Across the wookie-sphere, there's a strong anti-police sentiment, much of which whiffs of guys who are bitter about getting speeding tickets from the same dudes that flushed their heads down the toilet in 8th grade gym class.
I know too many good cops to buy into the whole "JBT" and "Only Ones" meme; it's no more true than is the meme that all gun owners are illiterate redneck bubbas who blindly vote as the NRA and the GOP tell them.
But there are times that it gets really hard.
The only thing that keeps me level is that most cops I know would be more upset by that video than I am.
Maybe the SLO deputies and the DC Metro officers need to trade places...
ReplyDeleteHah!
ReplyDeleteThats true Tam but the "good one" covers for the bad ones. If one helps to cover for his buds he realy is in the same boat, isn't he?
ReplyDeleteFull agreement on the gist.
ReplyDeleteDisagreement though, on your setup para.
I've seen a lot of anti-popo stuff from little l's, but hardly ever based on personal and piddling grounds. There's a lot of egregious behavior from behind a badge though, and it's the right thing to do to spotlight it, video it, write about it, and hopefully curtail it.
And the threat of getting caught, fired, and maybe even prosecuted is really the only thing that might do it. The problem is systemic, the guys capable of this kind of shit are psych-evaled *into* the job rather than rejected for it.
Like you, the majority of the cops I know are driven by what is right and decent and Constitutional. Let's hope their influence, and the *continued* spotlighting of these abuses by wookies and abusees will reduce the effects of a seriously flawed system of enforcement.
Then again, I'd never be able to (or want to) do that job. I'd probably double-tap the first banger-type to spit on me and then I'd be the one featured on WookieTV.
AT
Oh, and my own anecdotal evidence indicates that in many instances the dudes who *got* their heads flushed down the toilet are now the ones *behind* the badge.
ReplyDeleteThere might be a connection there.
(speaking of double-taps; sorry)
AT
Gotta say I couldn't do the job either. I briefly considered it.
ReplyDeleteLike y'all I know some of the good ones and those will usually be happy to pile-on the castigation of the "others".
I've recently blundered onto some more cop-blogs than better and better (cop n' attitude comes to mind) and those bloggers seem to be like the good cops I know.
Given that Sheriffs are elected (far as I know) and that this was SLO I have to wonder if the Deputy got the idea that this kinda thing was OK from "higher".
I also notice the the Fourth Amendment seems to be the only Amendment whose violation matters to the writer of the story
ReplyDeleteThe problem is not the 'bad' cops. There are not many of those. The problem is good cops who are led astray by the desire to get the bad guys.
ReplyDeleteYou know a guy is bad, and you have grown tired of watching the system let him go with a slap on the wrist, so you bend the rules to bring justice upon him. The line then becomes easier to cross each time it is crossed.
Absolute power and all that...
Are police even constitutional?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.constitution.org/lrev/roots/cops.htm
It is interesting that we aren't informed about what the deputies were told by the people who called in.
ReplyDelete(I'm assuming that shooting where he was is not a crime.)
Assuming it's no more that "There is a man shooting toward the road", then the original approach and custody are lawful. As is clearing the house, the mayor is right.
From there on, no way.
Even if the home owner is a felon, there's no exigent circumstance to get into the safes.
It does make our presumption of good law enforcement a bit more difficult. Fortunately this stuff is rare enough that it still makes news. It ought to make news, too.
I HOPE there was serious discipline or discharge for those responsible.
I like the elision of what he pled to, as well.
"which whiffs of guys who are bitter about getting speeding tickets from the same dudes that flushed their heads down the toilet in 8th grade gym class."
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking that if someone was doing crap like dunking somebody else's head in a toilet, locking them in a locker, taking their lunch money, beating them bloody, etc. JUST BECAUSE THEY COULD and got away with it ..... if that person "grew up" to be a Police Officer, they are going to continue to do the same kind of crap; slam peoples heads into cop car door frames as they put them in it, lock them up in jails, take their personal property, beat them bloody, etc., JUST BECAUSE THEY CAN.... and have always gotten away with it.
Such $hitheads are wise to join a mafia of one sort or another, ensuring unequal levels of force: because those little kids they bullied are now as big as they are and there is a good chance they are packing.
And before all the po-po cheerleaders jump on me for referring to this SLOSO group as a mafia: THEY ARE a group of CRIMINALS with group loyalty and a code of silence. Not all of them, but those who are not doing this sort of thing ought to be the first ones screaming for these guys skins to be nailed to the barn door. I don't hear any of that. There is NOTHING worse than crooked cop.
staghounds,
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming a noise complaint by a new neighbor, actually.
