Big Iron

national | crime and justice | opinion/analysis

Friday February 02, 2007 19:35

by Sean Crudden - impero

sean.crudden at iol dot ie

Jenkinstown, Dundalk, Co Louth.

087 9739945

The State Police

When Louis XIV made the statement "L’etat c’est moi" (I am the state) he diminished himself because whatever way you think about it the state is a smaller and less important thing than any one of its individual citizens.

Perhaps no-one wants to be a collaborator or conspirator - almost certainly nobody want to be seen as a collaborator or conspirator. And I think that those who cosy up to the police are courting trouble further down the road not only for themselves but for the police as well.

People have a subliminal feeling that the police are aggressive and supremacist.

Perhaps the police are encouraged to a loud, braggart, and overblown posturing in front of the public?

For example a summary of the policing plan 2007 came through my letter-box (and probably everyone else’s) this bright sunny morning from An Garda Siochana. First of nine commitments outlined in the leaflet was

"Providing a secure democracy."

So I faced the day today a winner twice over. The weather is lovely and the guards will be providing me with a secure democracy.

Earlier in the leaflet in a section headed "Strategic Objectives" number 1 was

"To maintain national and international security."

I always have an uneasy feeling about those who are smug and satisfied with the status quo. In any forward looking organisation or community there is an important place for subversion and alternative thinking.

Statism is the province of dictatorial, small-minded monopolists who think that they are the state or that they somehow have a kind of a divine right to office in this humble land. And I need not harp on about "security" with its connotations of censorship and social control.

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Comments (1 of 1)

All wind but little action Noel

by Capt John Murphy - Dublin

Sat Feb 03, 2007 22:16

I too have received the leaflet Sean Friday and was amazed at what I read. Well according to the media the Mad Mullagh is putting pressure on the man from Blackstaff and this is the response. Full of promises but no word of delivery. We would need Dr Paisley and the DUP in Dail Eireann to sort out a response to policing which is faced with many forms and levels of social order problem the length and breadth of the Republic of Ireland.

I agree with your points without rebuilding the cartwheel Sean as it looks like fear is tearing at the cosy apple carts of Irish police especially with the election on May 17th and serious crimes becoming a daily encounter. However I wonder how the Gardai plan to deliver their objectives or window dressing for the good of all the populous in the hope of solving and/or reducing crime levels to a more socially acceptable level to the satisfaction of the populous.

A lot of flower words have been used by the leaflet but for me and many others this falls well short of restoring full confidence in the Gardai in general. It is delivery we want but unfortunately this looks a long way off and maybe we in the Republic will learn something from the work of Mr Gerry Adams and Very Rev Dr Paisley.

For me in the main this leaflet is just window dressing for the election as The Civic Guards or Garda need much more cash for both human and material resources coupled with better government policies to address this escalating crime situation which is diminishing the publics confidence in the police force in the Republic. Deliver Messrers Michael & Noel and for fecks sake quit tinkering with the crime problems not forgetting to tackle the causes of such criminality that now at this stage. As the Marxist argue tackle the cause not the symptom and then we will have a better state with a form of utopian socialism. as many of our Irish Patriots yearned for.

Capt J Murphy

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