New York cops are engaged in an unofficial
strike, sending the number of arrests plummeting. Is mayhem around the corner? Timothy
Carney at the Washington Examiner argues that we overestimate the role of the police in preventing crime. I'd guess it depends on the neighborhood, how long the police have to withdraw enforcement before things go wild. For lots of people, the presence or absence of police has almost nothing to do with whether they're likely to steal or start shooting up the place. In other neighborhoods, it doesn't seem to take much to spur looting and drive-by shootings. I suspect we're about to collect a lot of interesting new data.
The huge and public split between the NYPD and the democratically elected government is the troubling part to me. The NYPD isn't just another neighborhood police force -- it's a Corps-sized element (nearly fifty thousand members) with an annual budget of nearly five billion dollars a year, substantial military equipment, and a substantial and well-funded intelligence section tied in with the CIA. Some commentators on the right have suggested the mayor should resign since he can't keep them on his side, but that sounds like madness to me. The mayor is elected to serve the needs of the whole of his constituency, not to be captured by the interest of an (admittedly powerful and well-armed) unelected bureaucracy.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of force is just what the Founders were worried about with their concerns about a standing army. Fortunately it's a problem restricted to a few large cities, but the idea that the elected government should step down simply because it lost the backing of the army is the stuff of 20th-century Latin American coups.
Fortunately it's a problem restricted to a few large cities, but the idea that the elected government should step down simply because it lost the backing of the army is the stuff of 20th-century Latin American coups.
ReplyDeleteWhy even take it seriously, though? I doubt many other people do. It's a hysterical demand, just like so many other hysterical demands these days: emotion-driven and pretty much devoid of common sense.
It's not as though the cops are planning a violent coup. Nor is it really a serious threat.
On collecting data, I wonder what the lag time is?
ReplyDeleteOn TV, any diminution in policing seems inevitably to lead to immediate public riots and crime sprees wherein The Penguin and The Joker take over Gotham City in about 15 minutes. But in real life I would expect a considerably more gradual reaction with far more lag time.
Why even take it seriously, though? I doubt many other people do.
ReplyDeleteWell, most people may not, but that's not a solid argument against it (rather, it's the argumentum ad populam). It seems like the sort of thing we might take seriously: New York is one of our most important cities, a kind of symbol of a certain vision of America (I sometimes say that we inherited from the WWII generation two basic visions of America -- the John Wayne America and the Frank Sinatra America -- of which this is the core of the latter). A split between the police and the democratically elected government to which they are supposed to report -- involving a refusal to abide by their oaths, for the purpose of making a political point -- seems like it might be troubling.
Of course, it could be that even in the worst case we could drive on. The mayor could fall, the NYPD succeed in creating a political storm such that he was unable to continue governing, and a new mayor might be able to establish a better relationship with them. But it would be a watershed moment, in a way: the government would be yielding to an allegedly subordinate force under arms in just the way that concerned the Founders.
De Blasio is a wannabe Che or Fidel. There's a lot more under the surface once you scratch it.
ReplyDeleteThe real impact here isn't really public order so much as public revenue. As my brother in law who lives in Queens said "Welcome to New York, here's a citation".
A huge amount of what the police had been doing was simply shaking down the populace for cash through all the tickets.
De Blasio is going to have to make some sort of obesiance to the police unions. Or he's a one term mayor. He probably *is* a one term mayor at this point.
I don't see this as anywhere even close to serious challenge to the mayor's power.
ReplyDeleteThe real impact here isn't really public order so much as public revenue. As my brother in law who lives in Queens said "Welcome to New York, here's a citation".
What De Blasio did was serious. It's not in any way acceptable to sanction protesters yelling, "What do we want? DEAD COPS". You may allow them to say it, but for him to describe that as a "peaceful protest" (these are the same folks who were all worried about the Tea Party's supposed 'violent rhetoric' leading to actual violence) is beyond the pale. That's an actual incitement to violence in plain English.
And the police are right to object to it. I don't even have a problem with them turning their backs. The work slowdown isn't right, I think, but it's also understandable. I don't condone it, but he deserves to be called out for his shameful behavior.
This is all posturing.