And even giving the po-po every benefit of the doubt (say the guy really was playing curbside constitutional law expert - which every cop really loves - and copping major 'tude,) they had nothing more than "guy shooting on his property".
The opening of the safe was bad.
The three FELONY counts of "annoying the police" were inexcusable.
Boat Guy,
ReplyDeleteI don't know about "Cop'n Attitude." Ever since he admitted that he doesn't ticket other cops for speeding I've stopped reading him. It may not seem like a big thing, but he's young and is laying a solid foundation for "Only-One-ism" later on.
Wolfwood,
ReplyDelete"Ever since he admitted that he doesn't ticket other cops for speeding..."
That's something that really pisses me off. I knew somebody who tried to describe an officer as a hardass by describing him as "He's the guy who'd write his own mom a ticket," to which I replied "I certainly hope so."
I think a lot of the bad apples in the law enforcement community reside in the city police forces, and that is where a lot of the anti cop mentality comes from.
ReplyDeleteI know a number of city law enforcement where I live, and without exception every one of them has an attitude that they are superior to us lowly citizens, I would go so far as to call it disdain.
The bigger the city, the bigger the attitude.
DPS and Sheriff's deputies usually have this problem to a lesser degree though apparently not in this case.
I think the anti-cop sentiment while over done, has been earned by the actions of our law enforcement drone's treatment of good freedom loving folk. And the nearly complete lack of a reliable way for normal folks to keep nutty police and police departments in check.
Uncle left the DEA 15 years ago, 2 years short of retirement because of the corrupt Interdept mentality.
ReplyDeleteMy wife gave up here position within a probation dept. for the same reason. People still want to believe that LEO are for the most part 'good'.
I have seen too much and been party to way to many conversations that did not verify that belief.
Wife now works daily within the court system and to quote her "We have a great legal system, we do not have justice."
Even the best are tainted by what the system has become.
No
The problem with cops isn't the ones who are out-and-out crooked. There aren't many of those, and like any other crook, they all have a price.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is the "good" ones who get so deep in their own little police world that they forget that most people who don't wear badges are honest citizens, not criminals.
Whence comes the "blue wall" mentality. Doesn't matter what the other cop did or what the citizen did...you back up another cop against a citizen, no matter what. If that means faking evidence of drug dealing so you can bust down the front door of the citizen's 90 year-old grandmother and start blasting...well, there may be cops who'd have moral objections in the locker room, but I've never met one who'd actually take steps to stop it.
Yeah, there's a reason I'd literally sooner commit suicide than move back to my home state.
I'm sure some cops don't buy into it. But until they completely repudiate those who do, I'm going to go on regarding the whole lot of them as a hostile occupying force.
Matt,
ReplyDelete"...most people who don't wear badges are honest citizens, not criminals."
Sadly, given the monstrous burden of federal, state, and local laws and ordinances under which we all live, that's probably not technically true.
Can't swear to it, but the word I got (from a friend still in law enforcement) is that Murphy was fired. I don't know if it was just this incident or if this incident was the final straw.
ReplyDelete"That's something that really pisses me off. I knew somebody who tried to describe an officer as a hardass by describing him as "He's the guy who'd write his own mom a ticket," to which I replied "I certainly hope so.""
ReplyDeleteAn old boss of mine used to be a Marine Patrol officer. His job was inspecting fishing gears and catches and dealing with violations.
he bragged that he drove fast everywhere he went, and when he'd get pulled over he'd just drop the badge on the dashboard and would get waved on.
I liked this guy, and I have no doubts he was a good cop, but that is a total bullshit practice.
Of course it just shows what bullshit revenue enhancement speeding tickets are, rather than risks to public safety.
Allowed to retire- two years after the incident, and (completely coincidentally) two WEEKS after the tapes were leaked. At which time, 10 of 14 firearms were also (again coincidentally) returned. 4, including apparently those found most droolworthy by the deputies, have not been returned.
ReplyDeleteSLOSO sat on the guns and the tapes for two years, and if not for an anonymous soul with a conscience, I've no doubt the deputy would still be employed, and the guns they didn't find appealing would still be in the evidence locker.
"That's something (professional *courtesy*) that really pisses me off."
ReplyDeleteHow prevalent is it? It even carries over to firefighters...son's fireman friend was told by the veterans to never verbalize, but just to open his wallet for his DL so that the badge was visible; it's worked for him 3 times (every time he's been stopped since taking the job five years ago).
