Wednesday, January 26, 2011

About that "War on Cops"....

The War on the Streets: This is Miami, not Mogadishu.



















What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive?.... The [Security] Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers ... and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!"--

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's famous jeremiad about the passivity of Soviet subjects in the face of the Regime's armed enforcement agencies. 


Every week — actually, every day — innocent people across the country are harassed, abused, brutalized, tortured, and murdered by armed strangers in government-issued costumes. Most of the assailants are never held accountable. Often, they are placed on paid vacation (commonly called “administrative leave”) while their colleagues devise an official rationalization for their crimes.

According to one very conservative estimate, at least thirty citizens are killed in police shootings every month, many of which occur during paramilitary raids conducted, Soviet-style, at daybreak or nighttime. Innocent people are frequently found among those killed, wounded, or brutalized in those raids; one recent example is 76-year-old New York resident Jose Colon, who was shot in the stomach by a SWAT operator who pulled the trigger trying to operate a flashlight on his tricked-out pistol.

The grim but statistically inescapable fact is that the average American is much more likely to be killed by a cop than by a terrorist. 

Those who publicize police abuses are routinely accused by apologists for government enforcement agencies of exaggerating the problem by focusing on a vanishingly small number of “exceptional” cases. When police are on the receiving end of criminal violence, however, those same apologists demand that we allow such exceptions to define the rule.


On the basis of recent trends, we can assume that two dozen or more Americans have been shot by police since January 1, 2011. In the same period, roughly half that many police have been shot, 11 of them either injured or killed during one unusually bloody twenty-four-hour period. This unconnected series of shootings has led many police officers to believe that they are targets in a “war on cops,” and that alarmist impression has been diligently propagated by police union officials who are always eager to exaggerate the very modest dangers of their profession.


“It’s not a fluke,” insists Richard Roberts, spokesman for the International Union of Police Associations. “There’s a perception among officers in the field that there’s a war on cops going on.” Craig W. Floyd of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund described a "very troubling trend" of "officers ... being put at greater risk than ever before."

"I think it's a hundred times more likely today that an officer will be assaulted compared to twenty, thirty years ago," agreed J.B. Smith, Sheriff of Smith, County, Texas, in an interview with Tyler's NBC affiliate KETK. "It has become one of the most hazardous jobs in the United States, undoubtedly -- in the top five."

Actually, where the risk of death on the job is concerned, law enforcement doesn't crack the top ten list of most dangerous occupations, as designated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In fact, none of the jobs on that list involves people employed in the coercive sector.  Commercial fishermen, loggers, commercial pilots, farmers, and roofers all face a higher risk of work-related death than that confronted by the State's armed enforcers, for whom "officer safety" is job one.

Sheriff Smith, like others retailing the "war on cops" meme, recited the durable canard that police "work" is more dangerous today because they confront a more violent breed of street criminal. Five years ago, Joseph McNamara of Stanford's Hoover Institution, a former NYPD Deputy Inspector (and, unfortunately, an advocate of civilian disarmament), pointed out that police "work" may be safer now than ever before.

In 2005, McNamara noted, fifty-one officers died in the line of duty "out of some 700,000 to 800,000 American cops. That is far fewer than the police fatalities occurring when I patrolled New York’s highest crime precincts, when the total number of cops in the country was half that of today."

Yes, there is a war on the streets of America, McNamara allowed, but it is one waged by the cops, not on them:

"Simply put, the police culture in our country has changed. An emphasis on `officer safety' and paramilitary training pervades today’s policing, in contrast to the older culture, which held that cops didn’t shoot until they were about to be shot or stabbed. Police in large cities formerly carried revolvers holding six .38-caliber rounds. Nowadays, police carry semi-automatic pistols with 16 high-caliber rounds, shotguns and military assault rifles, weapons once relegated to SWAT teams facing extraordinary circumstances. Concern about such firepower in densely populated areas hitting innocent citizens has given way to an attitude that the police are fighting a war against drugs and crime and must be heavily armed."
 
 Government police agencies were always designed to control the public, rather than to "protect and serve" it. As sociologist David Bayley memorably put it, "The police are to the government as the edge is to the knife." Thanks in no small measure to the proliferation of independent media, the public is coming to understand that fact.

