What the hell are cops for, anyway?



Cops are the city's equivalent of Wal Mart security guards. They are glorified armed thugs paid by the Mayor to serve his will, not yours.  They only seem more legitimate than a Wal Mart guard because you have been conditioned to think they are more offical and somehow have more authority.  You have also been conditioned to believe they serve you.  That's also a load of hogwash.  You are far more likely to be harassed by the cops than to be protected from assault, robbery, rape, or murder.  In case after case, the supreme court has confirmed that the police have no obligation to protect you.  If they did, whenever you were victimized by crime, you could sue them for failure to perform on their obligation.

Cops use this illusion of extra legitimacy to get away with the same crap ordinary gangsters do.  They lie, cheat, steal, frame innocent people, extort, harass, and bully people, and even kill them under color of "law."  On the odd occasion that they find themselves in court, the jury invariably acquits them as they did the four New York City cops who gunned down unarmed, innocent Amadou Diallo.

I need not go into the laundry list of police abuse.  If you've read this far, you already know all about them.  I hereby propose some reforms, based on the assumption that cops are ordinary human beings, with no more authority or brains than an armed Jehovah's Witness patrolling your neighborhood enforcing the commandments of his religious cult.  

 

My Five Police Reforms:

                                   

1)  Armed cops are at least as dangerous to the community as any other bozo with an average IQ of 105 and a gun.  More so, in fact, since they think they have a right to draw their hand cannons against people in cases other than self-defense.  When the law is wrong, such as "Thou shalt not possess a taboo plant leaf," the cop is wrong to enforce it.  In such a case, resisting arrest would be self-defense, and the arrest itself is the assault.  The victim would be morally justified to defend himself from the assailant in that case.  Cops should only use a gun in cases where the rest of us also have a right to use one.

In case you're worried that the cops would be defenseless, don't be.  The smart ones (the ones who should have guns) will arm themselves despite the law, just as any other intelligent human being would if he thought it necessary for self-defense.  The dumb ones will obey the law, and be weeded out of the gene pool by normal evolutionary forces.

Armed cops are at high risk of being killed with their own guns: "25% of officers killed are killed with their own weapon."  Taking their guns away would help save their lives.

 

2)   Ban High Speed Pursuits

High speed pursuits are simply insane.  If it is such a threat to the community for just one jackass to be speeding down the street, how is it an improvement to add several more cars careening after it, inducing a sense of desperation in the driver of the original vehicle?

Why the hell do we have license plates, anyway? To identify the owner.  With computers, how long would it take to get the motor vehicle department to call the owner and find out if the car is stolen or not? If it is, so what? The owner should have insurance if he has a car worth stealing.  Is it really worth risking the lives of innocent bystanders to chase a car thief -- who will probably be out on bail, beat the rap, and even if he doesn't will most likely be out again in a year or two? If it isn't stolen, you know where the guy lives -- just catch his ass at home!

 

3)   Apply Higher Penalties For Police Wrongdoing

I always get this from authoritarians: "Cops are trained to use guns and catch bad guys.  That's why they should be left do it, instead of us taking the law into our own hands!" Well, good. They ought to be held to a higher standard, then. Instead of letting them off the hook for things like killing the wrong guy in a bungled drug bust (which wouldn't have happened to begin with if the cops were enforcing the right thing rather than what the "law" says), they should lose the presumption of innocence.  After all, most of us don't assume we need to go around armed all the time.  Cops strap on a gun intending to look for trouble.  They cannot claim innocence when they find it.

Come to think of it, why are they always whining about cops getting killed in line of duty? They knew the job was dangerous when they took it.  It's part of the macho-man mystique of being a cop, for chrissake.  You can't go out looking for trouble (especially when being paid to do it) and then act all hurt and demand sympathy when you get it.

Since they are trained in the proper procedures for dealing with dangerous situations, they ought to be punished even more harshly than an average joe would be under similar situations.  If a Bernie Goetz should get jail time for using a gun in self-defense, cops ought to at least get double the punishment for the same thing. After all, they have superior training in how to protect the rights of everyone, including the bad guys who might be attacking them.

 

4)   Impose Annual Community Review

Give citizens a say in who the bad cops are.  When a cop misbehaves, a citizen should be able to report him with confidence that the bad apple will be removed from the force.  Once a year, each officer's file would be checked to see if he has any complaints lodged against him.  If he does, can his ass. Some will say that's not fair, because there will always be a disgruntled citizen who retaliates out of anger.  Okay, give the offending officer one more chance -- but that's it.

 

5)   Fund Cops with Contributions

Finally, the police should be paid with voluntary contributions of the people in the community.  It's a conflict of interest to have the same cops who would arrest people for tax offenses -- of which they are innocent until proven guilty, mind you -- be paid by the tax code they are enforcing.  That would go a long way toward the cops actually serving the community, rather than the silly whims of politicians.

--   JackneySneeb  <---click to email your reply