Loreto Gesualdo, the president of the Italian Federation of Medical-Scientific Societies (Fism), has proposed legislation to suspend free access to medical care for three years for those who assault healthcare workers or damage health facilities.
Fism reported more than 16,000 verbal and physical attacks against doctors and nurses in Italian hospitals in 2023 alone.
Using army for public order, why?
Fascism. Getting people used to it by making it seem necessary.
Italian people are already used to having the army do public order tasks; operation “safe roads” was introduced in 2008 and has been renewed ever since, by every government. This operation is essentially just the use of military personnel for patrol, deterrence and setting checkpoint in Italian cities.
I believe it is important to sooner or later discuss this and to end it, as it has negative effects on the soldiers and also in general on how law enforcement is structured and thought of by governments and politicians. However this is by no means a proposal that for the first time would give military personnel responsibilities for public order nor it has anything to do with fascism.
Does the color of the uniform of the officer armed with an MP really matter?
From Adama in Battlestar Galactica
So say we all.
The military serving civil duties can also connect them more to the citizens they’re supposed to protect. Be it natural disasters, epidemics, etc.
If all you do is focus on military hierarchy that’s all you have, and far away from the people.
Agreed. The important difference here is that in these cases they do not serve in their form as a (military) force. They have no more authority in these situations than a random citizen already performing said tasks. Performing policing duties, they inherently have power and authority.
Civilian vs military control
I know, but does it make you feel different or affect your behaviour wether the uniform is blue/black or olive green?
Additionally, it is about Italy, where some police forces, the Carabinieri, are officially part of the armed forces but, beside military tasks, under control of the ministry of internal affairs.
It does actually make me feel different. But I’m not from a place that’s used to militarized police so it might be different from Italians. With Carabinieri the lines could be a lot more blurred over there and apparently military already does some road safety (?) stuff. So military policing is already an existing thing there.
Carabinieri are a police force that is under military hierarchy, but they are trained to operate in a civil context. They act and are equipped as a police force.
But the army mentioned in the news would be the one used to fight wars, with uniform and automatic weapons, not Carabienieri
No, but it does matter who’s giving the orders.