Mindful of T.L. Davis' piece below, a reader asked for this re-post of “Choose this day whom you will serve.”

Originally posted 17 February 2010.



“Choose this day whom you will serve.”: An Open Letter to American Law Enforcement.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. -- William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming.”

Gentlemen and ladies of American Law Enforcement,

There is a growing perception among many Americans that we are headed for one of those periodic moments in our history when our reactions to events will redefine who we are as a people, where we are going as a country and who gets to call the shots when we get there -- what George H.W. Bush called “that vision thing.” This is happening in the middle of unprecedented external and internal stresses on our social order, the results of which you see daily on the streets.

It is going to get worse.

Odds are, it is going to get MUCH worse before it gets better.

IF it gets better any time soon, which I doubt.

And so, ladies and gentlemen of American law enforcement, the prudent among you should be considering this question now, rather than later: “What am I going to do when we get to ‘much worse’?”

Consider first where we are.

The Justice Department's National Gang Intelligence Center estimated last year that there were over a million hard-core gang members in this country who were responsible for over 80% of the crimes in many communities. Other experts have suggested that when you add in the gangs’ “extended families” and wannabes the number is closer to between five and ten million. As unemployment has increased, their numbers have likewise swelled.

But the gangs, as bad as they are and as great a threat as they pose to public order, are nothing compared to the larger problem, and that is this.

Respect for duly constituted authority and social trust are essential ingredients of civilization. These elements represent the basic glue of society.

Respect for duly constituted authority is, as every cop knows, at an all-time low. There are two general reasons for this, one systemic and the other so personal that if you look yourselves honestly in the mirror you can see it.

Systemically, “duly constituted authority” derives its legitimacy from the founding documents of our country, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and from the Founders’ concepts of the rule of law. These have all been under attack for a hundred years or more by both corrupt political parties and their union and business familiars. The Constitution has become for some a joke and for others an inconvenient speed bump on the road to tyranny. As long as this degradation of the legitimacy of our political and legal system was perceived by only a narrow portion of the population, it was manageable in a societal sense. This is no longer true.

When a president and Congress robs one set of people to enrich their cronies, when they violate the settled rule of law regarding bankruptcy to stiff secured creditors in the case of General Motors while rewarding self-anointed unsecured creditors -- their political allies, the auto unions -- the rest of the population cannot fail but conclude that we are no longer under the rule of law, but the rule of men, which is to say, the law of the jungle. Or, put another way, they -- the “authorities” -- can do anything that the citizenry can’t or won’t stop them from doing. This is the societal Catch 22 we are now in (and have been for a while) that I call “Waco Rules.”

Other cases such as that of David Olofson, a veteran and marksmanship instructor and family man who was railroaded by the ATF on an automatic weapons charge when his semi-automatic AR-15 malfunctioned (and he was chosen for prosecution simply because the ATF did not care for his low opinion of them), have convinced many that a fair trial is no longer possible in federal court if an agency decides to “deal with” them. And if we are no longer guaranteed a fair trial in the federal court system, then if we are innocent and decide that we do not wish to play drop the soap with either the Aryan or Muslim Brotherhoods, our only guarantee is the right of an unfair gunfight when the ATF comes calling.

And remember that Olofson is merely one example of federal misadventure. There are many others, as there are plenty of similar cases in local and state jurisdictions. When the law-abiding rightfully no longer trust the law enforcers and begin to view them as a class of criminals merely acting under color of law, anarchy is not far away.

Yet, you will say, “don’t blame me, I enforce the law, I don’t make it.” True, but insufficient as an excuse, and here we get down to that look in the mirror.

My friend, fellow gun rights blogger and National Examiner columnist David Codrea over at WaronGuns has a description for feral cops. He calls them the “Only Ones.” His daily blog is filled to overflowing with example of rogue cops, their partners who never rein them in and the prosecutors and judges who find reasons to go easy on even the most heinous of criminals with badges. You know who I’m talking about. If you say there are none of these currently operating or in the making within your department then you are either lying or uninterested in seeing the truth, which amounts to the same thing.

