I Wear a Mask

 

Obviously not while inside by myself, but I wear a mask whenever I expect to walk by people or I am getting a delivery. It’s partly because it is required by our crazy governor (statewide lockdowns are stupid), and partly because I want to protect other people. There’s also the fact that we will enforce masking at work, and I’ll be damned if I enforce a rule I won’t practice myself. (I became a stringent recycler in my private life when I was asked to implement a recycling program at my last job)  It also is not really harming me, and I try to wear only quality American-made masks and bandanas.

I even stopped a pair of police officers and asked if the CPD didn’t give them masks. I said I’d give them bandanas suitable for masks if the department had left them out. Turns out they had just taken them off to talk outside their car. We chatted a bit before I finished heading home with dinner. It’s not like you could actually social distance from your partner in a squad car…

I practice social distancing, but the two-meter rule was not based on hard science, so I treat it as the rough guideline it is.

So when you see a guy with a mask on, he’s not necessarily a disciple of Darth Gretchen ready to destroy the American way of life or a shrinking violet who lives in terror.  Masking is some kind of virtue signaling totem for the left, I don’t want the reverse to be true on the right.

Published in Culture
This post was promoted to the Main Feed by a Ricochet Editor at the recommendation of Ricochet members. Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 69 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    @taras, I’ve asked you a couple of times, and perhaps I’ve missed your answer, but I’ll ask again.

    Police are unique in that they provide a service I am not at liberty to decline. They can pull me over, stop me on the street, and break into my home. As far as I know, no private-sector service, including private-sector police services, has this quality.

    When you talk of a private-sector police force replacing government police forces, would you envision that police force having the same authority to impose its services upon me against my will?

    I thought I already explained this, but just to clarify …

    1. Currently a department store detective or loss prevention associate has the right to “stop me on the street”.  Indeed, this is how shoplifters are normally apprehended.  Thus, it is not unique to government police to do this.

    2. Mall security has the right to “pull me over” on mall property; similarly, anyplace I’m using my car on private property.  This, too, is not unique to government police.

    3. In a gated community, security officers have the right to “break into my home“ in an emergency.  The third plank of government police uniqueness falls.

    N.B.: It’s misleading to speak of police providing “services” to the people they apprehend.  The services are being rendered to the communities the police have been hired to serve. This would be government police if the community is Minneapolis; private police if the community is Disney World.

    P.S.: I’m talking about contracting out some police services for greater flexibility, responsiveness to the community, and lower costs. By contrast, @cjherod is taking the discussion in the direction of what might be described as a radical libertarian or anarchocapitalist approach to policing, something I studied in my youth.

     

     

     

    • #61
  2. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Taras (View Comment):
    3. In a gated community, security officers have the right to “break into my home“ in an emergency. The third plank of government police uniqueness falls.

    Do they have to get a warrant first?

     

    • #62
  3. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Taras (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    @taras, I’ve asked you a couple of times, and perhaps I’ve missed your answer, but I’ll ask again.

    Police are unique in that they provide a service I am not at liberty to decline. They can pull me over, stop me on the street, and break into my home. As far as I know, no private-sector service, including private-sector police services, has this quality.

    When you talk of a private-sector police force replacing government police forces, would you envision that police force having the same authority to impose its services upon me against my will?

    I thought I already explained this, but just to clarify …

    Thanks. I appreciate it. I really am curious about how you envision such a thing working, and about the pros and cons of a privatized police force. I remain deeply skeptical, but it’s an interesting topic of discussion (if somewhat distant from the original post).

    1. Currently a department store detective or loss prevention associate has the right to “stop me on the street”. Indeed, this is how shoplifters are normally apprehended. Thus, it is not unique to government police to do this.

    Are these people armed? Presumably I can avoid them by not shopping in the stores for which they’re responsible. (If I were detained on the street by an unarmed person who mistakenly thought I had been in his store, there would be hell to pay, and it would likely start immediately.)

    2. Mall security has the right to “pull me over” on mall property; similarly, anyplace I’m using my car on private property. This, too, is not unique to government police.

    Again, I’ve voluntarily placed myself on someone else’s private property. People have a lot of authority on their own property. However, I’m not sure that mall security has the right to use deadly force to keep me from driving off of the mall property.

