 citizens have been shot and killed since 2007, with only one found to be non-justified. Since 2009 when the victim count was only 7, the number of such shootings per year has tripled while only 3 LEOs were killed statewide during the same time period and assaults on police have been on the decline nearly 30% during that time.. Blacks were 18% of the victims, but 7% of the population and whites were 62% of the victims. Hispanic and Indian killings were proportionate to their representation in the population.
3. The third activity has been the recent release of the video of the police killing of Tamir Rice 2 weeks ago, 12 years old, in Cleveland playing with a toy gun. The video starkly contradicts the police report of the shooting. See @ Reason.com http://reason.com/blog/2014/11/26/police....
Some of the questions raised for me are:
1. In a country that records everything down to the minutest detail of every piece of information on every citizen whether legally or illegally, even their phone calls, why doesn’t anyone keep public records of police shooting deaths?
2. Most police shootings do not result in the death of the citizen. Police are notoriously bad shots and often empty their 12 and 16 round clips, even reloading on occasion. How would that compare to the numbers that could be generated only from deaths?
3. Most police abuse of their position doesn’t result in shootings, but often result in beatings instead, some in death. How does the findings from the above reflect on additional information on police/citizen interactions?
4. Police lie. How many of the shootings and beatings not videoed happened as the police reported?
5. FBI statistics on crime in general show that every category of crime has been steadily decreasing throughout the nation for at least a couple of decades and don’t seem to support or justify the police rationalization of extreme danger, more funding, military hardware and weapons, etc.
But what’s absent in any of the discussion and reports to date?
• What would be the place of a Darren Wilson in an Objectivist Galt’s Gulch?
• How would the Gulch respond to such an action as the killing of one of it’s citizens by a policeman whose only legitimate reason to exist is to respond to violations of citizen’s individual rights?
• Are such questions in this ‘real’ non-objectivist society of today meaningful to those whom espouse the ‘non-initiation of force principle’ of Ms. Rand’s philosophy and the lessons provided by her novels as well as by the Liberal society imagined and provided for by our founders?
• Can any semblance of an Objectivist society ever come to be while our police beat, shoot, and kill it’s citizens with impunity?
In an age in which we’re finally beginning to realize and see the true scope of the absolute and total attack on the Constitutional foundation of this country and our natural individual rights, both explicit and implied, an apparent disregard for application of law to those within government, in this nation with the largest prison population in the world while only having 5% of the world population, it might behoove us to look a little closer at the underlying and exposed issues illustrated by this set of events and associated discussions, both for our ‘real’ society and for Rand’s Galt Gulch.
As a long standing Objectivist, I’m disturbed. In the last few weeks, there have been a number of posts and comment/reply strings on this site on the subject of Michael Brown’s fatal shooting by policeman Darren Wilson and the riots in Ferguson, MO. As well as the activities and statements made by those that support either side of the rightness/wrongness of the shooting, of the actions of the rioters, of the police response to the riots, of the St. Louis justice system’s response to both the shooting and the rioting, the militarization of the police, the involvement of professional race baiters (Sharpton, Jackson, etc), the involvement of the US Department of Justice, and the involvement of Obama. The statements and opinions expressed by the majority of the posts I’ve read have covered the entire imaginable range of support and as well, derogation of the participants involved.
During the same time, the media, both main-stream and alternate have fed us a continual stream of ‘information’ (more appropriately termed infotainment) structured to cater to their particular audience or produced biased episodes and articles supporting all and any of the above.
The major issue that I’ve gleaned from the majority of the coversations is that everyone seems to want very badly for their ‘beliefs’, from one side or the other, to be substantiated. To date, there has been very little factual information provided to the public from which rational, logical reason could reach conclusions, even the Grand Jury ‘evidence’. Commenters, many on this site, illustrate quite vocifirously their biases, their mistrusts of government and key government figures, but at the same time express their sincere hopes that they can trust in the fidelity, honesty, and virtue of the government police forces that they’ve entrusted to protect them, that police are ‘heroes’ for all of us, that what officer Wilson did was justified and right. But in all of the conversations, debates, and quoted infotainment on this Galt’s Gulch Site, I’ve seen very little Objectivist logical reasoning.
Three activities of late, as well as the referenced postings, comments, and replies here in the Gulch have generated for myself, a desire to reflect on and discuss further the questions posed so far and raised by the below.
