I’m just happy that I don’t have to ‘keep a lid on’ a group of jumpy, armed people any more. I had to lead them through the ‘body armor doesn’t make you Superman’ phase, and don’t want to deal with this garbage. After those two deputies were gunned down by the winger whacko, it was a very touchy time around here. Fortunately the Sheriff got caught with his hand in the till and a mistress on the payroll, so cops had other things to think about than being gunned down every shift.

One thing that all these increasingly draconian laws imposed upon the little people (but not upon our leaders) is doing is creating an environment where disrespect for the law is rampant. The “thin blue line” can be thin because the majority of people are law-abiding people who don’t want to willingly break the law. But we’re breaking that down here, which is why we have the largest prison population both percentage-wise and in absolute numbers of any nation on the planet. As the police become “the enemy” to more and more people, the police in turn start behaving like an occupation army rather than a preservers of public order. It is a downhill spiral that ends with either a full-fledged police state with widespread repression against ordinary citizens, or with collapse of public order as police officers are killed and decide to leave their jobs rather than risk dying, a.k.a. the Afghanistan scenario. Unfortunately the desire to criminalize everything that offends someone doesn’t appear to be relenting, so I don’t see what’s going to stop this. It’s all just a matter of which extreme we’re going to end up with — North Korea Lite, or Afghanistan Lite. Neither one holds any appeal for me…

— Badtux the Gloomy Penguin