“In the meantime, sir, how is America supposed to defend itself?”

  “The meantime,” Alex said, “is likely to be fairly long, Admiral. I have to convince the people, they have to convince Congress. I’ll do it if it requires my whole term and 20 years after that. Through all of it, we’ll have the missile submarine fleet to protect us.”

  The Army general was unsatisfied. “Mr. President, what are the Russians going to make of this? What about the Chinese or Iran or India of Pakistan? You’re changing the order of things without consulting them. What about the United Nations?”

  “I don’t give a damn about what any of them think, General,” Alex told him. “I’m doing what’s best for America, as I promised I’d do.”

  The general stood, his chair making a screeching noise on the polished floor. “Then I guess I will withdraw, Mr. President, without prejudice. There’s no place for me in this amateur small-arms military you envision. But I’d like to ask you a question, if I may.”

  “Ask away, General.”

  “What made you confident that, hearing your plans, we wouldn’t just arrest you and pull off a coup?”

  Alex smiled. “As in Seven Days in May? It was the oath you took to uphold and defend the Constitution. It’s my experience that—despite Hollywood propaganda to the contrary—military people like you take that oath a lot more seriously than politicians do.”

  “But, sir, wouldn’t that be all the more reason ... “

  Grinning now, Alex shook his head. “Not at all. I’ll bet you know the Constitution better than the average politician. If the folksinger Phil Ochs were alive today, he’d want to know what I want to know: where does it say we’re supposed to be ‘The Cops of the World?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: BRADY, BRADY, BRADY

  If you’re not a little bit uncomfortable with your position, it isn’t radical enough. How can you be too principled? Take the most extreme position you can—you’re claiming territory you won’t have to fight for later, mostly against your “allies”.—Alexander Hope, Looking Forward

  “ ... amid rumors he’s about to give the United Nations ‘24 hours to get out of town’, President Hope will speak to the National Congress of Law Enforcement Officers tonight in what promises to be another tense confrontation. The President has already done what he can at the federal level to bring the War on Drugs to an end. Now, White House spokesmen say he’ll address ‘other badly-needed police reforms’. This is NetPlanetNews.com. I’m Alan—“

  Alex laughed. “The UN is a public nuisance—not to mention a criminal conspiracy to violate everybody’s rights as a prelude to enslaving them.” He turned to Dana. “That’s a good idea your ex-boss has, giving them 24 hours to get off of American soil. Considering how much they’ve bilked taxpayers out of, I could have their buildings in New York seized and converted into a ‘museum of tyranny and state terrorism’—created entirely at private expense, of course.”

  Dana grinned up at him. “Of course.”

  “Careful,” Faith-Anne closed her laptop and watched the traffic outside the limousine window without really seeing it. Traffic was heavy and the going was slow. “They’ll be laying for you, Daddy. I can’t imagine what possessed you to accept this—“

  Alex chuckled. “’Go straight to the heart of the enemy’s greatest strength ... ‘” he quoted.

  “Admiral Lord Nelson?” Faith-Anne guessed. Her father seldom caught her out with famous quotations.

  “No,” John answered. The man looked uncomfortable in what he called his “penguin suit”. Alex had insisted that he wear the chestful of combat ribbons he’d won in Vietnam. “The same guy who said, ‘Great men don’t move to the center, great men move the center.’

  “He certainly moved my center,” Dana said. “I thought I was going to die an old maid. And I very nearly did!”

  Alex laughed with his wife and then turned to his daughter. “They’re not all against me, sweetheart. Not every cop supports the militarization of the police that’s been going on for 20 years. I have a decent relationship with street-level cops. It’s their deskbound ‘superiors’ who have an investment in maintaining a police state.”

  “Darling,” Dana told him. Sitting beside him on the seat, she squeezed his hand. “I hate to say it, but it’s your street-level cops who’ll come confiscating our guns if they’re ordered to by those deskbound superiors. At least that’s what the surveys tell us.”

  “Not after tonight,” he replied. “Tonight I’ll take the next step in demilitarizing the police. I’m not only going to tell them they don’t have to follow orders like that, but that they’ll be prosecuted if they try—I plan to mention Nuremburg a lot—and that the law will offer them no protection when the people shoot back.”

  ***

  “Ladies and gentlemen ... “ Chair-scraping, coughing and clinking of silverware and glasses began to die down. “Ladies and gentlemen, children of the American Revolution, we have a problem, the gravest problem confronting America today. It’s a police problem, one that everyone outside your profession seems hesitant—if not downright afraid—to talk to you about.”

  Leaning on the lectern, speaking off the cuff, as usual, the President glanced from side to side before he went on. He could see that Agent Smith’s nose was still out of joint. Alex had forbidden the Secret Service to disarm the 3,000 convention attendees. Counting backup guns, there could be 5000 pistols and revolvers out there in the audience, affecting Smith the way Alex’s gun-toting friends had affected the young female agent at the shooting range.

