G20, police behaviour and the ‘split’ on the ‘right’: part 2

July 8, 2010 — xanthippa

In part 1, I pointed out that increasingly, the police have been given two goals which are not always congruent:  that of ‘maintaining public order’ and of ‘upholding the laws’.  And, increasingly (in ‘the West’), the police have been choosing to ‘maintain public peace’ – even at times breaking laws themselves in the process, instead of upholding them.

This has become very clear during the G8/G20 circus downtown Toronto.

Not only were the police given extraordinary powers to ‘maintain public order’ within the designated, fenced-off area, they had usurped even greater powers for themselves.  I use the term ‘usurped’ advisedly, because that is what they did.  The police chief admitted he had intentionally lied about what the powers police had been granted were.

Bill Blair’s justification of the lie is telling: ‘I was trying to keep the criminals out.’

It would appear that in this Police Chief’s view, all the people on the streets of Toronto were to be treated like criminals, until proven otherwise – may be!  Perhaps Chief Blair thought that he was on a crusade:  ‘Arrest them all – God will know his own!’  The police officers under Blair’s command certainly appeared to behave as if they took this adage to their hearts, as they often exercised powers never lawfully granted them – even going well past the police chief’s unlawful claims. (I will return to this later)

Following the ‘event’, the police continued to lie to the public!

The reason for this seems clear:  the evidence of police misconduct had been published and publicized, so the police attempted to magnify the ‘perceived threat’ in order to justify their conduct.  By displaying ‘confiscated weapons’ (some of which were toys – taken from a gamer who made them safe for kids to play with) and lying about what they were and where/how they were ‘confiscated’, the police hoped to portray the ‘protesters’ as a bunch of lawless anarchist thugs who were a threat to every decent human being.  Once this effort succeeded (as it mostly did), they could then dismiss any person who criticized their conduct by tarring her/him with the same brush.

That is a dangerous precedent!

First of all, it is not safe for anyone – law breaker as well as each and every law abiding citizen – to live in a society where the police arbitrarily usurp powers onto themselves and use threats, intimidation, arrests and, yes, violence, while exercising these usurped powers!

Whatever you think about the G8/G20 Toronto thing, just think about the implications of that!

We would live in a society where police are permitted to make the rules ‘on the go’ – and get rid of (through intimidation or arrest) anyone whom they perceive as challenging them…

If you think this is impossible in Canada (or another Western democracy), think again:  a few years ago, a study of downtown Vancouver policing practices documented searches, intimidation and various forms of detention of individuals on the fringes of society (least credible victims…) took place without any official records of the events – without these records, no effective legal action could be taken against the police officers.

Yes, the police were in a difficult situation.  Still…

While the evidence is very circumstantial, the police behaviour captured on video does suggest that at least some of the ‘violent protesters’ were indeed agent provocateurs – a tool which the police in Canada are known to have employed in past protests. (It evens appears that, prior to the G20, a Toronto Police representative was asked directly whether the police will be using agent provocateurs – only to be told that they are unwilling to reveal that type of information.)

I do not wish to get hung up on this agent provocateur thing.  The charges that the police utilized them have been made – along with claims that the worst of the violence and destruction was not committed by the protesters, but rather by the police agents themselves.  While I have seen some circumstantial evidence that lends credence to these claims, I am not yet convinced either way.

Why do I even raise the issue?

The police are in a unique position in our society.  In order to do their job – and do it right – they need people to trust them.  This trust is not a trivial thing – it must be earned, over and over.  Yet, having seen so many videos of police misconduct, having read so many reports of it, I fear this trust has been seriously compromised.

Do I believe all the charges against the police?

No, I don’t.  A few fake videos, perhaps.  A few trumped up charges – I’m willing to entertain that they are not as accurate as the ‘victims’ claim.

But some of the charges of misconduct come from sources I consider reputable (I know some of these people personally and they have earned my trust through their past behaviour).