1. One of course has been the Michael Brown killing, with an associated report by Reason.com: “Deadspin is Crowdsourcing a Police Shooting Database”, Anthony L. Fisher|Aug. 20, 2014 3:47 pm @ http://reason.com/blog/2014/08/20/deadsp....
It appears that researchers and others wishing to study and report on police shootings have discovered that there simply does not exist a publically available record of police shootings and killings in this nation. Why?
2. In the second activity fortuitously published by The Oklahoman on Novemeber 9th, substantiating the first item, it was reported that The Tulsa World had just completed such a study in Oklahoma, finding that to do so they had to search Oklahoma’s OSBI (Bureau of Investigation) records, the Highway Patrol’s records, the Office of the Medical Examiner’s records, local news reports, and Court records of law suits to generate such a study just for Oklahoma.
A brief summary of some of the report: In Oklahoma, with a population of 3.8 million a study just released reveals that 109 citizens have been shot and killed since 2007, with only one found to be non-justified. Since 2009 when the victim count was only 7, the number of such shootings per year has tripled while only 3 LEOs were killed statewide during the same time period and assaults on police have been on the decline nearly 30% during that time.. Blacks were 18% of the victims, but 7% of the population and whites were 62% of the victims. Hispanic and Indian killings were proportionate to their representation in the population.
3. The third activity has been the recent release of the video of the police killing of Tamir Rice 2 weeks ago, 12 years old, in Cleveland playing with a toy gun. The video starkly contradicts the police report of the shooting. See @ Reason.com http://reason.com/blog/2014/11/26/police....
Some of the questions raised for me are:
1. In a country that records everything down to the minutest detail of every piece of information on every citizen whether legally or illegally, even their phone calls, why doesn’t anyone keep public records of police shooting deaths?
2. Most police shootings do not result in the death of the citizen. Police are notoriously bad shots and often empty their 12 and 16 round clips, even reloading on occasion. How would that compare to the numbers that could be generated only from deaths?
3. Most police abuse of their position doesn’t result in shootings, but often result in beatings instead, some in death. How does the findings from the above reflect on additional information on police/citizen interactions?
4. Police lie. How many of the shootings and beatings not videoed happened as the police reported?
5. FBI statistics on crime in general show that every category of crime has been steadily decreasing throughout the nation for at least a couple of decades and don’t seem to support or justify the police rationalization of extreme danger, more funding, military hardware and weapons, etc.
But what’s absent in any of the discussion and reports to date?
• What would be the place of a Darren Wilson in an Objectivist Galt’s Gulch?
• How would the Gulch respond to such an action as the killing of one of it’s citizens by a policeman whose only legitimate reason to exist is to respond to violations of citizen’s individual rights?
• Are such questions in this ‘real’ non-objectivist society of today meaningful to those whom espouse the ‘non-initiation of force principle’ of Ms. Rand’s philosophy and the lessons provided by her novels as well as by the Liberal society imagined and provided for by our founders?
• Can any semblance of an Objectivist society ever come to be while our police beat, shoot, and kill it’s citizens with impunity?
In an age in which we’re finally beginning to realize and see the true scope of the absolute and total attack on the Constitutional foundation of this country and our natural individual rights, both explicit and implied, an apparent disregard for application of law to those within government, in this nation with the largest prison population in the world while only having 5% of the world population, it might behoove us to look a little closer at the underlying and exposed issues illustrated by this set of events and associated discussions, both for our ‘real’ society and for Rand’s Galt Gulch.
I don't know about others, but one of the very first things I was taught about guns was never point one at something I didn't intend to shoot.
http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&t...
Bureau of Justice Statistics
1) Brown's behavior was criminal by any standard.
2) The officer's version of the events was backed up by witnesses and the autopsy as well as investigation of the opposing witnesses, who frequently recanted or were caught lying in their testimony.
3) The only question is should police officers be allowed to use deadly force when facing a beating. Considering the damage done by Brown on the officer, it was definitely an attempt at life-threatening force. That was shown in court.
3) The riots are a separate issue and every rioter who broke the law was fully responsible for their own actions and should be prosecuted accordingly. Nothing in Objectivist Ideology suggests that you give up responsibility for criminal actions if you do it for a "good cause" protesting the criminal actions of others not associated with those you victimize.
