Dear Reader,

I believe the problem with police departments and ICE, for example, may be a problem of the means justifying the ends.   Are people in the top echelons of the means getting frustrated with the way things are in the world and putting it down upon the backs of ICE agents and police officers to do the impossible?  The volatile functioning of police officers and ICE can be very destructive to our humanity and our society, as well as our communities.   However, you’ll notice that the detrimental impacts and the positive feedback loops always go down to the people causing inflection points based on extreme negative energy, riots, and extreme protest involving heckling.   The means in this case have destructive energy, gun violence at their discretion and prerogative.    The weighing up of processes, procedures, laws, rules, regulations, policy, best practices, and pollution contributes to making poor decisions on the battlefield.  This is especially true when the top-down assigns the impossible to agents and police officers.   Therefore, the problem lies at the top in the King’s castles, and kingdoms means functioning.   If I were the responsible one in the situation, I would immediately shift everybody towards the end functioning side of the equation.   This will get everybody contributing to holistic justice, health, safety, environmental justice, and social justice, and to mitigating the problems faced by people in our country who are from other countries.   Most of the people who are so-called illegal in our country have been impacted by a long period of time of destructive means functioning and pollution themselves, and have been impacted by inflection points, leading them down the road towards gang functioning.   This is an indicator that these people needed help long ago but did not get it.   From my perspective, it’s time to help these people rather than fight them with deadly violence and deadly force.  If they are truly violent, they need to go directly to locked hospitals so they can get the care that they need to get started in this country, or get sent back to their original country under holistic circumstances.  However, most of these people are seeking a better life in the United States and flee their home countries because of the detrimental conditions found there.  Most people are suffering in a preventable way, and ought to be included and accepted in our world rather than fighting the continual battle that they’ve been facing for an extended period of time.   It would be ends functioning to get these people accepted and included in our society, whether in the United States or their home countries.   If the top-down means were functioning as ends functioning, they would’ve understood that getting people to help those who need it in the first place would’ve been the desired course of action.

I believe we are witnessing a critical misalignment in how our societal institutions, particularly those entrusted with maintaining order and managing borders like police departments and immigration enforcement agencies, are being directed and operated. The core issue, as I see it, stems from an overreliance on a “means-justifying-the-ends” philosophy, where processes and enforcement mechanisms overshadow the ultimate human outcomes they are intended to serve.

This orientation often places frontline officers and agents in an impossible bind. They are frequently tasked from the highest echelons with executing directives that are inherently flawed or unattainable through conventional, often punitive, methods. This top-down pressure, combined with an exhaustive labyrinth of regulations and procedures, often leads to decisions made under duress that prioritize control over compassion, and short-term compliance over long-term stability. The result is a cycle of reactive measures that inadvertently fuel social volatility.

We observe the devastating consequences of this approach in communities across our nation and beyond. It erodes trust, fosters deep-seated resentment, and can escalate into cycles of civil unrest, protest, and even violence. When institutional actions are perceived as destructive and inhumane, they inevitably contribute to a breakdown of social cohesion, impacting our collective humanity and the well-being of our communities.

Consider, for instance, the complex challenges surrounding immigration. Many individuals categorized as “undocumented” are not inherently malicious actors, but rather people fleeing desperate circumstances – whether due to political instability, environmental degradation, economic hardship, or systemic violence in their home countries. Their journeys are often a direct consequence of long-standing global “means-functioning” failures and deep-seated societal inequities. When these individuals arrive, our current systems frequently fail to recognize their fundamental needs, instead resorting to enforcement tactics that exacerbate their trauma and marginalization, sometimes inadvertently pushing vulnerable populations towards more precarious or even illicit activities due to lack of viable alternatives. They are, in essence, populations who have been denied critical support for far too long.

My conviction is that we must fundamentally reorient our approach from one fixated on the “means” to one driven by desired “ends.” This paradigm shift would mean prioritizing comprehensive human well-being, genuine holistic justice, and sustainable societal health. An “ends-functioning” model would focus on achieving holistic justice, ensuring public safety through preventative measures, promoting environmental stewardship, and championing social equity for all.

Practically, this would translate into investing in support systems for vulnerable populations, including those seeking refuge. Rather than expending vast resources on punitive enforcement, we should channel efforts into providing essential aid, pathways to integration, and opportunities for dignified lives. For individuals who demonstrably pose a genuine threat, the appropriate response lies not in brute force, but in specialized, therapeutic interventions within secure medical or rehabilitative facilities, ensuring they receive the care needed to address underlying issues, or, if absolutely necessary, humane repatriation under conditions that uphold their dignity and safety. Most people are simply seeking a better, more secure life, and they deserve to be met with empathy and inclusive policies that facilitate their acceptance, either within new communities or in strengthened home countries.

Authentic leadership, operating from an “ends-functioning” perspective, would recognize that proactive investment in human dignity, social safety nets, and equitable opportunities is not merely compassionate but profoundly strategic. It prevents the very crises that our current, means-obsessed systems are perpetually struggling, and often failing, to contain. It is time to embrace a vision in which our collective efforts are geared toward building a more just, healthy, accepting, and inclusive world for everyone.

Sincerely,

Richard Thomas Simmons