Conservative Support of the Police

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The early narrative by the Obama administration has been to play into the same narrative we may hear on the streets of our big cities, where an anti-authority attitude immediately questions the motives of law enforcement, exclaiming that "The Man" is trying to hold "them" down.  The first glaring example of the Obama White House taking a stance against law enforcement in order to create an opinion among Democrat Party minions to distrust law enforcement, and more specifically, white cops, emerged back in July of 2009 when President Barack Obama called the Cambridge Police Department "stupid."  Later, after an uproar by We the People over the President's idiotic remark, Obama figured he could get everyone to "just get along" over a couple of beers.  So, armed with his allegedly charming charisma, Obama declared he would host a "Suds Summit" with Professor Henry Louis Gates, the black professor involved in the situation Obama was targeting, and white Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley. 

The narrative that black America should stand against white members of law enforcement culminated in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri when the killing of a black teen by a white police officer set off a series of riots in that St. Louis area community, and a nationwide "hands up, don't shoot" movement emerged that also played into the liberal left narrative that white cops can't be trusted, and any law enforcement action against blacks by white cops must be racially motivated, regardless of the evidence that may say otherwise.

As the protesters burned down their own community, Democrats embraced the racially charged accusations against Darren Wilson and sided with the Ferguson rioters and their support of the fatally shot black teen, Michael Brown, while conservatives recognized the need to defend law enforcement and stand with our nation's police.  The same kind of confrontations happened in New York, Oakland, and various other communities around the country, where a division between Republicans and Democrats widened as the protests spread nationwide.

National Review Online writer A.J. Delgado says that there is nothing conservative about defending the police, and that it is time for conservatives to stop defending police.  He may have something there, to a point, but on the same token, it is also important for us to support our law enforcement personnel.

The reality is that our police forces across the country are becoming more and more militarized, and it is also true they are a part of a government system, and political group-think, that supports a tendency toward bigger government, which means they are a part of a system that will eventually use them as an enforcement arm of a police-state.  Law Enforcement personnel are government employees, making generous salaries with large pensions covered by the taxpayer (achieved by union strong arm tactics), while often times held above the law, sometimes internally investigated for things that as civilians we would spend prison time atoning for.  Rather than jail time, members of law enforcement are merely reassigned, and are rarely dismissed, for their sins.

However, despite the nature of the union influenced, and government associated, structure of law enforcement, conservatives have always served as stalwart defenders of police forces.  Why is it that people who fear too much power in government, and the potential of a police state, are so quick to defend the very agency that could become the enforcement arm of tyranny?

Writer Delgado, in the National Review article mentioned above, suggests that it is time for conservatives’ unconditional love affair with the police to end.  "Yes," he admits, "many police officers do heroic works and, yes, many are upstanding individuals who serve the community bravely and capably."

"But," Delgado continues, "respecting good police work means being willing to speak out against civil-liberties-breaking thugs who shrug their shoulders after brutalizing citizens."

Though Delgado is technically correct, there is a more deep-seated, and constitutional, reason conservatives tend to support law enforcement so readily.

Members of the police force should not be unaccountable for their actions, and we understand that cops are subject to their human nature just as the rest of us are.  But we are a nation that is supposed to be functioning under the rule of law, and to enforce the rule of law, it is necessary to have a police force, and other agencies associated with law enforcement.  The existence of law enforcement is much like the existence of the federal government... potentially tyrannical, but necessary to protect our rights, our freedom, and the union of sovereign States.  Without law enforcement, we become an anarchy.  With too strong of a police force, we become a tyrannical oligarchy.  The question is not whether or not we should be in support of our police, but if we are willing to recognize dangers that arise when they act in a manner that is potentially tyrannical.  We must protect ourselves from becoming a police state, but we must also keep law enforcement in place to ensure we remain a system under the rule of law, and not one that falls victim to the rule of man, and ultimately the chaos of mob-rule.  It's a balancing act, and we must be vigilant in standing with our law enforcement, but also challenging law enforcement when the police act in a manner that is contrary to protecting freedom, and our natural rights.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

It's Time for Conservatives to Stop Defending Police - National Review Online