…but these kinds of stories — of petty tyrannies and civic bullying — really chap my sack.
One of the things I disagree with Mark Levin most strongly about is his knee-jerk lionization of law enforcement officers, whom he refers to as “better than the rest of us.”
Some may be (and probably are). But others are not. And many are worse than the average Gap clerk or insurance salesman.
Which is to say, law enforcement is a career; and there’s nothing more inherently noble about being the ones who get to carry the guns and enforce the rules than there is in being the bureaucrat who hands out the food stamps or cuts the relief checks.
Sorry, but I’ve known too many police officers or patrolman who, without their badges and guns, are nothing but defanged bullies and procedural assholes. And though they may not be the rule, they aren’t the exception, either — mostly because we are dealing with human beings and the use of power, which as a dynamic plays out in familiar way across the social spectrum, regardless of the nobility we’ve been taught to confer upon certain types of work.
Here, here!! Saying that ALL law enforcement people are “better” than the rest of us is like saying ALL black people are thieves or ALL Hispanic people are here illegally.
We don’t need any more apologists making blanket statements for any more groups of people no matter who they are. Great post.
I look forward to the cops shutting down every community theater and church group and school fundraiser who skirts the licensing laws by crossing out “Admission” and writing “Suggested Donation” on the sign at the door.
First comment on the linked story:
Gee! I guess we need an All-Powerful Taxpayer-Funded Government Overlord to protect us from ourselves,Mr. Journeyman electrician. But how do I know my All-Powerful Government Overlord isn’t a feckless microcephalic junk-Tweeter?
The logic, it circles!
Police officers, teachers, firefighters. They’re no different. Some of heros of 9/11 were maintenance workers. That’s why whenever the catholic church scandal was brought up, and people were OUTRAGED that priests could do THAT. As if a pedophile would shy away from becoming a priest because it would be against his code of conduct.
Count my law-enforcement hubby as one of the good guys. I wouldn’t be with him if he wasn’t. He was on patrol for years before settling into an administrative job with the same employer. The stories he would tell about the public he was paid to protect — I don’t know how he did it.
There were saints among those killed in the Holocaust. But I have no doubt there were assholes, too.
We’re dealing with people. So that’s just the way it’s going to happen.
I trust that your husband is one of the good guys. And that makes sense, given that I’ve met so many of the jerks. It has to even out some time.
If the drivers are not registered with licenses to drive the public around you have no way of protecting yourself or your family.
How about protecting myself by weighing the odds that this unlicensed guy is not a good driver and then taking the risk upon myself?
Kinda like what you do when buying lemonade from a bunch of third-graders.
Oh wait…
The stories he would tell about the public he was paid to protect — I don’t know how he did it.
He was armed and had handcuffs and a billy club and the force of law behind him.
I wouldn’t deal with the COPS public without an arsenal, either.
I’ve heard that cops and robbers are essentially the same personality types, just that the cops are using their aggression to protect and serve (mostly) and the robbers are in it for themselves.
Sheepdogs and wolves, I guess, and sheepdogs can still bite.
If the drivers are not registered with licenses to drive the public around you have no way of protecting yourself or your family.
Dude, this is Texas. The Texans I know don’t rely on business permits to protect their families. Even the ones in Austin.
I eagerly await the stories of all the lives ruined by hippies giving free rides in golf carts. I’m sure it will be Old Testament-style destruction.
Union approved, union selected, union credentialed, is the only way to go don’t ya know. See “Obama” the bestest, approved, selected, credentialed, a wowser.
I officiate with a guy who likes to walk us out to his cruiser so he can pop the trunk and let us see his advanced weaponry and shit. Not that I’m gay or nothing, but I have been in a locker room shower with the dude, and though I’m not gay or nothing, he sure does have a really small penis.
Another one took the opportunity while we were waiting for captains, to mention what a dipshit one of my best friends in the world was to me and our linesman, who was also a member of that crew. I’ll just say that there was indeed a dipshit there, and the linesman pulled me back after I drilled him right fucking there at the 50 yardline on the visitors side of Banneker High school. Two yeast earlier, he had mentioned in a pregame meeting that Bill Clinton sure had show those republicans what politics was all about. I remembered that. He’s a fucking sheriff’s deputy. He works in a fucking jail.
My point is that a lot of shithead cops gravitate to officiating.
My other point was that it ain’t politics or capitalism if it’s corrupt.
That’s fraud.
Right?
Another one was an atlanta city cop. He had a fraternity brother who was the coach at Grady high school, who was basically selling kids to college programs. I was stuck on a permanent crew with this guy. He would literally cheat for this guy. Amazingly we had them 4 times in two years. That just doesn’t happen.
I’m disheartened today.
I’m friends with a few cops and they are all good people. My neighbor is a volunteer policeman (doesn’t need the money – at all) and he is a very good person. In addition to this form of community service, he does all sorts of good stuff.
But, in Detroit – well, there were plenty of corrupt cops.
but I have been in a locker room shower with the dude, and though I’m not gay or nothing, he sure does have a really small penis.
Just stop. You’re wrecking my “men in uniform” fantasy.
Just sayin carin.
In all fairness my wife is reminding me that her cousin Mikey is a cop and he’s pretty cool. Matter of fact he was cool BEFORE he won a million dollars on a scratch off lottery ticket. I ain’t seen him since.
A million dollars.
…and, y’know, not that donald is gay, or nothin’.
We’re a tolerant bunch, donald. You can be gay, or not gay. Makes no nevermind to me.
Just don’t try drilling me at the 50 yard line, if you get my drift.
Thanks slart!
I can speak for everyone because we’re one a them there echo chambers. We never, ever disagree with each other.