Even worse, some of my old buds from my gunshop days were Sheriff's Office brass...mostly Lt.'s and Capt.'s. When three of them and their wives were headed to Orlando for a car show they were stopped for speeding as they were about to merge onto I-4. They were, all of them, already somewhat snockered from the big plastic cups of hooch that were sitting in all the SUV's cupholders. They got a wink and a wave -this was an FHP trooper- and were on their way. Now these were (are) really good guys; I would trust them with my Constitutional rights any day. But what's wrong is wrong, and a family headed to/from Disney could have paid the price for this particular "courtesy".
This practice is absolutely widespread and common. Don't want to put Montie and Matt G (to mention just two of the good guys who visit VFTP) on the spot, but it would be interesting to hear their opinions on this.
AT
MattG's dad famously said that "Professional courtesy would be not breaking the law in my jurisdiction," or words to that effect.
ReplyDeleteAs a firefighter, I can vouch for that. I have been pulled over for speeding 10 times in the last 5 years. I only got ONE ticket from all of those, and that was from a rookie cop. His FTO told me to request a hearing, because this rookie had apparently written a few tickets to cops, firefighters, and their families and was about to be fired.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think so many cops have "blue line" decals on their cars? My IAFF sticker does the same thing.
Know a "big city" detective 90 miles up the road. My wife and I are friends of X's parents. He grew up in our little town. Went riding with him (his was a 1000 cc sport bike, of course) several years ago, Wife and I on my V-Star, his parents on their Goldwing. Wife asked, "X, how fast can your motorcycle go?" The answer was, "195 or so." The next question: "How fast have you had it up to?" "163, out on the interstate." Now, X is a certified grad of a motorcycle racing school, so the 163 did not raise my eyebrow. What followed several hours later did: (X)"I have never written a speeding ticket, because, in good conscience, just never could bring myself to write one." DUI, reckless stuff, certainly. Speeding alone, Nope. I respected that. KY Jones
ReplyDeleteEven these guys were probably OK until they had looked in the house for victims. But everything after that, by them and the DA, is so obviously wrong... Once the house/grounds had been checked for victims, the most that should have happened - and that is doubtful - would be secure the area from intrusion and apply for a search warrant.
ReplyDeleteOTOH, while police are mostly supposed to get a warrant for entry, did you know that in some places other agencies [such as piped-gas inspectors] can enter, even forcibly, at any time without a warrant or [other than "routine inspection"] reason? This was pointed out to me some months back.
KY Jones,
ReplyDelete"Now, X is a certified grad of a motorcycle racing school, so the 163 did not raise my eyebrow. What followed several hours later did: (X)"I have never written a speeding ticket, because, in good conscience, just never could bring myself to write one." DUI, reckless stuff, certainly. Speeding alone, Nope. I respected that."
Yup. All or none. I can respect that, too. To do otherwise is to create an Equestrian Class to whom the laws do not apply.
"The problem is the "good" ones who get so deep in their own little police world that they forget that most people who don't wear badges are honest citizens, not criminals."
ReplyDeleteI've run into this mentality with most of the police that I've known on friendly terms. Overall, they're really good guys. It just seems like, after a couple of decades doing it in the city, it starts to skew your view of the average person.
The worst was the friend that would swear up and down that he can tell if someone is guilty by looking at him. I just couldn't get him to grasp that "looking like a shibag" is not equal to "being guilty".
"Now, X is a certified grad of a motorcycle racing school, so the 163 did not raise my eyebrow. What followed several hours later did: (X)"I have never written a speeding ticket, because, in good conscience, just never could bring myself to write one." DUI, reckless stuff, certainly. Speeding alone, Nope. I respected that."
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'd probably immediately offer to buy that man a beer if I heard that. Watching state troopers do 20-30mph over the speed limit to hurry up and set up their speed trap again, to give tickets for 10-15 over, really pisses me off.
I don't buy this "there aren't very many bad apples" crap. LEO is a profession where even one bad apple is unacceptable. One bad apple can ruin an honest citizen's life. Every day.
ReplyDeleteI'm a doctor. My medical career was very nearly ruined by an overzealous cop who pinned false charges on me and planted evidence during a traffic stop to make an arrest. My deal was much like this guy's... take felony hits and find a new career or take a misdemeanor and do jail time.
I've been there. Even one bad apple can ruin your life.
