The Cancer of Hate
"All Cops Are Evil" tish "All Cops Are Evil" tish "All Cops Are Evil" tish "All Cops Are Evil" tish . . . And, The drumbeat goes on . . .
I have a good friend that happens to be a cop. The other day yet another convenience store was robbed and the young clerk was killed by a young black male. My good friend despairs because he knows that no one in the area will help him because "All Cops Are Evil" tish "All Cops Are Evil" tish "All Cops Are Evil" tish "All Cops Are Evil" tish . . . And, The drumbeat goes on . . .
How cliché can it get? Black kid kills a clerk in a neighborhood filled with knowledgeable bystanders that refuse to care enough about the clerk to actually help. Why should my friend actually trust anyone in that neighborhood? But you know what? He just keeps trying and certain people at caucus99percent just keep saying "All Cops Are Evil" tish "All Cops Are Evil" tish "All Cops Are Evil" tish "All Cops Are Evil" tish . . . And, The drumbeat goes on . . .
My good friend is unable to express his anger about his frustration to anyone other than me because anything he might say will define him as a racist and certain people at caucus99percent just keep saying "All Cops Are Evil" tish "All Cops Are Evil" tish "All Cops Are Evil" tish "All Cops Are Evil" tish . . . And, The drumbeat goes on . . .
During the last 24 hours I have been thinking about shelling my caucus99percent account because I keep hearing certain people at caucus99percent just keep saying "All Cops Are Evil" tish "All Cops Are Evil" tish "All Cops Are Evil" tish "All Cops Are Evil" tish . . . And, The drumbeat goes on . . .
Comments
I appreciate public service - it's not easy
I think we have a culture of violence and racism which has a sub-section in many police forces, but which is MUCH larger than that cohort. Public narrative from an angry majority can distort perspective.
I hate that our local police forces have become so militarized. I hate that taking lives becomes a first impulse rather than a last resort. We have absolutely seen crimes against humanity at the hands of individual officers, and sometimes from groups. I think a culture of steroid use is problematic.
I continue to believe there are many who sign up actually to protect and to serve and who carry out that mission. We should celebrate those who keep this value front and center promote them to leadership.
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
Hear, Hear
Enough with this sjw, identity politics nonsense. Post modernism has failed.
yes,
white identity politics is a royal pain. Bunch of butt-hurt blubberers.
Absolutely Right
A royal pain, no matter what group is proclaiming victimization. Splitting ourselves into ever narrower groups with less and less patience for reason is exactly what the oligarchs want. While you're complaining about white privilege, and tea baggers are bitching about crime and corruption, two ships full of potential allies quietly slip past one another in the night.
A shame.
teabaggers
are oligarchal cat's-paws. And their ship, is the Flying Dutchman.
if i'm understanding
the story right, the cop is investigating a robbery/homicide, and witnesses are declining to provide information. Is that correct?
You ask, "why should my friend actually trust anyone in that neighborhood?"
Maybe the first question you should ask, is why no one in the neighborhood trusts the police enough to provide information.
While I absolutely agree not all cops are evil
I do have a big problem with the fact that few to no cops will admit there's a problem with policing in this country.
I just heard one on a radio interview, talking about how they won't spend money to train the recruits and so they go out there with little preparation, screw up, and are then prosecuted or fired. Ok - so that implies they are under-trained and there's a problem in the force, right? Apparently not.
He turned it around to say the media's "false narrative" about Ferguson and these killings is causing the perception that cops are out of control and is leading to the distrust between communities and police.
NO THAT ISN'T IT.
Until police stand up and say that it's not appropriate for innocent people and small-time drug users to be gunned down in the street or at traffic stops, they are going to get painted with the same brush.
And I KNOW they are not all heartless killers. But those that aren't need to be speaking out and working to get our police force back to an institution that protects the public, not shoots them.
And...
They aren't some persecuted minority who are the way they are due to some situation at birth. It is a profession that they are free to chose or walk away from. They have choices. Unlike a black man walking down the street.
