Ross Douthat frets that Ferguson is now too ambiguous a story for people who are against the militarization of American police forces to use to make their case.  Me, I tend to think that supporters of military-surplus policing always seem to find ambiguity.  They have not been phased by actions taken by police forces since at least the WTO protests of the 1990s.  Some people just love authority.

Also, I am reminded, some people did not basically grow up in an era of falling violent crime rates, like I have.  That said, Josh Marshall has done a great job summarizing the problem and how little we know about why crime rates actually fell.  No pat answer about police tactics, harsher sentencing or an improved economy seems to fully respond to the question.

Douthat says that the property damage caused by the Ferguson riots undercut that the police have been too harsh or are over-equipped.  This suggests that he believes the police need to be forceful to the point of maximum effectiveness.  By that way of reasoning, if rioters can set even one store ablaze, police need more resources and latitude, not less.

Of course, people will always get away with some things.  There is no perfect enforcement. What we have done, over decades, is to criminalize more and more behaviors, to give the police a trident mandate to prevent crime, solve crimes and maintain order.  As we've expanded the responsibilities of the police, we have also expanded their powers in terms of procedures and resources.  This is a logical response to Douthat's way of thinking which is that it's hard to argue that the police have too much of a presence when somebody just set a parked car on fire and got away with it.

I think this stems from having the wrong ideals about law enforcement and society in general.  I think that a lot of people go through life thinking that no laws should ever be broken and that with very few exceptions and then only in extreme cases, that no lawbreaker should go unpunished.

I actually consider that a dystopian ideal.  I think it would rob people of certain rules-breaking impulses that are innate to being human.  This is why, though I found the argument tough to articulate, I actually thought it was a great thing that Edward Snowden was able to escape American justice.  I think people need to believe it's at least possible to thwart the system every once in awhile.  Otherwise, people will completely acquiesce to authority.

Some of this comes down to what you think people are really like.  I don't think that strong law enforcement is all that stands between us and anarchy.  The riots I have been alive to see were not staged just because the rioters thought they could get away with it, they were all staged in response to decades of abuse by the authorities.  What I haven't seen is a city burned by a mob that has decided, "we're going to do this just because the police can't stop us."  That's not to say that the police don't sometimes deter crime.  Sure they do.  But I don't think that many people are bubbling over with criminal impulse.

I think we've set up a law enforcement system meant to dealt with the alternative being The Lord of the Flies.  What if it isn't?  What if a certain amount of rule-breaking is natural and should be, if not encouraged, at least tolerated?  If the goal is to stop all crime, we will never rein our police forces in.

New York City is trying, in fits and starts, to get the NYPD under control.  Crime rates continue to fall even as Stop & Frisk incidents have been massively reduced.  Maybe the criminal impulse is just not as prevalent as we imagine.  If other people aren't so dangerous, we do not need so many, or so well-equipped police and we can safely curtail their interactions with the public, reducing them from authority figures to the civil servants they should be.