Role of authority in uncertain times

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How about some clear-headed discussion about the proper role of the police, military and government in these times? In order to make some kind of informed decision about what is legal, right and appropriate one needs to have a firm foundation and reference points to gain clarity. ie--if the government believed there was internal threat, what steps should it take to protect the citizenry? What is the proper role and behavior of the citizenry in responce?

-- John Q (Questioning@properrole.com), October 20, 1999

Answers

Well, there's the question of legalities and the question of practice. As much as we would like to think that our government should toe the line on laws, in practice government will do what it thinks best in a praticular situation and sort out the issues later.

Governors have sovereignty over their respective States and can refuse Federal 'help'. The respective National Guards are under the control of the governors. Counties are the next lower level of authority under the States. I believe incorporated town/cities are under the Counties and then it is individual landowners. The reason that landowners are supported in their right to defend their property with force and even deadly force is because it is an issue of sovereignty just as with the Counties and States, etc.

Though a few folks are making a mountain out of the Executive Orders problem there is no way that these orders can be put into force unless Congress allows it. Even then there is some question as to whether the States must also allow this. We know that in order for Federal Agencies to be active in disaster areas a Governor must declare a disaster and then apply to the Federal government for aid (and allow that aid to be delivered by Federal workers/soldiers.

In practice, when things are chaotic, people tend to lose connection with higher authorites and act to control local situations in the manner which seems best to them at the time. If there is a threat to life or a threat of destruction of property then these things are generally focused on first (ie - rights are temporarily ignored in order to save lives and secure property).

Law enforcement staff are really there to help and we should understand that they are us by and large. Without thier help we would be in alot worse shape as communities. IMO we should support local government as much as posible so that they can be free from dealing with the large majority of people in thier juristictions and focus on the real bad elements who are truly misbehaving. But they can not be everywhere and we must work together as landowners to secure our neighborhoods in thier absence. Unfortunately virtually none of us has any experience doing this and hardly know our neighbors at all.

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), October 20, 1999.


I'll bite first.

The absolutely first and proper role would have been to tell the truth in the beginning, instead of the stonewalling and lying we've seen. That way, more people could have been prepared.

Since that's a pipe dream, the natural role is to keep the peace. Ooops, I guess since the lies have piled up, and the panic will be much worse than it should be, and the authorities cannot keep the peace, that's out.

Well, maybe they can help feed the roving, starving masses. Hmmmmm...not likely, since there are millions of tons of excess food rotting in silos and no one seems to be interested in securing it for emergency use.

So what's left? Well, maybe they can lock down the cities to make sure the death toll is as high as possible. Yepper, that's probably what will happen. That's the only role they have left.

MFU

-- Man From Uncle 1999 (mfu1999@hotmail.com), October 20, 1999.


Unfortunately, the role and training of the police force and military is in keeping down the bad guys. They haven't been trained in food distribution to the same degree they have been trained in crowd control. To expect them to break from their training and turn into something they aren't is simply unrealistic. They are what they are.

-- Amy Leone (leoneamy@aol.com), October 20, 1999.

"Though a few folks are making a mountain out of the Executive Orders problem there is no way that these orders can be put into force unless Congress allows it."

Better check that agin, congress has already given their approval to the EO's. They can be put into play at any time by the decree of the president alone! He dosn't need any additonal approval.

-- ActionBill (actionbil@aol.com), October 20, 1999.


Search Executive Orders
Govenment site.

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), October 20, 1999.


dit---thanks, I needed your instructions as the broad boundaries---the other responces helped me to understand more---I guess I am thinking about what we call in my field as "best practices"--in the same way I look at some of the better y2k community efforts---most successful way of addressing perceived threat---but in a more global sence. It is late in the day--had to go to work---so this is WAY down on the thead and out of the radar---my thanks are non the less sincere.

-- John Q (Questioning@properrole.com), October 20, 1999.

Excuse me, but ONE MINOR point:

The Guard is under Gubernatorial Control ONLY UNTIL they are Federalised, by order of the CINC (read POTUS). Once they are federalised, and this CAN INCLUDE EVEN the STATE GUARDS, they are under the DIRECT and TOTAL CONTROL of the CINC and the standard Chain of Command.

Have had a NUMBER of conversations with local members of the State Guard hereabouts and they all, in general, prior to Y2K looked foreward to being federalised, as then they were put on the Federal payroll (at the Fed Pay Scale), going from pretty much volunteer to paid.

Night Train

-- Jes an ol nit-pickin' footballer (nighttr@in.lane), October 21, 1999.


Right out of the gate I have a problem with the question. I'm wondering how many folks know the meaning of the word: AUTHORITY?

To author means to make, to do. Authority, one who makes, does.

Word twists, notwithstanding, it seems important to point out that each of us is the 'authority' of our own lives. How much you 'buy into' the modern version of the word will be proportional to how much you have been schooled to think that experts exist outside of you, who can tell you how to live and how to survive crises.

