Law enforcement is an excellent thing.

In the Chicago area, we have a lot of damned excellent cops, both at the state and local level. They do an excellent job.

My personal preference? I’d like there to be no need for cops, ever. I’d like for cops to be superfluous. That’s probably never going to happen, human nature being human nature. Still: If I have a choice of preventing crime rather than punishing people for it, I choose prevention.

Case in point: I live in Indiana. I used to work in a bad area of Downtown Chicago, years ago. I used to carry a 45 Auto under the seat of the car.

Mom saw it one day, said, “hey! you’re gonna get arrested with that, and you’re gonna end up in jail!”

My response?”Well, mom, would you rather hire a shyster lawyer to get me off of trumped up weapons charges, or come identify my body at the morgue?”

Mom’s response?”You got hollow points in that thing, right?”

The crux of the matter is, if you rely completely on Law Enforcement, you have cheapened human life. You choose to let people die, as Dick Daley does, and then punish their murderors (if you can find them- big if) afterwards. The preferred course of action, to anyone with a single functioning brain cell, would be to prevent the murder, or rape, or robbery. This may not always be possible, but every single effort that can be made, should be made, within reason. I’m not suggesting we lock everyone up. I’m not suggesting we become orwellian. I’m suggesting we do normal, sane, crime prevention measures. Lighted streets. Police patrols in dangerous areas. Strong locks on doors. Neighborhood watch. There are a million things to do to help prevent crime.

W has taken the war to the terrorists. (for those of you in Rio Linda, ‘terrorists” are Islamic Fundamentalists who hate and want to harm Americans. The middle east is crawling with them. Capisco?) He has made us safer by pre-emptive measures, because he wants to PREVENT acts of terrorisim. He is unwilling that anyone should die by a terrorist’s hand.

Should Ketchup boy get elected, he’ll treat Terrorisim as “a nuisance. A law enforcement issue”.

It’s important that you know what this means.

It means that your life is completely meaningless to Kerry. It means that he’s willing for you to get blown up, and then he’ll do his best to punish the people responsible. If he can find them. This is his message to you: I do not care about you enough to make any effort to prevent your death. Remember this on Tuesday.