Its been months since I saw a cop in my little town.
The toughest battle to win is when a nation wages war on itself and is encouraged to do so by a corrupt regime.
When the lead starts flying, loyalties dissolve, reality .. and chaos ensues.
Those who set the stage should be at the front.. instead they hide behind badges and warrants.. and boots.
If it's true that "assault weapons" are "weapons of war" and don't belong on the streets of America, why do the police need them? Who are the police at war with?
Who indeed?
JBT Ping list
Ever since the so-called War On Drugs (WOD) and, now, the War On Terror (WOT) — actually more like the War On The Bill of Rights) — began, our civilian cops have been undergoing MILITARY training. The “authorities” gentle it down with the prefix “Para” but those “dynamic entry” teams would be more at home in Baghdad than Boston. (Well, unless they hit John Kerry’s front door at 3 am, Boston might not be a good example.) Watch “Dallas SWAT” for a dose of how it works.
I have long thought that that sort of activity within the ranks of otherwise “civilian” law enforcement was a push by those with an agenda to bypass posse comitatus for purposes BEYOND the WOD/WOT and other currently criminal behavior.
That the mass of that shrinking minority – the American citizen (thank you Mr. Open Borders Bush and Total Amnesty Obama) – has NOT objected to this erosion of personal liberty does NOT bode well for the future of freedom here.
I wonder what sort of body count of innocent grandmothers and others it will take before folks begin to grasp that they might be more at risk from the cops than the criminals and bring the situation back under control?
My Uncle Bob (R.I.P.) would be horrified.
My Uncle Bob was a 30-year veteran of a police force in suburban Cleveland. He was best man at my wedding in 1962. He served in an era when MOST cops embodied the now frequently hollow motto emblazoned on police units all over this country: “TO PROTECT AND SERVE.”
The last 10 years of his career were spent as the chief Juvenile Detective in his department. When he died, a number of the young men whose lives he had touched years before came forward to tell how his timely and sometimes tough-love intervention turned them around.
I know that many officers STILL try to live that creed today. I also know that there are officers out there who, despite the rulings by the Supremes that they have no obligation to specific, individual citizens (see Warren v. DC for some fascinating and frightening reading on that), would stand between one of us and a bullet – and have.
Having said that, I must also lament that SOME cops are “cowboys.” Too many are simply power driven megalomaniacs who would have dropped on the OTHER side of the law had their lives drifted a degree or two off the course they did take. It is these clowns who give credence to the wry bit of “humor” that there is no situation than cannot be made worse by the presence of the cops.
I believe this to be especially true of far too many federal law enforcement types who have allowed their egos and hubris to become as bloated as the bureaucratic federal behemoth they serve. (See footnote below). Their mandate is no longer to “…protect and serve” the citizens who pay their salaries: It is to crush any meaningful resistance to a growing body of procedures, regulations and policies – too frequently enforced under severely tortured interpretations of the underlying legislative enactments (if any) – and often put in place by executive fiat. The massively abused SEIZURE statutes – laws the author of which now seeks to RESCIND! — spring to mind.
And one cannot but help to wonder how the clear to anyone with half a brain criminality of the Clintons and now Obama – and their subsequent avoidance of any penalty – has played into the problem? There now seems to be a bright line between the easy, highly flexible, slap-on-the-wrist law for the rich and powerful and the rigidly enforced law against even the tiniest victimless “crimes” committed by those of us further down the food chain. Does anyone in his right mind believe THAT will NOT engender added disrespect for ALL law?
Could those things be a large part of the problem in some of the highly disturbing – and DEADLY (on BOTH sides) – confrontations we have witnessed over the past decade or so? Gordon Kahl, Ruby Ridge, OK City, Waco, Beck… This list WILL lengthen and we’d all better pray that WE will be spared.
Roman historian Tacitus warned that one could tell the level of corruption in a society by the NUMBER of its laws. Anyone doubt the level of corruption here?