A large and growing segment of the public likewise has become palpably disgusted with the casual elitism of the armed tax-feeders among us, who see themselves as a caste apart from, and superior to, those from whom they extract their livelihood. The police unions and media organs that take dictation from them insist that the purported "war on cops" is being fueled by a growing public "disrespect" for the "authority" of police.

"The palm-sized shield worn on a police officer’s chest should be viewed as a badge of honor, not a bull’s-eye," sobbed the editorial collective of the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader in a lachrymose house editorial that typifies media treatment of the supposed "war" on police. "Sadly, recent deadly shootings around the nation and alleged threats directed at Luzerne County law enforcers reveal a troubling lack of respect for officers’ authority and responsibilities, as well as their lives." 
 
The "threats" in question were allegedly made by 45-year-old Scanton resident Ray Mazzarella, who was arrested and charged with several counts of making "terroristic threats" for inflammatory comments he had posted about the local police chief on his Facebook page. Were the rational for Mazzarella's pre-emptive arrest applied consistently, scores or hundreds of police officers would have to be locked up and put on trial for equally inflammatory statements posted on chat boards frequented by LEOs. Of course, by even making that point I'm undermining public "respect" for police "authority" -- thereby, one supposes, abetting violence against our sanctified protectors.

Although Steve Groeninger, spokesman for the D.C.-based National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, admits that “we don’t have any data,” he told MSNBC that “there seems to be a type of criminal out there looking to thwart authority” (by which he means any directive issued by an armed government functionary) and warns that “cuts in police budgets could exacerbate the danger,” according to MSNBC.

This is an interesting variation on a familiar police union theme. As previously noted in this space, as municipal budgets shrink amid the ever-deepening depression, some police unions are literally trying to terrorize the public into supporting their budget demands. Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts announced several months ago that because of budget cuts citizens shouldn’t expect police to respond to calls involving 44 kinds of crime, including burglary, grand theft, and other serious offenses. The hideously corrupt Camden, New Jersey Police Department adopted a similar policy after half the force was laid off. In Sacramento County, the Sheriff’s Office published an ad depicting what appeared to be a sexual assault on a child. “Don’t let them cut deputies and put your family at risk!” screamed the ad copy.

Reduced to its essence, the message here is this: Give us what we want, or people will get hurt. Those of us who oppose the demands of police unions can now expect to be told that we’re morally indistinguishable from cop-killers.


Every traffic stop, we are told, is pregnant with potentially lethal danger -- for the one party in that confrontation we know to be armed and invested with the supposed authority to kill another human being. In fact, encounters of this kind are freighted with peril for the member of the productive population who has come under the unwanted scrutiny of an armed emissary of the State. This is true of any interaction between the police and the private citizens on whom they subsist.

One likely product of the ongoing panic over a "war on cops" is the increased likelihood that police will resort to potentially lethal force in such routine encounters. After all, isn't it better to have the taxpayers absorb the cost of settling with the family of a murdered Mundane than to suffer the uniquely poignant anguish of burying one of the State's Anointed Ones?

Most of the potentially dangerous encounters between police and the public grow out of their roles as enforcers of drug prohibition and armed revenue collectors (those roles overlap, of course). Those dangers will grow more acute as the economy continues to sicken and people who have done no harm to others start to lose patience with the demands of the wealth-devouring class.

Rather than abating their demands and ratcheting down the conflict, however, those in charge of the State clearly intend to escalate it, making whatever use they deem necessary of all of the charming instruments of regimentation and mass violence originally developed for use overseas. One particularly unsettling illustration of this principle is the expanding domestic use of unmanned surveillance drones, which were originally developed for battlefield applications but will probably become as commonplace as SWAT teams within the next several years.

If they have it, they will use it; if it's been deployed by the military abroad, it will be employed by the paramilitary police at home; once it's been tested against criminal suspects, it will become part of the standard arsenal of social regimentation. At this point it appears that the only thing that will cause the machinery of repression to grind to a stop would be a fully realized economic collapse. Another grim possibility is that the State's relentless persecution of harmless people will grow so vicious that the "war on cops" being spoken of now becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy -- thereby creating a personnel shortage of the kind Solzhenitsyn described.



Anybody who takes the life of any human being through aggressive violence is a murderer and should be treated as such. That being said, this should be also: If the wildly exaggerated fear of being killed on the job results in increased attrition from the ranks of the State’s armed enforcers, one happy result will be a net decrease in the amount of criminal violence afflicting our society.

