If the Police/Military Just Disappeared, What then?

Protest against police brutality, Montreal, March 15, 2005. Photo by -Antoine- at Flickr.

"Baron Bodissey" at Gates of Vienna wrote something yesterday that captures the spirit of this weblog perfectly. After pointing out that the same people who routinely deride and protest against the police wouldn't hesitate to call them in a minute when their own lives are in danger, he writes:

Bob Dylan famously sang, "How many times will the cannonballs fly before they are forever banned?"

The unspoken assumption behind this plea for universal non-violence is that the state or the "international community" possesses some kind of power to enforce such a ban. And if someone -- some group, country, or international gang of thugs -- refuses to observe such a ban, then what?

Why, then we pick up the phone and call the pigs.

Oh, wait a minute -- we've "banned" the pigs.

So what do we do now?

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

That kind of wishful thinking would be like saying: "Since doctors are always hanging around sick people, let's get rid of the doctors. Then the sick people will disappear too." What so many people fail to realize, is that its not the "cannonballs" that are the problem. Deep down, nearly everybody knows this; in fact even the most die-hard peace extremist realizes that we would be in real trouble without them.

The problem is that the worst sort of people in the world tend to arm themselves quite a bit. While there is much to admire in true pacifism, you have to decide how much you are willing to give up for it. There is a difference between making this decision for yourself as opposed to making it for the community. The Amish, for example, are able to live in their pacifistic culture only because there are others outside their community willing to take up defense on their behalf. This irony was very apparent in Oct 2006, when Charles Roberts entered an Amish schoolhouse and shot several children. The community was forced to rely on armed law enforcement officers from the outside in order to regain control of the situation and rescue the remaining hostages.