Years ago, I was summarily excluded from corporate-sponsored encounters with the public after I responded to a question from one in a group of schoolchildren about who/what in society we should all be most concerned about with two words: “The police.”
Because, I added for the shocked young people, who were no doubt raised to believe that police officers were their friends, that we know the police don’t always tell the truth but judges and juries nevertheless usually take their word as Gospel.
Well, things are more complicated nowadays, thanks to some recent police killings murders (at least one a year here in Austin, for instance), the ubiquity of SWAT teams in full military regalia including automatic rifles sent out to confront ordinary people, rather than hardened criminals, and incredible disclosures such as this Houston PD statement about an officer’s running down a pedestrian that Houston police are not required to use lights or sirens when speeding. (One more reason to stay out of Houston.)
Vox Day, the blogger-author of the timely The Return of the Great Depression, who calls police “the badge gang,” recently summed it up this way:
“If the police do not wish to be condemned and held in contempt by the American public, they had better reject militarization, respect the Constitution, and deal justly with the criminals among them. If they cannot or will not do those three things, they will discover that without the tacit cooperation of the American public, they possess far less power and authority than they appear to presently believe.”
I think that’s exactly right, and they can start by staying away from people who photograph them at work with cell-phone cameras instead of getting all huffy about it and demanding they stop or they’ll be arrested. Or do they think that the First Amendment only applies to them and their cronies?
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 