| I think it's unfortunate that the citizens are required to be a check on armed police forces.
I would think that ideally all citizens have the right to be armed, but with that right should be an absolute requirement to be trained first, before acquring a weapon.
If you wield the ultimate form of power you should be educated at least on how to use that power correctly, regardless of the moral and ethical "correctness."
While what I'm about to write is probably the intent of armed police, it seems to have strayed.
Police are not volunteers, like milita, but instead people paid directly by the citizens to be the "designated" protectors. But citizens who want to protect themselves can opt not to "chip in" to pay the police. Instead, the citizens who want protection can pay the police to take care of their property as well. This means that the armed protector can charge what they deem necessary to effectively protect the customer's person and property.
They can even set conditions, like, "If you want my protection you live within my fences / walls." This is how it worked in the Middle Ages. If you lived within the walls you were protected and taxed, sometimes in nothing more than goods and services. You were also in close proximity to those with whom you could trade for services.
If you lived outside the walls you could still pay taxes, but you paid less because the local lord couldn't protect you as well.
This obviously leaves open the danger of the kind of extortion related to a Monopoly on Aggression, but I think it was much more reasonable in those times.
I still wonder how the hell it strayed so far from such a sensible system.
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Damn... I'm off to go play Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile or Stronghold now. |