Democrats, we tried to warn you. How is that guilt and shame working out?
It's hard for me to understand
It's hard for me to understand why so many officer-involved shootings are of unarmed people, often unarmed people who are running away. It's especially hard to understand why the targets get shot multiple times. In some cases there are several police officers shooting, and they don't stop until they run out of ammo.
Assuming it's justified by a deadly threat, what's wrong with shooting a suspect one time? Do we have to apply the Barney Fife rule, and give every officer just one bullet?
"We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."
My research shows that most of the killer cops
…have been deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan. They were trained to serially kill brown people, and their brains were broken. When they come back, a government program funnels them directly into domestic law enforcement, complete with PTSD and military weapons.
It's our little Neocon War Bonus.
Since USians refuse to discuss the actual cause of all this carnage, or even rub two neurons together thinking about it, I figure that Americans believe they richly deserve this.
Who am I to argue?
I certainly do not think that all cops are evil
but there is certainly an important minority that are clearly ill-suited to be police. If you do most jobs badly you get fired. If you are a cop and do your job badly people die. So cops need to be well paid, well selected and well trained. Police procedures need to be examined by people outside of police departments (is shoot to kill standard procedure for any suspect with a weapon even a knife??? and do you need to keep shooting someone when he is down and unable to cause harm) and this protect other cops even if they are murderers culture has to stop. Is your friend a community policeman--one that gets out on the street and meets people--or does he drive around all day, insulated from the community he needs to work with (no implied criticism of him but police practices need to be examined).
sorry your friend feels so persecuted PR
Price Rip,
Racial profiling is real. The dead man in Minnesota had a broken tail light. According to the news reports, he had similar previous infractions. His job was as a food service employee. Sooo... probably barely a minimum wage job. How many of us struggle to pay basic needs bills, food, healthcare, utilities, and aren't paid enough to come up with $20, 50, 1000 bucks to fix minor, or major issues with a vehicle...if it still runs, we gotta drive it, or lose that shitty job. This dead black man is dead because he is black, and because he is poor. His girlfriend and her child are scarred for life. I don't feel sorry for your poor police friend. Maybe if the cops carried a SCREW GUN, and some fucking bulbs for people with broken tail lights he might gain some respect on their beat. Maybe if they were given $100 to help a hungry person get a bite to eat, instead of a gun and bullets to kill a man selling CD's who they have sprawled on the ground before they execute him, maybe if they go back to the car and get ID, registration, insurance info to find the man who runs from them because he has back child support, instead of shooting him in the back, and planting a weapon on him, they might get some respect from their community members. Maybe if they had not left a suspected petty criminal, alleged thug, dying, dead, and bleeding in the street for 4 hours,Ferguson Mo might have been prevented.
Ferguson MO had ticketed hundreds for similar minor infractions, imposed high fees, and then incarcerated those who can't pay. It is happening nationwide to a greater, or lesser degree. These petty power tripping traffic stops are the thin line between poverty, and 3 squares, between jail, and home, between paying child support and having to run because you have no money because you're stuck in a cycle of shitty wages, shitty housing, shitty food, shitty schools, shitty neighborhoods... abandoned because of pollution... of both the physical, and psychological kind. Cops make a difference, but being petty power tripping tyrants shouldn't be their M.O.. Tell your friend to smile, and greet citizens with a smile, rather than with his hand on his gun. Tell him to reach out his hand rather than reaching for his gun. Tell him to take a kid to the soccer field, or the gym, rather than taking him to jail because he caught him with some weed. Tell him to ask what he could do to help, rather than face slamming someone to the hood of their car, and handcuffing them because they rebel against un-necessary force, intimidation, or harassment by LEO's on a regular basis. There are serious criminals at large, they are dangerous , and need to be dealt with, but tell your buddy to fight crime rather than imposing his ego, his authority, his gun totin', macho asshole attitude over some guy trying to make a buck selling a CD or cigs on the street. Then, and only then will your good cop buddy get someone to treat him the way he deserves to be treated, with respect... and greeted with a smile, instead of contempt.
