The Reality of Police Misconduct

The tendency of conservatives is to be supportive of a police officer when he is accused of misconduct, particularly when the accusations come from members of the Left.

That is quite understandable since so often a distinct anti-police bias seems obvious.

But the conservative reaction of supporting the police seems to be a knee-jerk reaction on many occasions.

It is a fact that conservatives are traditionally inclined to think that those in power must be constrained from abusing it.  That, after all, is the reason we favor limited government.  Human nature thirsts for power and control.  Conservatism, as a philosophy, appreciates the need to thwart that inclination toward abuse.

Why, then, does the Right tend to give a pass to police officer credibility accused of misconduct?

Because they represent “law and order” and therefore their excess of power is on our side?  In contrast, the perceived over-reach of an EPA bureaucrat, for instance, is widely condemned by conservatives.
Lord Acton, a British statesman of the 19^th century, a member of the Conservative Party, took a more even-handed approach to the dangers inherent in human nature.  “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Oversight of everyone who exercises power is an essential element of freedom’s preservation.

That is true at the Federal level where the balance of power established by the Constitution was designed to keep national power seekers at bay, down to the police officer on the beat in a town swinging his nightstick.

 

The Good Side of Human Nature

Conservative views of human nature originated with Adam and Eve.  Mankind has never been able to attain perfection because, by nature, we are not perfectable.  That is what the doctrine of “original sin,” in essence, means.  Utopians and Communists insisted upon seeing this the hard way at the cost of untold misery and death of their brethren.  And the world still abounds with dangerous fools who refuse to accept this reality.

But to say that man is not perfect is not to condemn us to perpetual purgatory.

After all, our specie has survived for many thousands of years.  Surely, there are aspects of our immutable nature which have made that possible.  We are programmed to do that which is necessary to our survival.  When we stray, disaster ensues.

By nature, we are social creatures engineered (if you will) to live cooperatively in group settings.  That is essential to mankind’s survival.

Proof of this proposition is found in a study of sixty different cultures across the globe conducted by a University of Oxford anthropologist. 

“There is a similar moral matrix we all share,” the Professor writes.

He identified seven universal values:

          1.  Helping your family.

          2.  Helping your group.

          3.  Being fair with others (divide equally).

          4.  Respecting others’ property.

          5.  Being brave. 

          6.  Returning favors (The Golden Rule).

          7.  Respecting older members of your family and group.

If, upon reviewing this list, you thought “that’s the natural way to think,” that’s the point!

When governments defy human nature, the outcome will not be pretty.

 

Serious Democrats Aren’t Serious About Impeachment

Pause for a moment.  Does it make any sense for hard-headed Democrats to want to impeach (charge) and convict Donald Trump with arch-conservative Mike Pence then becoming President… and running for election in 2020 as the incumbent?

Hardly.

Whatever The Sensible Conservative may think of the politics of Speaker  Nancy Pelosi or Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer, neither is, despite the labels applied by President Trump, a political fool.  They would not have risen to their leadership roles if they were.

No, Democratic Party leadership is not seeking the ouster –before 2020 elections – of the President.

But they do want to wound him as much as possible.  From a legal and constitutional perspective, the discussions of impeachment are ill-founded.

Article II, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution is not ambiguous:  “The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for and conviction of Treason, Bribery or other high crimes and Misdemeanors”.

Note the word “other”.  A public officer must be accused of committing a crime as a prerequisite for impeachment to commence.

The President may be intemperate, incompetent and self-serving, but those are grounds for opposing his re-election, not impeachment by the House of Representatives.

So what?  Impeachment proceedings present Democrats with the opportunity to headline on a nearly daily basis (with the media’s cooperation a given) an Anti-Trump narrative.  The 2020 Presidential campaign will begin in earnest.

But because the Democratic leadership (unlike many in the Party’s rank and file) do not want a Senate conviction (even if attainable), there is a distinct probability that there will not even be a formal vote to impeach.

If there is a vote in the House, it would be nearly certain to pass.  The consequences would be trial and acquittal in the Senate (2/3 support is  undoubtedly a pipe dream).  Vindication, in effect, would be the popular verdict.  That is not what wise Democrats desire.  They want Donald Trump ousted on election day, not before.

To be sure, political activity is often not what it seems.  In the “old days,” the media was willing to look behind the posturing and point out real motivations and purposes.  Instead, most of our media is so blinded by ideology that they either do not see what is actually happening or are willingly serving as propagandists for the Democratic Party.