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We've a deep independence streak that bridles at someone telling us what to do.
The police tell us to stop doing what we're doing.
We tend to not like that.
Even if, or especially when, we've voted to make what we're up to illegal.
This gets coupled with a deep seated feeling that we didn't vote to make what's now against the law illegal.
And this resentment is plain enough when the police are honest.
Historically, they are patently not.
Historically, they rarely are.
There've been many exceptions to the general corruption and its to the credit of everyone involved that the institutional corruption endemic to city police forces has, in recent times, been greatly reduced.
Reduced, but not eliminated.
Just enough remains to remind the cultural memory that the po po are just a state sanctioned gang.
Something the, admittedly, mostly honest police have failed to do is to convince the public that the rampant corruption of the past is in the past.
This failure is centered around a failure to condemn the "bad apples" vocally and vociferously.
This is coupled with police association with another organization that is never without corruption, the labor union.
The cops, especially the honest ones, cannot do their jobs without the trust and support of the people and communities they serve.
Once place they've consistently failed is in serving their communities. Too often everything about them is in service to themselves with little to no regard to their communities. Most don't even live among the places they police.
It's a Gordian Knot and most people insist we untie it rather than cut.
At present the cops and people aren't really that far apart. We need to look hard and honestly at the thin partition between us and viciously excise the elements which placed the barriers to our understanding one another.
If we don't then organizations such as
If we don't then corrupt politicians will continue to build personal armies who enforce not the law, but the edicts of the politicians.
I doubt we will and an honest citizen will have to come to regard any cop as an enemy rather than a friend because we cannot know if the cop we're dealing with is corrupt or honest.
History, sadly, says they're going to be corrupt even if corruption is actually rare recently.
Not helping the matter is the overall cussedness of the American people. Over in Europe or Asia, the rule of law and customs make those more... biddable.
ReplyDeleteWe 'free' Americans chafe at rules and regulations. Signs, signs, everywhere a sign. And some cop being turned into a revenue generator for the city, county, state and federal government. They are so into enforcing civil infractions, and then enforcing the fines when they turn criminal. And that's part of the problem right there. They aren't enforcing the criminal laws, not cutting down on drugs and thugs, but going after people with broken taillights or speeding 1mph over in a school zone (when there's no children) and such.
I know, most of us apes would speed and run stop signs, so some - un poco - traffic enforcement is a semi-good thing, but to make the traffic enforcement bearable, enforce it equally across the board.
I see all the time certain persons, who think themselves more important because their ancestors came out of Africa last, park in the fire lane and saunter in to go shopping, but if I do that to load an ungainly object there will be a cop on my butt. Writing me a ticket, not the three other people who just parked and abandoned their vehicles.
That type of selective enforcement causes a lot of issues with 'normal' people. Like the two attorneys in St. Louis who had their guns yanked and almost charged, but the 'peaceful protestors' who were brandishing their arms didn't get their guns confiscated.
Either equal charges, equal punishments or just stop enforcing.
And, hey, black people. Control your young men and women and get them to stop committing the crimes and maybe, just maybe the cops will stop hassling you.