1.22.2011 LOCALISM AND THE POLICE POWER

the following is found in the nature of the american system by rousas j. rushdoony..p. 158-168..words, more than anything else, are easily subverted. anyone can appropriate a word and apply it, ignorantly or willfully, in a context where a false sense is slipped in under the connotation of a standard meaning. no subverter of any calibre has ever neglected the ready tool of linguistics and semantics. a ready instance of the misuse of words is the word 'republic'. its meaning is important to many american conservatives; it is the designation of the u.s. which appears, for example, in the pledge of allegiance. but the word 'republic' has also been appropriated for a radically different meaning by the USSR. the various districts of the soviet state are called 'republics'.

no less an instance of perversion is the word 'police'. in the strict sense of the word, many countries lack a true police, and the USSR is one of them. americans, accustomed to regarding the police as the agencies of law and order, automatically apply that word to foreign orders. thus, charles foltz, jr., in the u.s. news and world report, speaks of soviet 'policemen'. properly speaking, there are no police in the soviet union, only political agents and the military power.

the arms of soviet power are, first, the communist party, which, by its network of informants. controls, and powers, is important in the execution of soviet decrees. second, there are the so-called secret police, a state controlled, centralized body of political agents, whose purpose is not police work but the maintenance of political power. third, there is the military power. the army, in barracks across the country, patrols the cities with little or no knowledge of police work. these are 'bolshevism's 3 pillars of strength'. a fourth arm, even more important, and even more unrelated to police work, is the communist security system, 'the system of the invisible government' of the USSR. the police as such do not exist in the USSR, and are an object of hatred by communists, a target for abolition. the communist goal is to supplant the local police with a national body of political agents.

it is important, therefore, to understand what the police are, and the nature of their functions. the principles of police operation are often formulated.

these are:
1. the first duty of the police is the prevention of crime
2. efficiency is to be judged by the absence of crime rather than by the # of arrests
3. police duties must be carried out impartially
4. punishment is not part of the police function but belongs to the courts and correctional institutions
5. the effort to save lives must be made even in the face of personal danger.

in this day and age, many are content to define things in terms of existing function rather than nature and meaning. to define the meaning of the police, let us examine their origin, purpose, and nature.

the word 'police' comes from the greek word polis, and the polis was the greek city-state. in size, it varied from a single city or port, to a city and its environs, so that it is best comparable to a modern city or country. police, in the true sense, are;

1. a locally controlled and hence decentralized agency which is unrelated to other police bodies of other cities or counties and lacking in any national federation or union. the police, properly, are city and county law enforcement men.
2. the police are not a military body, even if in uniform. they are civilians in every sense of the word, and their authority is a civilian authority.
3. the police are supported by the local property owners, whose agency they are, by means of a tax of property. the entire support of the police is local, and it is the property tax.
4. their orientation is accordingly local, and the protection of life and property is their essential task. they are thus essentially a non-political body.
5. the local orientation of the police means also no national responsibility. federal law is outside the jurisdiction of the police.
6. the police are not only supported by the local citizenry through a property tax, but THEIR SOURCE OF POWER AND AUTHORITY IS BY DELEGATION WITHOUT SURRENDER FROM THE LOCAL CITIZENRY.
men can elect a councilman or congressman and delegate to him the right to vote on their behalf; they do not possess and do not maintain a right to vote in those bodies for themselves; it is a privilege held as a member of the electorate in the person of the representative officer. but the citizenry (originally propertied citizenry) does not surrender its police power to the police. it is delegation without surrender. THE CITIZENRY RETAINS THE RIGHT TO EXERCISE, AS NEEDED, ITS POLICE POWER, THE RIGHT OF CITIZEN ARREST. this right, of course, is under the law, as is the official police arrest, in each case subject to legal fences designed to protect the right of the innocent and the orderly processes of law. TRUE POLICE POWER IS THUS IN THE CITIZENRY AND NOT IN THE STATE; IT IS DELEGATED, NOT SURRENDERED. this is the identifying mark of a true police, and the source of its offense to a totalitarian order.
7. the police are an aspect of THE LOCAL CITIZENRY'S SELF-GOVERNMENT and of THEIR RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENSE. attempts to destroy the police by destroying their purely local nature are thus veiled attacks on the right of self-defense.

totalitarian orders thus have no true police, and the united states represents the finest development of the police concept. in the USSR, there is no truly criminal law in the american sense, for law is not oriented to the defense of the citizenry from criminal activity, nor is it legal in orientation. criminal offenses are properly offenses against the state in the USSR, for all power and all 'rights' are concentrated in the hands of the state. in england, although the police, so-called, are under some local control, they are nationally paid and all under the british home office. there is thus no true police in england. criminal offenses, moreover, are not against persons but 'against the peace of our sovereign lady the queen, her crown and dignity'. ancient rome had no police and virtually no criminal law during much of its history, crimes being committed by slaves in the main, masters enforced their own discipline on their slaves. later, bread and circuses was, among other things, a substitute for the enforcement of law and order.

a slave state has no true criminal law, and no police. the slave population have no rights to be defended, and no police power, or right of self defense, to delegate. if all are slaves of the state, there is no police power but only state power. in a free society, the citizenry can establish a local police force, exercise their own police rights, and also create private police, patrol or detective agencies to further their right of self-defense. in the u.s., in origin and development a protestant feudal restoration, criminal and civil law are local, county law, and a true police exists, ie. a local force to enforce laws in defense of the citizenry. moreover, the citizenry have a further right, written into the u.s. constitution in amendment II: 'a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed'. attempts to infringe this right and other rights are linked also to the assault on the police power.

and with reason, for the local police, country and city, constitute a vast and competent civilian army in the u.s., each unit responsible only to its locality and without central control. THE MENACE OF Civil Defense IS THAT IT SEEKS IN EVERY AREA TO DESTROY LOCAL ORIENTATIONS IN THE NAME OF 'EMERGENCY'. THE LOCAL POLICE POSE A PROBLEM AND A THREAT TO A COMMUNIST (or any type of) TAKEOVER, IN THAT IT IS AN ARMY BEYOND THE REACH OF THE CENTRAL STATIST POWERS, IN THE STATES AND IN WASHINGTON. communist infiltration of the police has proved to be a failure on the whole for 2 main reasons. first, there is a radical conflict of perspective. the police have a local, decentralized perspective, while communists have a collectivistic and international outlook. it is difficult for them to adjust to the purely local orientation. second, police work is hard work, and communists want to indoctrinate and to control, not to work.