There are 80 members of the Torrington police department according to a statement I heard on WZBG radio news.\u00a0 \u00a0A starting police officer in 2016 would get a salary of\u00a0\u00a0$66,166<\/a>\u00a0and according to their own statistics there are 638 crimes<\/a> reported in Torrington every year.\u00a0 That is eight crimes per member of the department per year.\u00a0 I propose lowering the number of people in the department to save us all another budget crisis.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Who in their right mind would criticize the local police?\u00a0 The First Amendment guarantees my right to criticize and the 14th Amendment guarantees my right to equal protection, to be treated the same as everyone else.\u00a0 But that doesn’t protect me from the Police.\u00a0 We have all seen the videos.\u00a0 Police shoot people and lose their jobs, but I would be dead.<\/p>\n

Maybe you think I am over-reacting.\u00a0 Maybe you think the police are good people and would never unjustly treat anyone for any reason.\u00a0 I wish that were true.\u00a0 I can tell you stories, lots of stories, from people in Torrington.\u00a0 And you reply, oh, those people are bad people you can’t believe what they say….\u00a0 The point is I am judged a fool, a maniac to propose cutting the Torrington tax burden by cutting the number of police in town.\u00a0 But I am doing just that.<\/p>\n

I am under no misconceptions.\u00a0 I can list all the objections, the continued personnel costs regardless of the loss of manpower, the fear that crime would increase, that for every call there would be three instead of five officers responding, the fact that neither Republocrats or Demopublicans support cutting police departments, that costs will be significantly higher in the future if we have to re-hire, that we will be placing highly paid professionals out of work and their families at risk…<\/p>\n

Yes I admit I am judged a fool for suggesting it.\u00a0 I am likely to see no results. I want smaller government, fewer taxes, competition and value in government service.\u00a0 I want to pay my taxes and see results, not pay a tribute and hope the government will remember me when I want something.<\/p>\n

I have a plan, but the plan is judged as crazy, as too radical.\u00a0 Cut Government on the local level?\u00a0 It would save us Big Bucks, no one will doubt that, but they may argue that the savings are not that big since every officer will get severance benefits, pensions and all the things big government promised them when they were hired.<\/p>\n

Just like a plan to privatize teaching.\u00a0 Everyone knows big government has made a monopoly on teaching and the only option to make education any better is to pay higher taxes.\u00a0 I know it is an uphill battle.<\/p>\n

In Meriden, CT earlier this month people like me, crazy Libertarians, were in a public place soliciting signatures to be placed on the ballot in November for State and Federal elections.\u00a0 We are doing this because it is the only way to break Big Government’s monopoly.\u00a0 We are the third party and the Constitution guarantees us Free Speech and Equal Protection.\u00a0 Also please note that our big government was built by both big political parties, hand in hand, and is protected and maintained by them.<\/p>\n

The Mayor of Meriden Connecticut, where the use of the bean whistle<\/a> is against the law, called on the Police force to keep Libertarians from Constitutionally exercising their rights to free speech, free assembly and equal protection by the law.\u00a0 This should be a big deal to us all, this should show us that we are not the free people we think we are.<\/p>\n

Here is the complaint filed in State courts, but if it is not settled is sure to go to a Federal Civil Rights court.<\/p>\n

Libertarians are on the ballot in every State for Federal elections and some States for local elections.\u00a0 Connecticut is a Democrat State who unashamedly looks for “revenue streams” so they don’t have to say “increased taxes” out loud.\u00a0 Republicans would never, ever touch the issue of Police employment levels or back down on the war on drugs, sex, immigration, regulation of all manner of protective trade and government based on fear.<\/p>\n

Libertarians trust out country, we trust the people.\u00a0 We find it ridiculous when someone is arrested on account of a dozen laws when one would do, then plea bargain to a mere 7 years on prison for a non-violent offense.\u00a0 In 2018 we have many cheaper and better ways to supervise people effectively without sending them to a prison which costs taxpayers more per year than sending them to Yale University.<\/p>\n

But I digress.\u00a0 I am a fool, tilting at windmills, dreaming the impossible dream to think we can lower taxes and strengthen Connecticut by giving its people, you and me, MORE freedom instead of further restricting and further supervising and further surveying us.\u00a0 But I believe I am right, and I believe Libertarians have been right since 1971, when the Libertarian Party was founded on a platform that included gay rights and legalization of cannabis.<\/p>\n

In 2016 cannabis won more states than Hillary.\u00a0 It is a freedom issue.\u00a0 And the man who promised to de-fund and dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency won the election.\u00a0 \u00a0Good.\u00a0 That is $8,000,000,000 and 55,000 government employees who have served us well, but are not needed any more.\u00a0 All endangered species are growing, weather models predicting disaster since 1970 have been wrong, global warming is accelerating much slower than predictions and no direct tie has been found from that acceleration to Carbon Dioxide emissions regardless of Greenhouse Gas theory.<\/p>\n

Dismantling the EPA will not cause disaster, and neither will a reduced police force in Torrington Connecticut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are 80 members of the Torrington police department according to a statement I heard on WZBG radio news.\u00a0 \u00a0A starting police officer in 2016 would get a salary of\u00a0\u00a0$66,166\u00a0and according to their own statistics there are 638 crimes reported in Torrington every year.\u00a0 That is eight crimes per member of the department per year.\u00a0 … Continue reading The Police? Are You Kidding?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8FSV9-aA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":665,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656\/revisions\/665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}