There have long been two types of police force. 1. what we might call "democratic police" to protect the demos, the people, from the law-breakers, and 2. what we should call "political police", to protect governments from their people.
Democratic police. Political police.
In the increasingly divided societies we are seeing in the daily news this century (Syria, Egypt, America, are examples), the second function - protecting the government from the people - sometimes looks like the more important one
Governments representing a minority set of their people have gained power and claimed the "mandate" to implement a program representing only their minority constituency. Examples are the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Harper Conservatives in Canada, and possibly a deeply divided America after the current election. This is not democracy.
Such regimes are prone to expanding their Type 2 police power.
But figures from the US also tell of the rise of a third kind of police - police who are hired by private individuals and corporations to protect them, presumably from both governments and people. These private or contract police now outnumber public police in America.
We are not surprised, believing as The Cogs Blog does, that power draws money, and money buys power, and power draws...
power
money
The most significant division in many nations and across the globe today is the division between the rich ("the 1%") and the rest of the eight billion earthlings. A recent column by an investment commentator, using not the 1%, but the .01%, for the very, very rich, observed that "the billionaires are now drawing their wealth from the millionaires."
Seems like the wealth distribution is so lop-sided that the great majority of mere "people" aren't worth exploiting. But, of course, you still need your own police force to protect you from -- well, just in case.
(Pssst - an aware, enraged population, or a pesky tax-collecting government?
The columnist also noted that the current wealth inequity is now. greater than it was in 1929 (before the Crash). So?
But, let US conclude more brightly, with
"The Policemen's Song"
WHEN A FELON'S NOT ENGAGED IN HIS EMPLOYMENT (his employment)
OR MATURING HIS FELONIOUS LITTLE PLANS
(little plans)
HIS CAPACITY FOR INNOCENT ENJOYMENT
(-cent enjoyment)
IS JUST AS GREAT AS ANY HONEST MAN'S
(honest man's.)
OUR FEELINGS WE WITH DIFFICULTY SMOTHER
(-culty smother)
WHEN CONSTABULARY DUTY'S TO BE DONE
(to be done)
AH, TAKE ONE CONSIDERATION WITH ANOTHER
(with another)
A POLICEMAN'S LOT IS NOT A HAPPY ONE.
From The Pirates of Penzance W.S. Gilbert, 1879
for more verses go to lyricsplayground.com/alpha/p/policemanssong.shtmi