    3. In a gated community, security officers have the right to “break into my home“ in an emergency. The third plank of government police uniqueness falls.

    The miffed white dude asked an interesting question: do they need a warrant? And, for that matter, what constitutes an “emergency?” Can that emergency be their belief that, for example, that I may have stolen goods in my basement?

    N.B.: It’s misleading to speak of police providing “services” to the people they apprehend. The services are being rendered to the communities the police have been hired to serve. This would be government police if the community is Minneapolis; private police if the community is Disney World.

    This gets back to the idea of who, exactly, is the “customer” in this situation. In a market economy, the customer — from the standpoint of market function — is the buyer, the one who decides whether or not a financial transaction occurs. In your privatized police force, the customer is the government. The incentive of the police force is to please the government, whatever that means. The downside of that arrangement is that, as I described earlier, it creates one more layer of deniability for the government, which can now point to the private company that betrayed them and the public trust by behaving in a way no one could have anticipated. So you fire the police department, instead of firing the incompetent government that hired them, and put another police department into power.

    I remain skeptical that creating a potential scapegoat is a good idea. I also think that it would be difficult to argue that the public sector police union is too strong to be responsive to good governance, yet somehow weak enough to be completely replaced by a private sector police force. If it can be removed, it can probably be reformed. (But then I’m a conservative, and generally prefer incremental improvement over radical transformation.)

    P.S.: I’m talking about contracting out some police services for greater flexibility, responsiveness to the community, and lower costs. By contrast, @cjherod is taking the discussion in the direction of what might be described as a radical libertarian or anarchocapitalist approach to policing, something I studied in my youth.

    I appreciate that distinction. So which aspects of police services would you *not* contract out? Because there are undoubtedly police services even I can imagine perhaps turning over to the private sector. They just don’t include those activities that include men with guns.

     

    • #63
  4. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    CJ (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):
    Now consider who is the “consumer” in the case of a private police force. It isn’t the citizen. It’s the government agency that pays the private police force. The market forces will be those between the government and the private police; it’s the government that the police must keep happy, not the man in the street.

    This isn’t the concept of private police that I have. If the government is still paying for it with compulsory taxation, that isn’t a free market. You have simply gone from social (government owns means of production of socialism) to crony capitalism (government contracts out to favored industries).

    So I think you are right about crony capitalist police have those problems. But current socialist system also has many of those same problems.

    Again, I’ll quibble with “socialist” in this context, since we’re talking about “tax funded,” and socialist isn’t synonymous with tax funded.

    But I’m interested in how you envision a private, not-government-funded police force would be funded and held accountable. Can you expand on that?

    All of the examples I’ve seen of “private” security are for reaction to things happening now [shoplifters, etc].

    What about crime that requires investigation, identifying, tracking and apprehending the perpetrators, and charging them in public court?

    Who’s going to do that in this glorious future?  Are we envisioning a world of bailbondsmen bounty hunters enforcing the law? 

    If so, I’d suggest that you’re going to be disappointed if you’re expecting the result to be more respect for civilian and innocent party rights than what we have now.

     

     

     

     

     

    • #64
  5. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):
    3. In a gated community, security officers have the right to “break into my home“ in an emergency. The third plank of government police uniqueness falls.

    Do they have to get a warrant first?

     

    They would break in only in cases involving imminent harm or “exigent circumstances”, I believe.  Otherwise there would be plenty of time to call local LEO’s and let them figure it out.

    • #65
  6. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    @henryracette — A few words (hopefully) on #63:

    I never thought of bounty hunters until you mentioned them.

    True, one of the most dangerous parts of police work – forcibly arresting fugitives from justice — is routinely outsourced to (heavily armed) private policemen.  And yes, because they are private, they have to be more careful not to violate the rights of people they arrest than the government police with their various legal immunities.

    Once again, you may wish that “activities that include men with guns” not be outsourced to private police, but they already are.

    #1.  Guards are armed or unarmed depending on how valuable is whatever they’re guarding. Thus, jewelry store and bank guards are usually armed.  On the other hand, department store guards need not be. They simply send enough big guys to outmuscle and handcuff a shoplifter who resists arrest.

