Domination versus Peace.

The President for once perhaps hit the nail on the head. Domination. He desires to dominate as one would dominate in a military campaign. The problem is that he simply hits the wrong nail. He perhaps in fact hits our thumb. Either way he draws our attention.

Try for the moment to forget the President.

Often a police officer is referred to as a peace officer. He protects and preserves the peace, and he or she, unlike any other citizen, has the right to use violence to achieve this.

Even the soldier does not have this right. Both serve a community, a state, etc, but only the police officer can use force against the members of that community.

The differences between the two does not stop there. The soldier is trained to kill and destroy an enemy. The policeman has no enemy. A person committing a criminal act is not an enemy. Only in the most extreme cases should a police officer kill a member of the community of which he or she is typically part.

We have confused the two - police officer and soldier. The President has confused the two. We all too often have confused domination and peace. It is visible on the video of the Buffalo NY police clearing a park. It was visible in the clearing of Lafayette Square in Washington DC on Monday. We can see in both that military force and domination have no place in policing.

Now military force is not synonymous with domination. The death of George Floyd had nothing to do with military force. That was simple domination. In the end neither military force nor domination should play a role in policing, whatever their relation, whatever their differences.