Levin does that because in a lot of Conservative pundits and commentators, there is a reflexive appeal to law enforcement authority as good. Its lazy and as often as not its partisan, an attempt to identify most closely with a particular group as a way of defining what you are not (e.g. liberal/progressive squishes from the 70s).
I just see cops and soldiers as people who do a job that is important in their own ways. I’m thankful enough they are there, the way some people are thankful for investigative reporters who expose crappy companies and we are thankful there are people who fight fires and pave roads.
We all play a role. I’m thankful for Jeff and PW. I should, now that I think on it, hit the Paypal tab.
We never, ever disagree with each other.
We never, ever disagree with each other.
I agree with
youme, Squid!Union approved, union selected, union credentialed, is the only way to go don’t ya know. See “Obama” the bestest, approved, selected, credentialed, a wowser.
I’m reconsidering my opposition to licensing requirements. Just sayin’.
Roddy, I think you are probably right – its lazy, not partisan. My time as an Assistant State’s Attorney saw me work with an awful lot of police – they were just like everyone else – some good, some bad, some in between. I mostly remember the good ones and the very bad. Soldiers are the same. There are some I would, literally, die for – there are some I would not piss in their ear if their brains were on fire.
Hell, I am thankful the guys who work for Waste Management comme by every Thursday morning and haul the trash away… I had some lamb shank bones in the can for 5 days – wooh.
My husband drew his gun but once in 20+ years on the road. And it was a hostage situation. It ended peacefully (the guy got hungry), but a building front was destroyed when a police car hit it. He has never shot or killed anyone (or beat anyone, for that matter). All I know is my first-hand experience being married to this wonderful man all these years. Yeah, there are some bad ones in the bunch, but they are not all bad.
A big problem for me, lilida, is that the good men on the force too often fail to rein in their brothers when they get out of line. I understand that it is a brotherhood, and they have to look out for one another, but there are guys getting away with stuff for which I’d turn in my own natural brother, and these guys either look the other way, or make an informal report to a higher-up who looks the other way.
These guys are trusted with the authority to arrest, imprison, shoot and kill me and my neighbors. That authority rests on our trust in their training, judgement, and professionalism. Wherever one cop falls short, this trust is eroded. We’re seeing the results of years of such erosion coming out now.
The good guys need to understand this more clearly, and to act for the benefit of their communities and their profession as a whole, rather than for the benefit of their lesser peers and their union local. They protect and serve me and my family, not themselves and their brothers.
Squid: I’m sure the situation you outline is very real in most urban locations. I personally know many policemen and deputies. Some are better people than others. But the good ones far outnumber the bad. And all I’m really saying is that my husband falls into the “good cop” column. When he was on patrol and dealing with drunks, dealers, hookers, etc., he kept his cool when I probably would have lost it. I admit I could never be a law enforcement officer. The crap they take from the folks they are sworn to protect is enormous. It is a highly stressful job and my husband did not go into it because he thought guns were “cool” or that he was looking for a way to channel aggression. He’s the most level headed person I know.
I’ve no doubt that your husband is a good guy, lilida, and I’ll grant that the problem is way, way worse in an urban force with its attendant bureaucracy and politicization. The deputies up at my parents’ place in the sticks are really good guys, not least because they look the other way when we’re launching all manner of very, very illegal fireworks with the neighbors…
In fairness, a lot of my perspective is clouded by the fact that I live just across the river from these guys. They’ve had a reputation as rough men since my grandfather’s days, but things really got out of hand a generation ago.
As of July, they’d paid out $3.3 million in settlements and lawsuits for 2011.
I know a guy who is a state trooper. When he drinks, he gets very belligerent. Can’t stand losing at, say, darts, or dominoes. If he does, he gets very angry, storms around, gets aggressive, gets mad at his wife, etc.
He’s also the kind of guy who, when I went with him to play a game of football with his church group, he was calling procedure penalties.
In a pickup game.
Procedure penalties.
And he’s the kind of guy who will tell you that, should you defend yourself in a fight, you will be arrested, because the law says you must retreat and let people like him handle your business. If you don’t, he can, by law, shoot you.
That’s the kind of asshole I was talking about. A fat, wannabe bully who, without that state power, would be just a fat nerd with a bad mustache.
My cousin recently retired from a supervisory position with the State Police. Guys like your friend were his biggest headache and endless frustration, and he did what he could to contain the damage such officers could do. Even so, his hands were often tied due to constraints imposed by Internal Affairs and the union.
On a rural country highway, when you’re having trouble in the middle of the night and there’s nobody around for miles, you really don’t want a trooper with ‘issues’ escorting you off-camera so he can show you the error of your ways. Not even if you really are a prick. It’s surprising and disappointing how difficult this is to explain to some troopers.
My cousin, for the record, is a no-neck fireplug of a man who doesn’t need a vest to be nigh-bulletproof. This is good, since in his spare time, he enjoys quilting and collecting Depression glass (“Miss America” pattern!). Mustache that Regis would be glad to go drinking with.
2. Squid posted on 9/13 @ 10:06 am
I look forward to the cops shutting down every community theater and church group and school fundraiser who skirts the licensing laws by crossing out “Admission” and writing “Suggested Donation” on the sign at the door.
There was a Bonanza episode built on this theme.
[…] I don’t know why it is… Sorry, but I’ve known too many police officers or patrolman who, without their badges and guns, are nothing but defanged bullies and procedural assholes. And though they may not be the rule, they aren’t the exception, either — mostly because we are dealing with human beings and the use of power, which as a dynamic plays out in familiar way across the social spectrum, regardless of the nobility we’ve been taught to confer upon certain types of work. […]
I’m pretty sure Levin would say he’s referring to the cops and firefighters and EMTs that he knows or that are in his audience, which is not to say some of them aren’t a-holes, too! But I’d bet they’re less likely to be a-holes.