All Enforcers Are Cops

[EasyAce]

Real police reform requires backing off efforts to force people to do things they don’t want to do.
By J.D. Tuccille
https://reason.com/2020/07/13/all-enforcers-are-cops/

The mass movement for U.S. police reform continues, with legislation pending in Congress, protests in the streets, and the public at large embracing an end to the "qualified immunity" that protects police officers against civil liability for bad conduct. But a lot of the same people calling—rightly—for changes in the way governments enforce laws also propose ambitious interventions into American life that require significant enforcement.

Ultimately, a lot of people are either going to have to betray their commitment to reform or come to terms with the fact that all enforcers are cops and prone to abusing police power . . .

. . . (E)nforcers often abuse their power for no reason more special than that they can.

"To some employees, the taxpayer is the enemy," former Revenue Officer Richard M. Schickel wrote in his self-published 2015 memoir, IRS Whistleblower. "The power of the IRS is the power of FEAR," he added.

Groups on the left aren't the only ones pushing for expansive government activity that requires an extensive enforcement apparatus.

On the right, "new nationalists have decided … that government should force you to choose correctly," (as they see it) Reason's Stephanie Slade warned last year. Those "correct" choices involve regulating social media, banning pornography, rejecting free markets, and, of course, a certain hostility towards immigration.

Then again, many on the right like cops—lots and lots of cops. Open authoritarianism is, at least, honest.

But the political left's happy talk about reforming/defunding/abolishing police comes off as so much lip service when it also calls for vast intrusions into people's lives . . .