I've seen this sentiment voiced a lot throughout my life: "don't the police have better things to do than to be [doing whatever we're discussing]?" And so I've given it a lot of thought. I'm sure you all have, too. But maybe we've reached different conclusions to the same question. So I thought I'd share mine, since once again someone's brought this point up -- this time with regards to monitoring hentai.
The police must deliver![hide]
Suppose we have several categories of cases. It might look something like this:
(1) super big deals, like finding a man who threatens the very existence of the country
(2) big deals, like infiltrating and bringing down a drug ring
(3) middle deals, like going after people who scam the elderly out of their life savings
(4) small deals, like going after the guy who downloaded cartoon porn
Not only do these crimes differ in their severity (with 1 being worst and 4 being least bad), but they also differ inversely in their ease of solvency (with 4 being the easiest case to crack and 1 being the most difficult). To find a guy who downloads cartoon porn is a very simple task which takes little time to execute and has no pitfalls for law enforcement officials. To break up a scam takes a little more tact: if you go in guns blazin', you'll tip them off and they'll run away. Bringing down a drug ring is very difficult and has major risks for the law enforcement officials involved in the case. And finding Public Enemy #1 is probably the most difficult thing of all -- he's hiding within the national borders of our enemies, meaning you have to go into the lion's den to find him and risk being killed by anyone in the population just so you can find this one man.
Finding Public Enemy #1 can take years and years and years. Busting a drug ring, years. Busting a scam, a year, two tops. Finding the cartoon porn downloader, days.
If the police do not deliver results (in the form of concluded cases), the public believes that they are not doing their job and that society is poorly-protected.
So the police do deliver, and by so doing they prevent chaos from erupting. Because chaos would erupt if people felt the police were stretched too thin and weren't doing shit. So the police make it look as though they are everywhere and anywhere, solving crimes 24/7. And you know what? They sure are! But the crimes they're solving 24/7 are stolen lollipops and stolen video games. They're not solving as many murders as they should be, and they're definitely not solving as many national security threats as they should be. There's too few law enforcement officials and not enough time to do it all. And since the people demand results, they've got to deliver.[/hide]
The police must deliver![hide]
Suppose we have several categories of cases. It might look something like this:
(1) super big deals, like finding a man who threatens the very existence of the country
(2) big deals, like infiltrating and bringing down a drug ring
(3) middle deals, like going after people who scam the elderly out of their life savings
(4) small deals, like going after the guy who downloaded cartoon porn
Not only do these crimes differ in their severity (with 1 being worst and 4 being least bad), but they also differ inversely in their ease of solvency (with 4 being the easiest case to crack and 1 being the most difficult). To find a guy who downloads cartoon porn is a very simple task which takes little time to execute and has no pitfalls for law enforcement officials. To break up a scam takes a little more tact: if you go in guns blazin', you'll tip them off and they'll run away. Bringing down a drug ring is very difficult and has major risks for the law enforcement officials involved in the case. And finding Public Enemy #1 is probably the most difficult thing of all -- he's hiding within the national borders of our enemies, meaning you have to go into the lion's den to find him and risk being killed by anyone in the population just so you can find this one man.
Finding Public Enemy #1 can take years and years and years. Busting a drug ring, years. Busting a scam, a year, two tops. Finding the cartoon porn downloader, days.
If the police do not deliver results (in the form of concluded cases), the public believes that they are not doing their job and that society is poorly-protected.
So the police do deliver, and by so doing they prevent chaos from erupting. Because chaos would erupt if people felt the police were stretched too thin and weren't doing shit. So the police make it look as though they are everywhere and anywhere, solving crimes 24/7. And you know what? They sure are! But the crimes they're solving 24/7 are stolen lollipops and stolen video games. They're not solving as many murders as they should be, and they're definitely not solving as many national security threats as they should be. There's too few law enforcement officials and not enough time to do it all. And since the people demand results, they've got to deliver.[/hide]