Summary View of Remarks of Detroit Police Chief on Police Militarization

Detroit Police Chief James Craig, speaking to MLive Thursday afternoon, spoke out on the subject of police militarization.

Gus Johnson, interviewing Craig, had noted growing popular concern that police militarization was, in his words, "going overboard" (in fact recent polls suggest that a majority of the US population opposed such militarization outright). Nevertheless, Craig was dismissive of the public's not inconsiderable misgivings, insisting that the Detroit Police Department had been using "military-type equipment" "for the sole purpose of ensuring safe outcomes"–both for "officers" as well as for "the community"– the latter defined, naturally, apart from the population targeted by police violence. He distinguished what he called "police tactics" from militarization–denying the existence of the latter in Detroit. Craig then went on to gush over his "love" of helicopters. While the chief did point out that, in "our present financial state", such equipment was "costly", and that the Detroit Police were "exploring a low-cost alternative... as a effective as a helicopter" (bystanders suggested drones), he was unclear as to what degree the "low-cost alternatives" would go on to vie for his professed love of "effective tools for public safety" prior to the said budgetary considerations.

The fall remarks may be found here.

Pomp and Circumstance

Several months ago I was accosted by an academic for having neglected to pay homage to the formal title "professor"; the miserly clerk in question found themselves unable to countenance the libertine scene of myself, the young upstart, in parlance with a vetted elder under pretense of equality. With an air of gentle condescension, I was reminded that the uninitiated are not rightfully permitted to speak in the idiom of the canaille when engaging with their betters. This would be understood unduly rude.

Now, considering this common rogue's familiarity with the works of a particular academician nil, how must it reflect upon such a one's sense of due that naught but parchment-title should be understood to twain them from scholar?

This is not the sense of obligation sprouting from a moral respect for the original virtue of two free minds striving toward a meaningful fulfillment. Rather, it is the expression of an aristocracy profoundly contrary to nature. For the foundation of such an aristocracy, one must ignore intellectual rigor insofar as it conflicts with the true root of learned distinction, namely formal certification and title.

This is the sole intellectual principle of the bureaucratic despotism, the full wrath of which has I think been curbed historically only by the good sense of many intellectuals, who, recognizing the limitations the principle's fulfillment imposes upon the creative intellectual process, have striven to ignore or relegate it into the oblivion of legal formality. Nevertheless it yet survives, perhaps in part because a great many of the obedient serfs reared under its aegis recognize its abolition as a threat to their acquired status as clerical functionaries. An elaboration of the latter point is warranted.