Hey, I was stripped naked (except for the cuffs holding my hands behind my back), thrown into a cell with violent criminals, and then repeatedly gang-raped while the cops responsible stood there watching and critiquing technique, followed by the responsible parties assuring me that if I ever tried to make a stink about it, they'd ensure that my entire family was killed. Easy enough to arrange...just make some bogus "anonymous" tips to one another about drug activity, and bang...instant justification to burst in and shoot everybody and everything.
ReplyDeleteNote that this was the result of a traffic stop for an improper right-on-red.
As a group, I trust cops about as much as you'd expect I would. But I still think that most of them don't go in evil. They become evil by exposure to a corrupt system, that places protecting the reputation of other cops far above protecting the lives, safety, and property of non-cops.
Matt, I assume you're being facetious to make a point. If so, that's in pretty poor taste considering the story and what happened to this guy.
ReplyDeleteIf you're not, I am truly sorry that happened to you.
It would be extremely poor taste to say such things facetiously. Which is why I don't.
ReplyDeleteI don't generally go back to the state these events happened in. When I do, I don't ever drive. Even living in a completely different jurisdiction with a completely clean record, I still get panic attacks at the sight of a police car.
But blaming it on bad cops is too simplistic. There are bad people everywhere, but in most places, the good people who inevitably outnumber them will put morality before group identity. Not in the police force.
Which makes the problem all the harder. But for the blue-wall mentality, we could fix it by rooting out the bad apples.
Matt,
ReplyDeleteNot being in your situation and not knowing all of the details, but something like that would have caused me to take extralegal preemptive measures on all parties involved after I was released.
Left unsaid in this entire thread are the other enablers:
ReplyDeleteThe DA's who undercharge, when they bother to bring an indictment at all.
The judges who seemingly bend over backwards to show a level of deference that you or I won't ever see.
Matt, the only reason I thought you were being facetious is because the story is so awful I hoped it wasn't true. As I said, I'm deeply sorry that happened to you, and I can understand at least some of what you went through.
ReplyDeleteI have also left the state where my incident occurred, and I still have to force myself to breathe slowly when I see a police car in my mirror. I will never again trust any officer to do anything but screw me over.
"But blaming it on bad cops is too simplistic. There are bad people everywhere, but in most places, the good people who inevitably outnumber them will put morality before group identity."
ReplyDeleteWhat this quote misses is the fact that the ordinary bad person does not have state sanction to point a gun at you, put you in cuffs, throw you into a cell, and legally destroy your reputation. The bad cop does.
I've heard the "most cops are good people, it's just the few bad apples" thing till I want to puke, Tam.
ReplyDeleteIf that were the case, what the hell are the "good cops" doing while the "bad apples" ruin their rep? Why do they cover for them, stay silent about them? Why are so many of the ones who make the news and get "investigated" exonerated or at most slapped on the wrist?
I can't afford to believe that there are any "good cops" out there. All I seem to meet are bullies on power trips.
And even if that weren't so, I can't warm up to the whole idea of a guy who's being paid (with my extorted money) to look for opportunities to do to me what I'd deserve to die for doing to him.
Whenever I taught the youngsters, I reminded them of the 1st thing they did before getting a badge in the agency I worked for: "I xxx do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of Deputy xxx, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the State of xxx".
ReplyDeleteThen, I reminded them their personnel file contained an identical written version, signed by them, on that glorious day.
In subsequent classes, I grilled them to see if they had read the thing to which they had sworn.
These kids became the leaders in my agency. Color me idealistic and naive, but we drummed out of the corp, any who forgot the lesson.
I've always been proud of that.
Tam said...
ReplyDeleteMattG's dad famously said that "Professional courtesy would be not breaking the law in my jurisdiction," or words to that effect.
And a finer LEO you would be hard pressed to find. I am wondering if the wookies here would offer more opinions on what jurisdiction of law enforcement they believe is sound. I would like to know if most that feel police are necessary think city and/or county is ok, or if state police is appropriate. I assume that federal officers are pretty roundly viewed as unnecessary or worse, and from a strict constitutional viewpoint I think that argument would carry some real weight.
did my POST many years ago, a more scary and mental bunch of goons and losers would be hard to find in one place...
ReplyDeletechose to follow another line of employment and never looked back...
whoever said 'trust no one' must have known some cops very well...
