Gangsters in Blue

If you’ve been following this story then you know just how frightening this passage is:

A jury verdict that cleared a police officer in the drug-raid shooting death of an unarmed woman will allow other officers to do their job without hesitation, police union officials said.

Because, clearly, unloading a hailstorm of bullets into a closed bedroom door in a house you know ahead of time has a family with children present is not something about which you should have the slightest hesitation whatsoever. And hesitation (in other words taking a moment to think about what you’re doing) is something that cops have been told for years gets them killed; therefore, end of story, no possible competing interests worthy of consideration from a public policy perspective at all, period. Don’t worry about that, officer; it’s just a flesh wound, and you’re just doing your job.

If only we understood the unique, existential dilemma of police officers, doing a difficult, dangerous job day in and day out with so little appreciation! Why can’t the pussified public suck it up and understand that officers are professionals who are trained to do, well, whatever they feel like doing at any particular moment, which is by definition “professional” and “heroic” and goddamnit who are you to question them, anyway? And we can’t have any breaks in the thin blue line, so any officers who might disagree with Lima’s professional law enforcement standards will dutifully shut up and let the press frame the entire profession’s reaction to the verdict as “cheering”.

I’ll say it again: if the only way you can do your job safely is by endangering others, don’t act like you’re doing the rest of us any favors. If you’re going to frame this issue in a way that pits cops against citizens, don’t be surprised when you lose public support.

I think that Obama’s recent statements about poor people clinging to guns and God are being blown out of proportion. Certainly there’s a sense in which oppressed people of any sort tend to fall back on tradition; firearms and religion are our traditions. But it’s not that I think Obama is, on the whole, correct; it’s just that he isn’t out of line with the elite opinion of his class: the politicians. It’s unfair to criticize him for speaking an opinion all his adversaries hold.

But it’s not unfair to criticize him for having a contemptible, elite opinion that looks down on popular sovereignty, and John Médaille does an excellent job. Though I’m not Catholic or a member of any organized religion, I think those paths to God are certainly valid - they’re not themselves good or bad (they are, however, human institutions which must be approached with the same discretion and self-knowledge that any important activity requires). And even if they weren’t, I’d still defend the freedom of people to follow them.

But he absolutely nails the gun issue:

As for guns, we cling to them for another reason, a reason that his little to do with the arguments about the second amendment, arguments which few of us really understand, least of all myself. No, we cling to them precisely because the know-it-alls tell us not to. We live in an age when “experts” give us no end of good advice on subjects that are none of their business, and when each new day brings new headlines about what we should or should not be doing. Be it cholesterol or sex, God or guns, children or politics, there are endless experts to tell us what we are doing wrong. These professional naggers really have our best interests at heart, and the more so the more removed they are from us.

…

The real reason we cling to guns is that they are ours. And even more, they were our fathers. Ownership of guns is something that distinguished the New World from the Old. In the decadent aristocracies of Europe, guns were largely for the landowners, and “poaching” was punishable by flogging or worse. In the New World, every frontiersman had a gun, and it was an essential part of feeding his family and declaring his liberty. We no longer need to feed our families by hunting, but we still need to assert our liberty, and especially our liberty from the army of experts who claim to know what is best for us.

I hope he’ll forgive the selective quote; the whole post is enlightened, but this was just such a great statement on an issue I hold dear. As for whether or not we’re “bitter”, come on: it’s not just the white rural poor.

Martial law just gets us into a whole constitutional debate that none of us want to have. Far easier to simply give your law enforcement personnel military vehicles, military outfits, military weapons, and a military mandate. After all, if they scare, rough up, or hurt the population a bit, it’s a small price to pay for officer safety. You can have the benefits of an occupation force with none of the pesky insurgent resistance.</p

The only price is our way of life. Oh, I know that’s what we’ve spent the last century and a half fighting wars and sacrificing countless lives to protect. But, really, wouldn’t you rather your own government occupy you militarily than some other government? I think the choice is clear.

The photo is from the raid on the Texas polygamist sect. Hat tip to Radley Balko.

A very well presented summary of the ways in which the U.S. government is taking the steps other totalitarian governments have throughout history.

What is happening right now is a corporate state conspiracy, pure and simple. Whatever that means to you, be prepared to respond to it when it crosses whatever threshold of human dignity you’ve decided upon.

Radley Balko has just posted what I think is the most moving essay yet on the Cory Maye case and the drug war in general (if you think it’s worth sharing, digg it). Getting beyond the legalities, moral appeals, and outrage, Balko simply recounts how the drug war cost a good cop his life and a great father his family and freedom. When you feel like the cards are stacked against any chance of decency in this world, read this post and dig deep down for the strength, not simply to vote for the right politicians and see the right policies enacted, but to make your neighborhood a better, safer, more humane place.

