 |
| New Haven protesters |
It’s never a good idea to burn down the house to catch a
mouse. But if those peddling such notions are serious, the great experiment
might begin individually with them.
It’s obvious that if you abolish police departments, there
will be no police to respond to situations in which criminals will be able to
prey, unobstructed, on helpless citizens. If you abolish those whose business
it is to uphold the law, you are inviting the jungle into your life. In such a
Hobbesian universe, the law of the jungle – always red in tooth and claw --
reigns supreme. Power, not justice, will then be the arbiter of destiny, which
is precisely what the social anarchists among us want. The only people at home
with anarchy are anarchists. Peaceful protesters in New Haven and other large
cities in Connecticut should ask themselves: in a structureless, anarchic
society, are civil protests possible? In the midst of anarchy, will civility
itself be a casualty of abolition and definancing?
The eternal optimists agitating for the abolition of police
departments may suppose this measure will not bruise their utopian paradise,
but then the optimists should be first to bear the risks of their absurd demands;
no one should be permitted to do unto others what they would not wish others to
do unto them.
This experiment in social justice can easily be tested on a
willing control group – namely, the social justice warriors themselves. Let
those who wish to abolish police departments or severely restrict the public
financing of police departments, which amounts in practice to the same thing,
submit their names and contact information to police stations in Connecticut so
that the service they deplore might be denied to them.
Should not the same principled protesters apply their
strictures equally to other departments of justice such as courts? In that
case, the invaluable listings might also be used to deny court service to, say,
protestors who had been hassled by the police or a landlord or other benighted
and hopelessly prejudiced people, such as the violent arsonists who set fire,
during a legitimate protest, to the basement of St. John’s Episcopal Church in
Washington DC, an historic structure within spitting distance of the White
House.
The abolitionists may object at this point – no, no, we NEED
courts to frustrate the designs of police who may harass us or landlords who
might wish to boot us to the curb without just cause.
But you cannot bring such people to court without some
police involvement. And if you abolish the police, there will be no one to
arrest such offenders. The disbanding or defunding of police departments is one
of those rough-sketch ideas that should never have made it off the drawing
boards.
The peaceful New Haven protesters unscrolled a list of “non-negotiable demands” that may have put Blumenthal and others in mind of the rambustious anti-war protests of the 60’s. Blumenthal spent some time during this period writing for the Harvard Crimson concerning the Black Panther trial in New Haven, struggling mightily to avoid being drafted to the rice patties of Vietnam, and much later, taking public bows as having served in the Vietnam war theater when, in fact, he was a marine detailed to Washington DC to distribute “Toys for Tots” and never saw service abroad. Caught with his thumb in the pie by the New York Times, Blumenthal quickly made himself unavailable for interviews until the storm clouds blew over. But for a vigilant New York Times reporter, the most media-petted politician in Connecticut might easily have had his cake and eaten it too on that occasion as well.
 |
| Blumenthal at New Haven protest |
Definancing police departments in Connecticut is abolition
by other means. The ubiquitous Blumenthal participated in a New Haven protest
in which definancing police stations in Connecticut was heavily supported by
organizers. So then, does Blumenthal support either the abolition of the New
Haven police department or its radical definancing? There’s the question, and
there’s the rub.
Former Democrat Vice President Biden, now unopposed in his
march to the White House, has answered both questions unambiguously. “The Joe
Biden campaign,” according to a piece in National
Review, “has announced [on June 8] its opposition to defunding police
departments in the wake of widespread George Floyd demonstrations, advocating
for reform measures and even additional funding instead.”
When Blumenthal appears on a campaign dais with Biden in Connecticut
– an occurrence as inevitable as the rising and setting of the sun -- will
the state's media pet, notorious for having his cake and eating it too, nod
assent to Biden’s campaign position on additional financing of city police
stations? And is there any reporter in Connecticut who can forbear petting the
man long enough to ask him the question – right now – and wait for an answer?
Comments