“de Blasiom, respect must be earned.”
Wrong. The NYPD is a paramilitary organization. Try turning your back on your commanding officer in the US Marine Corps., demand that “respect must be earned,” and see what happens.
Cops all across the country have appropriated for themselves military hardware, the power to treat the citizenry as enemy combatants, and if you don’t want trouble at a traffic stop, you better offer them the same unquestioning respect you give sworn US military personnel, or face a life-ruining arrest for “disorderly conduct” (code for the non-crime of “back talking”).
But when it comes to these funerals? Now the NYPD argues that they’re not really soldiers at all. Turning their backs isn’t blowing off the chain of command, it’s freedom of speech! What a convenient switcheroo.
It’s also sinister as hell.
Just who is charge of the NYPD? A well-equipped army has decided that they’re not going to answer to either the duly-elected Mayor or the Chief of Police. All Americans should be uneasy about that.
Nope, I’m not wrong.
Members of the NYPD don’t give up their 1st Amendment rights when they put on a badge.
Quite frankly, the police have shown remarkable restraint in expressing their displeasure with the cop-hating communist-loving mayor. Turning their backs on the mayor has been a quiet, dignified, and restrained expression of their disgust with him. I support them.
You’re entitled to your own opinion, just don’t expect me to share it.