When Oz Breaks Down
We like to think the laws we have and the men and women of law enforcement protect us from devolving into a world of anarchy and chaos.
However, like most things we’re conditioned to believe, this is nothing more than a carefully crafted and perilously maintained illusion. An illusion that every once in a while allows us a glimpse of reality. We got such a glimpse earlier this week.
Cordoba City is the second-largest city in Argentina with roughly 1.5 million residents. It is a wealthy, modern and industrialized city.
On Tuesday, as described by local media, the city became ‘virtually paralyzed’ by chaos, riots and looting the moment it was announced local police had gone on strike. Amid massive looting by armed gangs, businesses large and small including banks and supermarkets closed their doors while citizens huddled in fear. Buses and other public transportation were shut down early on Wednesday, with officials citing fear of riders being harmed or mugged. Streets and store fronts were trashed, dozens of people were injured and one person was killed. Only after extracting a 52% (!!) raise did the police agree to go back to work.
Effectively, in the absence of police protection a major city turned into a lawless, barbaric mess. All in less than 24-hours.
So how many cops are we talking about? Six thousand. In a city of 1.5 million people. That’s one cop for every 250 people.
To put it another way, 15,000 people is one percent of the population. More than twice the number of cops. Three percent of the population is 45,000 people. More than 7 times the number of cops.
So do you really think it’s the security the cops provide that keep the peace on a daily basis? Or is it really just the illusion of security that keeps the peace? And what if the people one day realized it was all just an illusion? Would we need all the laws and the cops then? Would they be of any use at that point? Would the world fall apart or would cull the truly evil and live in peace with the common law?
And what if something really bad caused the people to riot on a day when the cops WERE on the job? If it was 1% of the population rioting do you think the cops could stop them? What if it was 3% of the people? Do you think, after a couple of hours of realizing they were outnumbered 7 to 1 they might throw down their badges and guns and go home to protect their own families? Or might they not only do that but at the same time demand that the politicians extract a 100% raise out of the taxpayers? Or why not a 500% raise?
Folks, we can give up every bit of our freedoms in the name of security. We can spend every dollar we have hiring more cops, putting cameras on every street corner, launching drones across the sky, installing metal detectors in every doorway, manning checkpoints all over the place, and putting armored vehicles and automatic weapons in the hands of every local police department. Not to mention the billions of rounds of ammo and thousands of handguns, rifles, and shotguns stockpiled by the Department of Homeland Security, the Post Office, the IRS and the like. But really, all we’re doing is reinforcing a lie while having ever more of our tax dollars squandered and more importantly, our liberties crushed in exchange for an illusion that will fall apart at the first signs of real trouble as it did in Cordoba City.
Who says so? The United States Supreme Court says so. In case after case, the SCOTUS has upheld the opinion that the police have no duty or responsibility to protect you or your property. None, zilch, nada. They are there to protect society at large. But even as we’ve just seen in a modern city they can’t even do that.
And yet, the police in Cordoba still wrangled the politicians into increasing their pay by over 50%. Folks, in my opinion that’s exhortation of the public purse and trust driven by one thing: fear. No different than a 1940s-style mafia gangster (or his modern-day equivalent, the urban “gangsta”) demanding “protection money” from the people and businesses on the block they control.
So my question is: If all of these laws and the people we hire to enforce them provide nothing more than an illusion of security while at the same time we’ve been told by the highest court in the land they have no duty to protect us, then why do we need them at all? Are we not, in the end, truly on our own, responsible for our own security and protection? And, if that is the case, why in the world would we, as a people, ever want to give away ANY of our liberties in exchange for a lie?
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Young liberal: Hey old man, why do you carry a gun?
Old man: ‘Cause carrying a cop would be too heavy.
Young liberal: But isn’t that gun dangerous?
Old man: Damn right it’s dangerous. If it wasn’t, what good would it be?
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