Whenever you don’t give 100% fawning support to cops no matter what they do or say, the cops and their hangers on will accuse you of “hating cops.”
Whenever you don’t run around screaming ACAB and hating on all cops, those who do hate them will accuse you of being a jackboot or a boot licker.
In reality, there is a middle ground. I don’t hate all cops, I hate shitty, cowardly, or crooked cops. Some examples:
- cops who use their positions in order to get away with committing crimes
- cops who take sides and help some criminals break the law while arresting others for the exact same crime
- cops who are cowards, for example- “taking cover” behind soccer moms or hiding when children are being slaughtered just yards away
- cops who abuse their power to bully and harass citizens
- cops who know about other cops behaving like those above, but are either staying silent about it, are actively covering for them or are harassing cops that are brave enough to take a stand. Cops call this “professional courtesy” but most people call it “accessory to a crime” or “witness tampering.”
Each and every one of the above is an example of a “bad cop” and covers about 90% of them. OTOH, that doesn’t mean that I support criminals- quite the opposite. I am opposed to criminals whether or not they wear a uniform and a badge. See, each of the above examples is a crime and if cops want to be “good cops” they can start by policing their own ranks.
To the cop haters who think ACAB and are not needed: There are criminals out there. SOMEONE has to not only catch criminals, but needs to protect the rights of those criminals to due process. If there isn’t such a class of people, you get mob rule, vigilantism, and all of our rights are subject to the lynch mob. In other words, you get social credit scores, along with Twitter and Facebook style justice.
So here is my invitation to people on both sides of the debate: I am inviting one cop supporter and one cop opponent to submit posts for my consideration. I will select one post from each side of the debate for publication on this blog. This is the very first time that I have considered allowing anyone else to write a post for this blog. Explain to me how I am not being fair to your side and how I have it all wrong. Here are the rules:
- Your post must be a minimum of 250 words, maximum of 600 words.
- It cannot contain ads or attempt to sell anything.
- It cannot contain personal attacks against individuals.
- Pay attention to spelling and grammar. If the post is filled with errors, you just look stupid.
- Examples that support your argument look better if you link to your source.
- Your post can’t advocate for committing illegal acts.
- I am the sole judge of what gets published on this blog, but your opinions remain your own, even if you and I disagree. I may suggest edits. If you don’t agree to making those edits, I won’t put words in your mouth. If you refuse those suggested edits, I may decide not to publish your post at all, but I won’t make the edits without your approval.
- All posts submitted remain the property of the LLC that publishes this blog, and that LLC retains all rights to those submissions.
This is your chance to have your say. Prove that I am wrong. If you are cool with those edits, submit your posts by email to divemedic (at) areaocho.com. All submissions are due by Tuesday, September 19 at 11:59 pm. The winners will be picked the following day.
30 Comments
JL · September 15, 2023 at 11:08 am
While you and I may actually agree on more with regards to this issue than we disagree (amazing what a pow wow over coffee can do, geography be damned)…what the hell. I accept your challenge.
However….putting a reasonable argument together in no more than 600 words might be a bit dicey. I guess maybe I’ll have to dumb it down some.
Anonymous · September 15, 2023 at 11:41 am
Even the fictional Andy Griffith character wouldn’t permit you to defend yourself against Barney Fife wrongly threatening you with death. There are exactly zero LEOs who will permit you to defend the liberties guaranteed by the the highest law of the land, the Bill of Rights. Exactly all of them believe government is your master, and gets to say how you are permitted to interact with it. Precisely all of them defend an incorrect relationship of citizen to government.
Anonymous · September 15, 2023 at 12:14 pm
There can be no “consent of the governed”, because in biological reality there exists no living organism TheGoverned that has a brain with which to consent. Instead, there are 350 million humans with independently operating brains who group into teams to make cold and hot war against each other. In the barnyard, one chicken finds a bug and the rest of the chickens chase it to steal the bug out of its beak; human instincts cause most humans to act the same.
In the Leviathan book, Hobbes claims human societies collapse into an orgy of murder if they don’t have a government to be master. All humans, of every background in every location and timeperiod. Ok, then there should be lots of examples in the historical record we can point to, from before humans invented government. What are those examples?