Am I the only one who thinks we’re long overdue a serious review of the NUMBERS of laws under which we are now forced to exist – and which are increasingly used not to assure our safety or well-being, but to COMMAND AND CONTROL us and KEEP US IN LINE.
Only the most tyrannical and power-crazed members of law enforcement could possibly object to that.
The modern counterparts of my uncle would not object.
It is THEY, after all, who are most likely to catch that bullet – probably fired by someone who has symbolically screamed to himself “I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANY MORE” — referred to earlier when they sally forth to serve that flimsy warrant or make that bogus arrest.
Dick Bachert (1999) Updated 12/2010
FOOTNOTE:
At a cocktail party back in the late 80’s, I struck up a chat with a fellow — his name was Joe M. — whom I’d met on one or two previous events. After my first encounter, Joe’s neighbor and my boss at the time told me that Joe was an alcoholic who had just retired from 25 years with the IRS. Needless to say, I was guarded in expressing my political views to Joe as the IRS had helped my dad into an early grave in 1977 — at age 59 over an estate matter. Joe was pretty deep into his cups at the function in question and began telling IRS “war stories.” Most had to do with clear cases of criminal conduct by not very nice people. Joe — who was a few years short of 60 — sounded to me like someone who enjoyed helping getting really bad people off the street and I asked why he’d retired early. He told me that what he called “the service” had changed for the worse. Then I asked him about the new people coming in. He shook his head, actually teared up and said that many of them were “really bad.” I pressed. “Really bad” meant incompetent? “No — DANGEROUS,” he responded “they like to hurt people.”
It was then that I think I understood why Joe drank.
Dick Bachert
Well I know what my agency uses an “armored personnel carrier” for...it gets parked in the front yard of a violent suspect while he is hiding inside so they can talk over the PA system to him without taking lead.
Pretty oppressive huh?
Grenade launchers..ahaha..that’s a joke. Any agency that got one of those it went to their Arson/Bomb squad as a training aid. Find one story where a city agency used flippin grenade launcher.
Obama’s Brown Shirts in reserve?
the only way the police of this country can redeem themselves is to disband the police unions.
we don't even have a cop where i live... only the occasional Sheriff or Trooper cruising through and in the 14years i've live here, i've seen one, ONE Sheriff on my street/road not saying there haven't been more, but none i've seen
guess it's part of the reason i live here
I grew upin a town on Lake Michigan. When we were teenagers we would go to a remote area of the beach build a little fire,make a pass at the girls...go swimmming. Maybe even drink a little beer and smoke weed. Good times really. Now the cops track down the kids with night vision goggles and arrest them.
I’m sure there are good cops here and there.
But on the whole, the police force here in America only protects and serves - ITSELF and its governmental bosses.
Period.
They’re not Andy Taylor anymore.
America’s police more likely to Menace and Intimidate than Protect and Serve
You may have heard the phrase, “Liberals love the masses but hate people, while conservatives love people but hate the masses.” Well, the headline points to a police force that “protects and serves the masses” but heaven help the “people” that come in direct contact with them while doing their job.
i.e. a completely innocent person being harassed at a police checkpoint interfering with police “protecting” society at large, and even that protection is dubious.
I know some FReepers watch the Walking Dead. One of the things that makes it “work” is a complete absence of government! Of course our heroes are decent people, but they have complete freedom (and responsibility) to do what they find best.
The ‘big’ question has gone from “Ginger or Maryann” to
“Will the US Military fire upon American citizens?”
I for one believe it is very possible they will.
At least back when I was in, the ‘target’ didn’t really matter. ‘They’ told us who the ‘bad guys’ were and, for the most part, the ‘bad guys’ were set upon.
Just to further it the Military is/are ‘well trained killers’, as is pointed out ‘the job is to kill people and break things.’
In the 30’s MacArthur had no problem dispersing the ‘Bonus Army’ and they were not only American citizens, they were Vets.
Even into the ‘50s ‘dungaree liberties’ were formed by bases to ‘show the townies’ what was what.
