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http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2010/02/choose-this-day-whom-you-will-serve.html
Choose this day whom you will serve.: An Open Letter to American Law Enforcement.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. -- William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming.
Gentlemen and ladies of American Law Enforcement,
There is a growing perception among many Americans that we are headed for one of those periodic moments in our history when our reactions to events will redefine who we are as a people, where we are going as a country and who gets to call the shots when we get there -- what George H.W. Bush called that vision thing. This is happening in the middle of unprecedented external and internal stresses on our social order, the results of which you see daily on the streets.
It is going to get worse.
Odds are, it is going to get MUCH worse before it gets better.
IF it gets better any time soon, which I doubt.
And so, ladies and gentlemen of American law enforcement, the prudent among you should be considering this question now, rather than later: What am I going to do when we get to much worse?
Consider first where we are.
The Justice Department's National Gang Intelligence Center estimated last year that there were over a million hard-core gang members in this country who were responsible for over 80% of the crimes. Other experts have suggested that when you add in the gangs extended families and wannabes the number is closer to between five and ten million. As unemployment has increased, their numbers have likewise swelled.
But the gangs, as bad as they are and as great a threat as they pose to public order, are nothing compared to the larger problem, and that is this.
Respect for duly constituted authority and social trust are essential ingredients of civilization. These elements represent the basic glue of society.
Respect for duly constituted authority is, as every cop knows, at an all-time low. There are two general reasons for this, one systemic and the other so personal that if you look yourselves honestly in the mirror you can see it.
Systemically, duly constituted authority derives its legitimacy from the founding documents of our country, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and from the Founders concepts of the rule of law. These have all been under attack for a hundred years or more by both corrupt political parties and their union and business familiars. The Constitution has become for some a joke and for others an inconvenient speed bump on the road to tyranny. As long as this degradation of the legitimacy of our political and legal system was perceived by only a narrow portion of the population, it was manageable in a societal sense. This is no longer true.
When a president and Congress robs one set of people to enrich their cronies, when they violate the settled rule of law regarding bankruptcy to stiff secured creditors in the case of General Motors while rewarding self-anointed unsecured creditors -- their political allies, the auto unions -- the rest of the population cannot fail but conclude that we are no longer under the rule of law, but the rule of men, which is to say, the law of the jungle. Or, put another way, they -- the authorities -- can do anything that the citizenry cant or wont stop them from doing. This is the societal Catch 22 we are now in (and have been for a while) that I call Waco Rules.
Other cases such as that of David Olofson, a veteran and marksmanship instructor and family man who was railroaded by the ATF on an automatic weapons charge when his semi-automatic AR-15 malfunctioned (and he was chosen for prosecution simply because the ATF did not care for his low opinion of them), have convinced many that a fair trial is no longer possible in federal court if an agency decides to deal with them. And if we are no longer guaranteed a fair trial in the federal court system, then if we are innocent and decide that we do not wish to play drop the soap with either the Aryan or Muslim Brotherhoods, our only guarantee is the right of an unfair gunfight when the ATF comes calling.
And remember that Olofson is merely one example of federal misadventure. There are many others, as there are plenty of similar cases in local and state jurisdictions. When the law-abiding rightfully no longer trust the law enforcers and begin to view them as a class of criminals merely acting under color of law, anarchy is not far away.
Yet, you will say, dont blame me, I enforce the law, I dont make it. True, but insufficient as an excuse, and here we get down to that look in the mirror.
My friend, fellow gun rights blogger and National Examiner columnist David Codrea over at WaronGuns has a description for feral cops. He calls them the Only Ones. His daily blog is filled to overflowing with example of rogue cops, their partners who never rein them in and the prosecutors and judges who find reasons to go easy on even the most heinous of criminals with badges. You know who Im talking about. If you say there are none of these currently operating or in the making within your department then you are either lying or uninterested in seeing the truth, which amounts to the same thing.
Everyone knows what happens to honest cops who rat out their uniformed criminal associates. They are hounded, despised, disciplined and shunned -- and thats on a good day. Can you blame many of us who pay attention to such law enforcement corruption for concluding that you may merely be a member of an official gang as opposed to a freelance one? Such dereliction of duty begs the question: If your excuse is that you dont make the law, you just enforce it, and then you dont enforce it upon yourselves, why should we be paying tax dollars to support official law breaking?
