Source: Facebook

ON THE MATTER OF AMERICAN POLICE

There are a number of serious problems with current legislation:

1) The production of stress and vulnerability:

The use of single officers in patrol cars, rather than pairs or more of officers of different ranks patrolling together. The consequence is more violence because officers are under greater stress, because they are under greater risk. If you travel the world the idea of a single police officer is …. ridiculous.

Partly because of this our officers are taught significantly more about restraining individuals quickly and harshly, and using weapons aggressively, whereas in the rest of the world they are taught to use numbers and time to de-escalate, and not manhandle the citizenry – which creates the resentment. Just the fact of having six to ten men around you when you’re afraid and angry tends to reduce resentment.

2) Escalation of Charges bot by Police and By Prosecutors (Lying)

Let’s be honest. Cops lie all the time. The reason being that they are not allowed to err. The reason cops must fear error is that we expect too much from human beings who are too often too vulnerable, operating under stress, and having to make snap judgements, using training that accelerates violence rather than de-escalates.

3) Training and Trust

The failure to train citizens of all ages to submit to arrest (big, big, big problem) and trust the system. The only remedy to this problem is to reduce the stress of the suspect such that he is somehow rewarded for complicity and somehow punished for resistance. This whole ‘throw people to the ground’ has gotten out of hand. So the problem is we no longer reward people for telling the truth, and no longer reward people for not resisting arrest. And we no longer take the deescalation time such that they will tell the truth and resist arrest, and we do so because officers are too vulnerable acting in small numbers.

4) The Production of Police vs Citizen Stress and Anger:

The law is also no longer limited to simple rules that reinforce natural law, but put citizens and officers in conditions of opposition, and misunderstanding. The truth is that legislative law is incomprehensible, where as reciprocity (natural law) is both intuitive and comprehensible – and is largely how our courts adjudicate offenses. Most law just empowers the officers and prosecutors to intervene, whereas most adjudication simply looks into reciprocity (rights).

5) The Production of Social and Political Stress and Anger:

Why? Our current laws cause conflcit because they do not allow us to act in our interests in defense of our lives, family, property, status, honor, reputation, and family roles – much less our businesses, and even less our norms traditions, laws, and institutions. This change began with the civil war and continues for the same reasons: voluntary disassociation and defense of social as well as personal investment is necessary if for no other reason that the combination of proximity and inequality damages both groups which rely on signaling for happiness , friendship, mating, family preservation, and economic and political order.