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Dum spiro, pugno!

32 comments:

Matt said...

"Power attracts the corruptible":
http://www.flickr.com/photos/folkushackney/5192342913/

Via Wendy McElroy:
http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.3741

What more power can anyone have than the power to kill someone else without responsibility for killing? *Of* *course* the ultimately corruptible are drawn to the ultimate power.

endangeredfeces said...

- “there seems to be a type of criminal out there looking to thwart authority” - (Steve Groeninger)

Orwell-Speak translation: "More folks are beginning to see that police are a cash-confiscating, violent force-wielding, agency of State oppression, and now that people are suffering through the accelerating transition to T.W.A. (Third World Amerika), their resentment of our siphoning off what remaining wealth (or health) they still possess tends to increase."

Anonymous said...

The New American magazine was pretty good before September 2001
- not 100% mind you, but pretty good notwithstanding the sappy jingoism - but now the paleo-con publication has degenerated into an apologist media organ for the pathocratic state as they extol the so-called impeccable virtues and unassailable behavior of the fedgov's auxiliary "local" police forces (harmonizing angelic singing voices in background).

TNA still believes this is 1979.

Kent McManigal said...

There is a very simple way to completely eliminate "officer" deaths. Abandon the ridiculous notion of having cops. No cops = no dead cops; with the additional benefit that no more innocent people could ever again be killed by cops either. There really is no downside.

And before any copsuckers start in about how civilization will collapse in the absence of a government monopoly of force enforcing all the "laws" (both legitimate and counterfeit), and suggest that people like me don't like cops until a problem occurs- then we can't wait to call them to come "save" us- forget it. It has become almost suicidal to call cops. I'm not stupid enough to invite armed and aggressive thugs, who are unable to tell the good guys from the bad guys, into a situation that is already charged and dangerous.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Mr. Grigg,

I love the photos you use to illustrate your essays. The one of the half-dozen Mundanes on foot, and the mounted imperial cavalry, all saluting, is lovely. Does anyone know the origins of the salute? It is a symbolic removal of ones hat, so one can bow servilely, (i.e., in proper serf fashion, cap in hand,) before the local Baron or Count or Archduke, whose property one happens to be. And whose rights include the rape of your virgin daughters, and the right to murder you for an inadequate display of obesiance and servitude.

How little, in some ways, the human race has progressed in the last 800 years. We have nuclear weapons now, yet we cringe and grovel before other people, who shit every morning just as we do, and who will bleed just as readily if punctured, but who declare that we are their property, and owing to their personal magnificence and perfumed excreta, we must joyfully submit to their every whim, however capricious and illogical.

I thought, at every football game, the Mundane sheeple chant joyously about "The Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave"?!?

Bull-feces. Rat-farts. Hog-piss.

Ahhh, sweet Jesus, what's the point of even trying? Nine out of ten of these jackasses will "salute" the rapists who are buggering them, without even the accomodation of some grease to ease the pain.

Mr. Grigg, I admire (No, I really do, I'm not just saying that for effect,) your unquenchable faith in human nature, and your moral worthiness in trying to help people who don't even want to help themselves. Who are blissfully ignorant, and are bound and determined to stay that way.

You are either crazy, or a saint. Perhaps both.

- Lemuel Gulliver.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Grigg,
you rock!!.. I was waiting for your take on this "war on cops" drivel. I just realized my counties Sheriff's Dept has an Armored Personnel Carrier (Jefferson County Colorado, home of the columbine massacre). I couldn't believe it when I found out...We also have a half million in new squad cars that sit idle in a library parking lot. So they next time they talk about our counties deficit, I'll have a few suggestions for cuts..

Marie Lynette said...

This happens with CPS. Every time someone tries to cut the budget for child illfare, the social-problem's union cries that children will be in danger. Cuz they won't have any money to feed them. I can tell by their sparkling big new office buildings.

Anonymous said...

Prisons are full of nonviolent offenders which provides the excuse for private prisons, increased funding and technology for LEOs to fill more prisons. The law enforcement talking heads worry about the "type of criminal out there looking to thwart authority” when they should be worried about all the up until now law-abiding citizens they have pissed off!