Yikes, Eric :p
ReplyDeleteI meant to actually respond to your comment, but then a shiny thing flew by and I got distracted...
There's an interesting article on broken windows policing in City Journal. I think the more crowded a city is, the more regulations and fines, etc. are needed to keep things humming along. I actually parented in a very similar fashion (keep watch over the small things consistently, every day so the boys got used to the idea that there are rules, and the big ones aren't so hard to enforce).
I realize that won't be a popular position (especially here), but it's very consistent with human nature and all these regulations don't create themselves. Generally they arise in response to complaints from We The People, who then ask the police to enforce them.
IOW, it's representative govt. at work. We can wish as we like that our fellow citizens didn't keep making so many rules, but the truth is that government is mostly us :p
Less crowded areas need fewer rules, and that makes perfect sense because there are fewer interactions between people and hence less conflict.
What De Blasio did was serious. It's not in any way acceptable to sanction protesters yelling, "What do we want? DEAD COPS".
ReplyDeleteI've seen this charge raised, but so far not in a way that suggests to me that De Blasio would personally have known what the protesters were shouting. I haven't been to a lot of protests -- they generally strike me as a waste of time -- but they tend to be and noisy. They also tend to have a kind of organization, usually by labor unions or others who are professional protesters. It's plausible to me that the part the mayor was at was told to be well-behaved, and the death shouts were being done out of his hearing to rile up the crowd.
Nothing I've yet seen in the press, at least, suggests otherwise. A couple of places have made the divide explicit.
...the more crowded a city is, the more regulations and fines, etc. are needed to keep things humming along. I actually parented in a very similar fashion...
ReplyDeleteI'm sure we've discussed this before, but it's one of our points of disagreement. I don't accept that the 'government as parenting' metaphor is or ought to be a valid way of thinking about government's proper role or function. It's just as bad whether we call such a government "paternalistic" or "maternalistic."
Parents are naturally older, and therefore more experienced and mature than their children. They are rightly placed with significant authority over their children because (a) the children need someone to lead them to avoid dangers they don't yet understand, and (b) the parents normally naturally love their children, making them good guardians because they will normally put the child's interests ahead even of their own.
It's not clear that any of that applies to relations between elected/appointed officials and citizens. The officials may not be wiser, more experienced, or better people; they may not have any natural devotion to the interests of the citizens. Generally citizens know better than officials what is right for them, not otherwise; generally officials tend to pursue their self-interest rather than putting citizens first.
You're reading way too much into my argument, Grim.
ReplyDeleteGovernment is also rightly placed into authority over individuals. It's not unquestionable or unlimited, but if that weren't so, it wouldn't work. The authority exists because without it, government wouldn't be able to protect the rights we've agreed it should protect.
Where you and I differ is that you consistently seem to suggest that there is really NO difference between the people we elect/appoint/empower with government duties and regular citizens.
And this makes very little sense to me:
Generally citizens know better than officials what is right for them, not otherwise;
Government is supposed to be about protecting certain rights from other citizens. Property rights, for instance. Whether criminals know what's "right for them" concerns me not one whit so long as they obey the laws society has agreed should be enforced. If every person wants a heckler's veto over laws they don't personally agree with, then civilization becomes impossible. I know you know that.
... generally officials tend to pursue their self-interest rather than putting citizens first.
...and this is based on what? Your personal opinion? That's a horrible thing to say, especially without some pretty good evidence to back it up.
I don't think it's a horrible thing to suggest that the parent/child relationship normally contains a kind of loving service that is absent in the state/citizen relationship. I think it's a noncontroversial claim, actually: some people don't love their children, but usually parents love their children enough to sacrifice for them at a much greater rate than is ordinary in human interactions that are not familial. To say that the analogy fails because the parent/child relationship is usually characterized by a loving self-sacrifice that is not likely to exist between bureaucrat or Congressman and citizen doesn't seem very strong at all to me.
