Report on Toronto Panel calling for implementation of community policing fails to provide Historical Context

The above report, while expressing ideas that are probably valid, seems out of context with history, since it conveys at least a subliminal message that this is all something novel.

For the full report see:
http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/panel-calls-for-fewer-toronto-police-officers-in-cars-more-on-street  (reproducing the report here would offend copyright law)

Even the reference to 'walking the beat' does not place the ideas in a historical context.  Of course, it is likely that neither the reporter of this story or the police chief probably had any idea of the historical context, nor did the latter make reference to that context if he did know something about it.  Some examples of successful implementations of community policing across the world could have been enlightening to readers.

More than 20 years ago I taught university courses in Legal History and Policing.  The Canadian, British and U.S. literature on Policing, covering decades prior thereto, was replete with academic papers discussing and recommending forms of community policing, with ample examples given of attempts by many cities across those jurisdictions to institute same.  Some cities still use some form of community policing to this day.

Notes on the silly and the absurd, and the downright harmful - Political and Bureacratic Regulatory Fiascos

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has released a 10 point list of the above-titled items.  I can't reprint the article myself because of another absurdity - copyright law.

see: http://business.financialpost.com/entrepreneur/top-10-absurd-bureaucratic-policies-win-2017s-paperweight-awards

I can add a few of my own:

1.  Canada Post's stupid 'LETTER OF AUTHORIZATION' form and other postal rules: permitting a post-box holder to have a neighbor or friend pick up his mail while he is away from home for more than 14 days, and the penalty for failure to pick up parcels within 14 days (the penalty: parcels must be sent back to sender). The form contains 3 separate places where the homeowner must print his or her name, and two places for a signature, plus 2 places for dates. Annoyingly stupid.

2.  Saskatchewan government's setting absurd highway speed limits: down from the normal 110 or 100 kph on highways in the not-so-immediate vicinity of highway construction, lasting for many kilometres with no construction nearby; and allowing highway construction crews or maintenance workers on very temporary job sites to post drastically reduced speed limit signs several kilometres and more on either side of off-road work being done.  In some egregious instances, 60 kph speed limits have been left posted covering more than 40 kilometres for many weeks after work was completed and workers and machines were completely absent.

Nevertheless, the same politicians bureaucrats responsible are grossly overpaid for their disservice out of hard-earned income taken for taxes, heaping more insult and injury on hapless taxpayers.

Why Scott Adams is wrong about asking for government regulation of Twitter and Facebook

In his last posting (as of January 26th, 2017) on his website, Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert cartoon and, among other things, an active blogger, mused that Twitter and Facebook possibly should be regulated as utilities.

Scott is a reasonably clear thinker and very astute, but he has lost his bearings on this issue.  What provoked his blog post is his claim, probably true, that Twitter and Facebook have somehow, at least partially, blocked his ability to use and enjoy their internet media message sharing functions as others do, and that they have done this because they do not approve of his political commentaries.  

He has made a national name for himself, beyond his being known as a successful cartoonist, because he accurately predicted Donald Trump's presidential election victory, starting more than one year ago, and has backed his prediction up over the last year or more with his reasons for so predicting.  Since I have been reading his blog for more than a year I can attest that he has not said anything illegal, improper, threatening to anyone, or ordinarily offensive to anyone in any way, except that some of his comments and opinions have vehement detractors  and opponents, particularly among the angry mobs of Democrats, journalists, pundits, academics and others whose panties are all twisted up over the ascendancy of Donald Trump to the U. S. presidency.

Now, why do I say that no-one, including Scott, should be asking that Twitter and Facebook be regulated?

Here are my musings on the subject.

I think asking for government regulation and bureaucracy to handle the problem of unfair or questionable discriminatory practices in social media services would be an example of and would lead to more government censorship and interference in the whole area of free speech. 

Bureaucrats and politicians are almost always too stupid and heavy-handed to do anything fairly or well which requires sensitivity and  discretion.  

Would you, if you were a committed supporter of democracy, welcome government supervision of the news media?  Same problem.  I am presuming that I need not defend my opposition to such a concept, especially in countries with a long history of enjoying democratic freedoms and rights.

At first glance, it might seem that, instead of regulation, it would be better to enact a legal code clearly  forbidding discrimination against users  on the basis of their race, religion, sex, political point of view, etc.  (excepting, of course, views which are slanderous, strongly tending to inflame people to violence against others, and similar categories, or otherwise contravening existing criminal laws, and by giving claimers-to-be victims the right to sue in courts of law provided those claims have been vetted by applications to courts of law to demonstrate that a claimant has a prima facie valid claim.  

I am sure some mechanism of this nature could be devised.  

However, even the foregoing would probably be dangerous to freedom of speech in a democracy, because it could easily lead to allowing offended personalities to sue newspapers, bloggers, and other media for the 21st century 'thought crime' of hurt feelings, hurt emotions, etc., etc.  Our recent experience with the absurd thought crime cases brought before Human Rights Commissars (Commissions) demonstrates this only too well.  

I guess I have argued myself out of approving any regulation at all.  Government is just too untrustworthy, frequently dishonest or corrupt and often incompetent, just as people are in general.  

As Scott has already said in his past blog posts, humans are ruled by emotions, not evidence or facts.  As mentioned above, there is ample evidence why my concerns are valid, particularly when one examines the said 'thought crime' cases so prevalent in our democracies, and other witch hunts, involving charges and prosecutions of alleged 'hate speech', alleged 'politically incorrect speech', etc., and the long spate of false, faulty and mostly failed prosecutions in North America and parts of Europe against alleged practitioners of satanic sexual abuse of children that have been plaguing our civilization.

There is an eerie and worrying similarity between these cases and the laws supporting them in Canada and the U. S., and the common attitudes of intolerance, hatred and frequent extreme violence prevalent among many Muslims against 'unbelievers', as the Muslim reaction against the Mohammed Cartoons in Europe, or the behaviour of the murderers of the Caliphate in Iraq and Syria, or of the Taliban and Al Queda have amply illustrated..  Our very democracy, and its values and institutions is under attack from within and without.