It has long been suggested that one reason Americans turned against the Vietnam War was because it was the first armed conflict transmitted on the nightly news broadcasts of the three major television networks of that time. The so-called “living room war” was a shock to Americans used to the sanitized depictions of battle in Hollywood movies and television shows that provided a satisfying and heroic storyline—rather than the grim wartime reality of chaos, brutality, and seemingly meaningless violence.
The gulf between the gung-ho soldiers, pilots, and sailors in a John Wayne flick and the young draftees desperately trying to stay alive while slogging through a jungle was a shock for those on the home front who were content to know as little as possible about the enormous—and perhaps excessive—sacrifices of those striving to serve our nation.
I wonder, in our age of law enforcement body cameras and bystander cell phones videos, if much the same mechanism of harsh reality colliding with comforting fantasy is today steadily eroding the standing of police officers with the general public.
Police work is, particularly in our crime-ridden cities, much like a war. There are the routine patrols punctuated by pulse-pounding action and the same exposure to deadly harm. Although police officers are not expected to be in combat, so to speak, the reality of their daily life is that combating crime can—and does—put them in harm’s way on a regular basis because criminals do not like being apprehended, suspects routinely lie, crowds are sometimes threatening, and the risk of serious injury is omnipresent.
All of the problems facing police officers are exacerbated by those who cherry-pick data and misrepresent facts in order to convince Americans that they—not the law breakers—are the problem. Unfortunately, the propaganda spread by the “defund the police” crowd has been extraordinarily effective thanks to biased media outlets, academic ideologues, Leftist politicians, and clueless celebrities stirring up controversy to goose their ratings, grab government grants, garner votes, and grip eyeballs on social media. The barely controlled violent crime afflicting our nation has been the inevitable result of this campaign to denigrate and demonize the police.
Just as was the situation during the Vietnam War, it is understandable why seeing the force necessary to maintain peace is shocking to many. The sad truth that there are many bad people in our world who want to do us harm is a chilling revelation many can do without, and the violence and discord we prefer to ignore continues to exist beyond the cozy confines of our obliviousness. Being kind-heated Americans, we presume a peaceful resolution to all of life’s problems must be readily available, and we should be thankful that our sense of a shared humanity and laudable compassion make us feel this way.
Unfortunately, clever and unscrupulous individuals and groups are experts at turning our best intentions and instincts against us in pursuit of their own power and profit, so we must learn to check our credulity when it comes to what is blared into our consciousness by those intent on manipulating us.
Disagreements over policy and procedure are acceptable in a democracy; attacking the individuals who are striving to keep us safe is not. Those of us who have a quite reasonable aversion to chasing a felon down a dark alley or being kicked, bitten, and scratched by someone we are trying to apprehend perhaps have to understand why police officers need to assert their authority and presume the worst in their daily encounters with the public.
Knocking on a door to deal with a loud domestic argument or stopping a car for running a stop sign during the dead of night might result in a perfectly calm encounter—or not. Striking a balance between hyper-vigilance and professional caution is made no easier when those with power and influence insist you are undeserving of respect because you decided to wear a badge.
No soldier returning from Vietnam should have been spat upon simply for wearing a uniform; no police officer should be disrespected for just doing their jobs. In both the military and law enforcement there are rules in place for dealing with those who abuse their positions and betray their oaths. However, we must recognize that prosecutions for misconduct in both the military and police work are remarkably rare, so we need to stop paying attention to demagogues who blame the many for the mistakes of the extraordinarily few.
Failing to accept that force is sometimes necessary to protect us from criminals is a mistake that harms us in the long run. The established Constitutional rights of suspects and convicted criminals must be respected, but the rights of police officers to expect the support of the public and elected officials must also be respected. The alternative, which we are flirting with today, is a pervasive lawlessness that could eventually destroy America and put the worst people into power over our communities and remaining law-abiding citizens.