Well, you can unelect a sheriff you can't unelect his posse of unelected deputies. I was in gloucester. One old fellow guards the cinema on saturdays on the point. Total gentleman. Damn shame he wears an uniform. I'd rather see him as well paid private security.
A younger, crew cut JERK, for lack of more christian friendly profanity (family friendly's a misnomer pushed by the theocrats as far as I'm concerned) decides to thug on me while I'm waiting for my father outside the farm fresh. Now, get this right, I'm in the fire lane... there's space all over, I'm where I can see any vehicle coming and move my car. Yet the idiot just wanted to exercise his "authoritah."
Sorry, I don't agree with you on that Shawn. I don't need protectors, and neither does any man worthy of life. If you deserve your life, you take steps to protect it as best you can, and enrich it, in both material and spiritual wealth (goodies + friends + accomplishments and knowledge)... however I must draw the worst of the cops out when I'm out... or I simply don't kowtow to them.
Hint, the rules out here are fairly simple... you can be waiting for someone outside a store in the fire lane ONLY if you're awake and in your car. I even had the car running. If a fire engine or ambulance could not have found anywhere to park but my spot, out of the 300 square feet of firelane in front of that store... I would have gladly moved to make room. Deputy Dipshit just wanted to show me who's boss. Since I didn't feel like being arrested, and put my new home on the office record by giving them my address, I decided to play along... merely to keep my anonymity.
I can't say as I'll feel sorry for Deputy Dipshit's family when some gangbanger blows him away in Hampton. In fact, I might just cheer and praise the man in the local rebel rag. This jerk has it coming.
So no, I wager all we're seeing now, is simply the end result of government, sorry to be the bringer of bad news Shawn. You're in a line of work for cutthroats and murderers and thugs. If you're a good guy, start your own private security group, and screen your customers. Contract with a gated community, and screen your employees too. Short of being sheriff voluntarily and running a department based on voluntary donations, I don't see how it can be done via natural law. I thought the concept of natural law was, you seek what you desire and compensate those who possess it, unless you prefer to overpower them,and take, and then run the risk of them fighting back and defeating you. "We" have no natural law, since uniformed men automatically have all the rights, and non uniformed men are "civilians" receiving neither respect due, nor any thanks for the fact that the uniformed, producing nothing, would starve to death without those whom they tax, abuse and fleece.
Sorry mate, just how I see it. I understand that the position would be filled.
My father once asked me "and what would you replace the government with?"
I asked him... "if you got cancer, what would you replace a bulging deadly tumor with?"
He doesn't get metaphors easily, but I wager you do. So while its still around, sure, do it since policing is one of the few paid jobs left (as is the case in all metastasized states.) However, line up something honorable for when the state goes away... if even for a brief interlude in a sea of stupidity or tyranny. (Something honorable means that I can opt out of it without your colleagues dressing up in Counterstrike getups and kicking my door in to "confiscate" my "unlicensed paraphernalia" for whatever the new taboos will be.)