The Heir's increasing Machiavellianism.  He does not regret standing by principle and the need for social discipline in the populace in the past four or five weeks people have been debating what the role of the cops should be, and in fact he's seen ample evidence that supports the notion that most people can't look after themselves.  For example, he was wondering how almost everyone in Bachelor Blue State could be practicing social distancing and wearing masks and staying at home the past three months, since the same exact people had engaged in personal corruption in the 2010s.  Now he has the answer.  The people didn't practice social distancing solely because they thought it was the right thing to do.  They did so out of compliance with demands from the strong leadership demonstrated during the Coronacrisis.  If that leadership didn't exist, Bachelor Blue State would be totally infested like Florida is now, and Texas and Arizona, and at least a dozen other states.  The governments in those states took an Ed Snowden Anything Goes stance, and the Heir sees most residents in those states celebrate that personally corrupt sentiment coming from those governments.  And now they're seeing those cases spike.  Bachelor Blue State, on the other hand, got back onto the righteous path, and got a return on its investment in the form of decreasing infection and transmission rates.  Bachelor Blue State was able to reopen safely, but the other states reopened *un-* safely.  The Heir really isn't into organized religion or anything, but there's no doubt that the lesson to be learned from comparing Bachelor Blue State's righteous path with the other states' personal corruption is that if you go against the grain, you'll get splinters.  That one guy who complained in April about not getting fertilizer, the Heir's hoping he didn't end up in the ICU as a result.  He wishes the best for those whose opinions he disagrees with.  So the Heir says, dude, forget the fertilizer.  This is your *life* we're talking about.  And now, here comes the Heir's takeaway:

"Death is permanent.  Fertilizer you can get next year."

 

So a couple of things on the Law And Justice front with the Heir, as we progress with reforming policing.  The Heir takes note of Andrew Cuomo in New York signing reforms into law for New York.  One of those includes a requirement for a rough total of 500 cities and towns to submit their plans by April of next year to reform their departments if they want to receive state funding.  The Heir's pretty sure there are far more than 500 cities and towns in New York in total, since Bachelor Blue State numbers its towns in the thousands.  So it looks as though this set of reforms in New York does make wise regards for sleepy hamlets along the Erie and Lake Ontario coasts with no more than 20 people or so, but it would be nice if there were more specific information for the the Heir to go on.  Sleepy hamlets of 20 people aren't likely to have more than 2 cops total in *their* department, so a set of reforms that work for bigger towns aren't necessarily going to apply for sleepy hamlets.  But the Heir feels more assured that we're still going to have cops in the foreseeable future, and the Ed Snowden types' plans to get rid of all cops everywhere have failed for the time being.  They had a temporary buoyancy in light of the tragedy in Atlanta, but that's faded now.

The Heir respects and supports New York City's decision to disband its anti-crime division for the sake of more fair and sensitive policing, but he disagrees with the City's assessment that such a division is "outdated."  If crime stats go back up again, the City will have to stand ready to reinstate the division at a moment's notice.  He sees the anti-crime divisions as being put in place during the 90s to deal with the crack epidemic of the 80s, and the bad old days of the 70s.  Most young people today have no living memory of how bad things really were in those days.  The Heir remembers a Western Studies course in college that questionably required its students to make a major foray into a major city, e.g., New York, to visit a museum and do a historical analysis on an artwork of significance to the course.  This was at the height of the crack epidemic, and the Heir remembers a classmate who said he took his car into New York, and came back from the museum to see a bunch of bullet holes in his car.  So the Heir welcomed when anti-crime measures were put in place during the 90s, because battle-hardened drug cartels in the cities weren't going to respond to fair and sensitive policing.  It was partly those measures that aided in urban revival in New York and surrounding cities to the point where people felt more safe to visit those cities, and aid in those cities' economic recoveries.  The Heir concedes that at this *specific* point in time that you may not need such measures, but that doesn't mean you won't need them in the future.

