We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm. Or at least we used to. Our society used to be protected by warriors. Both in our military and in many aspects in our police forces.

Over the years and more so in recent times the attributes of “rough men” have been shunned. Viewpoints that ascribe masculinity as toxic have changed the defenders of our society. We’ve progressed so far as to suggest sending social workers on police calls instead of police.

It could be said now that, many of us sleep uneasily at night because we’re protected by woke social justice warriors who’ve never been exposed to or inflicted violence on anyone. I feel safer just saying that.

Society has worked hard over the years to change the characteristics of the defenders. They’ve made them kinder and gentler. But the predator remains the same. The result is that the very people who are charged with defending us are now gentler and in many cases incapable of quick violence. Even if they physically have the capability to respond to violence in kind, recent court decisions have many officers hesitant to do so.

To demonstrate the change in mindset among police let me put forth these two examples. I remember a bit of advice I was given as a rookie officer by a senior officer. This was in the mid 90’s. The senior officer and I were having a conversation about contacting suspects on the street who became non-compliant. To summarize what I was told, “if a suspect starts to give you resistance you put him down… hard and decisively. So that the next time he was contacted by an officer he would think twice about getting aggressive.” At first, this may seem like the senior officer was giving me advice to use excessive force with anyone that got lippy. That was not the point. I relay this to show a mindset that was prevalent in law enforcement. As an officer, when confronted with violence, we were prepared to answer back, with swift and decisive force. Don’t mistake that to say we didn’t value de-escalation of violent situations. We we’re trained in that as well. It was the mark of a good officer with intelligence to be able to defuse a situation without violence. But, having the capability to use violence if needed was still there.

Fast forward to present time. I was having a conversation with a young officer. We were discussing room entry tactics. I asked if his agency trained in dynamic entry using the “3 man bump” technique. 3 man bump was a technique in which a group of officers (usually no less than 3) dynamically entered a building, overwhelming the occupants with numbers and force. Much to my surprise the younger officer said no, they don’t do things like that. He further explained that they’d just wait outside or call an actual SWAT team to make entry. Again, the point is not to discuss the tactic, but the mindset. He so quickly dismissed the use of force. An aggressive entry into a building didn’t even appear to be an option in his mind.

There’s been a shift in the United States’ military as well. In 2018 there was a West Point graduate who was pictured with the words “Communism will win” on the inside of his hat. There have been similar incidents since of cadets wearing articles of clothing espousing socialism. I believe there was a time in the not too distant past where cadets doing such things would have been shunned by other cadets and quickly weeded out. Displaying enemy slogans and propaganda would have deemed them unfit for the military (and police agencies) of the U.S. But, because of the push to be kinder and gentler, the shunning of bad soldiers is prevented. These “woke” cadets are actually protected from ridicule from others. This same dynamic is occurring in law enforcement agencies as well. The result is that our military and police ranks are more likely to have subversive or ineffective personnel. But hey, they’re “woke.”

Why? For one thing, for many years now a lot of the people who have promoted up through the ranks have had certain traits. First, they often have more academic accolades than blue collar credits. They often focus on academic achievement while putting little value into physical achievements. And they are more likely to be described as Brown-Nosers. Society has put more value in the academic aspects of a person and devalued blue collar or military experience. This changes the dynamics of military and the police forces.  Many good officers elect not to promote. Not because they are not capable of moving up in rank. But because they don’t tolerate political correctness and trivialities that seem to be requisite of higher ranks in many agencies today.

Let’s focus for a bit on law enforcement. Police are the people you call when someone refuses to comply with the law. Even if you call a “social worker” there will be those instances when a person simply refuses to comply. Worse yet they become belligerent.  At the point when asking them nicely has failed someone must physically enforce the law. The number of officers capable of doing this is effectively, is declining.

Now put this on a bigger scale. We have a kinder and gentler military. If you think of what attributes a military is supposed have, “kinder and gentler” should not be the first thoughts that come to mind. Close to the top of that list should be laying waste to the enemy. Our military and our police still have the equipment and capability of doing what needs to be done. But in many cases they lack the will.

This leaves our society in a precarious situation. Our enemies are more dangerous than ever at home and abroad. But, our society has changed. I believe we’ve set ourselves up for failure. There will be dark times ahead as our enemies realize our capability to enforce our laws and protect ourselves isn’t what it used to be. There’s a quote by G. Michael Hopf “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men and weak men create hard times.” You tell me what part of this cycle you think we’re in.