4) The officer used deadly force faced with deadly force and his side of the event was backed by the evidence. There is insufficient grounds to prosecute the officer for any crime - hearsay is insufficient evidence, especially when the story keeps changing.
5) The officer not only took responsibility, but resigned after threats to his fellow officers and did so without expectation of special consideration from the police station or state he worked for.
6) Galt would bring the officer in in a second.
7) Brown would never hear the words, "John Galt" from anyone who knew his history or his behavior in this event.
We owe mobs nothing.
No person has the right to demand "a fair fight" when they are committing a crime and they are the aggressor.
Our police have to have the means to defend themselves against open criminals.
No one has the right to victimize innocent shop keepers because the crowd is upset about something unconnected to the victimized shop keepers.
Seems simple.
Supposition about what happened is silly when the facts are available and/or going to be available.
Let the court do it's job, double check (never hurts to watch dog) and leave off judgment of the police and specific court cases when you lack the evidence to try the case. Waste of time, and often unjust to all involved.
Brown was shot in the hand in the car, he walked away from the car for a short distance and he came charging back.
I admit ignorance on that count - checking into it.
The larger questions raised, I think, are still valid. The militarization of police forces within the US - as evidenced in the early days of Ferguson where the police brought in paramilitary armament - is a legitimate concern, and Zen is also right to ask. We are in a world where the gap between law enforcement's artillery and the citizen's restrictions on matching that capability widens on a daily basis, through legislation and sheer financial clout.
However, I caution the inclination to begin with the assumption that "our police beat, shoot, and kill it’s citizens with impunity?" As a starting point it leaves zero room for "trust but verify" policies which would be at the heart of an Objectivist philosophy.
My $.04 (adjusted for profit). ;)
That it isn't there is a sign that the initial statement that it is odd it doesn't exist gains ground. If it can't be found there, it's probably not being done. The FBI statistics would be another possible place, certainly not the CIA fact book.
Happy to discuss, especially now that you know I am not tied to a particular opinion. Truth first - not my self-image first.
It's important to note that criminal behavior on the part of police (or priests, or teachers, or most other professionals) is TINY compared to the general population - but because it is rare, it's news. You don't see the average joe on the news because he beat his wife, or the wife stole food at the local store - it's not news - it's too common. The unusual and strange is in the news, but often we confuse it for a plague when it increases at all when it's only a slight blip statistically - the media isn't corrupt - they're doing EXACTLY what media does - show the things that are interesting and newsworthy.
Statistics is where you look when you want reality. And the phrase that "statistics can prove anything" is a lie. False statistics and a public that doesn't understand statistics can lead to being able to convince such a public of anything. Properly done statistics and a public educated in statistical models can't get away with anything.
That said, separate the crowd's reaction from the event - their behavior was contemptible. Without evidence they hurt innocent people and did untold damage. It was contemptible and there was no excuse for that behavior. They should have pulled out of the protest, publicly scolded the rioters for ruining their protest and left them to the police if not turn them in themselves.
THAT would be news and get a lot more attention on justice.
I hesitate to comment on the Brown case until all the evidence is out. Just wise to avoid it and let the court do it's job. It will all come out.
Their is an increase in technology and aggressiveness in police as we move away from the 1960s and our reaction to that violence. Cycles. At the same time, we have watchdogs in place and that's why we know about such things, and though we have people who often speak against such alarmism, like myself, I'd NEVER silence them if I had the power.
Take the silliest conspiracy theory you can name. Consider what being aware of it guards us against in the future - would you silence them?
In truth, our watch dogs are working - we're just not getting mob justice - protests don't decide the result of an investigation - that's justice. It takes a man's decision, like Wilson's to quit, to give in to the mob. I don't think he should have quit. I think they were cowardly to do so, regardless of what result of the investigation and court case was. One should never give in to criminal behavior, mobs, kidnappers, terrorists, or any such behavior. It encourages more such.
Thoughts, Zenphamy? (Feel free - I jump on people that personally insult - ideas are precious to me and civil posters, regardless of their position, are like gold).
Like you I don't want to use the Brown killing as an argument--there's no film and the riots were and are outrageous. I'm an Oath Keeper and keep up on the activities of that group in their protection of property in the Ferguson riots. It's interesting to note that the police have threatened OK's for guarding property and attempted to intimidate the property owners for allowing OK's to guard their property.
