26 Oct Readers’ thoughts about policing and citizenship

The week’s events got one Contrarian reader thinking about policing:

We have way too many police, and we pay way too much for them. Regardless of what people think, our crime rate is dropping. As I sometimes tell people when I am particularly argumentative, “If your child is not aboriginal or a new immigrant, then she is the safest person who has ever lived.”

So when I get a ticket for failing to stop at a stop sign given by a nice older man in the RCMP, any cost benefit analysis would say: way too much cost for too little benefit.

—  Salary $82,000
–  Car $30,000
–  Admin + something
–  Equipment + something

Anyway, the $150 ticket cost a fortune to give out. An unarmed compliance officer would make so much more fiscal sense. We no longer have police handing out parking tickets because you lose every time one is given out.

And yet, this week I watched brave Mounties and other police run towards not away from danger. Is this the cost I pay for living safe? Sometime a society needs men and women with guns willing to step up and not away.

I work for [an airline]. Pilots are overpaid bus drivers until you are at 35,000 feet  and things go wrong. She is worth every penny if your kid is sitting behind the pilot….

Do we need all these armed people around us?  I think not, but this week a guy  going for coffee was run over, a  soldier standing unarmed sentry duty was murdered, and our parliament was attacked, which means I was attacked. Police stood up and went toward them, and put themselves between the crazies and us.What price freedom and safety? Like many Canadians I am thinking this week.

Another reader was thinking about the costs of citizenship:

The implicit assumption behind the pro-security argument is that no Canadian civilians should die on home soil, because we want to preserve our freedoms. That assumption needs to be challenged. If the choice is civilian casualties or a police state, I’ll take civilian casualties. In this respect, it’s worth noting how many responded to events by running toward trouble not away; the witnesses to the shooting, cops, and the sergeant-at-arms.

My thoughts in the next post.