On the "All or nothing" comments I've seen here: I'm in the Military, and I've noticed a trend in the group of guys I work with- the good ones leave. The community I'm in is based heavily on reputation, and the brokerage thereof. These guys see it, see a dirtbag get a good rep he hasn't earned, get "good-dealed" with billets to high-speed schools, and rightly they resent it. A few- the dedicated- stay, because they want to make their community better. But by and large, the good ones leave. And that leaves us with the successors to the previous generations of "good-deal" recipients. Which means, the chances that I get to deal with an idiot who uses the same brand of dip as the senior guy in training, are MUCH higher.
ReplyDeleteWhy do I say this? You have the same thing in Copland. The dedicated few who enforce the law as written, equally, regardless of badge or bad attitude- and the others, who don't. The Non-BSers tend to either clam up about what they see, so they can keep doing the right thing, or they leave, either with assistance or by themselves.
My point is this- you aren't going to get an uncorrupted LE force, ever. You can try, you can reform, you can slowly knock the bad apples from the tree. But at the end of the day, there'll still be some nasty pricks up there. And I'd rather have a few guys who do the right thing as they can, and try to make their way into positions where they can fix it, vice disapprove, than have a Force composed of "only ones."
We should fear evil men.
ReplyDeleteWe should fear even more,
the Indifference of good men.
Droids won't rip your arm out of your socket when upset...
Wookiees have been known to do that!
now you know the difference between a Wookiee, and a Wookiee Suiter...
"in most places, the good people who inevitably outnumber them will put morality before group identity."
ReplyDeleteHistorical examples? Because none occur to me at the moment, just klansmen, nazis, and Californians.
You might want to test it, though. Tell a co worker that you took something home from work- a pad of post its or a handful of nails. See if he picks morality over being your friend.
Any group activity requires a certain amount of reliance on other members of the group. Policing, roofing, selling girl scout cookies, whatever. Police interreliance is stronger than most for obvious reasons.
There is tremendous conformity pressure from just being a police officer, and society wants that. We want our police officers, emts, soldiers, and street lights to be as alike as Wheat Thins, so that we know what we are getting when we ask for one.
And doctors, too. Doctor Anonymous, do you rat out EVERY doctor and nurse and pharmacist that you see screw up, every time?
There is tremendous internal pressure on officers to fit in, too. If you think the human desire for conformity is weak, dye your hair bright purple Sunday night and keep it that way at work all week. If you can.
Also, people aren't all that good. Monstrous burden, sure. But if you think most people always obey the law, sometime put your cruise control on the speed limit on the freeway.
Leave a wallet with your ID, phone number, and $100 in it beside a bench in a nice mall's food court.
Or talk to someone in loss prevention for a big store. All the studies of internal theft prettu much show the same thing- that 5-10% of the people will steal no matter what.
5-10% won't, no matter what.
The other 80-90% will, IF they believe they can get away with it AND can rationalise it as not really stealing.
All that is to say that police officers, like doctors and jet pilots, are a subset of human beings. I hate and despise the wrongful, even if "legal", use of power. We ought to root out and not tolerate it.
But police officers are selected by methods the public chooses, and to say that there are more bad ones than good doesn't serve the cause of cleaning the bad ones out very well. It certainly buttresses, rather than erodes, the "blue wall".
Dr. Anonymous checking in to answer your question. No, I don't rat out every single error I see in the hospital. Some of them don't merit being reported because they are non-issues or easy to fix.
ReplyDeleteThere is a difference between a healthcare worker making a mistake and a police officer forcibly taking your keys from you and illegally searching your home. The two are beyond comparison, really.
Oh Dr. Anonymous are you really in the health care profession? Hard to believe you would make that comment unless you are seriously in denial.
ReplyDelete"There is a difference between a healthcare worker making a mistake and a police officer forcibly taking your keys from you and illegally searching your home. The two are beyond comparison, really."
That comment is true because healthcare workers including doctors, nurses, medtechs, CNA's routinly cause crippling injuries and death to patients who are in thier care. Doctors are by far some of the WORST for covering up for thier fellow doctors mistakes. I would without a doubt trust a cop to take care of a bad cop than a doctor to do the same for a incompetent doctor. From first hand experience I have come to almost despise doctors.
Staghounds,
ReplyDelete"But police officers are selected by methods the public chooses,"
Are you kidding???
I've seen no direct, or even indirect, method for the public to have any input into this. Maybe back in the West 150 years ago, when the town citizens directly hired the sheriff. Now that is done either by the town council, or the sheriff is voted in, but no way in hell is he going to listen to any input by the people themselves. Nowadays, you bring yourself to the attention of the sheriff or police chief in any fashion regarding how their job is being done, and you are going to have big problems.