ReplyDeleteWhat I have said is that there is no difference between policing and good citizenship, not that no offices differ from the office of the citizen. If you see someone stealing someone's purse, you should take some action to stop it -- shout, perhaps, to draw attention to the crime -- not just call the police and wait. If there is an accident, you should stop and render such assistance as you can -- not just call it in and drive on. If your neighbor's cow is stolen, you should keep you eyes open to see if you notice it in someone else's pasture, and if so you should take steps to ensure that the matter is brought before the courts for adjudication. The power of citizen's arrest is like the power of the police to arrest, and subject to the same limits. In Georgia (though not everywhere), the law governing use of deadly force to stop crimes makes no distinction between police and ordinary citizens: it has a single standard that applies to everyone. Etc.
The best police are full-time good citizens, in other words: they exercise the same powers, and in the same way, it's just that they're paid to be available to do it all the time whereas most of us have to devote a lot of our time to making a living.
But obviously that's not true for, say, the President: he has specific powers that differ from the ordinary powers of the citizen. I'm not supposed to appoint justices to the Supreme Court, even with the advice and consent of the Senate; I can't receive ambassadors; etc.
Grim, there's a HUGE different from saying that there's a loving kindness absent in citizen/government relations and saying that most government officials pursue their own self interest.
ReplyDeleteThe two statements are nothing alike.
And it seems contradictory at the very least to say that everyone should act just like the police. I'm not willing to have my next door neighbor pull me over for a traffic violation or alleged speeding. Major crimes? Sure. But there are a TON of lesser offenses that still cause real problems that ordinary citizens aren't trained to handle.
I'm glad you trust your fellow citizens that much, but I certainly don't :p Many of my fellow citizens are idiots.
Most of them don't even know who their elected reps are, much less know anything about the law. The idea that they're in any way qualified by training or any other mechanism to tell me what to do is downright offensive. My next door neighbor had to be told - REPEATEDLY - that it's illegal to let his 2 dogs crap in my yard every single day, and you want people like that policing other citizens?
I don't trust them one whit to put themselves into authority over me, and them doing so strikes me as a pretty good way to get punched right in the mouth :p
The parent-child metaphor for government-citizen is a common one, and it often makes complete sense: the parents are the ones with overall responsibility, while the kids are off pursuing largely self-centered ends with a narrow focus; the parents have been given some power over the kids for good reason; the parents must remember that the purpose of their power is not their own convenience or aggrandizement; and so forth. Nevertheless, this useful metaphor is always a dangerous one, because too few people can be trusted with power if they think the people they are in power over are like children. Also, citizens are too likely to cast themselves in the role of children rather than of adult citizens with serious obligations.
ReplyDeleteAs for De Blasio not knowing that the protestors were calling for the death of cops, well, if he doesn't read the news himself, surely he has staff who do. As soon as those reports reached him, he ought to have reacted. Still waiting.
I've always liked the framing of government as a necessary evil, though I think even that way overstates the case.
ReplyDeleteGovernment isn't evil, per se. Not even close. It's an agreement; a compact between citizens.
I couldn't agree more with Tex's framing above. There are tradeoffs and pitfalls in every endeavor. The problem with no government is very evident in places that where the rule of law is nonexistent.
The idea that complex civilizations can exist without some degree of specialization always amazes me. That specialization has a price tag just like every other thing on the planet is.... well, unsurprising.
Grim, there's a HUGE different from saying that there's a loving kindness absent in citizen/government relations and saying that most government officials pursue their own self interest.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what else you think they went into government to do. Why does someone go through the huge pain of running for Congress? Because he or she has some goals to pursue if elected, right?
Self-interest isn't evil either; allegedly that's how capitalism promotes the general welfare. We all know the Adam Smith quote about expecting our dinner not from the butcher's sense of charity, but from his self-interest. We expect politicians to do the right thing, if they do, because they have goals of their own to pursue and want us to vote for them again.
This just happens to be categorically different from the familial relationship, in which we expect a father or mother to do for their children even when -- especially when -- the child can do nothing for them. That's true not only for a while, when the child is little, but usually remains true when the child is an adult if they are disabled or otherwise unable to care for themselves.
The parent/child metaphor is a bad one for government because it invests government with more authority than it deserves. It does that because the analogy assumes a kind of relationship of loving sacrifice that can't be expected to exist, and ordinarily won't.