So, I ask: When you say 'authorities' do you mean those people who have managed to get themselves into positions of power, (not necessarily positions of knowledge)?

Do I think those so-called authorities know better than me how I can survive and thrive in these very amazing times? Do I think they are somehow different than me? Do I think they can solve the problems plaguing the planet? Can they protect me? No, to all of my questions.

Get up to speed on self-reliance, you can do a lot fast. Stop the magical thinking about those larger than life 'leaders' who know more than you do. Reliance on 'experts' is what has gotten the big blue marble's inhabitants into the magilla they are in.

Amazing that in 1999 folks are still slavishly kneeling to the authorities...but then the last three decades of backlash has been formidable.

-- Donna (moment@pacbell.net), October 21, 1999.


The guard should never be "federalized."

-- Patrick (pmchenry@gradall.com), October 22, 1999.

Amazing that in 1999 folks are still slavishly kneeling to the authorities...but then the last three decades of backlash has been formidable.

As much as I dig a lot of the music from that time, all I can say is THANK GOD I wasn't alive when all that crazy stuff was going down.

Really, the ambivalence of my attitudes toward back then tear me up. My Dad, a decent and honorable guy, got shipped off to Nam back in '69--leaving behind a newlywed wife and her infant son. I was conceived the night he got back. Yipee.

Now I'm never going to tell him that we were wrong in being there. AS far as I'm concerned the Communist threat to America was genuine even though our responses to it seem, in restrospect, grossly obtuse. We agreed to defend a country against rebels and invaders. We lost. But no one thanked him for giving up a year of his life to do that. He generally got spit on instead.

It really riles me when people want to go back to those times. They seem to me to be so violent and drenched in rage. The "peace and love" stuff seemed to be more of a fashion statement than anything else, an excuse to party and smoke some good weed.

My parents never joined that party. All they did was try to mind their own business and stay out of trouble...and look what happened. So- called "peace lovers" threw stones and bottles at people like my dad and called him a baby killer--in front of my mom, even. Do you think my Dad can get a good night's sleep, even now? Answer: not usually. No he did not kill babies. But he saw a lot of carnage and a lot of his buddies are now dead.

Yeah yeah.

I suppose he could have burned his orders and put on the love beads in Canada, but then someone would have just as easily filled his place. Certainly not a rich kid who could afford to perpetually stay in school, though!!

You know what else!!? Tell me what happened after 1973, when the American troops came home and the draft was ended. The War in Vietnam did not stop until 1975! But the PROTESTS STOPPED SUDDENLY! FANCY THAT!! Why? Could it be that all the angry shouts of "HO HO HO CHI MIN" and the taunts of Hanoi Jane disappeared because no more boys were being shipped off? Could it be that what they were really protesting was not the mistreatment and abuse of Southeast Asia but just the prospect of getting PERSONALLY INCONVENIENCED? Once the war was no longer personal it vanished from the public's view. Meanwhile millions of peaceful, brown-skinned people were slaughtered and millions more took to the seas in rickety boats after we abandoned them. Doesn't that smell a little bit hypocritical?

Oh yeah. Then there's the SEXUAL REVOLUTION. Cool, man. Yeah that's just great. Take morality out of sex and just DO IT because it FEELS GOOD. Take away the courtship, the romance, the chivalry, all the old fashioned mating rituals. What do you get? Lots of good times. And divorces, rapes, sexually transmitted diseases (some fatal), 20+ million aborted unborn babies, and a huge confusion and alienation betwen men and women never known since time began.

Women's Lib? That's okay. That was worth fighting for. I approve.

Civil rights? That was also essential. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X are heroes for all times.

Yep the '60s. I don't see a huge backlash but at the same time my philosphy toward them can be summed up with LSD: "_L_et the _S_ixties _D_ie. They're breathing down my neck, even to this day, with their influence and their barrage of youth culture for a culture that is no longer youthful.

How does this relate to Y2K? Simple. I am not looking forward to Y2K if it will be ANYTHING like the 60s. We as a nation simply could not survive that kind of horrendous stress again. It baffles me when I see some people in their 40s and 50s who truly are stuck in a time- warp to a rose-colored Pepperland that really never was. I suppose I'd really enjoy Pepperland (or Aquarius, what have you) if it could exist, but the REAL 60s seems to me to have been a real nightmare.

Hope I'm not sounding too harsh, and forgive me if I seem to speak from ignorance. But this is how I feel, with passionate, burning ambivalence, totally unresolved and always in conflict within. Rant is over now. Walk in beauty, all you nocturnal cybernauts.



-- coprolith (coprolith@rocketship.com), October 22, 1999.



Patrick-- The Guard is a 2 function or 2 role unit. They train for BOTH functions and understand that they have both a Federal and State Role.

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), October 22, 1999.


Doesn't make a standing army constitutional though, does it? Thomas Jefferson is spinning in his grave.

-- Patrick (pmchenry@gradall.com), October 22, 1999.

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