Free Republic
Browse · Search
RLC Liberty Caucus
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

It’s Time for Conservatives to Stop Defending Police
National Review ^ | July 21, 2014 | A. J. Delgado

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 ...


TOPICS: Issues
KEYWORDS: donutwatch; editorial; government
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-52 last
To: Clintonfatigued

There are a significant amount of conservatives who despise the modern police force.
JBT has become well known acronym in the conservative blogosphere.


41 posted on 07/24/2014 5:20:14 AM PDT by servo1969
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Opinionated Blowhard

Hopefully your knowledge is better than mine, because so many conservatives are obsessed with law and order. They may bitch and groan about this or that issue, but the last thing they will do is civil disobedience. As far as cops go, each incident or accusation has to be individually scrutinized. The incident in NYC with Eric Garner, the fat dude selling loosie cigarettes was totally out of line. I saw video of arrest and bringing in tom the ground etc. The Ferguson debacle is a different. Michael Brown attacked the cop and went for his gun. Cop got his face pummeled by Brown in the police car. Gun went off, Brown was shot in arm. Brown came back,(was this dude screwed up on something?)apparently with hands extended. Now I would have to see videos again. But it seems that possibly officer who got pummeled feared he was going to go after him again—don’t know. Each incident is a separate incident. Can’t generalize. Where I will generalize is the militarization of police forces in general. They are cops, not Navy Seals. This is done not by the police forces themselves—but by Homeland Security throwing all this military hardware at them.


42 posted on 10/19/2014 7:06:34 AM PDT by brooklyn dave (IF YOU TAKE THE STATE'S NICKEL, YOU GET THE STATE'S NOOSE)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Clintonfatigued

Civil forfeitures. At least in the other third world countries you can bribe the police. Here, the cops don’t even have to ask for the bribe; they can just take it.
Cops have to chose between supporting law abiding citizens and the and mafia government.


43 posted on 11/04/2014 8:53:38 PM PST by grumpygresh (Democrats delenda est. President zero gave us patient zero.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: grumpygresh

civil forfeiter needs to end, unless a person is charged with something and a judge is involved, there should be nothing like that happening


44 posted on 11/04/2014 8:55:54 PM PST by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: Clintonfatigued

Fire the rouge cops, problem solved.


45 posted on 12/25/2014 2:45:00 PM PST by Biggirl (2014 MIdterms Were BOTH A Giant Wave And Restraining Order)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

The good news is that most police officers are good folks, very professional in their work.

Weed out the bad apples is the answer.

Prediction: Look for law-abiding Americans who use their 2nd Amendment rights will help LE departments clean-up the mess that is called the anti-cops protests.


46 posted on 12/29/2014 6:53:05 AM PST by Biggirl (2014 MIdterms Were BOTH A Giant Wave And Restraining Order)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: Clintonfatigued

the anticcopper is no conservative

he is a worthless nitpicker searching for fame ad falling on his face


47 posted on 01/10/2015 6:31:57 PM PST by bert ((K.E.; N.P.; GOPc.;+12, 73, ..... Obama is public enemy #1)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Clintonfatigued

Don’t the public employee unions have some culpability? Haven’t they made it hard to get rid of bad employees?


48 posted on 04/26/2015 7:49:20 PM PDT by Calpublican (No Comprendo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Clintonfatigued

The small percentage of bad cops are getting national publicity right at this point in time.


49 posted on 04/26/2015 7:51:01 PM PDT by Calpublican (No Comprendo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Clintonfatigued

I’ve wondered for years why conservatives give such strong support to police.

Policemen and their unions support Femocrats by reaaly large numbers. Time and again I see police unions endorsing Democrats.

But when something goes wrong they expect conservatives to support them instead.


50 posted on 02/05/2016 9:04:05 AM PST by stockpirate (Fox News aka - False News Network "We deceive, you believe.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Clintonfatigued

I’ve been fighting this battle for a long time.

Union cops almost always support and donate to democrats. Opened windows to let union thugs trash the state house in Wis? They are not our friends


51 posted on 10/08/2017 10:37:16 AM PDT by stockpirate (SETH RICH gave the emails to wikikileaks via murdered ex-UK Amb, murdered he was, cover up it is)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: gaijin

What we need is more citizens riding with the police. Theirs is a difficult job. The better ones lose support and are replaced by dopers.


52 posted on 08/17/2023 4:55:10 PM PDT by Does so ( 🇺🇦...................."Who is Ray Epps?" should be overstamped on every piece of currency.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-52 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
RLC Liberty Caucus
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson