A Principled Understanding of the Place of Police in Society

I found this comment, from a person named "fsilber" to an article by Eric Sharp particularly compelling:

The issue isn't whether we need them, but whether we are to continue in our founder's political ideology or switch to the concept of some 19th century German political scientist. In the European mind, police are servants of the rulers occupying and controlling the nation. In our Founder's ideology, the people are free and police are servants of the people, hired by any town or village that chooses to incorporate, to do the tasks that private citizens might do but usually prefer to delegate. For this reason, it is politically objectionable to ban any weapon police are allowed to use.
11/28/2008
7:22:47 a.m. EDT

I have argued for some time that any weapon in the arsenal of the police should be equally available to law abiding citizens who are paying them. The police are our servants. The master would never arm his servant better than he himself is armed.