Posted on 05/07/2015 6:41:30 AM PDT by shortstop
When you recognize what, you need to ask why.
It’s called situational assessment.
What’s going on, and why is it going on?
Like right now, in America, with the police.
What’s going on, and why is it going on?
What’s going on is that there is a concerted effort to defame and denounce local police. The president said this week that, across the country, men of color are treated differently, more harshly, by the police.
He offered no data, no balance, no facts.
Just the broadside indictment that all American cops are racists.
Protest after protest, often with veteran progressive activists in command, have denounced and condemned the police. It is asserted as an unassailable fact that the police are racist, over-armed and disrespectful of people and their rights.
None of it is backed up with facts, or anything other than a string of undocumented anecdotal accounts that sound like folklore.
Fingers point at Ferguson, where three investigations showed that the officer did nothing but defend himself against a violent attack. Fingers point at Baltimore where everything boils down to a prisoner not having his seatbelt on.
And speaking of Baltimore, it is a city with a 2-to-1 black majority, a black mayor and city council, a black police chief and a black prosecuting attorney, and a 43-percent black police force, and yesterday they announced that they were partnering with the Justice Department to root out anti-black practices.
All stemming from an incident in which three of the six officers charged are black.
The claim of racism has become so powerful that it is made and accepted as fact in the absence of evidence or logic.
That’s the what.
There is a concerted effort to damage public perception of local police, and to paint the profession of American law enforcement as a tool of anti-black racism.
So what’s the why?
Here’s my theory.
In an administration that is intensely focused on the accumulation of federal power, and under a president who promised a federal domestic security force to rival the Defense Department in both personnel and budget, I think the goal is to lay the foundation for turning traditional law enforcement over to federal police.
In each of the flare ups of late, the federal government has presented itself as the solution – even though it is clear the speeches and statements of senior federal officials fanned if not sparked the flames of conflict.
The federal government has presented itself as the only protection blacks and Latinos have against racist cops.
The federal government is doing everything it can to create the perception of a problem, and to simultaneously present itself as the solution to the problem.
To me, that smells like a power grab.
And the government can’t take to itself more power without taking from you more rights.
More specifically, increased policing powers in the hands of the federal government makes those police agencies less accountable to the people. It also increases the potential, in the worst of circumstances, of despotic or oppressive actions.
Local police departments, controlled by local chiefs and sheriffs – and the voters to whom they or their bosses have to answer – are not threats to civil rights, they are protectors of civil rights.
The federal government has never really explained its need for something approaching a half a billion handgun bullets that could only be used for domestic policing. Why is it that agencies like the Department of Interior and the Bureau of Land Management, as well as the Department of Agriculture, have heavily armed military-style SWAT teams?
And why is it that the president of the United States would work so hard to destroy public confidence in American law enforcement? Specifically, why would he do so much to assure the alienation of black Americans from the police?
The what is fact – Defaming the police and defining their entire profession as bigotry.
The why is theory – To turn enough Americans against the police to justify a power grab by the federal government.
And that’s no good.
And it’s all based on a lie.
Because as the president and the TV anchors talk about police and community relations, I don’t know what they’re talking about.
My community has great relations with the police. We respect them and they respect us.
And polls show that Americans trust the police more than they trust politicians. Personally, I trust my local cops more than I trust my national president.
What is being whipped up against the police is not logic or fact, it is prejudice and bigotry. And it is being whipped up for a reason.
And that’s what I think we ought to be worried about.
Because the present group of socialists/communists in this
administration want to federalize the police throughout the country!
The older cops in my small town will chat with you and interact, the younger ones watched too much COPS growing up. In a way the police culture brought a lot of the current criticism on themselves and failed to police themselves.
I have relatives who are officers or retired officers and a son who is wanting to become an officer when he is old enough. Based on conversations with my relatives I have told him repeatedly be prepared for some stuff you won’t believe that is shocking to the soul, most in your on the job encounters and sadly some from your fellow officers. I have also drilled into his head, people are citizens, not civilians and they have the same Rights you do, always remember that.
Here’s my conspiracy theory. It will be like Mexico’s federales.
Once local police forces are nationalized officers will be required to transfer far away from where they grew up and have families. It will be much easier to command them to fire upon or arrest innocents when they have no attachment to the location they are guarding. Will it happen? With liberals, yes.
The black activists like this exactly act like Radical Islamists. In those Islamic ran countries all the people are starving and instead of taking the responsibility and saying WE need to change things like the black activists they say others are all responsible for the cr@p they created.