As for letting ordinary citizens interfere with you in petty ways, you've chosen a weird case that arises from technologies that have come to be well after the Founding. Speeding enforcement is completely severable from citizenship but also from humanity, because cameras can do it. Lots of traffic laws are that way, at least in theory -- and especially in the dense and urban areas where they are most appropriate.
Sometimes in these weird technology cases we have good analogs from the Founders -- being 'secure in your person and papers' is a good analog for being secure in other forms of communication developed later. But sometimes technology springs things on us that weren't problems at the Founding, and we have to be careful how we let government seize power to regulate those problems. If it must do so -- it probably must, in cases of speeding in urban areas -- we shouldn't then use it as a new analog to license still-further encroachments.
It's a gala day--I agree with Grim in an argument about politics that involves assumptions about what motivates other people from their own point of view.
ReplyDeleteWell, it occurs to me that there is an alternative position that views "self interest" as a kind of evil per se -- specifically, it's the Kantian position. Kant's idea is that every action you take is either rationally motivated by an analysis of your duty, or it is motivated by some sort of self-love or self-interest.
ReplyDeletePossibly it sounds to Cass that I'm saying something like that when I say that government agents are likely to act in self-interest. I think, based on the way she frames many arguments, that she had one or more teachers who was a Kantian and taught his or her students to think about things in this way.
I'll give you an example that makes her point somewhat, while also making Smith's point. I knew a SFC who happened to live in Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s, congressional district. Now the sergeant was a white guy, and he knew Jackson's agenda and was familiar with his speeches, etc. So he just took a photograph of his ballot marked "JACKSON," and whenever he wrote to his Congressman he attached a copy of the photo.
He said this achieved wonderful results, because he always got a prompt and personal reply and attention to the matter that interested him. Now there's a way in which this story carries the assumption that Jackson was a kind of low character, because he would transcend his ideas about ideology in order to work for his self interest. That's Smith's point about how it ends up not mattering what is in his heart, as long as it is in his interest.
But you can see Cass' point too, or Kant's: how much more noble if he were motivated in his performance as a Congressman only by his considered reflection on his duty! How much better if he cared nothing about being re-elected, but only about what he had determined was dutiful and right!
On that model, pursuing self interest is a per se fault. Just by doing that, you're doing wrong -- at least, you're no longer doing right.
And also, on that model, you can see how the assumption that Jackson would be motivated by the photo of the ballot is a kind of slander. It's assuming he's a low character, the kind of person who treats his duty as a Congressmen as if he were a mere butcher, receiving some quo for some quid.
ReplyDeleteNow this is more familiar territory.
ReplyDeleteI'm not an advocate for Kant's model, though I think it's worth understanding because it is well-intentioned and the product of a thoughtful and highly intelligent mind. He speaks in terms that sound similar to the terms I like, and that you find in Aristotle and Aquinas: terms like nobility of soul, or duty, or honor. But he means something entirely different by them, and I think he sometimes ends up losing important human (and humane) qualities.
ReplyDeleteThat can be overstated, though, as his system is more complex than it is usually presented as being. Many duties are "wide" or "imperfect," which brings back in room for humane questions of just how (and when) to do those duties. Only some duties are "perfect" and "narrow," so that one is obligated to act from duty regardless of all other considerations in order to act morally.
And also, on that model, you can see how the assumption that Jackson would be motivated by the photo of the ballot is a kind of slander. It's assuming he's a low character, the kind of person who treats his duty as a Congressmen as if he were a mere butcher, receiving some quo for some quid.
ReplyDeleteGiven where former Congressman Jackson is currently residing, it would appear to me that "assuming he's a low character" was not such an outlandish assumption.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Jackson,_Jr.
Well, yeah, my buddy was right about him. But the point is, "self-interest" was good enough!
ReplyDeleteCan't stop the Burning even if you wanted to.
ReplyDeleteThat's not how prophecies work. Nor is fate some lackluster and weak thing people can easily dominate via welfare.
That's not necessarily correct, Ymar. You should read Gersonides' account of prophecy in book 2 of The Wars of the Lord.
ReplyDelete"This kind of force is just what the Founders were worried about with their concerns about a standing army."
ReplyDelete"...the government would be yielding to an allegedly subordinate force under arms in just the way that concerned the Founders."
