Posted on 07/23/2014 2:59:04 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
Imagine if I were to tell you there is a large group of government employees, with generous salaries and ridiculously cushy retirement pensions covered by the taxpayer, who enjoy incredible job security and are rarely held accountable even for activities that would almost certainly earn the rest of us prison time. When there is proven misconduct, these government employees are merely reassigned and are rarely dismissed. The bill for any legal settlements concerning their errors? It, too, is covered by the taxpayers. Their unions are among the strongest in the country.
No, I’m not talking about public-school teachers.
I’m talking about the police.
We conservatives recoil at the former; yet routinely defend the latter — even though, unlike teachers, police officers enjoy an utter monopoly on force and can ruin — or end — one’s life in a millisecond.
For decades, conservatives have served as stalwart defenders of police forces. There have been many good reasons for this, including long memories of the post-countercultural crime wave that devastated, and in some cases destroyed, many American cities; conservatives’ penchant for law and order; and Americans’ widely shared disdain for the cops’ usual opponents. (“Dirty hippies being arrested? Good!” is not an uncommon sentiment.) Although tough-on-crime appeals have never been limited to conservative politicians or voters, conservatives instinctively (and, it turned out, correctly) understood that the way to reduce crime is to have more cops making more arrests, not more sociologists identifying more root causes. Conservatives are rightly proud to have supported police officers doing their jobs at times when progressives were on the other side.
But it’s time for conservatives’ unconditional love affair with the police to end.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
I thinkitwas10 years ago or so that I realized most cops are pigs.
I have had 12 interactions with the police in my life. 6 times, I was the victim of a crime and the police did nothing. The other 6 times I was jacked up and fined while attempting to legally go about my day.
Cops are revenuers for the welfare state.
I have been vehemently AGAINST virtually ALL POLICE since they decided to become “law enforcement officers” instead of “Peace Officers”, they truly are the modern day GESTAPO, and they can all Burn in HELL as far as I am concerned. If one was on fire I wouldn’t piss on him to put it out.
ps I lived on a street with 9 cops, everyone as dishonest and morally bankrupt as anyone could possibly be.
I’ve lived in towns where it was clear that the cops were just the most heavily armed and lethal gang in town.
Nobody ever trusted them.
After Snowden, you know what is the one thing the gummint REALLLLLY still won’t release any info about?
About just HOW OFTEN Stingray is being used by local cops:
Stingray is a phone-tracker —a gizmo that tricks cell phones into electronically checking in with it to make or receive phone-calls. It’s a mini phone-tower by using it the cops can see where you (or your phone, at least) is, even if it’s in sleep mode, or turned off.
I mean they —local cops— can do that for ANY PERSON carrying a cell-phone.
Stingray now goes by other names and it’s smaller —you already saw it in action in a Pakistan scene in the movie, “Zero Dark Thirty”.
They’re doing that HERE on a very, very regular basis, often for very normal people —probably on a number of freezers.
The gear is part of it, the civil-forfeiture is part of it, and now increasingly with little podunk PD’s freaking ELECTRONIC WARFARE is part of it.
And NOBODY in the gummint wants to talk about it —they’ve fessed up to all manner of stuff but THAT ONE THING is just a black hole.
FREEPERS.
As my psychotherapist Mother likes to say “cops are criminals with guilty consciences...”
Sounds like National Review is behind the curve. We on FR have been alarmed by police militarization for some years now.
No longer so big as to require a VAN….
Some people are stuck on stupid. This includes so-called conservatives.
Sue the unions and the police will fall in line. Police only get away with what the unions let them get away with. Same for all civil service.
Instead of this pro-police, anti-police argument, the problem is not the police, as such, it is in the rules under which they operate, that needs significant reform.
This begins at the state level with the passage of “police de-paramilitarization” laws. This alone will end many or even most of the problems that exist between the public and the police.
The primary purpose of the law is to sever the direct connection between local police and the federal government, a connection that has caused a multitude of problems.
1) States must create an official Table of Equipment for police departments. Any weapons and equipment not on the list is to be turned over to the state police, or Sheriff, if that is how the state wants to go. This also means that the federals can no longer directly fund police departments.
2) All communications between local police departments and the federals also must go through the state police. This includes communications equipment open to federal surveillance.
3) All SWAT operations are under the direct control of the state police. Severe restrictions should be placed on no-knock and warrantless searches. One rule already proposed in Arizona is that any evidence obtained in searches based on secret or classified information is inadmissible in state courts. Likewise, a judge must allow searches based on anonymous information.
4) The curricular of state police academies will be rewritten to reduce confrontational behavior with the public.
The bottom line to all of this is that police are not public masters, they are just a convenience, and all citizens of good character are expected to enforce the law.
The purpose of the police is three fold, to compose a round the clock ‘watch’ for communities; to gather evidence of crimes having been committed; and to doggedly pursue criminal suspects.
“Generous salaries”? Not where I live. But yeah, no blind love of the police here. Respect as it’s due, but not blind love.
One of the reasons for that is they reap the benefits of police intimidation of the populace. Keeping the people down.
Let's get real here. Armed and vigilant citizens deter crime and stop crime in progress. Police [sometimes] apprehend the criminals **after** the crime has been committed. Police do not protect us. They can't. Catching criminals after they rob you is not protection.
Considering the real evidence against the modern Gestapo police, any conservative who still boot-licks, either loves tyranny or is a liberal totalitarian who doesn’t care about individual rights & has no respect for people.
you are welcome to your thoughts and I’m sure, so as not to be a hypocrite, the next time you have trouble with a bad gun you will call a liberal with a picket sign.
I’d prolly call a gunsmith, but thanks anyway.
A friend who performed polygraph tests for a South Florida Sheriff’s Department was very disappointed that the department could no longer refuse applicants who admitted to cocaine use. :-(
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