There seems to be an awful lot of hue and cry, about the need for more law and order; which seems somewhat puzzling considering that the United States, alone amongst all those western nations of any real size and influence, arrests and incarcerates such an incredibly high percentage of its citizens. One would think that with so many of its citizens locked up, or on probation, or on parole, that the crime rates within this nation, would consequently be at all-time lows; but, in fact, despite all of the arrests and incarcerations, America stills has plenty of criminal activity, therefore signifying that America doesn’t seem to be on any sort of trajectory that would reduce such crime to a safe level, anytime soon.
For the most part, America concentrates upon private citizen crime, and pretty much neglects or even sustains public servant crime. For instance, law enforcement officers, are by definition, public servants of the state – sworn to protect and to uphold not only the law, but they also act to protect and to assure the safety of the citizens that they serve. To the degree, that law enforcement does that very thing, by providing a necessary service for the protection of the public, as well as by doing their vital part to see that miscreants and other crime breakers are dealt with in a way and manner in which justice will so be served, then indeed, those law enforcement personnel have provided a noble and dutiful service on behalf of the people. Yet, when those same law enforcement officers, take the law into their own hands, and when they themselves, break the law -- we so find, that the powers-to-be typically turn a blind eye to such, and consider that such behavior while not being encouraged, is at the same time, not being punished or constructively dealt with in any meaningful manner by the state, most of the time.
As it is written, the law in order to be respected and in order for that law to be valid, must not only be equally applied, but the substance of that law, must be uniformly applicable to all, without any exceptions to such. Yet, in America, we see those exceptions far too frequently; for when a man puts his boot upon a prone person’s neck, so that the person on the ground, cannot breathe, and thereby suffocates that person to death, or when a man reaches for his gun and fires indiscriminately against an unarmed man that poses no threat to him, whatsoever, or a man’s door is kicked in, and thereby robbed of his money and/or illicit drugs, or anytime a man who is not resisting, is assaulted to the degree that they are rendered unconscious and have serious bodily damage, we so do find that in many of these cases, all is just fine, for those that as our public servants have been designated as law enforcement officers, who apparently have been granted impunity to do whatever that they so desire to do, and thereby to render whatever “street justice” that they feel in the mood to do.
Those then, that cry the loudest for law and order, thereby need to be consistent to that cry, for murder is murder, assault is assault, and robbery is robbery; and until such a time that those doing so under the color of law, are dealt with in a way and manner that is consistent with the law, then the lawlessness that we see so much of, will continue to run amok.