Everyone knows what happens to honest cops who “rat out” their uniformed criminal associates. They are hounded, despised, disciplined and shunned -- and that’s on a good day. Can you blame many of us who pay attention to such law enforcement corruption for concluding that you may merely be a member of an “official gang” as opposed to a freelance one? Such dereliction of duty begs the question: If your excuse is that you don’t make the law, you just enforce it, and then you don’t enforce it upon yourselves, why should we be paying tax dollars to support “official” law breaking?

There is another image that many of you can see in the mirror if you choose to take an honest look -- that of tax collector and nanny state bully boy. Yes, we know, you didn’t make the laws, some liberal puke with a control fetish did. But when you write speeding tickets for 3 miles over the limit because you’ve been told to write “x amount” of dollar value, or when you pull people over for “seatbelt violations” at random roadblocks and then ransack their cars without probable cause, can you understand how such behavior eats away like acid on your reputation -- individually and collectively -- as servants of the citizenry? What part of “to protect and serve” does that represent?

But worse than all that is the militarization of the police -- in equipment, tactics and, worst of all, attitude -- and the federalization of all law enforcement over the past forty years, but especially in the last ten. There were, last time I checked a few years ago, something like 750,000 full time state, city, university and college, metropolitan and non-metropolitan county, and other law enforcement officers in the United States. Add to that another 150,000 or so full time law enforcement personnel working for the federal government. With the growth of new agencies like the TSA during the “war on terror” (who, because of political correctness can’t seem to figure out who the real “terrorists” are so they merely oppress the rest of us in order to be “fair”) that number has certainly risen.

In any case, there are hardly enough Feds to work the administration’s will upon a nation so vast and a people so numerous, so, much thought and effort has gone into suborning and subverting local and state law enforcement for federal purposes -- “Joint Task Forces” and “fusion centers” being two principal ways. Yet, as the Founders quite clearly understood, it is one of the duties of local law enforcement, especially the county sheriffs, to interpose themselves between the federal government and the people of their jurisdictions when the federal government becomes oppressive.

Now, however, local law enforcement is looked upon by federal agents as force multipliers and willing stooges -- “local yokels” in their parlance. And as a mark of how successful their campaign has been, many local law enforcement officers agree and happily lick the boots that kick them.

A recent case in point. Two county sheriff’s deputies showed up at the doorstep of a man out west who had expressed his contempt for Nancy Pelosi and and other federal politicians in letters and emails. These deputies, saying that the FBI had sent them, interrogated the man, threatened him “with Leavenworth” and engaged in intimidation of political speech. These local cops, having no jurisdiction to do anything of the sort, would have been laughed off of my porch here in Alabama and told to bugger off and return with real federal cops, if that was in fact their intention. Too often these days, when the federal man says “frog” many of you merely ask “how high?”

Of course, if this intimidation had back-fired on the locals in any way, the Fibbies would have been the first to disavow them, leaving them hanging out in the legal laundry to dry. So when y’all are looking in that mirror, ask yourselves how truly stupid you actually are when it comes to enforcing an agenda and not the law just because the Feds ask you to.

Because here’s the essential thing: you, ALL OF YOU, took an oath to, among other things, “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” You swore that, the overwhelming majority of you, to God. Did you think that oath had a shelf life? Do you think that now that you have by your reckoning faithfully upheld that oath for, say, twenty years now that tomorrow it is okay to forget it? You swore, whether you realized it at the time or not, an OATH, before GOD, and it was a LIFETIME oath.

While you are looking in the mirror, evaluate your career based upon that oath. It was not to a man, or an administration, or a political party but to an idea -- the idea of ordered liberty as codified in the Constitution of the United States of America. So ask yourself, did you or did you not intend to faithfully uphold that oath? Because the answer to that question is going to become very important very quickly as this politically divided and morally fractured society continues to spin out of control.