The Heir now gets to talk about the movie Death Wish, and its implications for today.  What the Heir understands about Death Wish comes from a parody by Mad Magazine back in the day.  Charles Bronson plays an ordinary Joe living in a city environment whose wife and daughter are viciously attacked by muggers.  His wife dies and his daughter lies in a vegetative state.  He believes that all this could have been prevented if there was a stronger police presence, but the police were virtually non-existent for a number of reasons, including their being outnumbered and out-equipped by the muggers.  He then takes it on himself to become a vigilante to both try to make his neighborhood safer and kind of exact revenge on the muggers who attacked his family.  Apparently, things get out of hand when he thinks, let's not stop with the muggers.  Let's go after *anyone* I suspect of committing crimes, possibly including scofflaws and jaywalkers.  The Heir believes the 2010s would consider the Bronson character to be proverbially autistic.  But anyway, there's increased worry that this vigilantism poses a greater threat than the muggers, and the Bronson character is brought to justice.  The cops are forced to admit that their failure to stop crime gave rise to this vigilantism, so the Bronson character enters into an agreement that he move out the city and never come back.  The Heir only saw previews of the movie itself, and they were pretty dark and hard to take.  But the Heir feels that the Mad Magazine parody was enough to illustrate the points the movie proper was trying to make.  So here's the Heir to sum it up below.

"For those of you who still want to abolish the cops, heed the movie Death Wish, and be careful what you Wish for."

So here are some further warnings the Heir has for people to be careful what they wish for if they *really* want to defund the cops.  It's *some* major cities that want to do it under pressure from *some* protesters (at least).  But what about your one-traffic-light-town in the Far West with only 500 people, and vastly different needs and culture from Minneapolis?  Do *they* have to give up their cops too (the Heir asks)?  Because the phrase Defund The Cops the Heir takes *not* to mean defund just some of the cops of some of their money.  No, it means defunding *all* cops of *all* their money, over the *entire* country regardless of whether they've had problems with excessive force or not.  Otherwise the Ed Snowden types who support the measure would never use it as a slogan on picket signs.  A more nuanced "defunding" is just not catchy enough.  The Heir also thinks about the 1970s movie Death Wish (he *thinks* it's the Seventies) in a world where the cops are all but absent, you take your life in your hands every time you step out of your house, and it's only vigilantes who are willing to help.  By extension the Heir also thinks about the Green Berets and whether they'll end up making a comeback in the aftermath of what's to come.  The Heir wants to ruminate on each on these in more detail in the next few days or so.

"I'm concerned."

So while the Heir joins in on calling for reforms, disbanding the cops is not the answer.  The Heir concedes that the Minneapolis city council's decision to disband the cops is not subject to opinions of people who live outside the city, he sees this as Guy Fawkes Mask Wearer victory.  They'll see that as a catapult to disbanding all cops everywhere, all over the globe.  These Ed Snowdens lie in wait, looking for the right moment to override the democratic process made by the people and for the people.  The Heir looks at the city of Three River Junction in the north of Bachelor Blue State, and they've made policing work.  The police leaders took a knee in their press conference, but the Heir's pretty sure the Ed Snowdens will want to disband even good departments, including the one at Three River Junction, over the objections of city residents.  He expects Marco's Grandmother to point out that police unions are still very powerful, but the Heir sees the anti-cop forces more powerful still.  He envisions a whole series of unintended consequences in any city that's abolished its police force, including a Wild West local culture, and going back to the bad ole days of 1970's New York.  Social workers are all fine and well, but if you're getting cut off by an aggressive driver tailgating you and passing you over a double yellow line, you're not going to have a social worker pull that person over and ask, "Tell me about your feelings."  The Heir doesn't think that's going to work.  #KeepTheCops

The Heir continues his outrage over what's been happening with Lafayette Park and Buffalo NY.  With Lafayette Park, we in the Bachelor call for criminal charges to be made against those violating the rights of the protesters.  The Heir is calling out Bill Barr, and that guy who punched that cameraman in the gut, and the pilots of the helicopters flying over the protesters, and the superior officers issuing the commands.  The Heir saw that a civil lawsuit was made, but he doesn't think it's enough.  You could also push for charges of impersonating a police officer for those guys dressed up in riot gear but without proper IDs.  The Heir's not confident that the progressives will push hard enough in this regard, since he sees himself more on the side of law and justice.  Trump had that one tweet saying Law And Order, but the Heir sees Lafayette Park and Buffalo as the opposite: Lawnessness And Official Disorder.  Of course it's the fault of both Ed Snowden and the personal corruption of the 2010s that we're still not over it in the 2020s.

The Heir wants to look into both civil lawsuits and state charges against Roger Stone and Michael Flynn that Bill Barr cannot touch.  If Biden wins in November, the Heir wants the Biden DOJ to go after Barr, as well as Stone and Flynn within the contours of due process.  He doesn't believe that a guarantee against double jeopardy should allow Flynn and Stone to walk free, and continue to engage in immorality as if nothing happened.

"And also, nail Trump while we're at it."