What he did was to put cameras and video recording capabilities into the phones of millions of people whether they wanted the option or not.
This subsequently lead to the collapse of the illusion that law enforcement only did bad things every now and then. YouTube brought about more law enforcement corruption cleanup in opening decade of the twenty first century than the combined efforts of all reformers in the twentieth century.
The race baitors and communist agitators have a firm foundation of actual bad behaviors to work with.
Absolutely true.
Ubiquitous cameras in the hands of everyday folk have made it fairly clear that the "officer friendly" of yesterday is either just gone, or was always mostly a myth.
Whereas before, it was your word against his. Now we have recordings.
My town of 4K once had only one officer. It’s been 20 years since I’ve have any significant contact with LE. I’ll take care of my own problems rather than being stuck with thousands of dollars in taxes so that govt workers can retire at 40. Self sufficiency rather than dependency is my belief..
You’re paying for them anyway. I don’t think there’s a single state that will allow a town to go without some kind of police coverage.
What’s going on is that there is a concerted effort to defame and denounce local police.
Much of it is earned. Not just at the local level, but all levels.
Law enforcement IS THE GOVERNMENT.
Conservatives used to advocate for keeping a close eye on government. Especially unionized government employees.
People need to get to know their local cops. I stood out in the alley the other day and chatted with the Sheriff’s deputy for 20 minutes the other day.
Did he kiss you afterwards?
I agree with posts 1 and 2. Unfortunately the cops are often too much about us vs them. Their reputations have been harmed by publicity of their over-reactions and concern about their safety instead of public safety. We have about 50% too many police. We’d be better off putting the savings to paying down debt. Americans need to be encouraged to take care of themselves and not depend on a police force that will rarely ever be there when needed, except to collect evidence after the fact.
No but he said you probably need a napkin after the service you gave him. I told him I would offer you one as soon as you finish servicing that nice Shabazz fellow.
Nobody knows about it because it doesn’t fit the narrative.
It fits the correct narrative:
All Law Enforcement Agencies are out of control.
Take it up with someone who actually respects you FR friends of Mumia.
Keep your homosexual fantasies to yourself.
Silly Rabbit. So they can be replaced by a unitary national police force. Don't you know how left wing and liberal a single national police force loyal to One Leader at the apex of power actually is, as opposed to those evil, Nazi local police with no centralized locus of absolute national control?
You silly conservatives think that the proper lesson to learn from Adolf Hitler (yimach shemo vezikhro!) is that centralized government, national police, a single ideology, and national legislators reduced to rubber stamps are bad things. Oh how naive you are! No, the proper lesson to learn from Adolf Hitler is that bigotry is bad.
That's it. That is the sum total of the lesson to be learned from Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Forget the bullying, the dictatorship, the international agreements torn to shreds, the lies, the wars of aggression. and mass murder during a period of six years almost unheard of. All of these are morally neutral. See, that's why you conservatives can never understand that all the Communists in all the world throughout all of history will never be as bad as Adolf Hitler. For a parallel to Hitler one has to turn to Archie Bunker . . . and he wasn't even a real person!
The point is not to make sure that no government is ever centralized and totalized to such an extent ever again. The real lesson is to create a centralized, totalized regime that is a mirror reflection of the Third Reich--except that it will be against bigotry.
That's why we liberals must create a totalitarian state that has all power, that permits no opposition, that regulates thought and speech, and that has a single national and perhaps secret "thought police" force. To keep you evil conservatives from doing the same thing. You may say that would be the opposite of everything you stand for, but in our convenient little fantasy world we never hear that argument.
How does one "fight Nazism?" By creating its mirror image, using evil means for a good end. How does one assure that it will never happen again? No, not by making government as small and decentralized as possible. One prevents it for ever happening again by vowing that the enemies of the Left are never allowed to come to power ever again. Outlaw their ideology. Accuse them of doing what one oneself is doing. Destroy reputations, ruin lives, make it impossible to even think a single thought contrary to the perfect anti-Nazi mirror image state. That is how we liberals, the only "real" anti-Nazis, fight Nazism.
True, as the Weather Underground said, we may have to mass murder 25 million people. But look at the important thing.
We won't be bigots about it.
And isn't that really the only thing that matters???
[/sarcasm]
Calm down you two. Your comments are not adding to the discussion and are prohibited (personal attacks).
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