Militarized Policing?

Cops aren't the military.

I've been saying that for decades now. Policing, is vastly different paradigm than military action, even when it appears the same. The fundamental principles behind policing are and need to be, vastly different. What's so hard to understand about that for police?

We actually do not need a militarized police force. Not in equipment, certainly not in mentality and especially not in tactics in a civilian environment. Yes, it counter intuitively appears to be the same at times, though mostly by police on the front lines. That's understandable. But that is a misunderstanding both of need and of the design of policing itself.

Why are they there? Why this desire to militarize? To protect the police?

NO. They are there to protect the citizenry. WITHIN that paradigm, there is a need to protect police. However what we're seeing is the opposite far too often anymore. All because of a misalignment of reality between the process and purpose of To Serve and Protect, and that of the military. And a conservative desire to reuse old military equipment, so they give it to the police departments. Dress like a soldier, you begin to think like one.

It's the old psychosocial Stanford prison experiment, take a like group of students, separate them into guards and prisoners and within time, abuse starts to happen, an embattled mindset takes place and we have what we see now. Police and their enemies the public; citizens and their enemies, the police.

Even our citizens now want to militarize. What do you think the pro grun movement is all about? As we see police showing up militarized to public protests, so you see citizens arming up looking militarized too, simply out of protection.

David French, Columnist, (the conservative) National Review recently said:

"They're shown [police in training] video after video and told story after story about routine calls that immediately escalate into fatal encounters. This truth, however, sometimes leads to a deception, to a mindset that enhances the sense of risk way out of proportion to the actual threat."

That is, the truth, the statistics show, in reality, that most police \ citizen encounters are vastly non violent, and not fatal. But that is hard to tell some police who work in intense environments. They may indeed need special training. But they are the few, and they too need to understand that community policing is not military handling.

Even the military in urban environments in the Middle East have had to receive police training to deal with citizens. Because they are vastly different issues requiring an entirely different mindset. Asking soldiers to do this may be asking too much. But it is a new world.

Part of the police problem and the reason for their mindset is consistently abusive under funding. As we've seen with teachers in education. We abuse our citizen servants to the point of twisting their own realities around at times to near and utter dysfunction. Then we expect them to perform at a high degree and abuse them more when they do not.

And so we see illiterate and criminal activities from children and our police killing our kids. Even our kids killing our kids. But blaming them is missing the point of what is really going on. You cannot refuse to pay for services, then expect them to be functional services. It warps reality, mindsets, social structures, and an entire nation. That creeps over into our international relations, actions and support.

We are infecting the world with a bad way of thinking. and it all comes back to how we pay for our own needs and how we rationalize our own dysfunctions.

Jamelle Bouie (Afghanistan Vet), Columnist, Slate, recently:

"Trump is so vocal about what he likes and dislikes--so present in the national conversation--that his omissions are often more revealing than his comments. On the rare occasions when this president is silent, it is consistently when confronted with violence against nonwhites."

And let's face it, Putin, too. And women Trump has sexually used and\or abused.

Donald Trump has consistently been massively wrong about so very many things, so many facts, so much of our reality to the point that it's literally killing us and ruining our lives. He is ruining the reputation of America, he is altering our path in future endeavors that will take decades to get back on track.

But only he can save us, he tells us. Yet it's not just him, it is his entire Republican party in their ignorance and refusal to admit what they know to be right and true. It has bled out in things like the Drug War on American citizens. On immigration issues. On social programs. On protections Americans have paid for and are now told they don't deserve.

All because of mismanagement, poor political thinking and actions and believing in ignorant leaders who have sold us down the road for their own profit and that of their dysfunctional beliefs, party and supporters.

We can start to fix all of this, in small steps. Like policing America properly. Funding police, teachers, education overall, health and mental health care, properly. To see all Americans can have health care, education and that their country loves them and no longer sees them as an old Testament problem and as a cancer to be cut out, but as citizens who are part and parcel of this nation and are our best and only concern.


#Police #NRA #GOP #POTUS #realDonaldTrump #Teachers