If you’re looking for the other side of the story, check out Nick Napolitano’s report at Los Angeles IndyMedia:

Rampart division officers harass and illegally search and detain a peaceful protestor for 15 minutes because the protestor was documenting the march and had decided to take a photograph of the wrong officers. The protestor is released when a crowd starts to gather and take pictures of the incident. (Please note that event #1 occurred when all was calm and peaceful and the march was slowly winding its way into MacArthur Park)

(Approximately 30 minutes after the first event) Officers start to push a protestor at the corner of Wilshire & Parkview. This results in the Los Angeles chapter of Copwatch quickly moving into action to document the incident. A crowd quickly gathers and the street starts to fill up with people of all ages and backgrounds. A protestor was shown the true force of a police baton in blunt force trauma to the head. Organizers start to plead with people to leave the street for fear that the officers will declare this an illegal assembly because of people being in the street. People remain in the street simply because they are trying to protect those that they love and care for. LAPD was now fully mobilizing at this point getting riot gear ready and forming a defensive block. Bear in mind; this all started with LAPD attacking peaceful protestors.

LAPD Chief Bratton called some of the responses “inappropriate”, even though officers in full riot armor were “provoked” by “anarchists” (read: people wearing bandanas) throwing plastic water bottles. I guess assault and battery, reckless endangerment, and other unlawful actions get different names when the police engage in them for the slightest provocations.

Alexander Cockburn at Counterpunch fucking nails it - isn’t he on “teh Left”?

The Virginia Tech terrible massacre should prompt a radical review of the utility of SWAT teams which now infest almost every community in America. Each time there’s a hostage taking or a mass murderer on the rampage, one sees the same familiar sight: overweight SWAT men, doubled up under the weight of their costly artillery, lumbering along in their body armor and then hiding behind trees or cars or walls while the killer goes about his business. SWAT teams perform most efficiently when shooting down unarmed street people menacing them with cellphones.

The answer is to disband SWAT teams and kindred military units, and return to the idea of voluntary posses or militias: a speedy assembly of citizen volunteers with their own weapons. Such a body at Columbine or Virginia Tech might have saved many lifes. In other words: make the Second Amendment live up to its promise.

In 2005 I listened to some earnest ACLU type at a meeting in Garberville, an hour from where I live, deliver a judicious speech about Taser guns–a new toy for the cops, whereby a person can be zapped with 50,000 volts. The ACLU guy was torn. On the one hand, he reasoned that the Taser — being purportedly, though not actually non-lethal — is better than a 12-gauge or high powered rifle. On the other hand, there is the possibility of “improper use”. His answer: more regulation. He didn’t entertain the actual course of events, namely that Tasers have now been added to the means whereby the police can kill or terrorize people and that regulation will be zero.

The left complain about SWAT teams, but doesn’t see that the progressives bear a lot of responsibility for their rise. If you confer the task of social invigilation and protection to professional janissaries–cops — and deny the right of self and social protection to ordinary citizens, you end up with crews of over-armed thugs running amok under official license, terrorizing the disarmed citizens. In the end you have the whole place run by the Army or the federalized National Guard, as is increasingly evident now with the overturning of the Posse Comitatus laws forbidding any role for the military in domestic law enforcement.

I cannot tell you how happy I am seeing somebody on the left identify progressivism as part of the problem. The central task in the evolution of leftism in this country, now, is to rid itself of the vestiges of progressive thought - managerialism, professionalism, large-scale organization as an end in itself - and get back to its decentralized, populist roots.

Now, if we can just get some left wing militias in this country, we’ll be all set.

It occurs to me while reviewing the endless electronic reflection on the VT incident that the gun control crowd and their sympathizers don’t offer any rational, realistic arguments against allowing students to carry on campus. I have yet to see one person actually volunteer a concrete reason why it should be disallowed. What we get instead are appeals to emotion based on perceived feelings of vulnerability.

From an otherwise decent article by Lila Rajiva:

However much we may support the second amendment, do we really want students packing heat in their book bags, as filled with alcohol, drugs and partying as most campuses are today?

From a VT administrator:

The writer would have us believe that a university campus, with tens of thousands of young people, is safer with everyone packing heat. Imagine the continual fear of students in that scenario. We’ve seen that fear here, and we don’t want to see it again.

From a journalist:

Moreover, guns on campuses could turn smaller confrontations into major incidents. As drinking is a large part of university social life, a common drunken brawl could escalate into a deadly duel if firearms were present.

Many students don’t get to hand-pick their roommates in residence; imagine the discomfort of sharing a small room with a stranger who keeps a gun under his or her pillow.

If there are guns in residence and around campus, violence could spread beyond the university confines and into bars and other nearby places.

What do all of these opinions have in common? Simple: they are examples of disarming people on the grounds of vague fears. We just don’t like the idea of students carrying firearms. Students are unpredictable and potentially irresponsible, and that scares us, so let’s take that idea off the table. Let’s ignore the fact that guns are just as deadly to the bad guys as the good guys, and that shooting a bad guy is one very straightforward and undeniable approach to solving the problem.