When Hitler rose to power, one of his first tasks was nationalizing the police. Once he controlled the police, he controlled the citizens.
by Arthur R. Thompson
Most Americans do not realize that our system of government is an experiment — an experiment in liberty that no other government in the history of man can claim.
Our Founders gave us a system that limited government, not the people. This fact is rarely acknowledged in the schools or halls of government today.
Our system was based on the idea that government must protect God-given rights, not that government gives us those rights. The Declaration of Independence tells us that our rights come from God. It states that all men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
This must be acknowledged; if we do not understand the correct remedies to the violence and problems that we see in our streets today, we are in serious danger of losing our liberties.
When our country was founded, we did not have police. Generally, the people were more moral and what problems existed could be handled by sheriffs. Over time, cities expanded and the population grew with increasing numbers of immigrants who did not have the moral, religious base of the Americans who framed our government — this is when police forces began to be established.
The advent of police departments continued in the American tradition of local government being closer to the people; therefore, the departments were established by local governments and only beholden to the local citizens through their representatives (elected to local councils, not outside authority). This system prevailed without a thought of it being otherwise until the mid-twentieth century.
This system was and is different than any other nations’ on earth. No other country exists that has a completely local system of police enforcement.
There is a reason for this. Since our country limited government to preserve the liberty of the people by constitutional guarantees, it in turn did the same with local police.
The opposite of liberty is where the government has all of the power and in every instance this power is manifested through national police forces.
Since we know that the American system limits the power that government can legitimately assume, it should come as no surprise that we do not have a national police force.
Nor should it be a surprise that every other nation has some form of national police, because they are not founded on the premise of liberty for the people but simply argue over how much power the government should have over the people. This varies from moderate power to total power, as in the case of communist governments.
National systems of police are used as much to control the people as they are used to maintain law and order.
There is an essential ingredient to law and order: justice. A system that does not include justice is a system that controls the people. There was plenty of law and order in the USSR and Nazi Germany, but was there justice?
Since what we see happening in the streets is obviously being coordinated by communist cadres (at least it’s obvious to the truly observant), then we have to ask the question as to why these cadres — who support a totalitarian form of government — want to be free of local police authority.
But there is a method to their madness, even if the street goons do not realize what it is and are being used by those at the top, who do realize what the end game is to achieve their agenda.
The violence in the streets is designed to spur the people into wanting — even demanding — law and order at any price.
Outside agitators come into town and either augment local demonstrations or become the total force in the streets. Local citizens may not even be involved, but the rhetoric and “show business” of the violence is made to look as if it is completely local. The mass number of demonstrators often overwhelms the local police and gives the impression that they can’t handle it. Sometimes we see local municipal government officials ordering the police to stand down; this seems inexplicable to us and oftentimes makes the problem far worse.
In any case, the citizens begin to want assistance from outside to help their local police. The local officials also start to request federal help in quelling a condition they helped create.
If the problem occurs over and over again, with the inclusion of federal intervention, the local citizens get used to the idea of federal law rather than local law. Soon this translates into a more permanent arrangement.
It is not unusual to see self-appointed radical leaders of the “people” calling for federal intervention and expressing their desire to see the local police become only a local unit of a federal system.
These leaders will even accuse the local police of misconduct in order to call for federal intervention — doing anything and everything to attain their goal of more and more federal control over the police.
If the local government is also pushing this agenda, it is wise to take a look at the local leaders, as to what their motivation is. There are some cities that are obviously run by leftists. There is a connection between the street agitators and their local officials, with the police caught in the middle.
No one is asking for the local government to be run by the feds, they only want the local police to be run by the feds.
Those who wish to rule know they can do it if they control the police. They don’t need much more than that because in the long run, none of the other checks and balances of American government will matter.
Once Hitler nationalized the German police, he began his dictatorship. This has been the case with every totalitarian regime, and this is the stark reality of what the Left wants in the United States.
Nationalization of the police can initially appear to be benign and may even be advocated in good faith simply to return law and order to the streets. But as with anything in regard to government, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Using federal assistance and equipment to augment local police departments can be very subtle. Yet this aid comes with strings attached and a growing reliance on the federal government as the “local” solution to problems.
We have been seeing a gradual moving away from the Constitution in the actions of the federal government for some time. Federal authorities even think that they already have certain jurisdiction over local law enforcement just by their existence. They do not, but few local departments stand up to them coming in and taking over certain activities.
Over time, a national police force would become more and more distant from the people. Local police are local people. They usually have grown up in the community and know the people. A national police force would become similar to the army, in that if one wants advancement, one must move to a different community. Over time, this aspect alone will create a separation between the people and the police, and create a “them and us” attitude.
The “them vs. us” attitude already exists to a certain extent in some cities, as the street cadres and so-called “community action” organizations are constantly creating it in the minds of their local neighborhoods. This works against the police receiving the cooperation of local citizens in solving and preventing crime.
Organizations exist that are trying to overcome this attitude, but few of them know the strategy behind what they see as the problem. Since they do not understand the whole picture, they sometimes advocate the wrong solutions. This is not the case with the Support Your Local Police and Keep Them Independent committees.
Solutions to any problems that involve local police must be implemented as much as possible by local remedies, free from the encroachment of federal authority.
Many people cannot see what lies ahead when they seek solutions to immediate problems. This is what gets some businesses in trouble, just as it gets teenagers in trouble. They do not think of the long term, only the immediate.
We understand the desire for law and order, but local citizens should do all they can to ensure that their local police and local government realize the true nature of the problem being created across the country by leftist cadres and act accordingly.
The mantra should be Support Your Local Police and Keep Them Independent. One of the ways to do this is to promote continued support for the Law Enforcement Charitable Foundation and its work.