That's why the founders gave us the Second Amendment (and I suppose the fourth and others)- so we could do our own policing when necessary. I think the parallel between armed insurrection and a police stand-down is stretching it a bit.
The Mayor could always disband and re-form the police force I suppose.
Has anyone here seen any polling about the Mayor's popularity amongst his constituents of late? I'd be curious to know if up, down or flat. I also fail to see how any man owes exceptional service to a community that elects a man who thinks they're racist killers abusing power- I mean, they owe this community their lives, potentially?
I can't find any numbers that are recent enough to be telling.
ReplyDeleteI don't intend a parallel to an insurrection. The point that concerned the Founders was the influence of a standing army on a Republic, which is outsized well beyond actual insurrection.
Take your point about the mayor disbanding and reforming the police department. In theory, he has that power. In fact, does anyone think he does? Remember that CIA/NYPD joint intelligence center. Would he be allowed to do it? Or is the actual fact that the police agency is now beyond the power of the elected government to control? Manifestly, he can't make them do their jobs. To what degree can he control them?
If the police is a standing army, then where is Hussein's civilian security force? And what happened to various laws or acts that forbid the military from enforcing laws in the US absent some civilian authority ala Katrina disaster?
ReplyDeleteI don't see why he wouldn't be able to Grim. Surely it would be difficult, but what would, in theory, prevent him? I don't see that joint operations with the CIA would, and I haven't seen anything that suggests the police have any power to force DeBlasio out, quite the contrary, in fact. He may not be able to make them do their jobs as he is seeing it being done (and the police see as suicidal). That said, if what they're being asked to do is suicidal/ineffective, why should they do it? They could resign- I think that the nobler tack, but they could also be more reserved in their application of their duties, and if he doesn't find it suitable, fire them and hire new cops who will do the job his way. If he can find anyone so stupid. If he paints himself into a corner (and the electorate supports it), then the system collapses, and it should if the populous seeks to destroy it, knowingly or not.
ReplyDeleteI wonder, honestly, if he tried to disband the department if he wouldn't be prevented by Federal authorities. There's no constitutional reason why he ought to be; there are only emergent reasons, having to do with actual structures of power. There's the police union; there's the functional connection between key Federal agencies and this massive power structure in possibly our most important city.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, it's just that the law and the constitutions of the state and the Federal governments might not work in the face of such actual, and often physical, power. That's what worries me, and I think it's a real concern.
It's hard to imagine that this administration would stop DeBlasio disbanding the NYPD (in it's current incarnation). They seem to have a shared interest in crippling it as much as they can anyway. That said, I'm not sure what in the law disallows the chief executive from dismissing and hiring police- we're talking about disbanding and re-forming, but it can be done through the current structures for simplicity sake, and still be effectively disbanding.
ReplyDeleteOf course, we've completely ignored he legislative branch in NYC, and they surely would have a prominent role in either supporting and facilitating such a thing, or preventing it.
Now, would what we've been discussing happen, would it concern me? Certainly.
There are at least 5 police unions involved at the negotiating table with Blasio, from the (supposed) news.
ReplyDeleteThat's a significant amount of hard power concentrated in one city there. And I doubt the entire police force would have the guts to do their strike, if the unions hadn't ordered it to improve their negotiation leverage. Even the method of the response, a strike, is reminiscent of previous union tactics.
I've mentioned the power of unions before in the Leftist utopian hierarchy. Even if people refuse to believe it, the Left will ensure that people will believe it, after they put their boot on top of your head, that is.
‘I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.’
ReplyDeleteAn interesting topic was raised by another blogger. This quote is supposedly Faramir's words, as written by Tolkien.
The topic concerned how people who mistake reputation as the same thing as that which the reputation protects, are not real heroes.
The NYPD, in obeying the orders of the unions, are not protecting what they should be protecting, neither their lives nor the people's tranquility. The NYPD, in discarding or seeking to protect their reputation, have perhaps lost even that.
What are they going to say afterwards with the usual conservative trolling excuses? They were just obeying orders? They were just doing their job? They were just enforcing the laws? That's why they did what they did, because of all that? What excuses do they have left.