Or my warped vision for the police.

In Jesus’ and Tolstoy’s and frankly my utopia, we will have accepted the law of love over the law of violence.

In this utopia, we will still need hospitals and fire departments. Shit sometimes goes bad, people get ill, fires start.

However we will finally have rejected all forms of violence, so armies, police, judges, juries won’t be necessary.

On the way to this utopia, I figured that all of these jobs would probably get slowly reduced down to one role, of police, judge and jury.

Now we all know who that is – Judge Dredd. Apart from Judge Dredd is a dick, he too believes in violence solving everything. “I am the law!”, blah, blah.

So we don’t need Judge Dredd, we need Judge Hershey.

What I imagine to be the perfect judge is like a badass, spiritual, sensitive, observant, friendly, diplomatic paramedic.

Once we’re in utopia no one will be violent anymore, but on the way to utopia people are still going to be steadily less and less violent. Or there will be less and less violent people.

So shit is still going to go bad, people will have fights and disagreements. I like the tree in my garden, my neighbour doesn’t like the leaves. We’re both having a bad time and feeling stressed. So my neighbour comes round and I end up punching him in the face.

So now badass diplomat paramedic, or say Judge Hershey, shows up.

There’s no screaming “get down on the floor”, “hands where I can see them”. Her first priority is as a medic to see to the bloody nose.

Then it’s to diffuse the situation, through being sensitive and diplomatic. Obviously Judge Hershey can read minds, but someone who is trained to be an observant, sensitive, friendly diplomat will be very close to the concept of reading minds.

Then finally it’s to record what happened. Every time shit goes bad, we need the most accurate report of what happened. Both to help better settle disputes and give useful data for how we can improve. Nothing better than having an actual trained eye witness. Obviously this assumes our badass paramedics aren’t corrupt, but I get the feeling that most paramedics aren’t.

Now the question is why she needs to be badass, for self-defense. This is failing the Jesus’ non-resistance to violence, but its something closer to what Muhammad believed in. Be peaceful, but you can defend yourself. Once we’re in utopia you don’t need defense from violence, but on the way there we need something like the kung-fu Buddhist monks. They reject all concepts of harming someome, but are able to block any attacks until the situation calms down.

Another situation where I imagine them being needed is when someone takes too many drugs at a party or whilst sat at home. People doing silly things, depression and suicide still won’t go away in utopia. Then again you need the paramedic first and then you need that same someone to offer help for how to treat the problem. The person on drugs maybe dangerous, so self-defense, but in no way should they ever be harmed.