Posted on 10/28/2002 5:59:51 PM PST by Michael2001
There is a myth of the policeman in modern America. From a very young age we are taught that the police are here to protect us, and "To serve and protect" is a motto common to many police forces across the country. Sadly, the reality is that the police are not in the protection business.
Despite the pretense, it has been confirmed in more than one court that not only do you not have a right to expect protection from the police, but they have no responsibility for your safety and security. Do you understand the significance of this? The police have no responsibility to protect you!
This is not to say that the police do not wish to protect everyone. I know a few policemen at the gym where I work out, and to a man they are fine and dedicated public servants, determined to do their best to protect society from the depredations of the criminal, the mad and the depraved. But they will be the first to tell you that they cannot be everywhere, that it is foolish to expect them to prevent anyone from committing whatever crime they desire.
The police are not there to protect. The police are there to pick up the pieces, to find the perpetrator and see that justice prevents him from doing it again.
Contrary to misleading media reports, self-defense has always been the optimal response, even for an unarmed, untrained woman. In a 1990 study, Kleck and Sayles found that when women were attacked by a would-be rapist, fighting back reduced the chance of the rape by 86 percent, and that most injuries occurred prior to any attempt at self-defense. Women armed with knives or guns were raped less than 1 percent of the time, and never ended up being made into a prisoner, or worse.
But unfortunately, the myth of the policeman – always a perilous foundation upon which to stand for those who accepted it – has become even more treacherous in this time of Islamic terror. Consider the difference between the responses of Flight 93, which was prepared to resist, and the other three flights hijacked on 9-11 which were not. The brave defenders of Flight 93 were not able to save their own lives, but their heroic sacrifice saved hundreds, perhaps thousands of others. They were not police, they were just everyday men and women, but they served and protected all the same.
Evil, you see, always depends upon the willingness of the good to suffer its existence. One of history's saddest lessons is how the ferocious, lion-hearted resistance shown in 1943 by the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto demonstrates how even the staggering evil of the Holocaust could have been mitigated, if not averted, by the victims' refusal to meekly accept their fate.
The evil of Islamic terror now stalks the Western world. The war in Iraq will not end it, and so every American must accept the fact that one day, he or she may be faced with a choice: to resist in awareness of the likelihood of immediate death, or to meekly accede in the hopes that someone else will step up to the plate.
Osama bin Laden and the jihadists are counting on the latter, that we of the rich, fat and decadent West are so complacent that we cannot even bother to defend ourselves. Our Islamic enemies think this of us, we the inheritors of "We few, we happy band of brothers ...", "Nuts" and "Don't Tread on Me!" They are wrong. They are so very wrong.
The 2nd Division of the United States Marine Corps has a motto: "Follow Me." This is deeply meaningful, in light of the statistic which showed that in World War II, units with the highest rate of junior-officer casualties tended to have the lowest overall casualty rates. The Marines already know what we must learn – risk brings the highest reward and only sacrifice provides safety.
When Ron Lantz phoned 911 to report a blue Chevy matching the description of the D.C. snipers' car, the police told him to stay where he was, to not get involved. Instead, he used his truck to park it in. In this least civilized of wars, men like Ron Lantz and Todd Beamer of Flight 93 must be our model.
No fear. Resist. Don't let them tread on you.
No surrender to thugs."
My sentiments exactly. No one is powerless if they have the means and will to resist.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Both in big things like the war on Al-Qaeda terror trying to destroy America and in small things like the war on drug-crazed thugs trying to steal money, we must all fight until our last breath.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.