Anonymous said...

I look at it this way... That if a cop feels he has to dress and act like he is on some sort of militarized foot patrol then he is a mercenary for the State and has no moral authority over me or anyone else. He is a hired gun with a mandate to inflict violence upon the citizenry. That man, or woman, is a parasite of the first order and deserves no respect at all.

whitebuffalo said...

Once again, Mr. Grigg, you have proven yourself to be a superbly talented writer (I am jealous!) But there is one quibble I would like to make and I hope I don't come across as a jerk. Please keep in mind my utter and complete contempt for the military mindset. (To me the movie Bridge Over The River Kwai is only one notch above a kiddie porn snuff film.)I refer to your use of the phrase "civilian disarmament"; specifically the word civilian. Maybe I'm making too much of it but I think the better word is citizen instead of civilian. My argument is that the word citizen has more power over people, both in and out of the military. And, as you have pointed out, the modern cop is indeed more military than peace officer. To the military mind a civilian is someone who does not have the power to inflict harm to those who can kill with impunity. But a citizen has rights. And those rights do indeed have power over those in government approved costumes (either green or blue). Again, I apologize if I come across as a nitpicking nitwit.

Jessica Hughes said...

My grandfather was Chief of Police in a small town in a Mayberry era. People then saw him as someone there to help and protect them.

Today police are tasked with enforcing arbitrary codes of conduct on rational adults and it results in a self-selection of power-mad tyrants. I know I could not personally bear to confiscate someone's property in the form of a fine because they chose not to wear a safety belt, but this is what cops do all day.

Bastiat said a society could not survive if its laws were not respected and to make laws respected they must be respectable, meanign no rational person would disagree with them. No rational person disagrees with a prohibition on murder but plenty might disagree with prohibition on cocaine.

The thousands of senseless laws cops are tasked with enforcing are driving a wedge between "Peace Officers" and the people they are supposed to protect and this is all to the benefit of the Leviathan State.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Anonymous @ 7:31 PM,

In 1987, at the height of the Apartheid State in South Africa, that country had 636 blacks in jail for every 100,000 black South Africans. The United States at the same time had over 3,600 blacks in jail for every 100,000 black Americans. But WE self-righteously accused the white Boers of persecuting their black citizens.

Today, the USA has a higher incarceration rate than any country in the world, including China: some 3.5 million people. To match our rate, China would need to incarcerate some 15 million of its citizens. But our government accuses their Chinese counterparts of being harsh on their people. Go figure.

A word of wisdom to the Congressional turd-munchers on Capitol Hill: Remember, asswipes, when you point one finger at them, there are three fingers pointing back at you.

We have far too many prisons, far too many prison guards, far too many cops, and far too many lawyers in this sad country. Perhaps we could put them all on barges, tow them 100 miles out to sea, and cut them loose. Let Satan look after his own.

- Lemuel Gulliver.

PS: Perhaps an especially large barge could be built out of cardboard, to accomodate the 535 members of Congress. It would be interesting to see if the sharks would eat them, or welcome them as kinfolk.

P.M.Lawrence said...

Lemuel Gulliver wrote "Does anyone know the origins of the salute? It is a symbolic removal of ones hat, so one can bow servilely, (i.e., in proper serf fashion, cap in hand,) before the local Baron or Count or Archduke, whose property one happens to be."

That isn't quite right. It's actually the symbolic remnant of a soldier raising the visor of his helmet, both to reduce his protection and show trust and to make it possible to recognise him.

There was indeed a tradition of peasants doffing their hats or caps, which for a long time survived symbolically in the form of rubbing the knuckle of a fist against the brow. However, actual salutes - by soldiers who kept their hats on - came along before actual cap doffing by peasants stopped (so that wasn't the origin), and caps were never doffed to allow bowing but likewise to allow the peasant to be identified - something that was difficult for someone on horseback or in a carriage to do to a peasant physically lower down who still had his head covered, as the peak got in the way.

Anonymous said...

It takes little effort (a quick search on Google, for example) to find out how these allegations of a "war on cops" are so much nonsense. In Los Angeles, 21 police officers died in the line of duty in the "peaceful" 1950s, vs. only eight in the "turbulent" 2000s. (Keep in mind that Los Angeles' population increased substantially in the last 50 years.) Statistics for New York and Chicago are similar.

