From: Rusty�Bullethole, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Express 30.10.00 Peter Hitchens Armed cops cannot bring back Britain's lost peace So now we do have an armed police force, as I have long warned that we would. Officers patrol the rougher parts of Nottingham with firearms strapped to their hips, in what is called an "experiment". I do not think that this "experiment" will be judged to have failed. I expect that the shock will wear off soon and it will become general. It happens just as we learn that the Labour Government has plans for a national police service, a hateful thing for a once free nation. This is just one of the nasty surprises awaiting Britain if it is fool enough to put this atrocious rabble in power again, with or without the support of their wholly-owned subsidiary, the Liberal Democrats. What I cannot understand is the lack of outrage, horror and protest at this gloomy news. When I was growing up, our unarmed policemen were a matter of national pride, a symbol of our peaceful nature and our gentle, law governed civilisation. Up till now, they have been armed by stealth. You might occasionally glimpse a holster on the belt of a plain clothes man, or see those pseudo-military marksmen staking out crime scenes or scanning the rooftops for assassins. And some forces have a silly tendency to show off their armouries when they don't really need to. But, in general, armed patrols have been discreet and even secretive. I like to think that the authorities feared that anything bolder would cause offence. But now the feebleness of the justice system, and its deadly twin the breakdown of family life, have reduced our streets to such a state that the British people are thought to be ready for any amount of fake "toughness" - which wins the votes of the gullible and increases the power of the State without freeing us from crime. What an absurd society we are. We recoil in horror from the smacking of children by parents or teachers, we discipline constables who clout louts, we strip our courts and judges of any serious power to punish the wrongdoer because we are so tender, and we abolish the death penalty because it is inhumane. As a direct result, we have populated the country with people who have never been smacked, caned or clipped round the ear, and who fear other louts and criminals far more than they fear the law. But the same governing elite that snatched the cane from the hand of the teacher puts guns in the hands of policemen. Can no one see anything strange, wrong and out of proportion here? Something has died in our country. It is the self-restraint that we used to learn as children, a self-restraint that made us unique among all nations in knowing the limits of our own behaviour, so that we could safely send unarmed citizens in uniform out into the streets to defend the law we all supported. We might at least mourn it if we are too feeble to protest against it and too far gone to do anything to reverse it. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________________________________ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