Before we consider what policy to pursue, first let’s reject all the imaginary things which don’t exist.
Noway2 · September 15, 2023 at 5:23 pm
There is no consent of the governed because the terms are mutually exclusive. If you are governed, you did not consent and if you consented then you are not governed.
Plenty of societies had government, but no State and it is the State that is the problem, or rather the enemy per a book by Albert Nock (good, short book by the way). The peoples referred to as Native Americas are one example. They had government, they had laws, waged war, traded, made alliances, dealt with criminals, etc. What they didn’t have was a formal State.
oldvet50 · September 15, 2023 at 12:15 pm
Let me first say that I am an old fart that remembers the police when they were like Adam-12 and not a military force to be reckoned with. I have always thought of the cops as the good guys and do not begrudge their minor infractions of the law. I believe every occupation has its perks and cops have theirs. My wife works at a health facility, so she gets free medical advice at times, and even free prescriptions, if available, for what ails her (samples). People in politics get to invest in things that they know will profit them since they control who will profit (or lose), such as land, business restrictions, etc. The only people that are vilified for getting their perks are the cops that have to deal with worst society has to offer and put themselves in life threatening situations daily. If they do not perform perfectly, they can be killed or prosecuted – such a shitty job. I am glad they exist but I would not take hat job if you paid me 100X what they make.
Divemedic · September 15, 2023 at 12:33 pm
To be clear- are you suggesting that police should get a free pass to break the law as a “perk” of the job?
If that isn’t what you are saying, then what exactly ARE you saying should be a job perk for cops?
Big Ruckus D · September 15, 2023 at 1:44 pm
I suspect my position regarding police pretty much mirrors yours, and I think 90-95% of cops are bad either directly through their own actions, or indirectly by providing cover for the ones who abuse the authority granted to them by dint of being a cop. That leaves 5-10% that aren’t either outright assholes, or routine enablers of assholes. And those 5-10% have to know they are operating within a system that permits and encourages bad behavior by covering for it, so they are weak in ethics and principals as well, even if they personally haven’t (yet) found themselves bending the law, or covering for a colleague who did.
Cops perks (aside from their pensions, and qualified immunity that offloads the cost of their biggest screwups on the taxpayer) are things like getting free coffee and meals at the discretion of certain restaurants and convenience stores (which I don’t really make a stink about) and breaking traffic laws when not being actively dispatched to a call, so they can get to the 7-11 to take a piss a couple of minutes faster than if they had to wait for a red light. That’s BS, and yet I’ve witnessed exactly that sort of scenario multiple times. Then there are those who will steal money, weapons and other property that are “found” in the course of a stop or investigation. Your word against theirs, as usual, so most of time this goes unpunished.That’s another dirty fringe benefit.
The police are never going to have criminals on their side. But their militarization and ever increasing arrogant authoritarian “we can fuck with you because we are the police, bitch” attitude has alienated large swathes of the otherwise law abiding public at large. That is a mistake of their own doing, and the disadvantages – both immediate, and longer term – of putting themselves in that situation cannot be understated.
That so many major police departments now have revealed themselves to be doing their masters bidding through uneven application of the law (defending antifa and BLM scum against being rightfully attacked in self-defense by their intended victims) show they are beholden solely to their paychecks and orders given by whoever signs those checks. The law – no matter how cut and dried – be damned. They won’t follow it to the letter when it imperils their pay and benefits, but will boot stomp the ass of anyone who isn’t a part of a protected class they are under orders to treat with kid gloves.
The police in many locales have outlived their usefulness. Their lack of adequate dealing with actual criminals, and obvious thirst to pick off low hanging fruit and persecute anyone who ends up seeking their own justice against bad guys (since the officially sanctioned system isn’t providing it in any substantive way) simply means that vigilantism is now an assured outcome. It will be slow in coming at first, but the tendency towards that will grow as those victimized (and essentially told to pound sand by the police and courts) will finally reach a breaking point.