57chevypreterist said...

Great article Will!

Just a couple of observations (not criticisms):

1. RE: "authority": You mentioned "a growing public "disrespect" for the "authority" of police." Let's be clear about the lines of authority: All authority belongs to God, and He delegates some of that authority (not all) to men via Jesus (Matt. 28:18). In turn, "We The People" delegate some of our authority (not all) to civil governments. In turn, civil governments delegate some of the People's delegated authority to police/law enforcement entities. If anything, it is the growing disrespect of The People's authority by government workers that is the REAL problem. Public servants need to constantly be reminded of their inferior position to that of the citizen. "Me public - you servant."

2. You wrote: "Anybody who takes the life of any human being through aggressive violence is a murderer and should be treated as such." I disagree. It should be: "Anybody who unjustly takes the life of any human being through aggressive violence is a murderer and should be treated as such, even if such action is considered "lawful","necessary", or "justified" by the government.

Minor points! Thanks for all your hard work. You are a blessing!

Everyone reading: please don't forget to donate to Will via PayPal so he can support his family.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

P.M.Lawrence,

Aw, shucks, you busted my balloon. It was such a nice theory. Now I'm a wiser, but a sadder, man. I suppose I should thank you for the information, so OK, thank you. I still think we should tow all they-of-the-perfumed-excreta out to sea on paper rafts and let their patron, Lucifer, bring them enlightenment, wisdom, and life jackets. (And shark repellent, if necessary.)

As for the peasants doffing their caps in order that they could be recognized from the lofty environs of the royal carriage, it could just as well have been so that their heads were no longer cushioned from capricious blows of the royal cane. (Swipe! Thud! Out of my path, peasant! Maintain a respectful distance, you oaf!) I like that image better. Seems to fit the attitudes of the perfumed-excreta classes more closely.

- Lemuel.

Anonymous said...

When policemen are let go from work they will simply become unsanctioned criminals. Which then, hopefully, will make them easier to get rid of.

Anonymous said...

A war on cops?
That's a hot one.
If there was there wouldn't be enough hours in the day to say their former names.

Every year on the opening day of deer season in Pa., I take pleasure in telling any and all cops I see, in an offhand nonthreatening but sincere manner, "today there are approx. 800,000 men and women out and about armed with high powered rifles. And there aren't many .223 pea shooters either."

This year I told two of them, one young cop and one older cop. The older cop just smiled but the young-un got a strange look on his face like I was telling a bad joke or something.
I didn't even mention bear season..

Nuff said..

Anonymous said...

MoT: "...if a cop feels he has to dress and act like he is on some sort of militarized foot patrol then he is a mercenary for the State and has no moral authority over me or anyone else." And what moral authority do you grant a cop who doesn't feel that way? No employee of any organization that depends for its existence on extorting funds from those who are denied the opportunity to opt out of the arrangement has, or ever will have, any moral authority over me, and any deference shown will be limited to the practical minimum that I can begrudge the thug and survive the encounter. At some future juncture I may decide that the meager practical advantages of capitulation no longer outweigh moral rectitude and fully realized, if fleeting, freedom.

Anonymous said...

In 1979 3 of us had our jeeps out 4wheeling on the white river in Wa.state we had crossed the river
& drove over to a little store for
cold drink we come out two cops in one car they started out being butt
heads threating to take us to jail & taking our jeeps away f/driving
across the river,I walked over too the cop car looked inside & said
"you know your all alone don't you"
Oh I forgot we all had sidearms strapped on, the older cop said"but
this is just a friendly warning,no
write up"


we are not going to cite you,just a friendly warning

Anonymous said...

@anonymous

I agree with you. It was something of a rhetorical statement in the middle of the night after a very hard and long day of work. Thankful that I am for being able to work at all but sore from head to toe. Typing up even those few lines was just enough for me before crashing for the night. It is indeed a sad sad thing when I feel that in the end it boils down to violence since the cops seem all too eager to receive Caesars coin.

Mark Thomey said...

Anonymous:
Your story from the 1979 river crossing is living proof of George Mason's dictum that:
An ARMED man is a CITIZEN. A DISARMED man is a SUBJECT. (emphasis mine)

Billy said...