Sorry for the rant... but even in my lily white neighborhood the cops are just plain fucking bullies with a badge and a gun, and a heart on for being able to drive over the speed limit by 40-50mph with impunity. They have to earn my respect.
Can I share this comment on FB?
Thanks...
From the Light House.
Sharing on FB
Absolutely... I'm flattered. And incredulous at what has come to pass in the last week.
Maybe the first question you ought to ask is
was this really necessary?
This kind of comment is often met with, don't let the door hit you.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Leaving a site ...
Leaving c99p because of one issue or one day's commentary is your right as a member. I hope you find a place where everybody is just like you and everybody agrees with you all the time. Don't share that URL with me, though, because I'd be bored stiff on a site where everybody was like me and always agreed with me. I like an occasional challenge to my way of thinking. It keeps me on my toes.
Of all people who would mistake a reaction for a cause
…you would be the last I would suspect. A physicist.
Of course, my reaction to this is as subjective as yours was to that.
Mammals. There's always hell to pay when they emerge as sentient.
ash carter,
currently Secretary of Defense for the Americans, he is a physicist.
Takes all kinds.
... and the physicists, they all are crazy, viz --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger's_cat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon#Fission_weapons
When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.
The last 24 hours have been pretty damned upsetting
so personally, I don't think you should leave this or any other site due to what's been said in that one period. People are PISSED right now at cops, and having to listen to all the cop sycophants out there in the MSM going on and on about how tragic Dallas is, with no context of why a thing like that could ever happen, is simply too much sometimes. And there are people out on this very site who've had encounters with cops that you or I or any other white person could ever understand and would most likely never, ever have to deal with. And it isn't only race either, but if you're a middle class person of any persuasion, you will get better treatment from a cop, hands down - they know you may damned well know a lawyer or even might have the balls to make a complaint, something a poor person would most likely never do because they're too busy trying to survive.
But if your friend is actually looking at himself, his behaviors and the behaviors of the other cops people in his neighborhood deal with, then maybe he can learn something. To blame people who have NO faith in laws at all because they are only used to keep them in line in punitive and harsh ways while others skate is pretty damned shallow. If your friend does not truly understand the dynamics of the neighborhood he patrols, then that right there is a big problem. Call it PTSD or whatever you want, but people traumatized by cops and the judicial system ain't going to trust them.
And I'm sorry, but you can't live in this country right now and think laws are ever enforced fairly. And then we're right back to the political and economic, which is the driver of much of the rage, helplessness, despair and cynicism that makes people hate the whole thing, and the cops as enforcers of that whole thing so much the more. Then turn a bunch of dumb cops loose to shoot first and ask NO questions ever, well a perfect feedback loop for just what we have - cops as judge, jury and executioner, and citizens terrified and angry as hell.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Judge Dredd as prophecy,
who knew?
There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.
If someone breaks into your house . . .
You might not want to call the police to report a break-in.
When authority is abused by those who hold power
people lose respect for authority. You know as well as I do the "all cops are evil" line is untrue, but your friend should know the optics are going to be bad when unarmed citizens get killed and no one pays a price for it.
It starts at the top, where the most powerful treat their position of authority as a license to do anything they want, law be damned. Corruption works its way down from there, and who is going to speak up against it? It's a rare individual willing to risk his or her life and livelihood to do that, and the failure to hold fellow authority figures accountable leaves the impression in many people's minds that ALL authority is corrupt.
Why would he be surprised when the little people, the powerless, no longer feel the need to obey a corrupt authority? Why would he expect anything different?
Your friend is only reaping what has been sown. When he and his fellow officers realize that and are willing to expose the corruption within their own ranks, things might change for the better. Until that thin blue line is erased and the police (and others in authority) stop "protecting their own" it will continue as it is.