Of course, this is a major part of the problem, if not the origin of the problem, we have with the cops in general.
"Some of them don't merit being reported because they are non-issues or easy to fix."
ReplyDeleteAh, the "white wall of silence". Nothing to see under this rock, we are taking care of it ourselves.
Who picks the town council and the sheriff?
In fact, in my city, any discharged police officer can appeal his firing to the city council, which can override the chief and order a rehire. They did it for a perjurer, once.
This is a free country, we get the police force we want. Actually police forces are probably the closest government agencies to local control still left.
Every time a post like this shows up on one of my regularly read blogs, I'm reminded of "lawdog"'s post from some years back about how he managed to twist the local ordinances around so he could ticket an individual with an errant middle finger.
ReplyDeleteWe are already deeply down a slippery slope and there are too few LEOs with a reverence for the constitution and faith in their fellow man to matter.
Keith
"...police officers are selected by methods the public chooses..."
ReplyDeleteIn the same vein as "we get the government we deserve", eh?
I'll call Bull. Fucking. Shit. on both of those.
AT
I believe he said that "we get the [government] we want."
ReplyDeleteIt's like chewing on a cat turd to say it, but he's right.
After all, if we didn't like it, we'd have voted it out, nicht wahr?
Actually I was referencing the more historical government-we-deserve quote of Rand and others, which I find to be the same kind of facetious irony I see in staghounds quote about cops.
ReplyDelete"...if we didn't like it, we'd have voted it out..."
Good one, Tam. In this current version of democracy, what "we" want or like as to gov is apparently irrelevant. But if we allow that to be true then yeah, I guess we deserve what we get.
And I have to believe that's what staghounds meant as to cops as well...the legal and law enforcement system is corrupt and corrupts many of those it touches, so to the extent we are responsible for the structure of the system itself, we have to blame ourselves when cops go bad.
What is needed as to both is structural systemic change. Six years from now, when we have once again failed to attain what we like, want, or deserve in our government and its agents, we will realize what is necessary if we are to survive.
AT
"I'm reminded of "lawdog"'s post from some years back about how he managed to twist the local ordinances around so he could ticket an individual with an errant middle finger. "
ReplyDeleteThats bull shit. Thats how it starts. Twisting, then stomping the flushing rights. This video has really pushed me to the side of all police are bad, period. Until they (police) prove otherwise.
AT,
ReplyDeleteSeriously, how involved are you or I in politics at the local level?
Even radical card-carrying Libertarians seem to get together once every four years and vote for Don and Sancho to charge the White House Windmill.
City Council? School Board? Sheriff? What's that?
"I believe he said that 'we get the [government] we want.'
ReplyDeleteIt's like chewing on a cat turd to say it, but he's right."
I hereby grant you people my full sanction to bloody speak for yourselves.
Understand?
Well if we aren't picking our government(s), who is?
ReplyDeleteAnd what are all those signs cluttering the roads every other year about?
They are not perfect, but I believe that our police departments are generally more law abiding and less generally oppressive than they have been since the start of the Republic. If you don't, do a little research and show me that I'm wrong. Read up on the NYPD a century ago, the LAPD in the 1940s, or any other time and place that you see as a golden age.
In my own experience, my local departments have fired, charged, or driven out every bad apple they have found out about or that I have known of. Politicians have commanded that some of them be retained, but the departments themselves have done what they could.
And again, look out for "step two" in these horror stories. It's left out of this one, which just makes me curious as to what conduct by the defendant we didn't need to see.
Billy,
ReplyDeleteThe "we", of course, is the key word here, because the rights of the individual don't much matter anymore, as you well know.
You don't get the government you want. I don't get the government I want. We get the government the collective wants, and this is obviously the government they want. Now how do you and I get WE to leave you and I alone without being overwhelmed by sheer numbers?
"Seriously, how involved are you or I in politics at the local level? City Council? School Board? Sheriff?"
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, as to the first two, not much; I just mark the "right" box.
As to Sheriff? Way more so, because that's a lot different than Ernie the cab driver wanting to exert some little-pond influence...er, I mean, give something back to the community.
There's a pretty good little story about the Sheriff thing; I'll save it for your next po-political post and explain a bit about why what we like, want, or deserve had so little to do with it.
AT
We don't get the government we want, we get the government that 51% of the people will tolerate. The two biggest pressure groups in politics are politicians and government workers; they get what they want no matter what the people thought they voted for, right up to the point that the bums actually do get thrown out.
ReplyDelete