The reason I brought up Brown in this posting was the information revealed in the article about the crowd sourcing of Deadspin's effort to obtain data on police killings for the last 3 years in the current situation of it not being available anywhere else. I then saw the article here in Oklahoma where the major news sources found exactly the same situation for this state.
I have no intent to attack or denigrate anyone, but I don't want to live in a country in which police can arbitrarily abuse, beat, lie, and kill with the apparent immunity that they currently enjoy in this country at this time. And I find that not having a national database and as much information as possible of such events is an atrocious failing of our government.
It's apparently just my opinion that the very first and most important people to be held to accountability in our society are those that are given license to use force against us.
So giving them non-lethal weapons hasn't and won't help.
In the Wilson/Brown case, by the time Wilson started shooting he had been beaten on enough that he would be right to shoot to kill even if he'd had those other gadgets anyway.
he physically combated a police officer.
he was 6'4" and 300lbs
the cop had a gun.
What more facts are needed?
The bully brought lard to a gunfight.
(remember Rand's law... one may not *initiate* force. I submit that he beat on the cop before he was shot multiple times, cause the other way round would make him a zombie).
From what I've gleaned, without really digging in deep, this is *not* the ideal case to rally around to reform policing. If we are against individual police officers and police actions just because there is an overall problem with policing, we make the war mentality problem worse. I hope most people, those who are not paid to turn things into an ideological us-vs-them contest, are for the law and the truth. I hope most police officers are for the law and the truth and don't fall into the trap of thinking they're the good guys so their winning is more important than the law.
While I do believe that most law officers are good, honest, and reasonable people, there are those (and seemingly increasing in percentage) who are power hungry. They aren't the majority, but they are enough to make a difference.
And short of making police personally accountable in court, to victims, for every misuse of power, there's simply no way to make a police department honest.
http://reason.com/blog/2014/11/11/new-fb...
Violent and non-violent crime are both on a steady decline and have been for a number of years now.
As to power hungry cops, I'm sure that's part of the problem but I don't think it's all of it by any means. I suspect it's as much about training, 'them against us', utilizing intimidation, and 'putting us in our places' combined with out and out fear on their parts. Many of them actually think they're at war even calling themselves 'operators'. That's not law enforcement. They and the justice system that employs and uses them have turned themselves into our enemies.
Police, whether consciously or not, will become MUCH more careful when they try to apprehend ANYONE suspected of a crime. Especially if they're 'in the heat of battle' and responding to a new and very recent report.
The unintended consequence? Thugs and thieves will take advantage of this, and we will witness a surge in crimes as a result.
Any 'deterrent effect' of 'assertive police response' will vanish.
Be careful what you (or the MSM) want... you may get it, and it may come back to bite us all in the butt in the near future.
Just ponderin'....
What we've been seeing in Missouri, NYC and elsewhere is, imnsho, a misunderstanding of that difference, compounded by the MSM and general populace feeling that if they THINK justice has not been carried out fairly by the legal system, they have the right to destroy property in order to reverse the decisions or even 'create visibility of the issues.'
That's mob rule and brute force, and my money would have been on AR not exactly approving of that kind of thinking or process.... but that's just MY "never so humble opinion..." (imnsho)
Cheers!
amazing that police behave as well as they do. -- j
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3obAbbx...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmJukcFz...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=159PM7ZK...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSo37wpK...
I'm tired of watching these.
I watched cops get out of control with their anger, sometimes to girlfriends, sometimes in some really masked aggressive teasing, sometimes against blacks. However, I did not see it as racism, as much as cops who see too many bad things daily, and get out of control needing a release. As a education and criminal justice reporter, I saw both sides. I also saw that I was becoming angry and jaded. I got out of the profession. Black youth are being used by politicians and told at school they are victimized, how are they ever going to learn to tell those politicians using them to taking a flying leap. Cops need to be monitored to see if they are getting to the edge. We have a neighbor who was fired from a force when he manhandled a black older woman during a traffic stop. I saw the dashcam (before the union had it scrubbed). She did nothing to resist, yet he grabbed her and pushed her around, just snapped. When he moved to our neighborhood, I tracked his identity, as he would not tell neighbors his last name. He has since gone off in the street in front of his house against white neighbors. He is still out of control, yet was allowed to move on to a village PD, with no one the wiser and no treatment. When PC mentality takes over, drugs come in, and community agitators start stirring the pot, society get out of control. There is no old fashioned outlet for tension or anger as there used to be, you might hurt someone's feeling. So, it builds, and builds, and if the White House things blaming the cops is going to make it better, they are only going to make it worse. Kids have no outlets for anger, they are not supposed to feel anger, on love for everyone.
