A long time ago, I watched a solitary policeman restore calm in a crowd which had been growing larger and angrier by the minute. He had no radio, and I feel sure he did not even contemplate drawing his sidearm.
He just strolled nonchalantly by, no more than meaningfully twitching the issue short sjambok at his hip. Peace ensued at once; not a word was spoken, nobody was even touched, still less hurt. No need, because prospective troublemakers faced the certainty of immediate retribution - thus, no trouble.
The sjambok was sacrificed on the altar of 'political correctness' a while back, the pink fluffy mob seemingly unable to grasp that cracking the skulls of miscreants with cumbersome plastic bludgeons is somewhat less humane than delivering a (very) painful whack.
<dreaming> Had the pollies the spine to declare a State of Emergency ... all that elf-n-safety, 'uman rights stuff would be suspended ... bet all those withdrawn sjamboks are still sitting in stores somewhere ... if they were issued to a few support teams from the armed forces there would be an immediate outbreak of !respect! amongst the scrotes - end of riots, no broken bones, not a round discharged <just dreaming>.
Last edited by dogle; 9th Aug 2011 at 19:28.