To quote Joshua, “Choose this day whom you will serve.”

Katrina showed us many things. It showed that in a disaster many cops will look to their families and not the public duty, leaving their fellow law enforcement officers with an even greater burden. It showed us that cops can be opportunistic criminals as well, partaking in looting with as much energy as professional criminals. It also showed us that the police no longer trust the law-abiding citizen with arms, depriving them of their only means of self-defense once the cops have moved on, thus leaving them to the tender mercies of robbers, rapists and murderers.

It is perhaps dangerous to make too large of a generalization, for there are many rural jurisdictions where this does not apply, but the fact of the matter is that by and large, the police no longer trust the people they are supposed to protect, and they especially do not trust an armed citizen, even if he represents no danger to the cop. This is standing the oath on its head. The people do not exist to serve the servant, but rather the other way around.

When a policeman pulls over a driver whose computer record shows not only the driver’s license of the vehicle’s owner, but the fact that they have a concealed carry permit, it is too often SOP for the cop to approach the vehicle, gun drawn, order the man or woman from the car, put them on their knees and cuff them before anything else transpires. These are not the acts of public servants but rather of an occupying army. And with each breach of trust, the glue holding society together is further weakened. For the more you distrust us, the more we are reminded to distrust you.

It is important to remember, Mr. and Ms. Law Enforcement Officer, that you need us, the law-abiding armed citizenry, one hell of a lot more than we need you. Just ask any criminal. Who is it that they fear most? The encounter with a policeman or a would-be victim who turns out to be armed? I tell you this uncomfortable truth and I hope you have the honesty to admit it -- the criminals of this country are far more scared of the armed citizenry than they are of the police.

It is not the fear of the patrol car that inhibits criminal behavior the most, but rather the prospect of screwing up and getting his brains blown out by a citizen in righteous self defense. And so, when you participate in citizen disarmament efforts, whether gun seizures like Katrina, or merely identifying otherwise friendly peaceable folks as “the enemy” just because they are armed, you are alienating your most valuable friends and empowering your most vicious enemies. Not to mention the fact that you are violating that sacred oath you took.

So ponder that deteriorating social trust that holds civilizations together, and then ponder this: the worst is yet to come.

What will happen when we are faced, God forbid, with some dislocating national disaster -- natural or man-made -- that makes Katrina look like a kindergarten playground? Now, even if you intend to run off like some New Orleans policemen did, to see to the safety of their families rather than keep order in the city, you are still going to need the cooperation of the armed citizenry in your home neighborhood to protect your family.

You -- ALL of you -- law enforcement officers, will then need us, the armed citizenry -- ALL of us willing and competent to muster -- to defend public order against the tide of chaos represented by five or ten million gang members and the tens of millions of panicked unprepared refugees or opportunistic criminals left unrestrained by a breakdown.

Do you seriously think that federal police, all 150,000 of them, will actually help you in that event, beyond issuing orders that they will not be personally endangered with carrying out?

You will then be on your own, and you will have us. At least those of you will who have the sense to plan now to make that happen in the event.

You might start by remembering your oaths, by beginning to trust us, by refusing to engage in petty harrassments of CCW permit holders and by strengthening your department’s auxiliary program (or starting one if you do not have one).

But first and foremost you must quit looking at and treating the law-abiding armed citizenry of the United States as the enemy. For if you don’t, we certainly will be.

Convince us by your actions that you are no better than the gangs who commit crimes without uniforms and we will treat you similarly. And there ain’t nearly enough of you to shove us around in a real national emergency.

Remember, Americans are nothing if not a practical people. We're predisposed to help and support you. Please, take our hand when it is offered, BEFORE it is needed.

Sincerely,

Mike Vanderboegh
The alleged leader of a merry band of Three Percenters
GeorgeMason1776@aol.com
sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com
PO Box 926
Pinson, AL 35126