Stop Backing the Blue?
Police officers who enforce unlawful orders are threats to your safety and liberty
Police officers ordered to enforce mandates that violated their individual oaths of office have to make a split-second decision: do what is right and lose my job and pension, or obey an unlawful (and immoral) order and lose my life’s purpose.
Many police officers across the country seem to choose the latter course, enforcing (with relish) illegal and inhumane Covid diktats from mayors and governors.
My dad was a cop, as many of you know. So are many friends. Most of the police officers and former police officers I know are very good people who truly risked their lives to protect the innocent from the malevolent. I believe that was the case until about 2020 when local meisters began imposing draconian and illegal public health policies.
It gives me no pleasure and much pain to write this.
Commitment and Consistency
You probably get tired of reading about “commitment and consistency” on this blog. Commitment and consistency is psychological principle, tested repeatedly, that says people will generally behave in a way that is consistent with past statements or actions, even if doing so is unreasonable or defies logic. I wrote about this principle ad nauseam in April.
Once a police officer enforces an unlawful order, he feels compelled to enforce more drastic unlawful orders, just as the philanderer, having cheated once, is more likely to cheat again. The more times an officer enforces an unlawful order, the less likely he is to repent.
Therefore, it is unlikely that police officers who have violated their consciences and oaths will eventually turn back. Commitment and consistency is a really powerful drug.
Blindly Backing the Police Is Dangerous
As omicron shatters the Covid narrative, mandates will become more draconian, not less. Again, commitment and consistency comes into play, this time among the mayors, governors, and county executives who first imposed the illegal mandates. Look at the situation from their eyes.
First, they do not share your beliefs in liberty and self-governance. In fact, they believe liberty and self-governance to be the leading social problem in the world. Pretend for a moment that you agree.
Next, remember that you became a media star for your strict Covid policies in 2020. Your images and voice appeared for the first time on national news. Media stars like Dr. Fauci praised your actions. In a sense, your draconian Covid mandates came define who you are as a person.
Now, the science says the right answer is to drop all your mandates and let people live their lives. Doing so will end the pandemic and the suffering that goes along with it.
If the pandemic ends, your identity—the identity you adopted and nurtured for almost two years—disappears with it. You would have to redefine your entire existence. But if you double down on your draconian mandates, you prolong the pandemic and maintain your sense of self.
What do you do?
History and psychology say you double down. You impose novel restrictions and mandates that are likely to prolong the suffering from which you benefit. You demand stricter compliance from those you control, like police and EMS workers. You make the punishment for disobeying your mandates more extreme.
And the police who have obeyed your every diktat to date are likely to execute your orders for the same reason that you pronounced them: commitment and consistency.
Compromised Police Cannot Be Reformed
The sad news is, there’s no human hope for police officers who have already violated their principles and morals to win favor with dictator mayors and governors. Doing so would required they admit, at least to themselves, having committed a great moral sin.
Instead, compromised officers will do what we all do when we have sinned: justify their actions.
Riding around in the squad car, alone with their thoughts, police officers will build an elaborate defense for having tackled and tased a 70-year-old grandmother who walked into a grocery store without a mask and vaccination papers. These officers will mentally repeat everything their mayor or governor said about the old lady being a threat to public health. “No different than if she’d walked in firing an AR-15 at shoppers,” they’ll say to themselves. “No different whatsoever.”
Pray for the police. They need our prayers but not our blind support. Support police officers like my dad who quit the force after 10 years when ordered to do what should not be done. For the other kind of cop, pray for their repentance. Their souls matter more than their jobs.
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