Quick Hits
The Prime Minister of Nepal is now talking about the possibility of 10,000 deaths, as a result of the earthquake. They are finally able to over-fly many of the remote areas, and things are looking grim.
The Australian government has recalled its ambassador to Indonesia as the result of the death by firing squad of two Australian citizens for drug offenses.
While I recognize the reason behind Australia’s actions, I don’t understand why anyone would risk moving drugs through Indonesia. Their death penalty for drug offenses is not a secret, and it has happened in the past.
Baltimore exploded because people don’t believe that anything is going to change without violence. If you look at the series of unarmed black males being killed by the police all over the country and how quickly it fades from the headlines with no one really being held responsible, why would you expect people to respect the law or the police?
6 comments
People will respect the law when cops respect justice. Protecting “bad apples” is so contrary to the notion of justice.
Why do they do that?
Shirt
They are afraid of the people they are supposed to be protecting. They have gone into an us vs. them mode of thinking that allows no possibility of looking at the actions of other officers as anything but correct and necessary.
These clowns view anything other than instant obedience as a mortal attack.
I think of the big Irish cops I grew up around, who knew how to use their fists and carried themselves in a way that people who dealt with them didn’t even think of getting physical with them, and how they handled people (hint, they knew how to handle themselves and knew it so they had nothing to prove, so were fairly genial when dealing with the general public at large), and then I look at the people they’re hiring as police officers today… I wonder what happened? I guess the fact that our culture has gotten less physical these past forty years has something to do with it, I remember fights I had as a kid that would have gotten me sent to kiddie jail today but back then it was all boys being boys, but something’s *off* about today’s cops.
I mean, look, I’m a white nerdy guy, yet they call for backup when they pull *me* over, and put their hands on their guns as if trying to decide whether they need to shoot me or not. Not at all what I remember from even fifteen years ago, when my interactions with cops was far less nerve-wracking.
And it’s not as even there’s a lot of cops killed in the line of duty anymore. There’s about 800,000 sworn officers in the USA. Of that number, less than 40 are victims of homicide in any given year. A typical resident of Oakland CA has a four times higher chance of being murdered than the typical cop does. Maybe we ought to give Oakland’s residents all that body armor that lead to today’s cops clanking as they walk…
If the people joining the police want a dangerous job they should become commercial fishermen or convenience store clerks. Law enforcement isn’t even in the top 10 among dangerous jobs.
Officer safety took off and has gone to an extreme point in training. Throw in the us vs. them factor and you are promoting paranoia which was once a reason for rejecting candidates. The politicians and professional haters have created this problem, so they aren’t likely to be solution.
Then there’s the cop who posted on Facebook, “Feelings from a Police Officer….
Today, I stopped caring about my fellow man.” and listed a bunch of right-wing talking points about why people are no good, bad, evil, and “the enemy”.
At which point, I have to say, it’s time to leave police work. Just like I knew it was time to leave teaching when I quit giving a damn about the kids. If you’re not there to serve and protect, if you don’t give a damn about the people you’re supposedly there to serve and protect, if you’re just there to draw a salary and beat the crap out of people when you feel frustrated, you’re part of the problem, not the solution.
He seems to believe that he is superior to ordinary people, that they aren’t really human and worthy of any respect, i.e. a sociopath and potential serial killer. Charlie Manson probably feels the same way.
He should save a few lives and find something else to do, because if you don’t respect other people, you have no right to expect them to respect you. Act like a thug, and you get treated like a thug.