Why not?

In the United States, police forces exist as a public service, not as a replacement for civil society. As the Supreme Court has made clear, police are under no obligation to help or to protect you. They can choose to, certainly. But they do not have to. And, even if they did have to, it would still be the case that they could not possibly be everywhere at once.

Nor are they intended to be. For much of American history, there was no serious distinction drawn between the citizenry, the militia, the military, and the police. Instead, there were a few elected or appointed roles — watchmen, constables, sheriffs, etc. — and then there was the people at large. Those people were expected to bandy together and to help one another, to be responsible for their own protection, and to help to keep the peace — both under the control of authorities and of their own volition. When standing police forces came into being, Americans did not give up this system; they added to it.

Which is to say that there is no reason whatsoever for us to abandon either our penchant for self-reliance or our preference for volunteerism simply because we have a series of professional police forces running in parallel to civil society. Nor, for that matter, should our out-of-control licensing systems and incomplete self-defense protections be permitted to become an impediment to our security. I’m no great fan of Oathkeepers as an outfit. But if they wish to help out during a protest, so be it. If a collection of black Ferguson residents wishes to protect a white-owned gas station from looters, so be it. If the Huey P. Newton Gun Club wants to march around Dallas protecting black citizens, so be it. If a spontaneous, unlicensed group of Korean Los Angelenos wishes to take up arms and protect their property from rioters, so be it. The United States represents a collection of free people who elect to have police forces — not the other way around. So some of our actors don’t much like the government. Who cares?

People who think that the country is a government with people, instead of people with a government.

As Glenn notes, this seems ripe for a federal civil-rights law, if protecting yourself and your property is a civil right (as it always has been under English common law). It would be amusing to see if Obama would sign it.

[Afternoon update]

An update on the Oath Keepers in Ferguson, from Jesse Walker.

Yeah, right:

“If you look at the most credible evidence [of Michael Brown’s death at the hands of a Ferguson, Mo., police officer], the lessons are really basic,” Lowry said during an appearance on Meet the Press. “Don’t rob a convenience store. Don’t fight with a policeman when he stops you and try to take his gun. And when he yells at you to stop, just stop.”

Those comments elicited gasp from a panel that included the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson and MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. Mitchell exclaimed “Whoa, whoa” during Lowry’s comments, while Robinson said his recitation of the known facts in the case was an attempt to “relitigate” Brown’s death.

Do they ever listen to themselves?

Yes, but you’d never know it from the behavior of the Democrats:

If you believe that black lives matter, then you should be working for school reform, economic growth, and — yes — more effective law-enforcement and crime-prevention measures to protect black communities, which suffer an enormously disproportionate share of crime and violence. Never mind the stagecraft: That’s what you actually do if you think black lives matter.

And the drama that’s going on in Ferguson right now? That’s what you do if you think black lives are merely useful to you — and, in the end, expendable.

Yup.

They’re not protests, they’re pogroms aimed at the middle class:

Backed by looters and violent people, liberals are telling the American middle class they do not want you. They want an America where you are either a billionaire knocking down tax subsidies, or jobless and on federal assistance. . . . The looters won, thanks to President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and Governor Jay Nixon — Democrats all — who ignored the truth and the facts of the case to fan the flames of violence, across the country. People have begun calling these the Obama Riots. Expect more.

Sadly, yes.

[Update a few minutes later]

Back to blood.

[Update a few more minutes later]

Middle-class Americans are hardest hit by ObamaCare. As by all of the Democrats’ policies. And as Glenn notes, the Republicans are fools to try to go after tech money. They should be advocating populist policies that go instead after Hollywood and the Silicon Valley oligarchs.

[Update a while later]

Speaking of the Silicon Valley oligarchs, how they created huge homeless camps.

I know it’s shocking, but justice is determined by the court system, not mindless mobs in the streets. Glad to see that principle upheld here, despite all the race-baiting tax-dodging sharptons (that needs to become a new word).