Think that's a bad picture, check this picture of soldiers, eh, police going after a cop killer.

http://www.kval.com/news/local/114504244.html

Lemuel Gulliver said...

People, fellow Citizens, and lovers of Liberty!!

I do not know if anyone on this blog understands the significance of what is happening in Egypt:

===================================
"As the army presence expanded in Cairo Saturday, police largely disappeared from the streets - possibly because their presence seemed only to fuel protesters' anger. Egyptian police are hated for their brutality.

"On Friday, 17 police stations throughout Cairo were torched, with protesters stealing firearms and ammunition and freeing some jailed suspects. They also burned dozens of police trucks in Cairo, Alexandria and Suez. On Saturday, protesters besieged a police station in the Giza neighborhood of Cairo, looted and pulled down Egyptian flags, then burned the building to the ground.

"There were no clashes reported between protesters and the military at all, and many in the crowds showered soldiers with affection.

"In the capital on Friday night, hundreds of young men carted away televisions, fans and stereo equipment looted from the ruling National Democratic Party, near the Egyptian Museum.

"Others around the city looted banks, smashed cars, tore down street signs and pelted armored riot police vehicles with paving stones torn from roadways."
===================================

This thing started in Tunisia, spread to Algeria, then to Egypt, and is spreading to Yemen.

Contrary to the emphasis given in the world's media on the POLITICAL disaffection with Mubarak, that is only a minor part of the cause of the fury that is being evidenced. The root cause is the pain of the poor, downtrooden masses with poverty, rising food prices and rampant unemployment, contrasted with corruption in politics and business, resulting in gross income inequality (Repeat: GROSS INCOME INEQUALITY AND CORRUPTION) in Egypt. The poor live in abject squalor, while the rich live in marble mansions and have been gaming the political system to their own benefit for decades. Sound familiar?

WHY is this significant?

Because for the very first time, the global plutocracy and oligarchy and their political lapdogs are seeing that the masses of humanity CAN be pushed too far and squeezed too hard. Eventually the simmering fury boils over, then begins to feed on itself, and the masses become violent and unmanageable. THERE IS NOTHING THE POLICE CAN DO. And the Army refuses to fire on fellow citizens.

What is going on in Egypt is IMMENSELY important. It is the first rumbling of a global revolution against the greed, the plunder, and the rapine, of the global oligarchy. It will get worse. It will spread. Eventually it may even arrive at our doorstep.

Trust me, the oligarchy is pissing in their pants right now.

THAT is why the American Government has instantly abandoned their ally Mubarak, and attempted to take sides with the Egytpian people against him. They see the writing on the wall. Their bowels are giving them trouble right now. They are afraid it might happen here some day, maybe quite soon.

People, what is happening in Egypt is the most significant social, political and economic event in the last 20 years.

- Lemuel Gulliver.

Bob said...

Point well given, Lem. It CAN happen here.

Anonymous said...

Billy, that was a bad picture, wow, total military combat assault team, and many people love it. I noticed the support they got in the comments section of that article as if having different letters differentiates one group of combat team from another so they can go around one set of rules, wonder what other rules this allows them to get around?

Noticed this in the article:

"Police alerted residents through a reverse 911 system but did not order an evacuation."

I did not know what a reverse 911 system was, kind of creepy.
Also another demonstration that Americans do not own property, the government does, thus the word - order - as opposed to, ask.

liberranter said...

Solid observation, Lemuel. Having spent a great deal of time in the Middle East, particularly Egypt, my only reaction to all of this is that it's long, LONG overdue, particularly in Egypt. That Mubarak remained in power for as long as he did is miraculous, as he has been universally DESPISED by the majority of the Egyptian people (and not merely the masses of poor and dispossessed) for most of his 30-year reign. Who or what will follow Mubarak remains to be seen. We could see something as destructively wretched as that which followed the Shah's overthrow in Iran, or we could see the first movements toward an inclusive representative democracy. (My own observation is that Egypt's socioeconomic problems are so deeply rooted and so intractable that the best that can be hoped for is an uneasy truce, based on internal decentralization of power, between the various factions within the country that have been at each other's throats. Lasting stability won't be on the table for a LONG time, if ever).

(to be continued)

liberranter said...

(continued)

"As the army presence expanded in Cairo Saturday, police largely disappeared from the streets - possibly because their presence seemed only to fuel protesters' anger. Egyptian police are hated for their brutality.