    #2.  Normally the government police don’t have the right to shoot you, either, merely because you’re driving away, unless there is an imminent danger to the public.

    #3.  I think a stolen child in imminent danger would constitute an emergency, while stolen goods would not.  As before, there would be plenty of time to call local LEO’s in the latter case.

    There are many possible scenarios for the use of private police. One very practical one right now might be to hire a security firm owned, managed, and staffed by blacks to patrol inner-city areas; while the rest of the city goes on as before.

    A more thoroughgoing approach would be to have all the police work outsourced to various firms; while the district attorney’s office would contract out to yet another, competing firm or firms to act as the equivalent of an internal affairs department.

     

    • #66
  7. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Taras (View Comment):

    @henryracette — A few words (hopefully) on #63:

    I never thought of bounty hunters until you mentioned them.

    True, one of the most dangerous parts of police work – forcibly arresting fugitives from justice — is routinely outsourced to (heavily armed) private policemen. And yes, because they are private, they have to be more careful not to violate the rights of people they arrest than the government police with their various legal immunities.

    Once again, you may wish that “activities that include men with guns” not be outsourced to private police, but they already are.

    #1. Guards are armed or unarmed depending on how valuable is whatever they’re guarding. Thus, jewelry store and bank guards are usually armed. On the other hand, department store guards need not be. They simply send enough big guys to outmuscle and handcuff a shoplifter who resists arrest.

    #2. Normally the government police don’t have the right to shoot you, either, merely because you’re driving away, unless there is an imminent danger to the public.

    #3. I think a stolen child in imminent danger would constitute an emergency, while stolen goods would not. As before, there would be plenty of time to call local LEO’s in the latter case.

    There are many possible scenarios for the use of private police. One very practical one right now might be to hire a security firm owned, managed, and staffed by blacks to patrol inner-city areas; while the rest of the city goes on as before.

    A more thoroughgoing approach would be to have all the police work outsourced to various firms; while the district attorney’s office would contract out to yet another, competing firm or firms to act as the equivalent of an internal affairs department.

     

    T, I’ve read everything you’ve written here and appreciate the time you’ve taken. I remain unconvinced that substantially replacing public police forces with privatized ones would be beneficial; rather, I think it would work against the goals you’ve stated, for the reasons I’ve written above. I am certainly in favor of private security, including armed security, and of the right of citizens to carry their own weapons. But I’d prefer those police authorized to accost me against my will and on my own turf to be public employees, not private.

    Oh, and the reference to bounty hunters was someone else’s. I’ve never given them much thought, but think I’d generally be opposed to the idea of private citizens being authorized to bring people in against their will, however cost effective it might be. Perhaps that’s another discussion (though it feels like a continuation of this one).

    Thanks for an interesting discussion.

    • #67
  8. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Taras (View Comment):
    True, one of the most dangerous parts of police work – forcibly arresting fugitives from justice — is routinely outsourced to (heavily armed) private policemen. And yes, because they are private, they have to be more careful not to violate the rights of people they arrest than the government police with their various legal immunities.

    I don’t know much more about bounty hunters than what I read in novels, since we don’t have them in Wisconsin.  But my understanding is that they are far less constrained with regard to “the rights of the people they arrest” than are sworn law enforcement. Among other things, I don’t believe they require a warrant to enter a private residence, although laws presumably vary from state to state.

     

    • #68
  9. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):
    True, one of the most dangerous parts of police work – forcibly arresting fugitives from justice — is routinely outsourced to (heavily armed) private policemen. And yes, because they are private, they have to be more careful not to violate the rights of people they arrest than the government police with their various legal immunities.

    I don’t know much more about bounty hunters than what I read in novels, since we don’t have them in Wisconsin. But my understanding is that they are far less constrained with regard to “the rights of the people they arrest” than are sworn law enforcement. Among other things, I don’t believe they require a warrant to enter a private residence, although laws presumably vary from state to state.

     

    My understanding is that, as part of the loan agreement with the bail bondsman, the borrower gives him or an agent the right to enter his property, if necessary.

    • #69
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.