Brilliant: Let’s haul the National Guard into the New York subway

“Now, finally, something is being done” is the reiterated reaction from the thinkers on the left and, disappointingly, the thinkers on the right.  Both sides have shouted about government overreach, and now everyone is nodding for the National Guard to police the New York City subways.

But why not resume allowing the local police to do their job?  Why not let judges do their jobs by ending bail reform?  Why does local crime need to be outsourced to the National Guard when it had been handled effectively at the local level in years past?  Would there not be enough officers available now?

Sometimes, seeing things framed within an analogy clarifies the true essence of what is taking place.  In this case, we need a three-pronged analogy — the National Guard, the local police, and the local government.  The National Guard is like Amazon, the big savior who surpasses all competition.  The local police are like small businesses, left out in the cold and replaced by Amazon.  And the local government is like a parent with Munchausen syndrome by proxy.  The Munchausen parent creates his child’s illness; fosters it; and, instead of plain parenting, gets the Amazonesque government to take control.

Like a small business, the local police are being pushed aside by the bigger, supposedly more capable National Guard.  And who created this problem of criminals being out and about in high volume and conditioned to getting a “never go to jail and stay free” card?  Now that the Munchausen government can solve crime in place of local police, will we ever get our police presence back at the local level?  And where does the outsourcing of our problems stop?

Local police presence is like school boards, like Mom-and-Pop diners, dry cleaners, and wine stores.  Our neighborhoods are extensions of our self-evident right to individuality.  Police know the specifics of the neighborhood they work.  They see the broken windows — however, if glass shatters in a window, and someone is running away with a baseball bat, but the local police are not allowed to stop and frisk, or even ask a question without writing a new rendition of War and Peace, then it is the police who are being handcuffed.

In sum, we have the police burdened by paperwork for documenting every interaction, we have the criminals unencumbered by jail time or even arrests, and now we have the National Guard being sent to solve the very problem that resulted from banning the police and judges from fully doing their jobs.

Image: Billie Grace Ward via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.