As far as this statement is concerned, and where it relates to portents of similar events here in America, here is where things may take a different course. Egyptian police, at least at the rank-and-file level, are conscripts like the rank-and-file in the army. Living and working conditions are abominable, pay is almost non-existent, and the abuse and brutality that low-level officers suffer at the hands of their superiors (again, identical to life in the Egyptian Army) is in turn visited upon the hapless citizenry that happens to cross the police's path. Here in Amerika, on the other hand, the police consist of overpaid psychopath volunteers who not only WANT to serve in that capacity, but who wouldn't know what else to do with their lives absent the opportunity to wear a state-issued uniform and badge, carry a gun, and exercise unrestrained sadistic violence against the Mundanes. I seriously doubt that our own Fat Blue Line Gangs will disband in terror at the first signs of a citizen uprising. Sensing that their fates will be that of mutilated, burning corpses dangling at the end of ropes from the nearest telephone poles or lamp posts, they will not hesitate to turn on the citizenry that they mendaciously swear an oath to "protect and serve", using all the deadly force at their disposal. Remember too that huge numbers of these creatures are veterans of the imperial legions who have seen combat first hand, suffer from PTSD, and see citizens at home as the same type of enemies they faced in Iraqpakghanistan. Only once Amerika's economy has imploded and there is no money with any value left with which to pay the Fat Blue mercenaries and their cammy-clad military cohorts will there be even a remote possibility of wholesale desertion by "law enforcement."

Anonymous said...

@ William Grigg, author:

What could you possibly know about this subject you write about? You live in a town of barely 7000 in the middle of nowhere.

Just because you scour the internet seeking fodder for your ill-conceived notions does not give you the right to spit this nonsense.

Very few innocent people are injured by police compared to the number of innocent people injured by lawless individuals.

After you've lived within a segment of the population where shit really does happen in your neighborhood, you don't just read about it on your computer screen, then we'll see how you feel regarding the men & women that protect us.

William N. Grigg said...

After you've lived within a segment of the population where shit really does happen in your neighborhood, you don't just read about it on your computer screen, then we'll see how you feel regarding the men & women that protect us.

Good grief, little boy -- do you kiss your local jackbooted thug's ass with that mouth?

Who would the "men and women that [sic] protect us" be, exactly? Police are neither legally required to protect us, nor are they capable of doing so. They neither prevent nor deter violent crime, nor are they under an enforceable obligation to protect an individual citizen threatened by a non-state purveyor of criminal violence.

Payette, while tiny, is not immune to the expanding threat of police militarization, which is a far greater threat than the local (non-government-licensed) criminal element.

As to the question of "What [I] could possibly know about this subject".... While the research and documentation I provide speak for themselves, here's some additional relevant background:

I've spent a lot of time in the worst parts of major cities, here and abroad. For example, I lived in one of the most crime-ridden areas of Mexico City in the early 1980s, and spent the better part of a year living in Guatemala City under martial law.

In 1997 I attended (and received a certificate from) an international law enforcement counter-terrorism program put on at the University of Illinois-Chicago -- the only journalist to do so, incidentally. The contacts I made there proved useful in on-site investigative reports on crime and terrorism in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York City, Houston, and Los Angeles.

In '97-98 I wrote and published a series of exposes about an effort by political allies of the Dominican Drug Cartel to frame and imprison a group of narcotics officers in Philly. This earned me at least two explicit death threats from people attached to the cartel. The officers were exonerated of bogus civil rights charges in about 2004.

But all of this is of small moment where the question of where I get "the right" to express my views on these topics. To put the matter bluntly: I have an active mind and the means to give voice to my opinions. I need neither permission nor approval from badge-sniffers like you.

Kent McManigal said...

"Badge-sniffer"? Anonymous is a copsucker if I ever saw one. Or worse. Maybe he/she/it is a LEO in person.

Badge-sniffer, copsucker Anonymous may need cops to protect its pathetic butt, but real human beings certainly don't. Cops protect no one but themselves and the corrupt State they serve.

Frankenstein Government said...

Man, I am so glad I don't police anymore. I found this old thread and read what all of the pricks had to say here.

Thank God, I don't do this anymore. Shit, I don't even feel like arguing with you idiots. That's how serene my life has become.

Boise