Yet, I would like to give the police the benefit of the doubt.  And… had the police not been caught in so many lies, it would be easier to believe them…

Even if we completely set aside the issue of the agent provocateurs, there are serious problems with the police failing to enforce the law!  There are numerous videos (including some I linked above) where the police witness violent or destructive behaviour by specific individuals – yet do nothing to stop it by arresting, or even interrupting, the law-breakers!

That is not right.  It is abdication of their duty at best –  actively aiding the law-breakers at worst.

Even if there had not been an ‘over-reaction’ by the police on the Sunday and Monday (the arbitrary-seeming arrests of close to a thousand innocent people as well as all the other reported abuses of their powers), the police behaviour on Saturday, their failure to act and to apply the laws (which, according to some sources, came as ‘an order from above’) would be sufficient to shake the public trust in the police.

Sorry – I truly am sorry that this is so –  but that is the truth!

Oh – and as for labeling all the protesters as violent anarchists, who break the laws and have no respect for private property or the businesses along the protest route:  watch this and weep!  Not all protesters condoned lawless behaviour.  Some protested, hoping to talk sense into the violent thugs in their midst.  Others, like this guy, did more to stop lawless behaviour than the police did!

(Continued in ‘Part 3’)

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G20, police behaviour and the ‘split’ on the ‘right’: part 1

July 7, 2010 — xanthippa

All right – this is a difficult issue to tackle.  Still, it is an important one.  So, if I go off on a tangent – please, comment and re-focus me!

The G8/G20 event cost over 1 Billion dollars in ‘security’ costs.  Many people complained – yet, though I thought the figure high, I did not complain because I thought that if the people in positions to know thought the security costs were that hight, I was unwilling to double-guess them.  In no way ought this event have been turned into a showcase for ‘unlawful people’ – if that was going to be the cost of upholding the rule of law, I was willing to pay the bill and not grumble (too much).

I am, if such a thing can be said to exist, a ‘pro-law libertarian’:  it is my deeply held conviction that it is only through the rule of law that our rights can be respected and our liberties can be exercised.

I take a poor view of each and every individual who breaks the laws – even ‘bad laws’ (two ‘wrongs’ do not make a ‘right’), provided citizens have a recourse through their ability to lobby to change or otherwise get rid of ‘bad laws’.  Even living in a totalitarian state, (though young) I thought that leaving everything behind and running away (not so bravely) was preferable to taking the law into my own hands:  it would take a lot, including absence of any other course of action, to get me to break the laws or to condone others to do so.

Having explained my philosophical bend, I also ought to explain my attitude towards the police (and, yes, I am volunteering with the Ottawa police because I think cops ought to be ‘the good guys’).

Police officers occupy a very unique position in our society:  they are the ‘Agents of the State’ whom we entrust with upholding the rule of law in our society.  As such, they occupy a position of trust unlike those of most other people in society:  trust which has to be continuously earned by their behaviour, because the alternative is too terrible to contemplate.  (Yes – I still have the nightmares…)

Unfortunately, ‘the police’ have recently been entrusted with two completely different goals:  one is to ‘uphold the law’, the other is to ‘maintain order’.  These two tasks are not necessarily in ‘extreme’ opposition to each other – but neither are they completely congruous with each other, either!

Example (from the past – to keep the current tempers even):

A large number of militant anti-Israeli protesters sees an Israeli flag in the window of an apartment and threaten to break into the building to get rid of it (presumably looting, or at least ‘damaging’ the building in the process).  The police, ‘in order to maintain public order’, illegally enter the apartment and remove the ‘offensive’ flag in order to appease the mob which is threatening lawless violence.

These individual police officers chose to break the law, in order to ‘maintain public order’, instead of waiting for law-defying individuals to break the laws, then arresting them in order to uphold the laws of the land!

That is only one such example where the police chose to ‘maintain public peace’ rather than to ‘enforce the laws of the land’:  had they enforced the laws, they would have waited for individuals to damage the property, then and only then arrested these individual lawbreakers and brought them to justice.

