Stop Supporting the Cops!

A few years ago I was working as a contract software developer at a big insurance company in Atlanta when a young intern came running in, all excited. He was laughing out loud as he told us "someone has blown up a bunch of BATF in Oklahoma!" Cheers broke out and people came rushing out of their cubes to chatter and look for more information. As the facts of the bombing became clear, the cheering died out immediately. But I sat there dumbfounded. Run of the mill Americans had just cheered because they had thought government cops had been blown away.

However, let the conversation turn to the local police and conservatives invariably revert to bumper sticker platitudes.

So a whole lot of Americans share my contempt for the government cops. But what about the police state in general? The militarized police forces of large cities are the firepower equivalent of some national armies. Even rural towns boast their own SWAT teams these days.

Of course in Atlanta we understand that the APD is a joke – highly politicized and under the thumb of a corrupt bunch of politicians in a town where politically correct means having a caring, black female as chief of police. So of course we love our local, suburban cops. Maybe we should – God knows we want to. But aren't they breaking down people's doors and confiscating their property over ridiculous drug offenses? Don't they set up drunk driving road blocks in the most conscious violation of the rights of free men? Yeah, they do all that. But they are our neighbors. One of them gave my kid a ride to church in his patrol car after the boy's truck broke down. It's hard to dislike these guys and frankly I don't.

We must however, remember the big picture. That same son went riding around the other night in a very fancy SUV that his friend's dad had picked up at an auction. That's right, it was confiscated by the forces of law and order.

Who changed the American constitution to allow government to confiscate our private property? Is not private ownership of property the very linchpin of personal freedom?

So what is it with conservatives? This knee jerk response to policemen (and schoolteachers – but another time for that one!) can be fatal to the health of your country. We should be speaking out against these abuses, not calling for more of the same. Very smart and committed journalists like Charley Reese and Jon Dougherty turn into something very far from what their usual work suggests that they are, when they speak of police. The latter is all for the drug war, despite his many columns exposing the nation's leaders as unspeakably corrupt. Helloooo! Who do you think, fellows, is in command of this intolerable drug war? And who do you think is prosecuting it?

It cannot be forgotten that some of this people involved in drugs are very dangerous criminals, armed to the teeth. It makes one think of prohibition. You can keep your shoes on while you count the folks who've been shot over bootleg liquor lately but the streets were pretty hectic there for a while.

Perhaps it's time to address this major flaw in conservative / libertarian rhetoric. There is always this obligatory homage to the police – yeah, the guys who will be confiscating your firearms in California. The folks in the macho drag SWAT get ups who kick in people's doors and stick automatic weapons in kid's faces. The drug warriors…The guys who regularly "put it all on the line" for us. Right….

Now I say to you, stop supporting the cops! They shoot people over this drug war nonsense but didn't have the guts to go in at Columbine. They stood around "minimizing police casualties." They routinely obey un-constitutional and / or immoral orders. For which we hung rather a lot of Germans I seem to recall. They have made it clear that they work for the politicians not the people.

Remember Seattle? Who were they "protecting" there. Certainly not the shop owners, as left-anarchists ran wild trashing what they would. No, the cops were the folks protecting the WTO, and making sure the shop owners did not use guns to protect their own property. Was it not LAPD who stood around with their thumbs in their collective asses while rioters tore east LA apart? The only people who had a chance were the Koreans who had armed themselves.

Even the liberals in Wilshire and Beverly Hills made a sudden run on the gun stores after seeing how useless the police were in defending citizens. But the gun stores had been closed by the police…. To this day I have one thing to say to Darryl Gates, the conservative icon: "Kiss my ass!"

We are seeing some encouraging signs, such as the Arizona sheriff who filed suit against the Brady Bill. We all know cops personally who are quite decent folks dealing with a rough job. Well – I say to you if your friend is caught in a sin, and you rescue him, great will be your reward. You certainly wouldn't offer an alcoholic a drink would you? Then stop supporting this fascist war on drugs!

Recently yet another man was killed in New York as half assed cops played cowboys and drug dealers. This is not worth a single human life. If you are worried about your kids using dope – then give them up for adoption or start doing your job as parents. Pull down those ridiculous public schools or let them whither away from lack of use. Your kid's dope problem is not my problem, pal. Spend some time with u2018em, take u2018em to church!

