Americans have been fortunate in that law enforcement officers have been selected for the most part through civil service testing that includes mental health screening and background investigations. That is followed by intensive training that includes conflict resolution, law and the Bill of Rights. They are simply trained as peace officers to make peace in our world.
So they can protect us, we actually license our cops to kill, invade private property including dwellings and to forcibly jail suspects under tightly controlled conditions. Accordingly we need cops that are honorable, well balanced and intelligent enough to understand the complicated laws and the Bill of Rights that we live under.
The challenge of any free society is to have cops that serve and protect in the background. We don’t want cops in our bedrooms and personal business. We want friendly cops that we can trust and count upon in an emergency. This sound simple enough but it’s not.
History has taught us redundantly that true democracy style Republics are challenged by despots or would be despots the same things happen. Those criminals seeking power always create new uniformed authority that will bear allegiance to the new regime rather than the nation and its people.
Post World War One Germany had honorable police and a military dedicated to the people. As
National Socialism grew they gave local thugs, snappy new brown uniforms and security duties at party functions. They were the
SA or
Sturmabteilung. That translates to the important sounding title of storm trooper. Their training was marginal at best and geared up for a military style appearance through marching drills and such. Their primary purpose was to keep competing political groups terrorized and away from National Socialist functions.
The German military was made up of honorable men that understood their duties to the people not, temporary politicians.
Adolph Hitler knew that his plans would not sit well with these fellows and had to create a new military force to do his dirty work. The
SS or
Schutzstaffel or protective force was born. Those amazing black uniforms with the death’s head medallion on the cap along with the bright swastika armbands designated these men as Adolph Hitler’s bodyguards.
As the new paramilitary SS grew so did their duties. They were the primary enforcers of the Holocaust. It was the SS that rounded up, transported and secretly murdered millions in Eastern European concentration camps.
The SA and the SS were quickly given absolute police powers, firearms and made a part of the existing German police force.
Needless to say the SS and SA made their own enforcement rules and brought a major blight over a once honorable profession. Law enforcement in Germany became an international and historic shame.
Blind obedience and loyalty to Nazi superiors, along with relentless brutality by SA and SS thugs was always rewarded. The deserving and productive monsters received huge cash gifts along with deeds to beautiful homes, hotels and businesses.
There were members of the German police and military that were privy to the criminal activities of the Nazi Administration that remained loyal to their countrymen. They were the ones that made numerous and daring attempts to kill Hitler to save their nation.
Such a group, was the so-called
20 July 1944 Conspirators. There were as many as 500 men and women who worked with Colonels
Henning von Tresckow and
Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg to bring an end to Nazi tyranny.
At least 500 German 20 July patriots were taken to scaffolds where they were garishly hanged with piano wire when the plot failed. Most of them were tortured at the Gestapo headquarters at 8 Prinz Albert Strausse in Berlin.
The lesson here is a good one. The standards for selection, hiring, promotion and training of cops must always remain solid. To allow pollution of the ranks of police with political hacks, thugs, thieves and murderers is a travesty that always ends horribly in history.
Don’t let politicians create shadow military and police forces. Don’t let them give police powers to anyone but honorable and well qualified police officers. Don’t ever let government dumb down admission requirements to hire and promote the dregs of our society.
Don’t let government turn cops into armed tax collectors confiscating property or extorting from citizens through pretend or petty violations.
Imagine if they allowed the thugs and assorted misfits the TSA hires to screen baggage at the airports, firearms, police powers and turned them loose on our streets. They know nothing about the Bill of Rights or much of anything except blind obedience to their unqualified administrators. The Obama Administration has big future plans for these TSA creeps.
Here is one would be despot’s plans for a shadow military/police force: