“Most thoughtful people would agree that morality in the absence of policing is somehow more truly moral than the kind of false morality that vanishes as soon as the police go on strike or the spy camera is switched off, whether the spy camera is a real one monitored in the police station or an imaginary one in heaven.” PeopleKindRealHeavenMoralGoes OnMoralityPoliceCamerasAgreeStrikesAbsenceThoughtfulStationsImaginarySpyReal Ones Book:The God Delusion Source: The God Delusion
“If this is the degree of inflation planned for in advance, the real outcome is indeed likely to be such that most of those who will retire at the end of the century will be dependent on the charity of the younger generation. And ultimately not morals but the fact that the young supply the police and the army will decide the issue: concentration camps for the aged unable to maintain themselves are likely to be the fate of an old generation whose income is entirely dependent on coercing the young.” IfsRealEndsFactsYoungMoralIssuesFateGenerationsCenturyDegreesArmyPoliceCharityIncomeOutcomesDependentConcentrationCampsRetiringInflationYounger GenerationConcentration Camp Author:Friedrich August von Hayek
“Nothing, indeed, could be more unlike the tone of the [Patristic] Fathers, than the cold, passionless, and prudential theology of the eighteenth century; a theology which regarded Christianity as an admirable auxiliary to the police force, and a principle of decorum and of cohesion in society, but which carefully banished from it all enthusiasm, veiled or attenuated all its mysteries, and virtually reduced it to an authoritative system of moral philosophy.” PhilosophyFatherForceMoralChristianityPrinciplesMysteryAtheismCenturyColdPolicePositive AtheismTheologyEnthusiasmToneAdmirableCohesionMoral PhilosophyDecorumPolice Force Author:William Edward Hartpole Lecky
“The police have enough work to keep them busy regulating automobile traffic, preventing robberies and crimes of violence and helping lost children and little old ladies find their way home. As long as the police confine themselves to such activities they are respected friends of the public. But as soon as they begin inquiring into people's private morals, they become nothing more than armed clergymen.” PeopleWayChildrenLittlesLongEnoughHelpingHomeLostMoralViolenceCrimeActivityPoliceBusyTrafficAutomobilePreventingOld LadyRobberyClergymenWay HomeInquiringLost Child Author:Alan Watts
“The period of Prohibition - called the noble experiment - brought on the greatest breakdown of law and order the United States has known until today. I think there is a lesson here. Do not regulate the private morals of people. Do not tell them what they can take or not take. Because if you do, they will become angry and antisocial and they will get what they want from criminals who are able to work in perfect freedom because they have paid off the police.” PeopleIfsThinkingWantStatesTodayAbleLawOrderPerfectUnitedKnownMoralUnited StatesPeriodsLessonsPaidPoliceAngryNobleCriminalsExperimentsBreakdownProhibitionLaw And OrderAntisocialPaid Off Book:Matters of fact and of fiction: essays, 1973-1976 Source: Matters of fact and of fiction: essays, 1973-1976
“There are two things. There was the moral responsibility, and that, first, is creating an atmosphere where the security forces can kill with impunity, where they can turn up at a place, shoot seven people - really at point-blank fashions - and then get away with it and be, in fact, promoted. And then there is the actual responsibility, the governmental responsibility. My aunt's government forbade us, initially, from filing a police report - which is every Pakistani citizen's right under the law.” PeopleFirstsTwoFactsGovernmentLawTurnsForceResponsibilityMoralSecurityFashionCitizensCreatingPoliceSevenAtmosphereTwo ThingsReportsGet AwayBlankAuntImpunityFilingMoral ResponsibilitySecurity Forces Author:Fatima Bhutto
“[in 1998] I know my political ideas affect what I write but I've tried to follow the facts wherever they land. Every topic I've written about begins as a question. How do police departments behave? Why do bureaucracies function the way they do? What moral intuitions do people have? How do courts make their decisions? What do blacks want from the political system? I can honestly say I didn't know the answers to those questions when I began looking into them.” PeopleKnowsWayWantWritingI CanIdeasFactsPoliticalDecisionAnswersMoralWrittenLandFunctionPoliceCourtIntuitionHonestlyBehaveDepartmentTopicsBureaucracyPolitical SystemsPolice Department Author:James Q. Wilson
“And if our goal as moral citizens is to make the world a better place, then there is only once choice: to pump as much oil as we possibly can out of Fort McMurray. Pump and steam and dig and drill and get that oil out of the sand in any and every way we can. Every drop of oil from Alberta is one less drop from some fascist theocracy, or some brutal warlord; one less cent into the treasuries of Russia's secret police and al-Qaeda's murderers.” IfsWorldWayChoicesGoalSecretMoralCitizensPoliceOilRussiaSandAlsCentsBrutalBetter PlaceMurdererSteamFascistsAl QaedaPumpsTreasuryDrillsFortsTheocracySecret PoliceWarlordsAlberta Author:Ezra Levant
“The cool thing about Watchmen is it has this really complicated question that it asks, which is: who polices the police or who governs the government? Who does God pray to? Those are pretty deep questions but also pretty fun questions. Kind of exciting. It tries to subvert the superhero genre by giving you these big questions, moral questions. Why do you think you're on a fun ride? Suddenly you're like how am I supposed to feel about that?” ThinkingGivingFeelsTryingKindDoeBigsGovernmentAsksFunMoralPrayingExcitingPoliceComplicatedGenreSuperheroPraying To GodCool ThingsBig Questions Author:Zack Snyder
