"We Didn't Start the Fire"

Horace Vernet's "Barricade rue Soufflot"

Whenever those who seem to have a blanket support
of law enforcement individuals--i.e., disdain for anyone
who questions those in law enforcement--I always ask
myself if they know why they support 'officers of the
law.'

See, the art of knowing thyself is a lost and dying one. And
it seems that self-awareness is another one of those horrid
liberal traits not to be caught dead with, at least in the eyes
of conservatives.

I wonder if people who say "law and order have to be
maintained at all costs" realize that they say this from a
point of privilege. I wonder if they know that, were their
circumstance different, their stiff-upper-lip motif would be
unjustly accused and arbitrarily beaten right out of them.

I know they imagine a world without rules equals a world
of chaos, of anarchy, of blood running in the streets. And
an interruption in the supply line and profits--mustn't forget
that!

So I wonder; Are police supporters and apologists (copologists)
really convinced that the police do no wrong? Or do they simply
enjoy their holier-on-high status and don't want the boat rocked?

Does it make them sleep better to think in black-and-white terms
(literally and metaphorically) of 'good' us versus 'bad' them?

Is it just less stressful to believe that anyone the police pursue or
arrest is obviously guilty? Or do they know the truth and they're
just some slick-ass, two-faced frontin' liars--pretending they're
on the up-and-up with a moral stance while eating their privilege
cake of profiting off the laws they break?

Maybe they're just blindly channeling the 'good boys' and 'good
girls' we were all indoctrinated to be as kids; obedient, compliant,
trusting, and silent.

There's a wide berth between who law enforcement are supposed
to be, in fact who they are purported to be, and who they actually
are. We can keep pretending that theirs is a proud and moral duty
to a higher calling, but the evidence is all around us that this is
sadly no longer the case.

The people of this country are not often lawless for no reason. If
the laws of the land were evenly, justly, and universally applied,
most would be okay with the aftermath of their actions. But that
is not the America we live in.

Laws are arbitrarily upheld, at the whim of the officer(s) on duty.
The people who are watched, pursued, and captured are largely
poor men of color. How you are treated--whether or not you are
arrested for a crime, whether you are prosecuted, how you are then
sentenced--is dependent upon 'race,' income level, who you know,
who your people are, and your perceived importance in the community.

(This is true in small towns and big cities--injustice is all-inclusive.)

When the perceptions, intimations, biases, and personal issues of
those who are in charge of 'dispensing justice' are as lopsided and
commanding as they are, there can be no true justice. We're more
in love with upholding the pretense of a balanced and working
system than we are in attaining true and needed reform.

The duality of our existing society (where those who corruptly take
every advantage of their positions are the very ones determining a
'need' for more fervent crackdown on low-level crimes) is a demon
run amok.

Our President is under fire (again) this week for the release of so
many prisoners being held for minor drug offenses. The practice
this country has had for the last three decades, of ruining lives over
personal use drugs and victimless crimes, is not under the microscope,
however.

Policing has become a means to an end; more arrests means more
money to make more arrests. 'Quotas' should not be a term that is
ever associated with our 'peace keepers.'

In the drawing of a dividing line between 'police supporters' and
supposed 'lawless anarchists,' citizens would be wise to note
that this country has a long history of rebellion against the stringent
rule of those who considered themselves in the right. The truth is not
always what's being crammed down your throat.

It's the grey areas where we are bound to discover resolution. Keeping
things hyperbolically 'black and white' can only lead to revolution.

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