And on the same note as the previous post...

EVERYONE HATES THE COPS, by Ted Rall

I admit it: I don't like cops. I like the idea of cops. The specific people who actually are cops are the problem. My theory is that cops should be drafted, not recruited. After all, the kind of person who would want to become a police officer is precisely the kind of person who should not be allowed to work as one. But I didn't start out harboring this prejudice. It resulted from dozens of unpleasant interactions with law enforcement.

I disagree with the statement in the second sentence: I hate the idea of cops. I think that cops are the worst invention of western society. The very presence of cops gives the powers that be the excuse to say things like 'it is not only unnecessary for you to be empowered to defend yourself, but in the name of social order it is actually forbidden.' That is immoral, and terribly damaging. Adult men and women have been collectively de-clawed, leaving them utterly at the mercy of both legal and extra-legal predators, and it has not worked out well for them. The fourth sentence, that cops should be drafted rather than recruited: I see where he's going with it but strongly disagree. Conscription is no different than chattel slavery, and it shouldn't even happen to cops. I've got no problem with anything else there.

Race has long been a classic predictor of attitudes toward the police. But high-profile cases of police brutality, coupled with over-the-top security measures taken since 9/11 that targeted whites as well as blacks, have helped bring the races together in their contempt for the police. In 1969, the Harris poll found that only 19 percent of whites thought cops discriminated against African-Americans. Now 54 percent of whites think so.

This may be, and if so it's the one positive thing to come from the police-state laws that have advanced so appallingly since 9/11. The most important myth that needs to be busted in this society is that the cop is your friend. The cop is not your friend, any more than the sheepdog is friend to the sheep. The sheepdog works for nobody but the shepherd, who is most certainly no friend to the sheep.

If sheep ever figure out where lambchops come from, god help the shepherd. Can't happen soon enough.