Once that is seen to be happening, it becomes a trend, enabling more to rationalize doing so. Especially if known bad guys turn up dead under “mysterious” circumstances, and no one is caught for popping them.
oldvet50 · September 15, 2023 at 2:14 pm
I am talking about MINOR infractions such as 15-20 mph over the limit (not like that jerk near Daytona recently that was doing 90 in a residential area), illegal u-turns, getting parking tickets dismissed, etc. Never things that would harm other citizens like theft, assault, or any felony. Like I said before, they seem to be held to a higher standard as far as job performance goes.
Divemedic · September 15, 2023 at 2:55 pm
So, just the tip, eh?
Skeptic · September 15, 2023 at 10:03 pm
Seems to me that expecting law enforcement to obey basic traffic laws isn’t “holding them to a higher standard,” it’s merely holding them to the SAME standard.
Chris Mallory · September 15, 2023 at 10:07 pm
You do realize in some states, 20mph over the “arbitrarily low” speed limit will cost you your license and up to 1 year in jail for reckless driving? No, if a law is enforced against a citizen, it should apply to the letter to a government employee, especially a cop.
Bad Dancer · September 15, 2023 at 4:35 pm
Former LEO for a small town and part time for surrounding towns when they needed a spot filled. You are not being unfair at all. Bad behavior needs to be called out and corrected. It is frustrating to see a department put up a Toys for Tots or Officer Commendation post on their facebook page while at the same time defending or protecting officers who abuse the community.
Full disclosure I left for several reasons but the final straw was the position on day shift I had been promised in exchange for working nights and filling in missing shifts went to a newly hired black female officer who put a round of buckshot into the cruiser headlights and engine while signing out a vehicle and trying to make the weapon cruiser safe. Her performance was laughable. She was overweight, could not qualify with a weapon, and I am not sure how she ever passed the fitness tests to graduate the academy or during her department in-processing. To my knowledge she was not even disciplined for the incident. I remember being disciplined for wasting city resources for using my department vehicle to take wellfare checks to the grocery store when asked to do wellness checks or taking people to their doctors appointments. To me it made perfect sense. The family cares enough to send the cops to baby sit their at risk relatives but not enough to get them groceries, take them to their appointments, or visit themselves. Well guess what you’re a member of my community and the guardians of the community should help out. Apparently that was wrong.
I have faced unofficial discipline for not writing enough tickets due to the unspoken quota, lack of support when asking for backup after reporting an officer for corruption and physical threats for the same. My family members harassed out of jurisdiction by friends of the officer.
I firmly believed that officers should be held and hold themselves to a higher standard in exchange for the many privilege’s granted us. We can not speed either on duty or off absent responding to a call. Can not break nuisance laws that “everyone breaks” because dollars to donuts the average citizen would not get a pass or assumption of honesty like we do. We can not use our position for personal gain the same way it is wrong for a city hall worker to sell their position for personal gain. When I was a teen working construction my boss was fired on the spot for using the contractors bobcat to do jobs for people in the neighborhood. It wasn’t his gas, wasn’t his engine run time. Made sense to me. So why can an officer hire themselves out as off duty security for a store where they are considered simple rent-a-cops right up until the moment they decide they’re on duty. Department uniform, department weapon, department radio, sometimes even a department car. Personal gain.
Instead we get departments who cover up for their officers against even the most blatant and horrible charges. I knew officers who would trade sex with minors in exchange for not busting them with drugs (one of the ones I reported) because they were resource officers at the school and heard were the parties would be. Officers who know their peer is beating their spouse and children and do nothing. People who sell access to licenses, security, approval for activities, or just outright theft.
As a cop I knew most people would only interact with me on the worst days and worst times of their life. I didn’t take it personally when they called me names, flipped me off, or gave me lip. I’m not their mother it wasn’t my job to correct their attitude it was my job to enforce the laws as they are written by others. I’m not a saint and sure it made me angry but I knew the person I was interacting with was in a position of almost no ability to anything to me so who cared.
