But a series of urban disasters, starting with the Watts riots in 1965, exposed the rigidity of the system and its tendency to provoke parts of the population it was supposed to "protect and serve".
I have focused on pride parades in Zero Tolerance, as I think they are incredibly political, incredibly thought-provoking, but unfortunately they are often just as provoking for parts of society that are not as tolerant as one wishes. .
If Buttonwood can butt in, I'd like to share my thoughts, provoked in part by the similar Goodwin pension row in Britain.
In fact that display and the questions it provokes are part of the point.
He prompted a firestorm when he said the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 had been provoked in part by the United States' closeness to Israel.
After the 1980 coup, which was provoked in part by violence between leftist and rightist youth organizations, university students were constitutionally barred from political activity and membership in political parties, and the voting age was raised to 21.
Dominique de Villepin, another former prime minister, was forced to abandon a labour-market reform in 2006 after huge street demonstrations and sit-ins, provoked in part by his refusal even to discuss the plan beforehand.Mr Sarkozy, in contrast, has gone out of his way to court union leaders, inviting them to the Elysée Palace, and even for lunch at Paris's finest restaurants.
His relationship with his wife Ann, the former Lady Rothermere, was in difficulties, provoked in part by their unconcealed infidelities but also by the tendency of Ann's circle of literary friends, who included Evelyn Waugh, to look down on a mere writer of spy thrillers, their disdain almost certainly exacerbated by his commercial success.
In some ways the Soviet legacy and the emotions it provokes explain part of the current conflict in Ukraine but so too do many other factors in recent history – the corruption and chaos of the capitalist transition is just one example.
But Henderson Brooks made plain that the conflict was provoked in part by a botched "forward policy" adopted by India to position small garrisons along the disputed borders in both the Aksai Chin, where an area the size of Switzerland is contested, and in the eastern sector, where territory three times larger what is now Arunachal Pradesh is at stake.China overran Indian forces in both places.
These children's sections inspire some of the biggest cheers of the evening, provoking a large part of the hundred-thousand odd strong audience to whip out their mobile phones (yes, plenty of North Koreans have mobile phones).
