[URL]http://www.lewrockwell.com/dmccarthy/dmccarthy17.html  [/URL]

The harm that police brutality inflicts upon the social order is plain enough then, but would there be a social order at all without the police to protect it? Yes, without question there would be. As hard as it may be for 21st century Americans to believe, the modern police force is a very recent historical development, not even 200 years old. The first modern metropolitan police force was created by Robert Peel in London, 1829. For most of the preceding 2,000 and more years Western civilization had more or less flourished without anything like our police. See this article in the Encyclopedia Britannica, which includes the following description of community law enforcement in Anglo-Saxon England:

"When crimes were observed, citizens were expected to raise an alarm, gather their countrymen, and pursue and capture the criminal. All citizens were obliged to pursue wrongdoers, and those who refused were subject to punishment. If a crime was committed with no witnesses, efforts to identify the criminal after the fact were the responsibility of the victim alone: no governmental agency existed for the investigation and solution of crimes."

When will you civilians learn that collateral damage is a small price to pay for all of the freedoms being protected that you all obviously take for granted.

The complex society we have is also a recent event.
A lack of Law Enforcement may have been possible when we were largely agrarian, the average perosn didn't travel more than 25 miles from their birth town in their life, and things were settled at the end of a rope for better or worse.
This is not advocating police brutality. I also think that your thread title and the  actual topic discussion  are actually  divergent from each other.
Also , I don't think much of anything "flourished" during the Dark Ages. And what apssed for large metropolitan areas during that time were ridden with crime and corruption.

The thread title was penned by the author and I
cut/paste the text, an excerpt from the article, under the url. I hope you read the article in its entirety.

From a search I did on ancient Roman cities:

[b]Two thousand years ago, Rome was a busy place. It was a crowded, noisy, smoky, dusty city, with beautiful temples and public buildings. The rich had gracious homes, each with an entrance atrium, which was the center of family life. For those who were not quite as rich, there were apartment buildings, some quite nice ones, and there were shabby tenements for the poor. Narrow streets wound between the seven hills.

Some people walked around Rome. Some were carried in covered litters, with curtained couches carried on poles by slaves. Soldiers strode though town in chain mail or leather armor. Workmen hurried in belted tunics of dark wool. Before daylight, boys hurried to school. Later in the day, Roman citizens strolled around town in white wool tunics. Shops lined the streets. Down in the Forum, courts were in session, and the great Senate orators met and argued.

Even for the poor, life in the city was lively. There was always something going on, like the great State festivals including shows in the theatres, races, and fights in the arenas. These were free spectacles that citizens could enjoy. [/b]

Seems to contradict what you think about so-called "modern society".  Fact is that people have for a long time been "taking care of business" themselves.  It is just today's society that believes we no longer have the "right" to do so, after all today's criminal sometimes hasd more rights then today's victim!!!

sgtar15