  “Every day, we hear of some unthinkable act of brutality carried out by federal, state, or local ‘law enforcement’ against individuals or groups whose crime is the exercise of their unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human rights. Police officers have become—more than the military ever could—the ‘standing army’ that was hated and feared by America’s Founding Fathers.”

  The murmuring began again, low, inimical. These people were used to overcoming problems with physical force; they had a low tolerance for public discussion of their shortcomings. Alex took a deep breath. It was one thing to contain the media, who might otherwise tear his administration to pieces, by confronting them as individuals. It was hard for a reporter to ask loaded questions, or write lies about a President who made it clear he knew about the little blonde secretary, the embroidered expense account, the poor old neglected mother stored in a substandard facility. Media people were more guilty of racism, sexism, every sort of prejudice and bigotry, than anyone they covered. And they were careless how they talked about it in hotel bars.

  “Much of the freedom movement occupies itself trying to identify the reasons this happened and reverse them. Mostly, it was a failure on the part of the Founders to provide enforcement of the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution, commonly known as the Bill of Rights.”

  But confronting 3,000 police officers on what amounted to their own turf, telling them they’d done wrong morally, legally, for decades, was something else altogether. He didn’t intend to make enemies where he didn’t have to, but he wouldn’t shrink from telling the truth to those who needed to hear it most. He looked out over the vast, dark, table-filled ballroom, wondering what would happen next.

  “As long as the cause of a problem is being addressed, there’s no harm in soothing the symptoms, as well. You may get a CAT-scan to see why you suffer migraines, but you also take an aspirin. I plan to suggest to Congress certain steps to treat the symptoms by which we know we’ve all begun living in a police state.”

  The murmur rose to an outraged buzz. The President put a hand up, palm out, demanding silence, a listening ear, an open mind. The quiet he received for his troubles chafed him somehow. It felt tight and hot, like a noose, just before the trapdoor opens.

  “Congress may prove reluctant. If so, any of these remedies (or all of them), may be pursued by concerned individuals and groups who find them worthwhile, as conventional legislation, as constitutional or charter amendments, as initiated referenda, or as a part of settlements in lawsuits. I have little power to change what happens at the non-federal levels of government—although I can guarantee that not one cent of federal money will ever be spent again to finance local ‘law enforcement’—but I mean to be as persuasive as I can.”

  This time there was booing and it took both hands to quiet them. Thoughts of lead balloons and screen doors in submarines went through Alex’s mind.

  “It’s time to find answers,” he said, “for ourselves, and for our children, so they won’t have to live in a police state that, by accident and ignorance of history, we’ve erected over the past several decades.” He hurried on, before they had a chance to react.

  “First, there being no Constitutional provision for a national police force, in accord with the Ninth and 10th Amendments, federal ‘law enforcement agencies’—the FBI, DEA, ATF, EPA, OSHA, and so on—will be abolished and their present and former employees subjected to legal scrutiny of their current and past activity. They will be forbidden to carry or use weapons of any kind, and will be permitted to operate at all, only under closen supervision by local police.”

  A faint cheer went up and there was a smattering of applause.

  “All military weapons, vehicles, and aircraft in use by these agencies will be surrendered to the population who paid for them in the first place, for use by county militia companies.”

  The applause died as if someone had flipped a switch. The police thought that they were the militia.

  “Independent civilian review boards will be established to insure future federal compliance with the Bill of Rights. No plea of secrecy or ‘national security’ will be allowed to impede their investigations. Any willful misunderstanding of any article of the Bill of Rights on the part of elected or appointed officials will be considered evidence of an intention to commit crimes against the Constitution.”

  This time, having been up and down the conceptual roller coaster a couple of times, his audience waited to hear what he would say next.

  “There have been local abuses, too, and there will be local reforms. I have no power to enforce such an edict, but I will do my best to see that police officers at the state, county, and local levels are required to wear uniforms while on duty, and forbidden to act in an official capacity when off duty or wearing non-uniform clothing. These uniforms will bear large individual name patches, and badge numbers readable from a distance of fifty yards. It will be a serious offense to cover or obscure them in any way. It will be a felony for officers to conceal their faces with a helmet or mask, or to wear military-style clothing.”

  Alex gathered that what he heard now was stunned silence.

  “Vehicles used by local police must be marked and identifiable, with highly-visible registration numbers. Government agencies will be forbidden the use of helicopters which have become an instrument of state terrorism and oppression.”

  More stunned silence. In cartoons and situation comedies, this was the moment you heard the crickets. Alex pressed on.

  “Bullet-resistant clothing, which has become a barrier between the police and the public and encouraged a contemptuous disregard for the lives, property, and rights of ordinary citizens, will be forbidden. You all were much nicer people before you started wearing Kevlar. Nor may police officers possess, carry, or employ any weapon prohibited to the public, nor carry a weapon of any kind off duty, concealed or otherwise, until laws in their jurisdiction that forbid ordinary citizens to do so the same thing have been repealed.”

  Someone to his left shouted, “So you want us to get shot?”

