Well, I guess no one is "mandated" to do anything, at least anything that requires initiative. I mean, a person who is given access to classified information is "mandated" to not release it to unauthorized persons, and a CDL holder is "mandated" to obey traffic regulations. What that means in practice is that if a cleared person releases classified information, he can't say "I didn't realize that was wrong," if he does, the judge will still sentence him. Same with the CDL holder.
We expect people in certain jobs to have some desire, some inner motivation, to do the job they're paid to do. That's why I believe that the right way to describe a well-functioning economic system is that it sees that — on the whole — a given job goes to the "right" person, meaning the person who wants to do the job and who has the will and the motivation to try to do the job, who cares about the job and believes it should be done well.
This is what capitalist economies do better than communist economies.
More than ten years ago, I was operated on for abdominal cancer. The operation was a success. The surgeon who was in charge of my case told me had done almost two thousand such procedures before mine. He came to my room every other morning at 6 AM to check on me post-op (he alternated with the young surgeon who actually did the procedure, who actually held the knife; she came at 5:30 in the morning).
The operation was a complete success, and I was skiing less than one month after the stitches were removed. When I needed a fantastic surgeon for a complex operation, the our economy delivered one to me, in my small town in upstate New York, right when I needed that person to save my life.
A few years later, I saw him in a local big-box store; he was shopping there on a Saturday afternoon. I almost didn't recognize him. You would never pick him out of a crowd. There is absolutely no way to know by looking at him of his amazing educational background, of his skills, of his knowledge, of his attention to detail, discipline, focus, dedication... all those things are invisible to one who looks from the outside.
Yet the capitalist economy of the United States identified him and brought he and I together at exactly the right moment.
Peterson is a law-enforcement officer; presumable he took some sort of oath to become a sworn officer in the State of Florida. While no one can make him risk his life to do his job, he does in fact hold a job that sometimes requires him to risk his life. When he declined to do so, he wasn't doing his job. I don't know if that warrants prosecution, but it certainly warrants contempt and scorn.
“While no one can make him risk his life to do his job, he does in fact hold a job that sometimes requires him to risk his life.”
Risking your life and giving your life are two different things. A guy driving an ice cream truck assumes a risk every time he gets behind the wheel but nobody would expect him to give his life. What if a cop ran away from a situation where he could very well have been killed, but because he lived he was able save his own children’s lives in the future?
Parallels to a member of a military armed force displaying cowardice in the face of the enemy.
10 U.S. Code § 899 - Art. 99. Misbehavior before the enemy
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/899