In
order not to start this essay with a hard technical subject on a hard technical
note I will mention another news story in the headlines-the importation of
foreign dogs. Evidently there are vast puppy mills in China breeding teeming
millions for export to the U.S.A. Tragically a quarter of those young pups die
on the way to the U.S.A. where they might have led full lives growing to
adulthood. Even so we may ask, are American dogs so decimated by poly
chlorinated biphenyl’s, so effeminized by chemicals introduced to their
precious bodily fluids through water, owners so brainwashed by federal judicial
promotion of homosexuality that their fecundity levels have crashed low enough
that scarcity of young American dogs requires foreign pup imports for pooch aficionados?
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/08/16/hand-grenades-becoming-key-weapon-in-mexican-cartels-arsenals-say-authorities/
Of
all the stupid stories of globalism that of importing puppies to the U.S.A. might be at the top of the
list. If the cost of nationally produced American dogs is so high that it’s cheaper
to send pups to the U.S.A. from China, citizens could benefit from selling
there own mutts to the dog-hungry themselves. Probably the U.S.A. and even the U.N. ought
to ban the commercial trade in dogs altogether and let every dingo have its
day. Local evolution in dog varieties probably would be better and more
variegated with strict international bans on the trafficking of dogs. If
someone wants to adopt an international dog they should need to travel to that
foreign mill and get if for-themselves.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/16/us/missouri-teen-shooting/
Now
to the Ferguson story of the month- One
doesn’t want institutional terrorism defining the parameters of American
existence. Liberty from tyranny and
varieties of subtle social sedition are necessary requisites for the genius of
economic invention to act freely within a democratic society. Mobs within or
without government corrupt democracy and bring economic decay over time.
Community
crime organizers have received much support from technology in recent decades.
Flash mobs may be summoned with Twitter, global crime cartels might confer with
Skype, international and local drug liaisons may be directed with cellular
smart phones encrypted or not. Police summoned into dark, rainy nights to
moderate ugly crowds replete with hidden weapons ought not respond with the
equipment of Andy and Barney or naiveté
of Fred Flintstone.
It
is challenging to find rationale for the appearance of flash mobs in the street
as a first response to circumstances of potential excessive use of force by
police before lawful, rational and objective means of civil government review
are exhausted.
The
killing of an 18 year old black male in East St. Louis by a police officer is
another example of the 5 to 1 ratio of those killed by police to those police
killed. Most of the people killed by police are felons. If Michael Brown of Ferguson had actually perpetrated
an armed robbery that day of his death then he too was a felon though the
police officer didn’t know that. That is one of the difficult points that few
of the media have mentioned about police amid the calls for a kindler, gentler
method of police work; the police are encountering people that may be dangerous
felons who will try to kill them.
In
the course of virtually any other sort of government work in the U.S.A. the worker
does not have to interact blindly with a citizen not knowing if he or she is a
dangerous felon that will seek to kill them rather than be taken in to custody.
The felony edge in first-strike on the officer in order to escape is
significant. For the police officer a slowness of response or an overly
trusting nature could result in loss of their own life. That is why civilians
ought to cooperate with police officers as if they understood the risk the
police officer implicitly has in interacting with anyone.
Like
other government and non-government workers policemen probably don’t prefer to
be shoot or assaulted on the job, much less killed. Police unions and insurers
alone might prefer that policemen remain inside armored vehicles during night
mob gatherings rather than get out on the street in a line to confront angry
mobs were stones, bricks and bullets might be thrown.
Military
forces need to prepare for the next war rather than the last. Police forces to
exist on the edge of tomorrow with technology used by citizens surging ahead
along with media support to flank their capacity to defend a community from
organized crime. A civil police force is a highly disciplined paramilitary unit
with training in forensics, criminal organization systems analysis, infantry
tactics, crowd control, investigation, apprehension, interpersonal hand to hand
combat (in a time where youth may be revved up in wing chun, steroids, methamphetamines,
gangsta rap, UBC, Jackie Chan and Jet Li movies) etc. Being a modern policeman is
a challenging job. How many policemen encounter erratics from outside the
community or within that do not even speak their own language?
The
media sometimes believe that flash mobs are a civil rights affair and police a
brutal bunch of Democrat Bull Connors throwbacks. Plainly police forces need to
be racially inclusive rather than exclusive. Ferguson’s police force has only three
blacks amid fifty-five officers. A minimum number of blacks ought to have been twenty
since the community is preponderantly black. With such a stark racial line
there is an inevitable social and racial antagonistic us/them relationship that
develops macro-socially. That line should be effaced with the common knowledge
that the police department is not racially exclusive of anyone and that the
police work being done is for the security of the populous.
Police
forces face a number of sophisticated technological challenges that will only
increase in the decades ahead as the consumption of technology and
sophistication of software builds a permanent condition of clear and present
danger. It will be too simple to produce electronic machine guns operated by
cute little robots with face recognition, or for international criminal organizers
to infiltrate elements to stimulate politically explosive events. Volatility in
mass economic structures accelerated with media p.r. events may induce
cause-effect interpolations in order to shape things in an affirmative
direction for any given criminal cause.
Plainly
American citizens should pursue remedies other than the mob-in-the-street
approach encouraged by media and demagogues to address perceived unfair
political conditions. Politicians can set criteria for police departments that
are quite under civilian control. One must wonder if most of the flash-mobs of East St. Louis are registered voters.
One statistic said that something like 6% of Democrats actually voted in some
recent election. Perhaps it is more fun and profitable in Ferguson to riot and loot than to
vote.
If
one were to do statistical research into police shooting of civilians in-depth
the findings might be enlightening. I would guess that black policemen have
about the same number of shootings as white. A black felon resisting arrest
might not be happier about being arrested by a black officer than a white
officer. A black officer probably cares about staying alive as much as a white
officer and so might draw and shoot the suspect.
When
last I examined the F.B.I. crime statistics during the Trayvon Martin incident
as I recall there were about 50 policemen killed by felons annually, averaged
in recent years. About 250 black felons were killed by policemen. It is worth
remembering that T. Martin was not shot by a regular policeman as was Michael
Brown who standing in the middle of the road for some unknown reason where a
policeman found him before the fatal incident.
If
the record of black on black killings of Chicago has any value for
comparative analysis of police-civilian shootings it might be that black
policemen would shoot blacks as readily as whites. In either case neither would
be enthusiastic about shooting anyone because of the problems that follow if
for no other reason. If hiring more black policemen brought an increase in the
number of shootings of black felons and that brought a public call for the Andy
& Barneyfication of police forces instead of better arrest procedures of
deployment of better non-lethal weapons systems such as glue-guns and
spring-loaded sticky capture nets the ability of police forces to deal with emergent
globally-directed mob actions locally might be impinged.
