By Scott Rasmussen, Rasmussen
Media Group
In Florida recently, police
pulled up to a young boy playing in the park and asked where his mother lived.
According to a report on WPTV, the mom was then arrested for "allowing her
son to go to the park alone." Her son had a cellphone, and she would check
in with him along the way. The mom believes "he's old enough, but Port St.
Lucie Police disagree."
There is a tendency to dismiss
stories such as this as a silly mistake by an overzealous police officer, but
sadly it's part of a larger problem. In fact, a similar story of arresting a
mom for not supervising her child 24/7/365 took place a few weeks back in South
Carolina. A Washington Post column reported these incidents as part of a series
on "the increasing criminalization of everything and the use of the
criminal justice system to address problems that were once (and better) handled
by families, friends, communities and other institutions
There is a tendency to dismiss
stories such as this as a silly mistake by an overzealous police officer, but
sadly it's part of a larger problem. In fact, a similar story of arresting a
mom for not supervising her child 24/7/365 took place a few weeks back in South
Carolina. A Washington Post column reported these incidents as part of a series
on "the increasing criminalization of everything and the use of the
criminal justice system to address problems that were once (and better) handled
by families, friends, communities and other institutions."
This abuse of governmental
authority is the natural extension of nanny-state efforts such as the crusade
to ban large sugary drinks. Once you accept the premise that so-called experts
should decide what's best for the rest of us, the only question remaining is
how to deal with people who don't comply.
It's the same mindset that
believes the National Security Agency should be allowed to read all our emails
and monitor our phone calls in the name of national security. Just trust us,
they say. We're from the government, and we're here to help.
How's this for help? In
Georgia, a SWAT team broke into a house searching for drugs and threw a
flash-bang grenade inside a child's crib.
The excessive force was
disgusting to begin with. Even worse is the fact that the police had the wrong
house and there were no drugs. The child is in critical condition.
Amazingly, the local sherriff
and other Georgia authorities said the officers didn't do anything wrong.
That's ludicrous. They deployed a grenade developed for war in a private home
and sent a child to the hospital fighting for his life. Something is terribly
wrong.
It's important to note that
most police officers are great public servants. Just a few years ago, a local
officer in my hometown literally saved my life and the lives of my family. We
called him a hero. He said he was just doing his job. Naturally, we have
tremendous respect for the job that such officers do and the courage they
display.
However, a National Review
article correctly notes that "respecting good police work means being
willing to speak out against civil-liberties-breaking thugs who shrug their
shoulders after brutalizing citizens." That means speaking out against
stories like this:
"On Thursday in Staten
Island, an asthmatic 43-year-old father of six, Eric Garner, died after a group
of policemen descended on him, placing him in a chokehold while attempting to
arrest him for allegedly selling cigarettes."
Stories like these are not
random exceptions. They are the natural result of a governing philosophy that
believes government experts should dictate how the rest of us live. If we want
to reign in such over-the-top police actions, the first step must be to get rid
of the nanny-state mindset. This means recognizing every American has the right
to make decisions about how to live his or her own life.
