De-Friend the Police: You and I

As I’m sure you know, and I don’t expect it’s any comfort, but the police are the latest in a long line of society’s scapegoats. Hitler had his Jews, the Romans their Christians, etc. America’s principal legal ancestor, England, did not have anything resembling an organized police force until the 1850s and these folks were often characterized by the public as “spies” and the relationship between the police and the “common man” has always been problematic. I’m no psychologist, but today in the US, with the police, we have a scapegoat based upon guilt, fear and convenience. Most folks have cut some corners and carry around some regrets or guilt (real or assumed). We will be found out, will be punished, etc. Justice is more palatable as an objective concept than a subjective one, i.e., applied to others and not ourselves. American fascination with criminals is a more robust component of our culture than our interest in the actual heroes of our culture, e.g. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and for a more modern and truly ironic figure, given the current fashion of violent disorder, Martin Luther King. Media has made a deeper exploration of the lives of Jesse James, Al Capone and Charlie Manson than it has of the previously named figures, so there is a fascination and even a sympathy with these folks for, I suppose, any number of reasons. Society’s ills – who do we blame? Who do we punish? Who can we rely on to make things healthy for all? Much misery is economics based, but there is nowhere to turn there. Politicians are owned and certainly obligated to banks, big business, insurance companies, etc. To these entities, the citizen is a mark and defenseless as an individual. People like Jesse James and Al Capone took it upon themselves to “make things right” on their own terms, and for a limited time, they were able to rub their success in the face of authority. Charlie Manson was like all con artists, a sociopath who built his own society, rejecting and for a while escaping the one around him. And who eventually puts these people down? Law Enforcement, of course. But unlike today, they were supported by government leadership, or at least enough of it to get the job done. So what we have today is just another turn of the screw: people who feel that they have no chance of beating the system are choosing to destroy it in the hope that they will build a better one. This is an illusion, historically proven over and over again. Whatever evolves will always conform to human nature and the seven deadly sins, from which no one and no society has proven immune. Today, as always, people perceive the police as the people who will be sent to enforce the rule of law. However, for many, the dreams of today are not a good job and a happy home, but some grandiose paradise only obtainable by destroying the ones coming between them and their dreams. And who provides the muscle for the bad guys? Law Enforcement of course. Politicians and social con artists who don’t have the power and money they crave have convinced these folks that the dream crushers are solely the police, not the police backed by authority and certainly not their own illusions. The real change today is that “authority” used to include the government, but trust in politicians and their water carriers (behind the scenes bureaucrats) has eroded to a null point. Many people consider the government to be purely malevolent, or at best no factor at all. To disassociate themselves from the role of bad guy dream crusher, politicians (for the most part) have tried to distance themselves from the rule of law and its human component, law enforcement officers. Therefore, scapegoat of convenience, for both the politician and the citizen. The citizen can’t beat the state and the politicians will wait in the weeds to see how it all shakes out. Unfortunately, the only corrective, I think, is that people will need to witness even more destruction until they become so appalled that the perceived cure, socialism/anarchy, will be rejected and its adherents, in one way or another, neutralized. At that point, those who will destroy society will reemerge as the true enemy and the police will, at least as much as it ever has, be regarded as an ally. Your essay is demonstrable of a sad truth, I think: whatever illusion we had about people being more tolerant and looking at “content of character” as being more important than identity, is myth rather than fact. We have had groups benefitting from (and manipulating [human nature in action again] what can be characterized as an enlightened principle and goal, but in point of fact, when the going gets rough, out comes the eternal fear-based hatreds. The irony of those fighting for “justice” and simultaneously seeking a scapegoat is a hypocrisy people are obviously unwilling to face. Confront people with this contradiction or, today, challenge them or present the possibility of challenge and you become the enemy, fit only for annihilation. So with the police, hyped by the media and scamster politicians as the sole challenging force standing between the dreamers and their dreams, you have a scapegoat you can blame and lend justification to all your actions. I remember, in the New York City of the 1960s and ‘70s arguing with SDS and Black Panther folks and even though they may have despised me, at least you could have a discussion with them. Many of these people today will just beat you to death with what they perceive as the tacit and sometimes overt support of politicians, businesses, celebrities and sports figures. Sad and in the end, sad for all. Even them. Eventually, after they have served their purpose, the politicians, celebrities and the media will turn their backs on them and you will have a lot of eternally bewildered frustrated and angry people, which is no way to live.

This was heartbreaking to me. I’ve had a lot of cops in my family over the years. I remember when we admired our police officers and treated them with respect. Yes, some have done some incredibly horrendous things. I’ve been a nurse for umpteen years. There are nurses who’ve done incredibly horrendous things – like murder children. The same can be said for every profession out there. Some people do evil things.

Most cops are decent men and women who are trying to help people. When my mother was dying, one of our cop friends sat in the ICU waiting room with us for hours on end. He would come in before he went on duty and he was come back when he was off duty. He loved a family that was hurting. A few years later, he was murdered in the line of duty, but I’ve heard so many stories about this man. He loved people and his goal in life was to protect and serve. These are the types of officers I’ve known all of my life.

For many years, I watched as the trend become more and more common to hate cops and lump all officers into the same group as the few who’ve done horrid things. It’s appalling.

Thank you for all of your years of service. Many of us still appreciate the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect and serve.

Unhappily prophetic

This is so poignant and sad but also, so true.

Not me! Never, gonna’ happen.