Posted on 02/11/2009 11:57:25 AM PST by mnehring
The concern I and many others have is when you're a hammer everything else looks like a nail. Too many toys for the boys and they are going to start looking for ways to use them.
Thank you for the link.
PS — I’m not going to jump in like a newbie and start posting things on my day of registration — I just wanted to express my gratitude for posting a link to an indirect link to my blog. Which I won’t pimp here. :)
That's not going to happen if we're not actually bad guys. If we live our lives based on the worst case scenarios for everything, then we may as well curl up in the fetal position under the bed. It's healthier to recognize that in almost all cases, the police are here to help us and we should support them in their efforts to do so.
It can't happen here?
If we live our lives based on the worst case scenarios for everything, then we may as well curl up in the fetal position under the bed.
Isn't that exactly the motive behind police asking for military grade hardware?
Yep, I noticed that, too.
Unless they are Military Police, the cops are civilians, too.
poor bastards (see my tag)
Gets around that pesky “Posse Commitatus” law.
Welcome to FR Trey. Blog Pimping is cool as long as you categorize it correctly (bloggers category) and it is relevant. I would suggest reading how others post in that category for a while.
Most importantly, have fun.
>This type of article is most distasteful.
Ok, you’ve a right to say that... but let’s see why yos say that...
>The cop haters snivel when the police equip themselves with firearms and armored vehicles and train their officers.
That’s funny, I don’t see too many here that have spouted “cop hating” rhetoric.
>They would whine even louder if the bad guys took over the local mall and the police responded with stock Ford sedans and small caliber pistols and no training.
That’s probably true. However, it seems to me that there is something else that should concern you; that is the ‘privatization’ of “police work”. As several studies, investigations, and even law trials have found, the automated red-light ticketing systems are often abused (ie, yellow-light times decreased in order to catch more “infringements”, despite that has been shown to increase the rate of traffic accidents).
In short, what happens when the rules [laws] become so nonsensical and convoluted that you can’t help but break them? They have you in the palm of their hand.
(I believe Heinlein wrote: “The government does not want a moral people, because a moral people are a free people; instead it wants a people that is enslaved under the law.”)
>I want to see my police fully equipped and trained and ready to defend me and my neighbors from the bad guys.
Agreed. However, myself and the neighbors should also be trained...
>You should too.
Yep.
>>What happens when they consider you and your neighbors the bad guys?
>
>That’s not going to happen if we’re not actually bad guys.
One word rebuttal: Kristallnacht.
If you adhere to the concept that "...to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...", then the government doesn't give the populace automatic weapons, armored cars, RPGs and bazooka; the populace gives the government those weapons.
Two more words: Randy Weaver.
That sidesteps the point I’m making.
I’m a little slow tonight ... what’s the point you’re making?
Don't make me laugh.
My larger point is this: if it makes “the people” nervous that a weapon is in the hands of the citizens, then it ought also to make “the people” nervous if that same weapon is in the hands of the police. And vice versa.
This is quite apart from the theory that what weapons we allow the police are up to we, the people.
That should be true, but increasingly it is not.
>Two more words: Randy Weaver.
Indeed; from Wikipedia:
“Weaver’s failure to appear in court to answer these charges; he was served with court papers that incorrectly identified the date for his appearance.”
Was the Judge, the secretary (who typed it) held accountable here?
Were the agents that murdered his wife held accountable?
Was the ATF held accountable for its entrapment scheme?
Was the director of that operation held accountable for illegally authorizing the shots fired?
No, the Government is NOT your friend.
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