There is another image ... continue:
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2010/02/choose-this-day-whom-you-will-serve.html
Choose this day whom you will serve.: An Open Letter to American Law Enforcement.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. -- William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming.
Gentlemen and ladies of American Law Enforcement,
There is a growing perception among many Americans that we are headed for one of those periodic moments in our history when our reactions to events will redefine who we are as a people, where we are going as a country and who gets to call the shots when we get there -- what George H.W. Bush called that vision thing. This is happening in the middle of unprecedented external and internal stresses on our social order, the results of which you see daily on the streets.
It is going to get worse.
Odds are, it is going to get MUCH worse before it gets better.
IF it gets better any time soon, which I doubt.
And so, ladies and gentlemen of American law enforcement, the prudent among you should be considering this question now, rather than later: What am I going to do when we get to much worse?
Consider first where we are.
The Justice Department's National Gang Intelligence Center estimated last year that there were over a million hard-core gang members in this country who were responsible for over 80% of the crimes. Other experts have suggested that when you add in the gangs extended families and wannabes the number is closer to between five and ten million. As unemployment has increased, their numbers have likewise swelled.
But the gangs, as bad as they are and as great a threat as they pose to public order, are nothing compared to the larger problem, and that is this.
Respect for duly constituted authority and social trust are essential ingredients of civilization. These elements represent the basic glue of society.
Respect for duly constituted authority is, as every cop knows, at an all-time low. There are two general reasons for this, one systemic and the other so personal that if you look yourselves honestly in the mirror you can see it.
Systemically, duly constituted authority derives its legitimacy from the founding documents of our country, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and from the Founders concepts of the rule of law. These have all been under attack for a hundred years or more by both corrupt political parties and their union and business familiars. The Constitution has become for some a joke and for others an inconvenient speed bump on the road to tyranny. As long as this degradation of the legitimacy of our political and legal system was perceived by only a narrow portion of the population, it was manageable in a societal sense. This is no longer true.
When a president and Congress robs one set of people to enrich their cronies, when they violate the settled rule of law regarding bankruptcy to stiff secured creditors in the case of General Motors while rewarding self-anointed unsecured creditors -- their political allies, the auto unions -- the rest of the population cannot fail but conclude that we are no longer under the rule of law, but the rule of men, which is to say, the law of the jungle. Or, put another way, they -- the authorities -- can do anything that the citizenry cant or wont stop them from doing. This is the societal Catch 22 we are now in (and have been for a while) that I call Waco Rules.
Other cases such as that of David Olofson, a veteran and marksmanship instructor and family man who was railroaded by the ATF on an automatic weapons charge when his semi-automatic AR-15 malfunctioned (and he was chosen for prosecution simply because the ATF did not care for his low opinion of them), have convinced many that a fair trial is no longer possible in federal court if an agency decides to deal with them. And if we are no longer guaranteed a fair trial in the federal court system, then if we are innocent and decide that we do not wish to play drop the soap with either the Aryan or Muslim Brotherhoods, our only guarantee is the right of an unfair gunfight when the ATF comes calling.
And remember that Olofson is merely one example of federal misadventure. There are many others, as there are plenty of similar cases in local and state jurisdictions. When the law-abiding rightfully no longer trust the law enforcers and begin to view them as a class of criminals merely acting under color of law, anarchy is not far away.
Yet, you will say, dont blame me, I enforce the law, I dont make it. True, but insufficient as an excuse, and here we get down to that look in the mirror.
My friend, fellow gun rights blogger and National Examiner columnist David Codrea over at WaronGuns has a description for feral cops. He calls them the Only Ones. His daily blog is filled to overflowing with example of rogue cops, their partners who never rein them in and the prosecutors and judges who find reasons to go easy on even the most heinous of criminals with badges. You know who Im talking about. If you say there are none of these currently operating or in the making within your department then you are either lying or uninterested in seeing the truth, which amounts to the same thing.
Everyone knows what happens to honest cops who rat out their uniformed criminal associates. They are hounded, despised, disciplined and shunned -- and thats on a good day. Can you blame many of us who pay attention to such law enforcement corruption for concluding that you may merely be a member of an official gang as opposed to a freelance one? Such dereliction of duty begs the question: If your excuse is that you dont make the law, you just enforce it, and then you dont enforce it upon yourselves, why should we be paying tax dollars to support official law breaking?
There is another image ... continue:
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2010/02/choose-this-day-whom-you-will-serve.html
