The people who call for defunding the police, and the smaller number who want to abolish the police, have a particular focus: they are interested in the cops who patrol the streets on foot or in cars, the cops who direct traffic, the cops who answer calls about domestic violence and robberies or assaults in progress, and the cops who deal with threatening or erratic behavior in public places. And they are also interested in the special forces, the SWAT teams, that invade homes, often without warrants, looking for illegal drugs or other contraband. Focusing this way makes perfect sense; these are the cops who too often escalate the violence they are supposed to control; these are the cops who kill innocent people. But there is a great deal of police activity that is missing here.
Michael Walzer
The “Forever War”
President Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan has provoked a flood of commentaries on our “forever war.” This obviously isn’t the war in Afghanistan, which lasted a long time but not forever. Indeed, Fred Smoler has made a strong case that Biden ended it too soon, given the consequences of defeat for Afghan women. I would be inclined to agree; my political sympathies lie that way. But I suspect that the war failed disastrously long ago, and Trump’s agreement with the Taliban, a virtual surrender, effectively ended it.
A Texas Experiment
The harsh restriction on abortion rights just adopted by the Texas state legislature has a curious feature: the ban on abortions after six weeks cannot be enforced by state officials; the police are barred from acting. Enforcement is put into the hands of ordinary citizens—the Texas equivalent of you and me. If any citizen learns of someone involved in or complicit in an illegal abortion, he or she can sue that person. Or, more likely, they can report the offender to one of the civil society organizations that oppose abortion, and its officers will collect the reports and file the suits. The state isn’t involved, and that supposedly means that the law does not violate Roe v. Wade—which, Texans claim, only prohibits state action against abortion, not private action. I doubt that the subterfuge will stand, despite the Supreme Court’s initial refusal to call it out. But there is more to say.