Overkill (or, business as usual)

I remembering reading somewhere, and I can’t remember where, that there were riots in Paris when the police implemented house numbering. The citizens understood immediately that the greatest practical use would be for the police to keep better track of Parisians, and appropriately started digging chunks of stone out of the street to hurl at cops.

I also remember reading about the protests and confrontations that swept London in the nineteenth century when it was discovered that the London police were employing plainclothes officers. Londoners of the time wouldn’t easily submit to police officers spying on them.

Now, of course, the idea of protesting either of these seems ridiculous. Which isn’t so much an indication of the necessities of modern life as it is of how much we’re willing to give up in the way of individual freedom in the name of safety from hobgoblins.

At this point, we’ll willingly accept almost any violation of our civil rights that the police can dish out. Hell, they can kick in our doors, shoot our dogs, and try to take our children, and there won’t be a measure of protest worthy of the name. We willingly accept the fact that they’re training and arming themselves against us as a military force, and treating US citizens with all the consideration Iraqi civilians enjoy.

It reminds me of something that the poet Ed Dorn told me once. “Americans,” he said, “are a very tolerant people: they’ll put up with almost anything.” The more time that passes, the more true that statement seems. To even bother to talk about freedom seems more and more quaint by the year.

That’s one of the reasons I’ve been harping so much on this self-defense angle. There’s nothing I see in the papers, nor in my infrequent interactions with the police, to make me believe that their role is actually to protect or serve. Their role is to enforce the property rights of a monied few, and an arbitrary and idiotic legal code that criminalizes, well, everyone else.

In that context, taking responsibility for the defense of yourself and your family isn’t optional. That’s a big part of why I’ve been thinking about it so much. I can still count on the fire department to show up to my house if it catches on fire, which is nice. And I can also still count on an ambulance to make it by if needed, which is helpful.

But I have absolutely no confidence that the police will show up to do anything other than make my life a hell of a lot worse. As far as I can tell, that’s what they’re there for.