Courtesy Patrols Outside Fort Benning

Drudge has a link up to this story about the military instituting Courtesy Patrols (CP) in downtown Columbus, Georgia just outside the gates of Fort Benning. The story itself is very balanced and explains what a CP is what they will be doing quite well I think. I personally am in the military and have both seen and had to act as a CP during my time in the military. They are nothing remarkable. As the story makes clear, the CPs have no legal standing with regards to people who are not in the military. They do have however, and can execute, command authority over members of the military who are on the economy getting drunk and stupid. They have the ability to call the MPs and have drunks taken back to post and they can assist the police by helping with drunken, idiot Joes. If you really think about it, the CP is good for soldiers because if the CPs catch them instead of the cops then the soldier will not face criminal prosecution for misconduct, which is a career ender. It is much better to face a military non-judicial proceeding under Article 15 of the UCMJ than to be in jail facing criminal prosecution. This is definitely not an indication of the descent of the police state nor a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

What is hilarious about this story are the comments from the tinfoil hat crowd on the original story. I will excerpt some below.

Here is one Idiot:Posted by Reldoc0 on April 26, 2011 – 5:34 a.m.
i guess part of there training as well when Katrina hit new Orleans they marched door to door confiscating American citizens guns as well, I guess we can say the tsa training is to fondle you your children and wife at the airports is classic tyranny, police officers don’t even do that without warrants, but these minium wage thugs have the right to?. Military have no right even with the guise of courtesy to police the streets, if they want o police do it on the bases!
And again:Posted by Reldoc0 on April 26, 2011 – 4:34 a.m.
Posse Comitatus Act?. Point blank it’s against the law, that’s why we have the police, but we ate heading towards a police state anyway so what’s the difference?.
Somebody else opening their piehole without thinking:-Posted by Phils on April 25, 2011 – 7:29 p.m.
No one else finds it very sad we have to have military patrols in order to protect us from the out of control military?
A reasonable answer and an idiot response:-Posted by Arron B. on April 25, 2011 – 7:34 p.m.
No, not one bit. Why would they? It’s a Courtesy Patrol to make sure that some drunk Soldiers behave themselves. It’s kind of like… a…. COURTESY. I know. Shocking.

Posted by Phils on April 25, 2011 – 7:39 p.m.
Shocking that I would expect our soldiers to act like regular human beings…shocking I know.

I mean how can we possible expect them to have a couple drinks with out causing a major disturbance or hurting others.
And my favorite comment, which also makes the sense:Posted by firejack007 on April 25, 2011 – 4:13 p.m.
You people get me. Have you never seen a war movie of any kind? Have you not known of MP’s and SP’s that patrolled towns for military personnel? Police take care of the civilians and the MP’s take care of military personnel that get out of hand. This way military personnel are taken care of by the military (quite safer for them actually) and police don’t have to deal with them. It’s about jurisdiction.