POLICE: Defunding is wrong approach

It appears that critical thinking is becoming a lost art. The best evidence of this is the apparent inability of the latest crop of demonstrators to reason through what it would mean to their lives, personal safety, and indeed their ability to express their dissenting opinions if law enforcement were removed from the equation.

In order for any civil right, regulation or law to have any impact, it must be honored. If it is disregarded, it becomes irrelevant.

People will instinctively pursue their own interests, sometimes at the expense of others. To protect ourselves from those who would indiscriminately compromise the rights and safety of others, societies enact laws.

Even though most people grasp the wisdom of this, and voluntarily remain mostly within these limits, we all occasionally depart from what we know is legal, and some of us practice lawlessness as a full-time vocation. This is why all civilized societies minimize bad behavior by providing negative consequences. And, the police comprise that thin blue line standing between civilization and anarchy.

If we eliminate police, we also make irrelevant the protections that are written into our constitution and laws. Everyone will then do what is right in his own eyes.

It is clear that misbehavior on the part of any police officers must be penalized. But, defunding police services as a response to one officer’s misconduct makes about as much sense as defunding the student loan program because a college student took part in criminal behavior during the demonstration.

PATRICK POOLE

Coeur d’Alene