If you’re looking for a charming tale of central planning and the unethical act of telling others to pay for their own so-called “protection” to be provided by the shakedown organization of the government, this might be the story you’re seeking.
UK Telegraph Crime Correspondent Martin Evans reports that the great utopian political plan to flood the English and Welsh police car fleet with electric vehicles has run into something more than a speed-bump. It’s driven over a cliff of stupidity that pretty much anyone with practical smarts could have warned them was dead ahead.
Reports Evans:
“Electric police cars are running out of charge when responding to emergencies because the blue lights and sirens drain the batteries, it has been suggested.
Officers using environmentally friendly vehicles in rural areas are also struggling to locate charging points, raising questions about their effectiveness.”
Good thing people are taxed for "their own safety" and the system works so, soooo well.
And it’s a good thing that Mr. Evans assumes the electric vehicles are “environmentally friendly,” even though that’s not a necessary conclusion anyone can make, considering the fact that most UK electricity generally comes from coal, or the burning of natural gas, or from controversial nuclear plants, and that the batteries for the electric vehicles (EVs) require intensive mining of highly expensive mineral ores that not only use heavy doses of gasoline or Diesel to run the mining equipment, but also cause terrible damage to soil and watersheds, both in the mining and in the attempts to discard the dead batteries.
One wonders why the grand minds behind this centrally-planned police scheme can’t figure out this stuff.
Perhaps it’s partially due to the fact that they have absolutely zero incentive to do so because they can operate with virtual impunity, without any tie to economic reality or market forces like, oh, customer satisfaction, productivity, and loss.
Because, of course, the government doesn’t operate through choice, it operates through force and the taking of money.
For your "protection."
Adds Mr. Evans:
‘The vast majority of constabularies in England and Wales now include electric vehicles in their fleet, with the Metropolitan Police pledging to be 100 per cent electric by 2030.
Despite being one of the country's smallest forces, Gloucestershire Constabulary has the second biggest number of electric vehicles in the country.
With almost 90 battery powered police cars on the county’s roads, electric vehicles make up a fifth of the force’s entire fleet.
But the local Police and Crime Commissioner, Chris Nelson, has acknowledged there are issues with the cars responding to some emergencies.”
No kidding.
And when the cops aren't on calls, and the cars are sitting in the lot, anotehr difference between a petrol-powered car and an EV emerges. The petrol-powered vehicle doesn't need to be plugged in. It will retain its fuel for weeks or months and will be ready to use. But the EV requires a constant, or near-constant, flow of electricity to keep it at full charge and takes much longer to "fuel-up" than a petrol-powered vehicle. These are obvious considerations, and indicate how foolish one would have to be to keep pushing the electrics.
What happens when a private security service makes dumb choices like this?
Related: Watch Out, US: UK Preps Rationing Of Electric Vehicle Recharging, AT HOME | MRCTV
It loses profitability, and likely loses customers because it can’t do what it purports it can to protect people.
Simple things, like... actually arriving at a crime scene, or getting to an emergency call.
Commish Nelson told Mr. Evens that he is “cautious about going any further down the road at this stage.”
But he also admits:
“We've all got to go towards electric vehicles.”
Really?
Says who?
Well, of course, the gub-ment…
“The Government has pledged to ban the production of all new diesel and petrol vehicles by 2030, leaving police forces urgently looking for alternatives.”
If people were curious about the logical and ethical disconnects between, on one side, the right to one’s own property, the right to be free from aggressive threats, and the right to engage in voluntary market exchange based on personal satisfaction, and, on the other, the politicians’ and bureaucrats’ claims that the government has a justified place in making you pay for its so-called “protection,” even though the use of that force is, itself, theft and doesn’t let you withhold your payment when you’re not satisfied – this is a perfect example of how absurd and vast that disconnect is.
And, tragically, it comes to us from the U.K., where, in ancient days, enclaves of human habitation did not force one another to pay taxes for “their protection.” From Scottish clans to Cornish communities to Irish Brehon Law, ancient British, Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon people took care of their protection without forcibly extracting protection money from others to do it.
It seems as if that spirit of ethical respect for one’s neighbor has, to be glib, run out of juice.
But, perhaps there still is a chance for people to learn. The problem is not just the lack of efficiency and utility in the growing fleet of EVs for UK police. It’s deeper than that, and stems from the lack of ethics and morality of the political system itself.
Related: Climate Conference Elites Will Use Oil-Based Generators To Charge Their Electric Cars | MRCTV