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In a speech given by then-candidate Barack Obama on July 2, 2008 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the following was inserted:
“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
While the major theme of the speech was expansion of AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps and the USA Freedom Corps, a debate erupted over whether Obama’s call for a strong “civilian national security force” referred to strengthening these civilian services or whether he was slyly calling for a national police force.
President Obama’s progressive administration is unlikely to seek a direct transformation of our local police into a national police force. Any such attempt would clearly be met with sharp resistance by the American public. However, Obama has shown us time after time that he is a master of “misdirection.” While our attention is occupied with the fear that Obama intends to create his own police, he may actually be moving in another direction.
So what does Obama really have in mind?
I submit that Obama is attempting to utilize the authority of the nation’s police forces to promote “social justice,” a term employed quite often by the Obama administration and found throughout Marxist philosophy.
“Social justice” has several definitions, but most agree that it encompasses economic and social equality, delivered through societal institutions. I believe that one of these institutions identified by Obama and to be employed by him is the nation’s police.
As a recent example, let’s look at Ferguson, Mo.
Following the riots in August of 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice, under Eric Holder, found no facts to support a civil rights case against Officer Darren Wilson whose shooting of Michael Brown touched off the riots. However, not to be deterred, Holder launched a civil rights investigation into the Ferguson police department – ultimately finding a “pattern or practice” of racial bias.
Since cities like Ferguson cannot financially afford to go toe-to-toe with a federal giant like the Department of Justice, it was coerced into agreeing to a “consent decree” which imposed 26 “recommendations” on the Ferguson police, including changing training and law enforcement practices to reduce “bias.”
How can Obama do this?
In 1994, Democrats rammed through Congress a monstrosity known as the “Violent Crimes Control and Enforcement Act.” This statute criminalized “any governmental authority” that “engages in a pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers … that deprives persons of (federal) rights, privileges or immunities.” The act further encouraged the Department of Justice to file civil lawsuits in federal court to “obtain appropriate equitable and declaratory relief to eliminate the (offensive) pattern or practice.”
To date, there are more than 20 major American cities and their police under the thumb of the Obama administration with more on the way.
On Dec. 18, 2014, very shortly after taking office, President Obama signed an Executive Order establishing the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Its final report was issued on May 18, 2015. Among its recommendations: police departments should take proactive steps to build “trust” with communities. They should adopt policies to address “racial profiling.” They need to relax their approach to mass demonstrations and collect more data on shootings and deaths, presumably looking for a racial component. Information on all of those efforts would be supplied to the Department of Justice.
Obviously, all of this is directed to transform police practices across the country, emphasizing “social justice” rather than the first responsibility of all of these agencies – “law enforcement.”
Obama is all aboard; stating, “I’m going to be asking Eric Holder and the Justice Department and his successor to go through all these recommendations so that we can start implementing them.” He went on to say, “We have a great opportunity … to really transform how we think about community law enforcement relations … state and local policy may need to be subordinated to federal social policy.”
And how will our local police be “subordinated” and persuaded to adopt these “recommendations”? Not only by the threat of civil suits, but also withholding federal funds on which many of these agencies now rely.
There is an old Arabian proverb: “If the camel once gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow.” Our local law enforcement agencies had better keep a sharp lookout for the “federal camel” and its “nose.”
Guest columnist Bonenberger is an attorney who lives and practices in Wheeling.