Well ATS its time to start acting like grownups again...
To love... or to hate... the Police... That is NOT the question!
Over the course of the last few months ATS has been flooded with threads about how our police have been blatantly abusing their authoritative
powers.
I might take flak for the following comment but here goes... Police are only doing the jobs we have enabled them to. The argument here on ATS as well
as other online forums and even IRL (In Real Life) political events should not be whether police are criminals and abusers. (They are without a
doubt.)
The questions should be:
How have we confused the meaning of the law?
Do police even know the difference?
What important lessons need to be learned before we can change the standards?
How can we enable change?
In the following thread I will present to ATS and the online community in general in the plainest possible terms why I believe what I believe. I will
try my hardest to leave my background in professional law out of it as to not confuse people.
How have we confused the meaning of the law?
The answer is simple, deception. While that statement in and of itself does little to explain the confusion it helps form a basis of understanding of
why we are confused as to the meanings of law.
It takes little critical thinking skills to figure out why it would be in the best interests of powerful men to deceive the average man and woman into
confusing the law with that of a legal system. Obviously control of man and the resources of the planet come to mind.
Pretty much everyone knows 3 things about the law.
1. Ignorance is no excuse.
2. It costs lots of money to be a lawyer.
3. Lawyers get paid lots of money.
In court your opinion counts for nothing, on the other hand if you are a judge or an attorney your opinion can mean the world. We accept this as
apparently these people are the professionals. They have after all been trained in the law. When we look back and consider the path a person is
required to walk to become a lawyer it is easy to see how abuse could run rampant.
To attend law school:
You must be in the upper 10-15% of your university class in terms of grading. You must pay obscene amounts of money to a law school to join. Your
education will take the better part of 4 years.
To interpret (practice) law:
You must have attended an accredited law school, swear an oath to your local law society (?!), and pay fees to said society.
This power structure is not hard to understand, only the smartest, most wealthy are able to join the club then they are taught how to think by the top
members of the society, so to speak. An elite few by definition.
In court a judge will have no problem looking you in the eye and saying. "IGNORANCE OF THE LAW IS NO EXCUSE!" As a matter of fact he is right.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse for anyone. Frédéric Bastiat said it better than I.
The Law -- Frédéric Bastiat
What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life,
and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension
of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person,
his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights
constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force
that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus,
since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same
reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will
dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force
to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the
organized combination of the individual forces?
If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the
substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right
to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.
Can you see the difference now between the law and a legal system? This is the source of confusion for many people. They have been lead to believe
that the legal system is in fact the law.
The Law contemplates the spirit of the law and is embodied in the moral and ethical consideration of rendering unto each man his due. Legal is the
'form of the law' and merely means that it is written down someplace. It is quite possible for something to be "legal" and still be totally
unlawful.
Do police even know the difference?
Obviously not. As we see on ATS police will quote a statute then defend their actions on that statute until their dying breath. Is this so hard for
all of us non police officers to understand? Not really. I mean when we put ourselves in their shoes we can understand that they are only doing what
they have been taught and justifying their jobs. Almost everyone I know will justify their job. Police are no different. Many are as fed up as the
average person, some even more so.
If we use the current case of Emily Good as an example here. If the video she was filming made itself public without her arrest the officer more
likely than not would be facing disciplinary actions at work. The reason being he has a job to do. That job is to enforce the legal system. Not
provide lawful justice. The public as a whole is as confused as police in this regard. The public honestly believe the police are meant to enforce
law.
Law does not need to be enforced. Only justice need be administered. Not the job of police, they tell us this on ATS everyday.
What important lessons need to be learned before we can change the standards?
The first would be that the job of police is to not enforce law. The job of police is to enforce the acts and statutes of a legal system.
The law and the legal system are no longer one and the same. Sure it started out that way but not any longer.
We must shed the confusion of the terms law, legal, society and government.
Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time
we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education.
Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all.
We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us
of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.
How can we enable change?
By doing what we are doing now. By shining a spot light on every single abuse of the law we can find. Unfortunately police are the front line force
used by the powerful elite to protect the existing power structures. So we are going to find that police are going to be the front line abusers of law
as well. But the idea is to not blame them for the abuse of the system itself, only hold them accountable for their own actions so they can set an
example for their fellow officers.
We can clearly see on ATS the winds of change are blowing. If the attitudes of this website are any indication people just want to be left alone
unless they specifically ask for help. As long as they are not hurting anyone (breaking the law) I don't see any problems with this.
-Lightrule