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Content: Thus for police to enforce
laws that support racial discrimination even if passed by a legislature,
is hardly democratic according to contemporary standards. It is easier to specify democratic
procedures than democratic content. But at the most general level such
content involves respect for the dignity of the person and the ideas associated
with universal citizenship, limits on the power of the state to intrude
into private lives and public accountability. In a democratic society police
must not be a law unto themselves. In spite of strong pressures and temptations
to the contrary, they are not to act in an explicitly political fashion,
nor to serve the partisan interests of the party in power, or the party
they would like to see in power. Their purpose must not be to enforce political
conformity. Holding unpopular beliefs or behaving in unconventional, yet
legal, ways are not adequate grounds for interfering with citizen’s liberty. When opponents of democracy operate within the law police have an obligation
to protect their rights, as well as the rights of others. In an important sense a democratic
police is a neutral police. For example in a racial or labor disturbance
police are not to take sides, nor should they spy on, or disrupt the legal
actions of an opposition political party.