It's CHOGM this weekend, oh joyous day. I'm happily separate from the whole parade of self-congratulatory wank and scolding poor countries, but as is regularly the case, something about the whole event has gotten my heckles up, and I feel the need to play devils advocate once again. I should totally rename this blog "Don Quixote" or something like that, what with all the tilting at windmills I seem to do.
So, should the police be able to arrest the CHOGM protestors or is it an infringement on their civil liberties? And the wider question, are the police just a tool for social control that exist to limit our rights?
Short answer, yes. In their current form, the police are something of a tool of government oppression and a weapon to maintain the status quo, blah blah blah same old shit you've heard from your token leftie friend a million times before. The CHOGM protesters are, by and large, staging a non-violent demonstration on a public space. It's not as if there's a law against what they're doing, but there's the risk one of the signs might piss of Her Majesty or something, so the fuzz come in and sweep up the young folks. Hypothetically, if someone throws a bottle at the the Queen or a delegate or something, that person is probably gonna get scooped up and they kinda deserve it. See, throwing a bottle at someone is dangerous, someone could get hurt. Assuming it's a glass bottle... I couldn't see a plastic bottle doing much damage unless it was full. Tangent! My point is, if someone did something violent or dangerous, they'd get arrested anyway, not because they are/were a protester, but for the relatively harmless act of staging a demonstration, there's nothing illegal there, so arresting any protesters would be a pretty good vindication of the whole "police as social control" theory.
Consider how much police presence there'll be in the city during this weekend. It's gonna be insane, I've heard tales of snipers, swat guys, the whole deal. I'm skeptical to their validity but I wouldn't put it passed this increasingly conservative government of ours. I consider this an overreaction, and there'll probably be some pretty dodgy arrests, but hey, you're entitled to your own opinion on just how many cops you'd need to protect a delegation of officials from over 50 nations.
So, fuck the police, right? Well, not so much... see, as much as I don't like tools of government oppression and things of the sort, I'm also a fan of my own safety and the keeping of my shit in wherever it is I'm living at the time. The simple fact of the matter is, if people had no restrictions shit would get fucked. That's just one example of what happens when people are given free reign; if they think they can get away with it, a surprisingly large amount of people will start going nuts. I'm not going to say everyone advocates this, but I'm sure most people are advocates of their right to safety of themselves and their belongings, so from that perspective, a team of folks who's job it is to look after our safety probably has a place in a functioning society.
In their current form, the power of the police is being abused to keep everyone toeing the line; locking up people for stuff like marijuana possession or public urination is excessive and unnecessary, but it keeps people fearing the dangling sword of the law and perpetuates the meme that the police are gon' come getcha if you do anything "naughty," naughty being what pisses off the old white guys that run the show. Unfortunately, the larger a society is, the less it regulates itself and so some sort of institution that protects the safety of the citizenry and enforces the rules that society as a whole decides are the best ones to live by is unfortunately, necessary.
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