I was going to do this as a comment to the below story, but figured I’d blog it into the mainstream here.
An editorial I read in this morning’s Denver Post gave me a different spin on this. To wit, Fritz the National Guard dude who plays such a role in the below tale is not a law enforcement officer.
Consider that. The National Guard has many roles, but serving as law enforcement officials, except to shoot at looters during disasters, is not one of them.
That may explain the rather all-or-nothing, civil-liberties-be-damned, I-either-ignore-you-or-shoot-you attitude. Because that’s a soldier’s role: to shoot the folks who need shooting, and not shoot the ones who don’t. Niceties like civil rights and due process are not a key part of the mission.
Which is appropriate, for the military. But doesn’t work well in a civilian application.
Or, as the Post editorial puts it, in disagreeing with the calls to use the Army to support local law enforcement:
Soldiers have a different orientation: Their prime function is to destroy the enemy, not bring him to justice. Moreover, the military ethos fosters prompt obedience to orders. How would a 19-year-old infantryman react if, for example, a civilian questioned the propriety of having his house searched?
Sure, police go overboard in such circumstances, too. But at least they’ve been trained in what “protect and serve” means. They aren’t indoctrinated in the (reasonable for a soldier) motto of “return with your shield, or on it.”
Fritz, or whatever his name is, was given a mission. Military thinking is, don’t make decisions based on what your enemy will do, do it based on what they can do. Getting into a hissy-fit over taking pictures is understandable, from the framework of “There’s Us, and then there’s the Enemy.”
Of course, that doesn’t excuse all the other bureaucratic folderol the writer ran into. But I chalk that up to general fear. Fear of being the person to let the terrorist through. Fear of contradicting what others have done. Fear of digging too deeply, of being the nail that stands out.
Hopefully, we’ll all get over that. Until then … try to avoid being that nail. There’s no profit in it