We have also seen a parallel to this in Canada, when a lone pro-Israeli protester (not breaking any laws) faced a large number of anti-Israel protesters in Alberta:  the police threatened the lone, law-abiding, not-violence-threatening individual with arrest in order to ‘not provoke’ the violence-threatening (and thus law-breaking) mob because the law-abiding man’s ‘presence’ was a ‘provocation’ and thus a threat to ‘public order’.  (Sorry, I can’t find the link – if you can, please, do so in the comments:  yet, this is so common, most of us are aware of many parallel incidents!)

George Jonas (a fellow escapee from a totalitarian police state) phrases his observation of the role the  police in our society are increasingly choosing to play:

‘The only group exhibiting Canadian-style restraint was the police. They cast a calm eye on the pandemonium, took a balanced view and chose no sides between people trying to exercise their rights and bullies trying to prevent them.’

These occurrences are not isolated:  over and over, in much of the ‘free world’, we have seen police preferring to aid law-breakers (who are ‘difficult-to-handle’) in oppressing the population… instead of upholding the laws of the land.

Just consider the going-ons and race-based policing  in Caledonia!!!

So, how does this relate to the G8/G20 situation – and the ‘split’ on the ‘right’?

In how the people usually considered ‘little-c-conservatives’ perceive what happened and how we evaluate the role the police played…

Let me first get a few things off my mind:  it was idiotic to hold the G20 meeting in the middle of downtown of Canada’s largest city.  Ensuring the security of the participants was going to be a nightmare.  It was a situation where just about every possible outcome was going to draw serious – and ‘warranted’ – criticism.  In other words, it was likely to be a ‘no win’ situation…

The police who were entrusted with the task of providing security for this event were in an unenviable position:  ‘ensuring security’ necessarily put them into conflict with their primary role – that of ‘upholding the laws’!

Why?

Because ‘ensuring security’ meant the police were responsible for preventing any law-breaking which would result in ‘breeches of security’ at the summit.

However, the actual and proper role of the police is to uphold the laws:  this means that they are only permitted to intervene AFTER a law has been broken!

How can a person (or collection of persons) possibly prevent a crime – when they are, by law, permitted to intervene only after a crime has been committed?!?!?

(Continued in ‘Part 2’ and ‘Part 3’)

Posted in freedoms, opression, philosophy, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . 7 Comments »

Happy Independence Day!

July 4, 2010 — xanthippa

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‘Consensus-building’ and ‘leadership’

July 3, 2010 — xanthippa

From our schools to our media to our bureaucracies, every aspect of our society is so infested with Cultural Marxism that ‘Newspeak’ has seriously corrupted not just our language, but our very ability to think clearly.  We no longer even recognize it when we hear it.

One such example is the currently popular claim that ‘leadership’ requires one to be skilled at ‘consensus building’.

First, let’s look at the meaning of ‘leadership’ and what constitutes ‘a leader’:

‘Leadership’ is the ‘ability to lead’, fulfilling the role or function of a ‘leader’.

‘To lead’ means to ‘show way by going in advance’, ‘to guide’, ‘to direct’, ‘to inspire’.

So, whom do we, as a society, regard as the greatest leaders of all times?  I did a little bit of googling on this – please, do the same.  While the leaders ‘closest’ to us necessarily dominate our cultural memory, there were some names that consistently keep being mentioned, by educational sites, journalistic/populist opinion sites and discussion boards alike.

In no particular order, these are just some of these names that keep cropping up over and over when people discuss ‘great leaders’:

  • Martin Luther King Jr.
  • Elisabeth I of England
  • Gengis Khan
  • Epicurus
  • Alexander the Great
  • Ghandi
  • Margaret Thatcher
  • Golda Meir
  • George Washington
  • Cyrus the Great
  • Winston Churchill
  • Muhammad
  • Constantine
  • Samudragupta
  • Wu Ti
  • Ivan III
  • Napoleon
  • Thomas Jefferson
  • Abraham Lincoln
  • C. D. Howe
  • Ronald Reagan
  • Bismarck

So, how many of these were known as ‘consensus builders’?

