Navigating A Plot Device

"I saw you on TV last Friday."

"Oh."

"I almost didn't recognise you without your glasses."

"The producers' idea. They say it makes me look 'more accessible.' I won't wear contacts, so it makes the experience rather a chore."

"Huh! I would never have guessed that. You look so stern and serious..."

"Hm...I would rather my words spoke for themselves."

"Well, you were still pretty harsh on that boy the police shot."

This caused the Regular Stranger to pause, but only for a moment.

"I never spoke of that young man."

"No, not directly. But you did say there is no institutional problem with policing..."

"That is correct. There isn't."

"How can you say that with all these young men being shot all over the country by the police?"

Jennifer had set the hot water pot down on the table now, and had pulled up a chair. Despite the contentiousness of the subject of his response, there was something in the manner in which the Regular Stranger responded that had put Jennifer subconsciously at ease.

"For that very reason."

"What reason?"

"'All over the country.' Unlike France and Ireland, America does not have one national police force. Every city and county, and every State, has its own police. So, there can be no institutional problem with policing in America because there is no one policing institution in America."

"Well...that still does not mean there can be no institutional problem with policing in America. I mean, on the Intar-Webs, there are plenty of police forums where cops from all over the country go to gripe about what they call 'the problem element.'"

"Yes. Gripes are one thing, coordinated action another. Indeed, one recurring gripe on these forums is police who ticket off-duty police. There the 'thin blue line' shatters. The writing police officer's name, department and duty station are all named and shamed. Not to mention that many police who post in these forums refer to the FBI as 'Famous But Incompetent.'"

"Well...yeah...everybody is a self-serving rat like Shakespeare's Richard III and Falstaff. But that does not mean that people who do not like each other cannot conspire together, like Richard does with Clarence, Hastings, Buckingham and Stanley, and like Bolingbroke Deuce does with Falstaff."

"I see your point...nevertheless, no intrepid journalist--and they are legion--has been able to, in all these decades, uncover an American version of Propaganda Masonica Due--"

"Propaganda Masonica--what is that?"

"It was a covert alliance of police Generals from Continental Europe and the South Cone that actually coordinated security policy in manners oftentimes illegal. What is more, the parent organisation of Propaganda Masonica Due is severely controlled in Continental Europe while it enjoys full freedom in America."

"So...what is the answer to all these shootings?"

"I don't know for sure...but if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that a huge and unspoken part of the problem is that law enforcement in America disproportionately recruits from that segment of the population that, since the New York City Draft Riots of 1863, has had a problem with the segment of the population from which all those young men come from. This cannot be said openly because of the myth that everyone is American first and their ethnicity second. I daresay that, if police from this recruiting pool were stationed away from areas where the segment of the population of these young men predominate, there would be a geometric decrease in these shootings."