But I don't have any magic wand idea of how to begin a correction or even where to apply it. Thankfully my sons have remained sensible, even though they have to live in a different world than that which I grew up in. But I do know that if we continue to accept the anger and aggression in the government employees that we employ at whatever level, we're only digging the hole deeper. And arguing about who started it (the chicken/egg question) only confuses the issue. There's a hell of a lot more angry people than there are angry cops. Maybe starting with what we can control will begin to have an impact on the rest or give us more ideas.
Just to put focus on cops is like Hillary and her village idea, or Obama saying if we make nice with a country, we will then all sing some folk song together. Cops are forced to be PC, when they see the reality of the hard dirty life that is part of our cities, and the people out there who would rather kill them as anyone, but it really does not matter, they just want a target. Some are high, some are angry, some are just mean, and by the time the cop figures it out, he is dead.
Our Prez is doing a disservice to everyone with his pseudo solution. We need to focus on the kids, the neighborhoods, and some of it has to come from the black community and parents of all races to say enough is enought and stop using our kids for your agenda.
http://gawker.com/what-ive-learned-from-...
quoting a Wall Street Journal article.
The more information I find, the worse it looks. Quite honestly, it depresses me immensely. We've had more Police killings than we've had deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2000 and it's growing every year. But what's really striking is in discussions about the issues, how many people just don't want to believe or even admit the possibility. This not the country or culture I was born into.
• How would the Gulch respond to such an action as the killing of one of it’s citizens by a policeman whose only legitimate reason to exist is to respond to violations of citizen’s individual rights?
• Are such questions in this ‘real’ non-objectivist society of today meaningful to those whom espouse the ‘non-initiation of force principle’ of Ms. Rand’s philosophy and the lessons provided by her novels as well as by the Liberal society imagined and provided for by our founders?
• Can any semblance of an Objectivist society ever come to be while our police beat, shoot, and kill it’s citizens with impunity? "
First, I have to ask - how did you generate bullet points?
On to the questions
1. I have to believe that in referring to Darren Wilson you are referring to police and not individuals. I would think that the place of the individual would be pretty clear-cut - to participate as a productive member of society while respecting natural rights. Police officers are there to enforce the law, and I think it would be pretty naive to assume that no one ever broke laws - even in the Gulch. So there is going to have to be a police force to deal with it. Size and composition unknown, but I would have to start with the premise that police officers had no fewer and no greater rights than the public they serve. That being said, their job is to apprehend and bring people to court - with force being used as a last resort.
2. Definitely an item open for discussion.
3. Not sure what you mean by the "Liberal society imagined and provided for by our founders". The Founders believed strongly in personal responsibility for self-defense (ie they packed heat) and also a personal responsibility to obey and respect duly-elected laws which treat everyone equally and respected natural law. My personal opinion is that our current society has fallen away in both of these regards. The laws are no more just and equitable. To further exacerbate the problem, there is a genuine thug sub-culture being embraced by many that disrespects natural law and the rights of others, and even goes so far as to target law enforcement as a "problem". I don't believe you can effectively address the situation without addressing BOTH forms of societal corruption.
4. I think this is hyperbole, but I think the true answer again lies in culture. There must be first a respect for natural rights - life, property, etc. from all sides. Remember, police are a reactionary force comprised of normal people with specialized training. If their training teaches them to be paranoid, we will continue to see these unfortunate types of incidents. If their training is to treat every encounter like combat, that's just plain wrong. The police should be treating citizens as friends and neighbors - not as potential criminals.
Just my two cents.
1. You are arguing from "respect for the law." I believe that only natural law deserves such reflexive respect. I also believe that police should have slightly fewer rights than ordinary people -- because courts should always be assuming that the civilian is innocent, not that the cop is innocent, even if the cop is the one on trial.