If I may quote from ‘What is ‘Cultural Marxism’?’, a guest-post on this blog by CodeSlinger:

Another example is the concept of intersubjective rationality, developed by Habermas, which replaces the individual process of reaching a conclusion based on the objective criterion that it follows from valid reasoning and known facts, on the one hand, with the social process of establishing a consensus supported by the subjective criterion that the group feels good about it, on the other hand. In today’s schools, those who do the former are maligned for being judgmental and demanding, while those who do the latter are praised for being good team players.

‘Consensus’ literally means ‘coming together’ (con) ‘of feelings’ (senses, sentiments).  Dictionaries typically define ‘consensus’ as an opinion or position reached by a group as a whole.

In other words, ‘consensus building’ is a form of governance a group of people will resort to when it lacks ‘leadership’.

How does this translate into the political world?  We are constantly bombarded with the message that great political leaders ought to be skilled at ‘consensus building’…

Our ‘Western’ societies have built-in safeguard mechanisms to ensure that ‘governments’ remain accountable to the citizens who elect them.  Perhaps the most important single element in this mechanism is that our elected bodies are based on the adversarial principle.

It is precisely because the political adversaries of those who propose a particular policy or course of action bring public scrutiny to it by publicly pointing out the flaws or shortcomings of this proposal that the issue is brought to public attention and thoroughly examined.  It is certainly not a pleasant process (nor is it meant to be pleasant), but it is one through which at least some light is shed onto what is being proposed – in as much detail as possible – and which engages the electorate in the debate (at least a little bit).

This is the method through which, in our system, we the citizens keep our elected politician accountable to us.  It is therefore important that we do nothing which would minimize this process!

What would happen if, before proposing a new law or introducing a new project, the head of the group that is proposing it went to all the elected representatives and put just enough of an ‘incentive’ into the proposal for each an every one of the representatives to not want to loose that ‘carrot’?

Certainly, any such project would be significantly costlier, because in addition to the core cost, it would now have to also bear the cost of a ‘carrot’ for each of the elected representatives – the bit that got them to ‘go along’ with it.

Of course, any such law or rule would be significantly more convoluted because it would now have to accommodate/fulfill/have exemptions for/’bundle in’ all the ‘carrots’  for each of the elected representatives – the ‘incentives’ that would be built in to it to ‘facilitate the building of the consensus’.

Every ‘quid’ would have a ‘quo’.

All policy would be shaped by back-room deals, where ‘consensus builders’ would be busy building ‘accommodations’ and ‘incentives’ into everything that would placate or mollify any potential dissent….among the elected representatives.

Once this process was done, the product would be presented to the public as a ‘done deal’.  I imagine the ‘dialog’ with the electorate would go something like this:

We have worked it all out, the proposal is so awesome that we all agree on it!

What?  You want to see the details?

Why?

We, your elected representatives all agree on this so this must the best course of action.  We have examined it in detailed and built a consensus – you needn’t worry your pretty little heads about it!

What?  You don’t like it?  You want to vote us out?

And replace us with whom?  EVERYONE agrees with this!

In other words, if there is a consensus among our elected representatives on a proposed course of action, if each and every one of them considers it in his or her best interest to proceed with it as is, it is very unlikely that the voters, the citizens, will have any opportunity to learn much about it before it is implemented.  There is another word for this type of ‘consensus’:  collusion!

In an environment like this, an environment of back-room-deals and political collusion, where there is little controversy which leads to public debate or scrutiny of proposed policies, corruption can be very easily hidden.

In my never-humble-opinion, ‘consensus-building’ among elected representatives is not just anathema to responsible government and an abdication of leadership, it is an active attempt to corrupt our governance structures and eliminate accountability of elected officials to the citizenry.

I would even go further than that:  politicians who tout governing through ‘consensus-building’ are openly admitting they intend to rule through corruption!

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Happy Dominion Day!

July 1, 2010 — xanthippa



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