They both wear uniforms.\u00a0\u00a0They both carry guns.\u00a0\u00a0And, they both hold a special and usually honored place in American life.\u00a0\u00a0The local police and the National Guard are a lot alike, but they are NOT the same.\u00a0\u00a0And to quote Robert Frost, \u201c\u2026that makes all the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s all about missions.\u00a0\u00a0Proctologists and Orthopedic surgeons are both doctors.\u00a0\u00a0They\u2019re both trained in medicine.\u00a0\u00a0But I wouldn\u2019t want a Proctologist to repair my shoulder, or an Orthopedic running my next colonoscopy.\u00a0\u00a0Police are trained to prevent and arrest people committing crimes.\u00a0\u00a0As part of their specialized education, they learn the communities where they work.\u00a0\u00a0Policing is more than just \u201cbusts\u201d, it\u2019s also listening to the community.\u00a0\u00a0That communication enables better law-enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here in Pataskala, my elderly backyard neighbor had a \u201cbeef\u201d with me. He didn\u2019t feel like telling me the problem, so instead he called the police.\u00a0\u00a0Now, the police officer could have told him that his concern (some grass clippings encroaching on his back property line) wasn\u2019t a police matter.\u00a0\u00a0But the officer didn\u2019t.\u00a0\u00a0Instead, he served as a messenger, trying to solve a community problem at the lowest level.\u00a0\u00a0I took care of the clippings, (a phone call or a simple knock on the door would solve it).\u00a0\u00a0And, of course, I was annoyed that the police were involved.\u00a0\u00a0But I very much appreciate that the officer solved the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s good policing, what you hope for by those with a badge.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it’s not anywhere near the job of the National Guard.\u00a0\u00a0The National Guard is the real-life enactment of the Constitutional \u201cstate militia\u201d, a localized defense force.\u00a0\u00a0It made perfect sense in the era when the Federal Army was small, far away, and months from \u201ccoming to the rescue\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0When there was a hostile attack at the edge of the frontier, it was the militia, now termed the National Guard, who could respond with alacrity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The National Guard is the state defense force.\u00a0\u00a0They are trained in the art of warfare.\u00a0\u00a0But they have become more than that.\u00a0\u00a0They are also the emergency force sent in after a widespread disaster.\u00a0\u00a0The Guard organizes relief efforts when the tornadoes sweep through, and does search and rescues after the floods.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the Guard also has a role in civil unrest.\u00a0\u00a0Those of us who remember the Vietnam War era, remember the ultimate threat against college campus protest:\u00a0\u00a0calling in the National Guard.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That pitted two different groups of young people against each other:\u00a0\u00a0college students protesting and folks the same age (some also in college) who chose to go into the Guard.\u00a0\u00a0And we saw the fallacy of using troops untrained in crowd control on a college campus.\u00a0\u00a0Kent State, an Ohio campus of 20,000 students, became the rallying cry for protest, as ten students were shot with four killed by the Guard during a protest.\u00a0\u00a0Neil Young called it out:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cFour Dead in Ohio\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The National Guard does not have a badge. They are NOT trained in policing.\u00a0\u00a0They are NOT a substitute for effective police work.\u00a0\u00a0While both the Guard and Police wear uniforms, and carry guns, they are not the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are unacceptable levels of crime in America\u2019s big cities.\u00a0\u00a0This was particularly true right after the Covid era, when crime, like inflation, rose to record levels.\u00a0\u00a0But most cities responded to the crisis, and crime rates (even in Chicago) are close to pre-pandemic levels.\u00a0\u00a0They have found some answers:\u00a0\u00a0more policing in communities, more cops on a \u201cbeat\u201d that they come to know, more involvement with the community in a non-law enforcement role.\u00a0\u00a0All of that costs money, and the Federal government, up until January, was helping to fund those increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But with the second Trump Administration, much of that police support was cut.\u00a0\u00a0And while crime rates continued to go down, President Trump is using crime as his \u201cniche\u201d issue.\u00a0\u00a0There\u2019s a political reality there:\u00a0\u00a0big cities are almost invariably run by Democrats, and Trump\u2019s base of support is Republican, white and suburban or rural.\u00a0\u00a0Trump is using the fear of the big city as a cudgel to beat Democrats, cutting funding then decrying their still improving crime statistics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then there’s the whole racial issue. Most of the victims of crime in big cities are minorities. But when the National Guard arrived in Washington, DC, they were ordered to patrol the tourist areas, not where minorities live, and where the most serious crimes are committed. The Guard is for “show” there, not to reduce real crime. But, to the MAGA base, Trump sent in The Guard to get control of “them”; the same black and brown people he threatens to imprison through ICE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump wants to prove that HE can do something that the local governments cannot.\u00a0\u00a0So he\u2019s declares a faux emergency to Federalize the state National Guards.\u00a0\u00a0Once they are under Federal command, he can direct them where ever he chooses.\u00a0\u00a0Last week, he declared \u201cwar\u201d on Chicago, even displaying himself as a character from the war movie of the 1980\u2019s\u00a0Apocalypse Now.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Robert Duvall’s line in the movie is, \u201cI love the smell of napalm in the morning.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Trump altered it to, \u201cI love the smell of deportations in the morning.\u201d \u00a0It conflates his aggressive and illegal roundup and deportations of undocumented migrants with crime.\u00a0\u00a0Except, of course, that conflation isn\u2019t true.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n So it was all for show, when the armored vehicles rolled through the streets of our Nation\u2019s Capital, as if an occupying army arrived.\u00a0\u00a0It had.\u00a0\u00a0But the Guard are not police.\u00a0\u00a0They ended up picking up litter, and painting fences, and laying down mulch, all at the cost to the Nation of a million dollars a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This week he plans on doing it again.\u00a0\u00a0Like California, he will declare a fake \u201cemergency\u201d in Illinois, Federalize the Illinois National Guard, and send them into the streets of Chicago.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s a great spectacle, and his supporters will feel more secure if they venture to the Navy Pier or the Miracle Mile.\u00a0\u00a0Other \u201cred\u201d states wil volunteer their Guard to join in (Ohio Guardsmen are still in Washington today).\u00a0\u00a0But the reality is:\u00a0\u00a0the Guard doesn\u2019t fight crime.\u00a0\u00a0And if they try to do so, with loaded weapons of war, it\u2019s likely to become the same disaster that occurred at Kent State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Want to spend millions of dollars to fight crime? Authorize more police on the streets, pay for more foot patrols in the high-crime neighborhoods that need them, develop alternatives to “gang life” for young people. None of that is achieved by the performance of militarizing the streets of America. That’s just for intimidating political opponents, not the criminals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All Show<\/h2>\n\n\n\n