3. Agree with you on the "genuine thug sub-culture" but I believe it started out justified, as the same sort of reaction any minority group would have when they are constantly the subject of unfair attacks by police (and this has been true in the US pretty much since the end of Reconstruction; in fact the drug laws were written to persecute minorities). As things stand today, we've got to purge the police departments of their racists (in either direction), and the way to do that is accountability. I like the idea of privatizing police as a means to make them accountable, but there are other ways to do it; at a minimum they must be stripped of all legal immunity, and of their monopoly on the right to prosecute.
4. I don't buy any argument of the form "We must re-educate the population before trying to create a ___ society." Human nature doesn't change, most people will never change their views much (so huge swings of viewpoint only occur over generations of time), and most importantly, any form of society, whether open or closed, large or small, can only be stable if its supporters have both the means, and authority, to keep it in place. Thus if any of us think our particular versions of "Galt's Gulch" can be made stable, they should go ahead and create them somewhere. If one works, more of us will apply to join.
3. We'll agree to disagree here. I don't believe that one can simultaneously promote law and turn around and characterize law enforcement as discriminatory carte blanche. To me, that's a double standard - a contradiction. Is it possible for an entire police force to become corrupted? Yes. But to prejudge a law enforcement officer as being corrupt is no different than the law enforcement officer prejudging a citizen.
4. I point you to history. When our nation was founded, there was no such thing as a public education system. It took more than a hundred years before that was even contemplated, and then another forty or so (a generation) before enough people bought in to make it happen. Why did things change?
Look at slavery in the United States. It took nearly two centuries for that to finally be laid to rest - nearly 80 for it to become a hot-button political issue. Again, why did things change?
Human nature is a nature vs nurture question. What do the social scientists say? Our prisons are full of whom? Primarily young men who grew up without fathers. Education shows similar trends, as does propensity for employment. It is very clear that those who grow up with two parents - preferably educated parents - have a significant leg up on their peers. Why is this if not due to education? Now the numbers do not guarantee the outcome, either, which similarly debunks that education is everything. I think it far more in line with the evidence to recognize that there is most definitely an element of nature, but that education can temper that and provide for the rational mind a myriad of opportunities and critical thinking skills that are no doubt life-changing.
It seems to me that the underlying assumption is that there would be no Michael Browns in the Gulch. That sort of implies that the Gulch would be an exclusionary arrangement. The one AR described was by invitation only. How realistic is that?
What if the citizen the police is treating as a friend and a neighbor behaves as an aggressive, emotion fuming criminal?
I agree with you that our country is perceptibly deteriorating and I do not see a reasonable scheme to change back the slope of the line. On the other hand, it is not hard to believe that the whole world is on the same trend. What with some trying to brig us back to 1000+ year old arrangements, some others trying to emulate Stalin and Hitler, where do I find reasons for hope?
Pleas help me understand this better.
With sincere respect.
I would think that the real punishment would be expulsion from the Gulch. I suspect that there would be some lesser crimes that would not merit such an extreme sentence, but the book gives few clues on the actual structure and government, choosing to focus on the people instead. If a real Gulch ever materialized (see jbrennan's concepts), that is part of what has been vigorously debated, so I'm afraid if you are looking to me for positive answers, I can do nothing more than disappoint.
That being said, education is key to everything. We can not force people to choose one way or the other, but we can endeavor to educate them that they do actually have a choice. That must be the first step. People must first learn about the concepts of natural law, then make up their minds to obey them. Then they can be admitted into the Gulch.
Is there hope for society to change? I think there is already a strong undercurrent pushing in that direction that still remains a majority here in the United States. But we must engage them and help them to see that there is still hope and that America's fate is far from a foregone conclusion - the destination of socialism and ruin. The only way to combat despair is with hope, and that is where an alternative MUST be presented.
The initiation of force against an officer of the law is a crime and as such must be met with the required actions (in this case to protect the officer’s life).
The police are not perfect and some are quite corrupt, but the vast majority do do there duties in an honorable manner to protect us citizens. Question not mentioned in this string is: “how many officers of the law have been killed in the line of duty”?
But just for fun, Oklahoma has 3.8 million vs 330 million in the US giving a ratio of 86.84 times 109 = 9,466 and 3 times 86.84 = 260 over the same 3 year period of 2011 through 2013.
The other issue is that in fact, the officer is the one that initiated force, since he was the armed agent of the state.