“An act of violence against any innocent person eludes moral justification, disgraces the millions of Americans and people throughout the world who have united in peaceful protest against police brutality, and dishonors our proud inheritance of nonviolent resistance.” PeopleWorldPersonsUnitedMoralMillionsViolenceProudPoliceResistanceInnocentPeacefulProtestJustificationInheritanceDisgracePolice BrutalityBrutalityEludeDishonorActs Of ViolenceNonviolent ResistancePeaceful ProtestInnocent Person Author:Benjamin Crump
“In later years, when I started working in police ethics, I was professionally drawn back to the topic but as well was better able to see two sides to loyalty - its importance for certain central human relations such as friendships, but also its corruptibility in the sense that loyalty could be invoked against other moral constraints: it sometimes function as something of a moral Trojan horse, undermining other moral considerations.” SometimesMoralEthicsImportanceHorseRelationPoliceLoyaltyConsiderationHuman Relations Author:John Kleinig
“Structurally I don't see a fundamental difference between what we may reasonably expect of police and doctors - though obviously the fact that doctors are generally pursuing life-saving activities and police may be engaged in life-threatening activities may lead to differences in how we construe the moral limits to their roles.” MoralPolice Author:John Kleinig
“Racism is a moral catastrophe, most graphically seen in the prison industrial complex and targeted police surveillance in black and brown ghettos rendered invisible in public discourse.” BlackMoralRacismPolicePrisonComplexesInvisibleBrownDiscourseCatastropheSurveillanceGhettoPublic Discourse Author:Cornel West
“Further, an excess of legislation defeats its own ends. It makes the whole population criminals, and turns them all into police and police spies. The moral health of such a people is ruined for ever; only revolution can save it.” PeopleEndsWholeTurnsMoralRevolutionPoliceDefeatPopulationCriminalsExcessLegislationRuinedSpy Author:Aleister Crowley
“And it is not difficult to show, by abundant instances, that to extend the bounds of what may be called moral police, until it encroaches on the most unquestionably legitimate liberty of the individual, is one of the most universal of all human propensities.” HumansMayShowsHumanityIndividualDifficultLibertyMoralUniversalPoliceBoundsInstancePropensity Book:On Liberty Source: On Liberty
“Policemen and laws can never replace customs, traditions and moral values as a means for regulating human behavior. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Our increased reliance on laws to regulate behavior is a measure of how uncivilized we’ve become.” HumansMeanLastsLawValuesLinesJusticeMoralBehaviorTraditionPoliceDefenseCriminalsDesperateCivilizedCustomsHuman BehaviorReliancePolicemenJustice SystemCriminal JusticeMoral ValuesCivilized SocietyCriminal Justice SystemUncivilized Author:D. Todd Christofferson
“When a legislature decides to steal some of our rights and plans to use police force to accomplish it, what's the real difference between them and the thief? Darn little! They hide behind the excuse that they're legislating democratically. The fact they do it by a majority vote has no moral significance whatsoever. Numerical might does not constitute right, no more than a lynch mob can justify its act because a majority participated.” LittlesDoeRealFactsUseMightForceDifferencesBehindsMoralRightsPlansVotePoliceMajorityHistoricalExcuseAccomplishStealingJustifySignificanceThievesLegislaturePolice ForceMajority Vote Author:H. L. Richardson
“If you are for gun control, then you are not against guns, because the guns will be needed to disarm people. So it’s not that you are anti-gun. You’ll need the police’s guns to take away other people’s guns. So you’re very Pro-Gun, you just believe that only the Government (which is, of course, so reliable, honest, moral and virtuous…) should be allowed to have guns. There is no such thing as gun control. There is only centralizing gun ownership in the hands of a small, political elite and their minions.” PeopleIfsNeedsShouldBelieveHandsGovernmentPoliticalCoursesMoralHonestNeededGunPoliceElitesVirtuousOwnershipGun ControlPro GunJust BelieveAnti GunMinionsGun Ownership Author:Stefan Molyneux
“Because each photograph is only a fragment, its moral and emotional weight depends on where it is inserted. A photograph changes according to the context in which it is seen: thus Smith's Minamata photographs will seem different on a contact sheet, in a gallery, in a political demonstration, in a police file, in a photographic magazine, in a book, on a living-room wall. Each o these situations suggest a different use for the photographs but none can secure their meaning.” BookDifferentUseSeemsPoliticalRoomsSituationMoralEmotionalWallDependsWeightPolicePhotographContactMagazinesSecureSheetsFragmentsFilesDemonstrationGalleryLiving RoomRoom WallLiving Room Wall Book:On photography Source: On photography
“To vest a few fallible men — prosecutors, judges, jurors — with vast powers of literary or artistic censorship, to convert them into what J. S. Mill called a "moral police," is to make them despotic arbiters of literary products. If one day they ban mediocre books as obscene, another day they may do likewise to a work of genius.” IfsMenShouldWritingMayBookGovernmentEyeImaginationMoralJudgingProductsGeniusOne DayPoliceArtisticCensorshipOriginalityMediocreJuryBansMillsAnother DayObsceneProsecutorVestsArbiterPlentifulJurors Author:Jerome Frank