  “I want those laws repealed,” he replied. “And something else: it may seem a small thing, but you have to get rid of those Nazi-shaped helmets. Believe me, any safety they offer is offset by the fear and hatred they engender among the people whose lives, property, and rights you’re supposed to be protecting. They remember what happened in Germany, even if you don’t, and they know how close we are to repeating it, if somebody doesn’t do something now.”

  He thought about the three pounds of steel hanging below his left armpit and knew what he had to say next.

  “Whether you like it or not, it’s time you got used to the idea of an armed citizenry. Mere possession of a weapon is no crime, no matter what local laws assert, nor is carrying it without asking anyone’s permission. It’s a sacred right protected by the highest law of the land. You know better than anybody else that courts in every state have ruled that no individual has a legal right to police protection, and that a choice to dial 911—instead of defending yourself—is often a decision to die at the hands of a criminal before the police have any possibility of arriving.”

  Silence. What could they say to that? What were they thinking? Was he going to make real changes, or was he like the first monotheist, the pharaoh Akenaton, shouting into the wind of history and fated to be erased from it by those who came afterward?

  “Things will change, now. Police departments—and 911 operators—will be required to admit, in all printed matter they distribute, on their websites, in the phone book, and in their telephone-answering messages, that nobody has a legal right to police protection. You’ll be required to have it printed on your business cards, and your cars will bear the warning, as well, that the police department only ‘protects and serves’ the public at large.

  “To avoid a continuing conflict of interest analogous to the 19th century practice of paying police for each prisoner they locked up, and to prevent over-zealous enforcement of statues and ordinances, all fines and traffic revenues will be divided between the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International, provided they adopt a view of the Bill of Rights which is consistent from article to article.

  “There will be no more ‘dynamic entry’. Possession or use of a battering ram will be a felony. You will serve warrants, seize evidence, and make arrests during business hours, by knocking on the door, not smashing it in. Handcuffs or other restraining devices may not be used on those arrested for nonviolent crimes, or for propaganda purposes or public display. Arresting officials will be held responsible under civil and criminal law for any humiliation to which arrestees, later proved innocent, are subjected.

  “Our culture has learned too much, acquired too much ‘technology’, about restraining people—handcuffs, leg irons, belly chains, straitjackets, concrete boxes, razor-wire—like something out of the Dark Ages or the Inquisition. It’s time we unlearned, forgot most of that technology, and arranged rehabilitation for those who’ve made a lifelong career of keeping their fellow human beings in cages.

  “In ‘seige’ situations (which, in the future, may not be initiated because an individual expresses a wish to be left alone, locks himself in his house, or possesses weapons guaranteed to him by the Second Amendment. Authorities will be prohibited from interrupting telephone or other utilities, or from restricting access by the media to the subjects of the operation. Nor may they play music, obnoxious sound-effects, or use lights to deprive the subjects of sleep. Such measures impair good judgement and raise the likelihood of unnecessary bloodshed before the situation can be resolved.

  “In a broader sense, what’s required to restore the balance is that individual officers of the military and police come to understand—and reinforce to one another—that the Bill of Rights isn’t just a list of no-nos they have to find a way around, but the very thing it’s most important for them to ‘protect and serve’. What’s more, they must prove themselves all over again—to a people who have lost any other reason to trust them—by taking a new oath to uphold, defend, and enforce, without reservation, each and every separate article of the Bill of Rights in its most radical interpretation.

  “To that end, this afternoon I approved a course of study for those in your profession that will allow them to renew their committment to the Bill of Rights.”

  He reached into an inside pocket, pulling out a small, stiff, colored piece of fabric.

  “This uniform patch, a scroll symbolizing the Bill of Rights, superimposed on the American flag most of you already wear, indicates a promise, informed by that course of study, that you will never violate the rights of those you serve. I’ll be asking the military to adopt the same insignia, and to wear their uniforms in public, to display it, as often as possible. In return, those among you who refuse to obey an order that, in good faith, you consider unlawful or unconstitutional, will receive executive clemency and, should the order prove to have been unlawful or unconstitutional, reinstatement to full pay and benefits—and promotion.

  “The American people will have liberty and privacy again, whether the government wants them to or not; it will be your job to protect it. Due to an established pattern of abuse by police agencies and individual officers, all wiretapping, internet surveillance, and other invasions of privacy—or any procedure of any kind, including taxation, that requires disclosure of private financial data—will be forbidden. It was a grave mistake to grant such privileges to government in the first place. For far too long, we’ve erred on the side of ‘law enforcement’ and generated a police state as a result.

  “Given the unmistakable injunction of the Second Amendment against the slightest restriction of the individual right to own and carry weapons, government possession or use of devices for detecting weapons will be illegal, punishable by fines and prison sentences.

  “It is inappropriate for sovereign individuals to be sorted and tracked like breeding stock or government property. There is no provision whatever for it in the Constitution. Therefore, fingerprint records and other identification systems now maintained by the government will be destroyed and practices like fingerprinting, voiceprinting, and retinal photography forbidden.