The liberal attitude toward
authority is juvenile at best; schizophrenic at worst. Liberals believe that authority is always
supposed to be beneficial. It must only
do good; never employ force. Of course,
a truly virtuous father understands that these apparent opposites are
synergistic.
For starters, liberals
identify with the poor and weak. Even
when they are in charge, they perceive themselves as underdogs. As a result, they become enraged whenever force
is employed against minorities.
The result is liberal
sympathy for the “Black Lives Matter” movement coupled with a negative attitude
toward the police. Despite the many
thousands of blacks murdered by other blacks, the focus is entirely on the few
that have been killed by the cops. Even
when a police officer is justified, the outrage festers.
It is as if there are two incompatible
kinds of government power. The first
sort is like a good daddy who showers his vulnerable children with all sorts of
goodies and protects them from external harm.
Meanwhile, the second—the bad daddy—imposes discipline. He punishes errant behavior.
Lest it be forgotten,
liberals also believe that everyone—especially the poor—deserves “unconditional
positive regard.” We are never supposed
to make the underprivileged feel bad about themselves no matter what they
do. This would constitute “blaming the
victim.”
This being the case,
externally imposed discipline is forbidden.
As a result, a version of social permissiveness countenances the weak doing
whatever they want within their own neighborhoods. If they rob each other, shoot each other, or
have children out of wedlock, this is their business.
The cops, if they get
involved, must always be nice. They must
never get angry, even if provoked.
Similarly, they must never employ violence, irrespective of who
initiates it. As the agents of a “good
daddy” government, they need to be entirely loving.
This, of course, assumes
that the weak are invariably capable of self-discipline. They ought never be punished because they are
adults who deserve control over their lives.
To permit bullyboy strangers—who don’t always like them—to intervene is
therefore intolerable.
No doubt, most liberal
parents employ discipline as lightly as possible. They prefer to use the time out, rather than
the whip, to correct their errant children.
Why can’t the police do the same?
But, pray tell, how would
this be achieved? What would constitute
a time out for ghetto ruffians? Would
they be cordoned off from the rest of society?
Could control be realized merely by reaching out a hand of friendship?
Those who believe that
unrelenting niceness can do the job have evidently never lived in poor
neighborhoods. Either that or they are
themselves among the troublemakers. Folks
like me, who have toiled in the inner city, know better.
The fact is that no
successful government can completely rule out the use of force. If it is always the good daddy, it will wake
up one day to discover that it has been overthrown by some of its most
obstreperous children. In shunning the
power to prevent bad, it will most assuredly squander the power to do good.
An undisciplined society is
one where the economy cannot work.
Brigands and conmen would run rampant.
Honest business people would thus lock their doors, while decent
citizens would tremble in their barricaded bedrooms.
An undisciplined society is
also one that is vulnerable to external aggression. If its people are so unruly that they cannot
be organized into a coherent army, they are sure to go down to defeat.
As a consequence, societies
that refuse to disciple those among them who cannot disciple themselves are
doomed. If they never impose force on
those who will not control themselves, they will die of an overdose of niceness.
Is this where we are
bound? Have we grown so soft that we
have also become softheaded? If so, that
is, if we continue to punish the police for other’s misdeeds, we will have
earned the chaos we reap.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
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