Police are not here to protect you (as an individual)

Police are not here to protect you (as an individual).

That's not any kind of knock on the police, or some kind of left-wing social comment. That is simply a legal fact established in Warren v. District of Colombia (444 A.2d 1).

The only additional duty undertaken by accepting employment as a police officer is the duty owed to the public at large... "`Because we owe a duty to everybody, we owe it to nobody.'" Riss v. City of New York, supra at 585, 293 N.Y.S.2d at 901, 240 N.E.2d at 862...

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The absence of a duty specifically enforceable by individual members of the community is not peculiar to public police services. Our representative form of government is replete with duties owed to everyone in their capacity as citizens but not enforceable by anyone in his capacity as an individual. Through its representatives, the public creates community service; through its representatives, the public establishes the standards which it demands of its employees in carrying out those services and through its representatives, the public can most effectively enforce adherence to those standards of competence. As members of the general public, individuals forego any direct control over the conduct of public employees in the same manner that such individuals avoid any direct responsibility for compensating public employees.

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Establishment by the Court of a new, privately enforceable duty to use reasonable diligence in the performance of public functions would not likely improve services rendered to the public. The creation of direct, personal accountability between each government employee and every member of the community would effectively bring the *9 business of government to a speedy halt, "would dampen the ardor of all but the most resolute, or the most irresponsible in the unflinching discharge of their duties,"[4] and dispatch a new generation of litigants to the courthouse over grievances real and imagined. An enormous amount of public time and money would be consumed in litigation of private claims rather than in bettering the inadequate service which draws the complaints. Unable to pass the risk of litigation costs on to their "clients," prudent public employees would choose to leave public service. There you have it. Judicial precedent has rule that police owe a duty to the public, not to the individual.

So what prompted this whole thing? Well based upon my observations in social media and what not. There seems to be a misconception (more prevalent with Democrat voters it appears) that the police is there to protect you. What prompted this writing was this statement in particular, seen on Facebook.

This person here refers to police as "our protectors", well they're not "our protectors", not in an individual sense,  the US Supreme Court said so. What actually disturbs me a bit about this is how casually many people just abdicate their responsibility of personal protection to the State. On a side not, the group Occupy Democrats is pro-2nd Amendment.

On the surface, it doesn't seem like a big deal, who cares if someone just wants to rely on the State to keep them safe. Well, here's the thing...

These people vote.

Not only are they ok with a policy of pushing the responsibility of personal safety to the State, but they want everyone else to do the same thing. If it's ok and seemingly works out for them, then it will work out for everyone else. But does it really work out for them? Or does it only appear that way because they have never been in a situation where they actually had to call on the State for rescue while counting down the minutes of the response time? That aside, some people out there are willing to accept the responsibility of personal safety, some people don't want to sit there, hiding and praying. Because there is no legal basis on assuming that the State has the responsibility of being "protectors", their argument is not based on any right, which leaves, feelings/emotions as the thing which this concept is based upon. Feelings should not ever trump individual rights, that is how theocratic totalitarian states like Saudi Arabia and North Korea (the extreme cult of personality there may as well be Kimianity, or Kimslam) get established.

So, if the State are "our protectors" then what does that make you? It lets them remove the onus of protecting themselves from themselves to the State or other actors. It's not your fault, X incident happened the way it did, it's the State's fault for not passing X law, or police not responding in X amount of time. It's everyone else's fault, not yours. It's the State's responsibility to take steps, not yours. As such, it allows someone to not just accept, but justify giving up more and more civil rights to the State with the promise that the State will be their protector. It makes you, whether you like it or not, a non-actor in your own personal protection. It's not your responsibility to keep a shotgun at home for defense, it's not your responsibility to carry a revolver when you leave the house for personal defense use.

Of course there are many in the State that are all to happy to oblige this mindset. It's job security for them.  

As mentioned before, because these people think it's good for them, they think it's good for everyone else, so they vote these policies in, in the form of ballot measures, or politicians who promise to implement them. This has the effect of them voting away YOUR rights along with theirs. This is also problematic in that these people don't take into consideration the living conditions of other people that they drag along with them. Not everyone lives in nice neighborhoods where crime is something that happens in a far away place, to other people, and yet they want to impose a policy that allegedly works for them, onto the rest of the state.

The biggest problem with this, is that it is based upon a blatant, and gross misunderstanding of the law. It is an idea, that is literally has no foundation, no basis in anything, not the Constitution, not in established judicial precedent.

In short...

Now you see how scary this actually is? A concept that is, at best based upon a misunderstanding and at worse on an out right lie, being voted into effect. Is that wise policy? Is that common sense? Hell no. It makes a series of wrong assumptions, and builds, not just policy, but law upon it. It's a house of cards. When the house of cards collapse, be it though some psycho or terrorist who goes on a rampage, and there some people that though no fault of their own, the police are unable to protect, the people of this, "the State is our protector" rather than looking at the full picture of what happened, they double down on this mindset. "We need more laws so the State can protect us!", "We need the State to put more restrictions on other people so they can't hurt me." Rather than thinking "What can I do to not be made a victim?" But no, they don't, because to do so would be doublethink. They have painted themselves into a thought corner where the onus of personal defense, is not on them, but on the State. They don't have to do anything because it's the State's responsibility, not theirs, it's the State that has to do something.

He might be watching you (I don't know, Alex Jones would tell you he is) but even if he is, even he can't instantaneously warp rescuers to your location if something bad happens to you. 

The fact of the matter is, this is impractical, the State might be huge, but even the State doesn't have the resource to have a personal bodyguard follow everyone around. When something happens, they're locked into a vicious cycle, of blaming the State for not doing enough, and though their vote, drag the rest of us along with them. Every time the house of cards collapses, they double down and demand the State build and even bigger house of cards. And if we're going to invoke capitalism or the concept of "Equivalent Exchange" then there must be some kind of capital used to fund the building of this house of cards. You can't get something for nothing right? So then, what is the capital that is spent to build these house of cards? Your individual rights. As stated by my law school torts professor, "The more laws you have, the less rights you have." These people with their vote, spend your individual rights, with or without your consent, on building public policy houses of cards.

Before anyone accuses me of victim shaming..,

...every adult's first responsibility is their own personal protection. If you willfully neglect to be aware of your surroundings, if you willfully decide not to carry any kind of self-defense tools, if you didn't do all you reasonably could to protect yourself, then yes if something happens to you as a direct result of neglecting to do those things, then yes the onus is part on you. In a sense, you kicked the bear. Now yes, you can take all the reasonable precautions and things can still happen, this isn't directed at you. Rather, this is directed at the people who seem to think that if something happens they can just call 9-11 as if it was some incantation and make the scary thing go away. This is directed at the people that think politicians and laws have the power to make the worst of human nature, disappear from existence.

Bad things can and will happen, when human nature is involved there is no such thing as a dike with no hole. The State, even if it did have the legal responsibility to be every individual's protector, cannot be everywhere all at once. So why would you willfully put yourself at a disadvantage? Rather than simply being a victim and letting bad things happen to you until the State arrives to save you, doesn't it make more sense to at least have the power to hold the threat at bay until rescue arrives, if not overcome the threat all together?

This concept of the State as "our protectors" contributes to today's victim mentality in that it again, removes agency from the individual. It renders the individual a non-actor. In a free society, every adult is an actor, meaning, every adult has agency. Hand-in-hand with agency is personal responsibility. We have responsibility because we are free.