P ublic
O bedience to the
L aw is
I deal and will be
C allously
E nforced.
This is not to say that today's police are like this, but when I see groups of police squared off against groups of people protesting I rethink my opinion of who the police work for. Don't think I'm just picky for thinking so. In every dictatorship or something like that where the public is controlled and oppressed, a police presence is perhaps thee most necessary step toward the maintenance of such a society. I do not point out who the police are but the danger of who they might become. After all, I believe even police are taught to always be conscious of the point where they become more abusive to society rather than protective of it.
But it does make me think...how many police officers really know the law that well? They are charged with defending it but do they really don't know that much more about it then the common kinds of laws they deal with regularly? Sometimes they look like big bouncers to me rather than law professionals. They give me the impression of civil soldiers. Bottom workers not really privy to the politics above them, just enforcers of that policy...generally. There definitely are smart cops out there, but I mean on a general basis.
Aside from that, they seem to get away with some increasingly questionable things of late. And police have been used in this country to enforce decidedly unconstitutional things in the past. I hope I don't have to drag out proof for that either. What determines right and wrong- lawful and unlawful is a mix of what the "people of legitimate standing at the time" think (meaning those people whose voice is even considered in the political process) and what the government thinks. Regardless of the Constitution, if any one of those two former factors don't see it that way, it basically becomes a law without standing.
I think a lot of the injustices that cops do happen perpetrate today gets swept under the rug because they tend to be connected with minorities. And we have most certainly been conditioned through all manner of things- most notably tv and movies- to believe that any legal activity in this area is warranted and imperative to order and safety. But it's like that poem by the anti-Nazi activist, Martin Niemueller; you can sit back and watch it being done to someone else and not care because it is not being done to you, hoping that they are an isolated incident and that such a thing will never occur with you. But in time, as power grows so does it's abuse. What was wrong becomes accepted. What is accepted becomes the norm. And when they start doing wrongs against you, you may find yourself crying out for a sentimental ear...only to be told that you deserved it.
O bedience to the
L aw is
I deal and will be
C allously
E nforced.
This is not to say that today's police are like this, but when I see groups of police squared off against groups of people protesting I rethink my opinion of who the police work for. Don't think I'm just picky for thinking so. In every dictatorship or something like that where the public is controlled and oppressed, a police presence is perhaps thee most necessary step toward the maintenance of such a society. I do not point out who the police are but the danger of who they might become. After all, I believe even police are taught to always be conscious of the point where they become more abusive to society rather than protective of it.
But it does make me think...how many police officers really know the law that well? They are charged with defending it but do they really don't know that much more about it then the common kinds of laws they deal with regularly? Sometimes they look like big bouncers to me rather than law professionals. They give me the impression of civil soldiers. Bottom workers not really privy to the politics above them, just enforcers of that policy...generally. There definitely are smart cops out there, but I mean on a general basis.
Aside from that, they seem to get away with some increasingly questionable things of late. And police have been used in this country to enforce decidedly unconstitutional things in the past. I hope I don't have to drag out proof for that either. What determines right and wrong- lawful and unlawful is a mix of what the "people of legitimate standing at the time" think (meaning those people whose voice is even considered in the political process) and what the government thinks. Regardless of the Constitution, if any one of those two former factors don't see it that way, it basically becomes a law without standing.
I think a lot of the injustices that cops do happen perpetrate today gets swept under the rug because they tend to be connected with minorities. And we have most certainly been conditioned through all manner of things- most notably tv and movies- to believe that any legal activity in this area is warranted and imperative to order and safety. But it's like that poem by the anti-Nazi activist, Martin Niemueller; you can sit back and watch it being done to someone else and not care because it is not being done to you, hoping that they are an isolated incident and that such a thing will never occur with you. But in time, as power grows so does it's abuse. What was wrong becomes accepted. What is accepted becomes the norm. And when they start doing wrongs against you, you may find yourself crying out for a sentimental ear...only to be told that you deserved it.