Re: Police Practices

Sean Maloney | Jul 16, 2015

As someone who has recently been ignored by the OPP over a life-threatening incident, and then treated as a “perp” for daring to disturb them over the phone, I would like to echo the sentiments of David Whalen's letter to the editor (Police Practices, Jul 9/15).

Selective police protection and accompanying selective enforcement of the law, particularly in life-threatening situations, is one of the first stages of the devolution of government legitimacy in society. When the police retract to the populated areas, abandon rural coverage and then coerce citizens for more money, we can respond negatively or we can respond positively. I would argue that a positive option is that we have a corresponding responsibility to be self-sufficient. This will entail some local level of organization and the acquisition and distribution of the means of protecting ourselves. Perhaps we can get the great Libertarian Scott Reid to get us a tax break on those means. In the absence of a social contract Afghanistan community-based security forces were established locally in the face of corrupted and/or non-existent police. We may have to do the same thing here. I hasten to add that this is not “vigilantism”, which is defined as community-based extra-judicial punishment. This is merely self-protection, which we are entitled to regardless of how many legal “experts” from Toronto and the other big cities disagree.