To Protect and Serve?

[sgtmac_46]

I just want to thank the members here, professional and otherwise, for their input into this. What has come out of my OP has been much better than I hoped, particularly as I was filled with late night 'righteous indignation' at what I had just seen and truly did not think things through.

Yes, I was tired (it was the early hours again for me), yes I was in pain (I'm off work with a kidney infection (not fun)) but you would have thought that I would have been clear headed enough to realise that if someone is filming something in an official capacity they're not going to be doing something heinously illegal.

I reacted with my emotions, not my head .

In a minor defence of myself, you chaps really need to get a handle on what passes for television journalism in your country. Those clips that I first saw and responded to were really misleading. That wasn't news reporting; it was sensationalism and it was guaranteed to promote ill-feeling towards the police force.

Given that policing can only occur effectively with the consent of the general population, such reporting is not helpful. Excesses need to uncovered and dealt with most certainly but turning the police into the 'enemy' helps noone. If I, briefly, 'assisted' in that, my apologies.

Welcome to the media we deal with every day......objective truth takes a far distant second to ratings!

 

[sgtmac_46]

This sentence reflects strongly Sir Robert Peel's thinking about policing. And there is a large amount of truth to it. However, despite our common heritage, there are significant differences culturally between the US and the UK. There are things that you accept which no "American" would stand for -- and things we tolerate that you would be up in arms over. Fortunately, there's room in this world for both!

That is a profoundly true statement....on the one hand, knowing that we are an inherently violent society, or as D.H. Lawrence said

"The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted." -D.H. Lawrence

Knowing that, we understand that any police that police such a free society must be of the sort that share that sort of soul...having the ability to meet violence with better violence.....we accept that as the British society wouldn't.

Conversely part of that hard, isolate and stoic character is a rugged individualism....we can accept the violence, but we would never accept some aspect of British society....for example, most Americans find the notion of surveillance cameras spaced around the cities as repugnant to our sense of individual liberty.

 

[sgtmac_46]

Excellent comments all through there, especially that last which is a very good point indeed, Angel. I confess that to some extent I fall into the same trap of mis-thinking too.

I can distinguish the gulf between rural and urban policing but being so used to a homogenous legal system it still fazes me a little that laws and procedures can vary quite markedly from State to State.

While we have a federal constitution that all state laws are subordinate to, we have, what in practice are 50 almost separate countries, each with their own Constitutions and laws.

Further, laws as a practical matter are enforced largely on the local and state level.

 

[MA-Caver]

While we have a federal constitution that all state laws are subordinate to, we have, what in practice are 50 almost separate countries, each with their own Constitutions and laws.

Further, laws as a practical matter are enforced largely on the local and state level.

50 separate countries?? Umm... if that were the case then we'd all need passports... or is that what our drivers licenses are in effect?

 

[Sukerkin]

, I think it's a reasonable enough analogy for the point Caver.

It's certainly the 'mental map' which I first thought of when trying to get across to myself the difference between a County in England and a State in America. Very much akin to how the countries in the European Union function really (we don't need passports to travel between them (mind you, I might have to check to see if that is still true)).

 

[jks9199]

It's important to note that we are the United States of America. A careful reading of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, along with the Articles of Confederation, will lead to the realization that the Founding Fathers did, in many ways, view each state as an almost independent nation, joining with the others only enough to facilitate certain key principles. The growth and power of the Federal government really began with the Civil War, and expanded greatly during the 20th Century. Think about it; in the 1790s you had 13 colonies, loosely joined by historical ties to England, in an era where communication between each state took days or weeks... if not months. A fundamental issue in the American Revolution was too much control imposed by the national government. It's no big surprise, therefore, that our system places much of the power at the state level.

Essentially, an underlying principle of the early US govermental formula was that the government that had the most influence on the person was the one that they had the most influence over -- subject to some common limitations and boundaries on any government.

 

[sgtmac_46]

50 separate countries?? Umm... if that were the case then we'd all need passports... or is that what our drivers licenses are in effect?

You don't have a United States drivers license now do you?

The notion of a single country is more or less a concept that has only become universal post-civil war....prior to that many folks considered themselves citizens of their states first.

Each state is still considered a seperate soverignty from the federal government.....each has an executive, judicial and legislative branch, each has to the power to make it's own laws, enforce it's own laws and judge it's own laws.