I apologize for my lack of speech...
Now that the bruhaha has started to simmer down after the Police shootings and the shootings of Police, I would like to discuss something that I fear has been ignored.
The Police are being stereotyped by the media and our elitists.
No seriously they are people, and sometimes in a free society they behave like idiots, just like the rest of us behave (sometimes). That behaving like idiots is part and parcel of what go America into the shape it is in today. Someone behave likes an idiot, and gets jailed for it, enough people get caught and laws get passed. Laws today aren't written in a way to promote individual liberty, they are there to promote the power of the state. This is the same process that has been used to demonize gun owners, promote the Feminist agenda and denigrate the traditional bastions of our nation.
"oh surely Ichabob, you don't believe the police are completely not to blame in any of this?" I wouldn't say that. I would say that in any group of people (and I saw a 2008 statistic of 1/2 Million Police in the USA) there are always going to be some bad apples. There are going to be people that want to genuinely help others, and there are others that will behave like little tin gods when they think they can get away with it. We call those kind of people "bully's" and they have always been drawn into roles where they can push their authority.
Another thing,
I fear that the officer worn video cameras his royalness is promoting is just another example of where something done with the intention of doing the "right thing" will suddenly go wrong. I forsee a day soon, when those cameras will be used (in some way) to violate the rights of citizens, will be deleted when convenient, and will be used to blackmail citizens by some portion of police-dom. Say it couldn't happened? Say "You are cracked Crane?" Just a quick search of Google turned out a few issues here recently.
Saratoga Deputy behaving badly, and there is a second article as well.
Nevada Deputy behaving badly.
Not to mention that 50,000 cameras / 500,000 police officers means that this will only cover one in ten policemen on the street. Sure you can say that the 500,000 officers are spread over 14 to 21 shifts per week, and that will cover it. Maybe it will, maybe your math will work better than mine, but do remember the article points out that this requires matching money from the local areas to implement.
Frankly, I have always thought of myself as being pro-police. There have been several incidents over the past few years that have caused me to move from being pro-police to "Wary and Cautious". I am sure you can go and look for examples where police have tried to bully people into illegal searches, faked warrants to searches, and other abrogations of the rights of citizens.
One more thing and then I can quit for the evening, part of the checks and balances worked into our system was the idea of a grand jury. My understanding, and realize I am not a lawyer, is that the grand jury was meant to act as filter to ensure that cases that had a chance of success were passed to the petit (or trial) juries. The idea was that if the prosecutor could show enough evidence to warrant a trial, then the Grand Jury would "true bill" the defendant, if not then "no true bill" would be released. In the case of the Ferguson shooting, my understanding is that the prosecutor and presented evidence intended to exonerate the police shooter. When there are two sets of rules, then the people that don't get the "best" treatment tend to resent the others.
Is that what we have going on here?