Speaking of which – churches are major offenders in the drug war charade. The recent assaults on freedom of religion are a natural offshoot of the decline of constitutional freedoms brought about by the drug war. So don't pat yourselves on the back too hard, fellow Christians. You should be wearing sackcloth and ashes! While you are preaching politics in your pulpits you should be preaching sound Biblical doctrine which would arm the kids with the only weapon that matters in these cultural wars, Biblical Truth.

So what is a decent cop to do? They are all fully aware that a vast majority of the crime is done by minorities. Yet we have this totalitarian double speak that condemns racial profiling as a heinous and career busting offense.As our wonderful wolf in sheep's clothing Christine Todd Whitman proved in her fascist republic of New Jersey – firing a head cop for speaking the truth. Thus, the police are apt to be a little bit schizoid these days. How helpful to see fish wrappers like the New York Times stirring up racial hatred and then acting all innocent and astounded when there are racial incidents? Is anybody sane out there?

Where do we recruit police officers? From the military! And what is happening in our military? Huge amounts of your money are going to provide palatial settings for the perfumed princes of the higher command who are willing to kiss up to the Clintons and share in the bounty. That's why we have a fighting force that is a joke. Gender tolerance, diversity, and stress chits have turned the military into dysfunctional organization. So our cops come to us from a completely insane institution in the first place, where sycophantic obedience to greedy, power hungry and immoral wretches is the norm.

And now they are taking our guns. Who do you think will be doing that? Hint – it ain't the tooth fairy. The fascist state will reign supreme – the real criminals exposed at last. Us – the law abiding, tax paying Americans who are the biggest suckers in the world… The Americans who thought that they lived under a fairly good constitution and now are learning that "I love Big Brother" means always having to say you're sorry.

Who will protect us? We who are about to be disarmed? Why – the same fine fellows who took our guns. And let east LA burn. So I'm sure the right-wing pundits will soon be calling for more cops and more cops and more cops. You can bet that Clinton/Bush and their power mad cohorts will be more than glad to oblige. Be careful, folks, what you wish for.

I call on you decent policemen out there, to refuse to obey unlawful orders. You too, are under the constitution. Just say no, to fascism. You are the men for the job. We will support you. We CAN take our country back.

I want my country back. I have not moved. The government moved. We are governed by totalitarian extremists. And we allowed it to happen. Cold wars and drug wars provided an excuse, and we willingly collaborated with our jailers.. We forgot that "get tough on crime" just might have repercussions. We point guns at our own people for smoking pot, and lock them away, while countenancing treason, murder and rape among those who rule over us, as if these crimes hardly mattered. So the jails are full, but we can't walk our streets. The only answer of course, is to disarm the law abiding folks.

"But surely," we say, "That makes no sense!" I submit to you that they know just what they are doing.. It's so obvious that only a moron, or public school graduate (post 1980) could miss it. And it makes sense to those who hate freedom.

We are thinking like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on this one. Doesn't the government have enough power? Aren't the cops shooting enough people? Isn't two million prison inmates enough? Particularly since our jails have become unspeakable bastions of violence and sexual perversion?

In Rhodesia, during the terror war, the police in the cities were unarmed. Only the bush units carried weapons. Yet those bad boys of the BSAP spoke with real authority. The feeling they engendered in me, was not the fear that all this macho militarized Waco police state mess fosters, but a much finer reaction. It was called respect.

One night six of us were cruising into town for some fun and got busted for driving on the wrong side of the road (sometimes we forgot – that left side of the road stuff is hard to get used to.) We were all armed to the teeth and only the cop lacked a weapon. We sat there like guilty schoolboys while he tore a slice of hide off us. And then told us to get moving, drive properly and try to have some "bloody fun without breaking any laws!" Over there, it was very hard to get locked up; laws were few. But if you hurt somebody you swung for it. Period. It worked really well. It could work here, but it would take a 180 degree turn culturally. Because we'd have to acknowledge the difference between right and wrong. For some reason, we refuse to do that. The price is getting higher and higher.

Mr. Peirce fought with the Rhodesian freedom fighters (the Ian Smith side, of course).