My argument against the ACAB people is that they so often claim the community can self police or will help each other out but I have never once seen those types beside me at a neighborhood clean up or doing house work and repairs for those elderly or disabled people who can not. They’re not in the gardens helping weed the plots. They more often pay or depend on exclusivity of location in gated communities or private security.
Noway2 · September 15, 2023 at 5:30 pm
I agree with you in many ways, but I also am thinking of accepting your challenge and making an anti cop submission 650 words might be tight, but I’ll see what I can do to keep it concise. Yes, someone had to deal with criminals, but the current State system is proving itself a failure
oldvet50 · September 15, 2023 at 7:36 pm
I’ve not met any cops that act as described in these comments, but then again, I have not dealt with many of them. But from what I’ve read in the comments above, I see no reason the cops should NOT act as everyone expects them to – might as well, they’re hated by everyone.
Divemedic · September 15, 2023 at 7:51 pm
So I think that cops shouldn’t be allowed to commit what you refer to as “minor” crimes like speeding 15-20 mph over the limit, make illegal u-turns, or getting parking tickets dismissed and then using their status as police officers to get away with it because, as you put it, “the cops as the good guys and do not begrudge their minor infractions of the law,” and “every occupation has its perks and cops have theirs.”
Think about what you are saying: Because I think that the law applies to cops means that “everyone hates cops anyway” so cops should just go ahead and drive through neighborhoods in unmarked vans, randomly shooting people with rubber bullets, and if those people resist, the cops should arrest them. I just can’t make that leap.
Dirty Dingus McGee · September 15, 2023 at 8:02 pm
Hate, like respect, is earned.
EN2 SS · September 15, 2023 at 7:50 pm
Everything you need to know about cops, is the absolute lack of their even talking about what is wrong with the cop system. Perfect example is the Fumble Bozos of Instigation (fbi’s) and the Justus Dept.
Gaston Gillroy · September 16, 2023 at 5:49 am
Looking forward to the published pro/con responses.
If I go to Mega Mart and get treated with disrespect, I cease shopping there, and spend my time and money at Billy Bob’s Emporium. If I go to Doctor Ralph and have reservations about his medical competency, I can go to Doctor Fred or Doctor Suzy. If Google falsifies the search results on my question I can use DuckDuckGo.
I have no such choices about government services – no one has ever called 911 to request an estimate because the fire department one town over has a better performance record or the city police responds faster than the county cops. Citizens are stuck with whatever The Powers That Be decide we need.
That should – emphasis on “should” – drive constant improvement of performance. Instead, it has resulted in lowest common denominator services, not just in police operations, but across the board on all services.
The big difference is if my trash is picked up two days late, or my water bill is incorrect, it’s an inconvenience; if the cops show up late someone may die, if they do a sloppy job of investigation, crime flourishes, if they flash their shiny badges because they “Have the Authority” citizens suffer undeserved legal consequences.
And while if I’m dissatisfied enough I can purchase trash collection from a private company – while still paying taxes to support an inefficient government service – I don’t get to choose from whom I purchase water and sewer services, nor do I get to pick which police department performs best to enforce laws in my area. If police performance deteriorates I can buy better locks, a security system, carry a gun, in the hope that my individual efforts produce a positive change, if not for my community, at least for me individually.
That behooves, or it should, The Authorities to maintain high standards and constantly review performance in an effort to continually improve service delivery.
We seem to be headed in the other direction and have been for quite some time. I doubt it will ever get better, at least not within the lifetimes of most of us. As much as we dislike it, we can live with the built-in inefficiencies and incompetence of most government services, few of us expect anything different. Police services, however, are different because at both ends of the spectrum lives are affected. That it is allowed to exist at such a low performance standard is not only an affront to the citizens it is intended to serve, it condemns any and all members of law enforcement who tolerate failures of performance, no matter of which type nor however small.
If it gets much worse I would just as soon return to Committees of Vigilance and individual responsibility for life and property protection; I do get to pick my friends and neighbors.
Which leads to a question: At what point does the deterioration of law enforcement services in a community legally and morally justify shooting cops in self defense because their actions pose a greater threat to citizen life and safety than the criminals?
oldvet50 · September 16, 2023 at 7:18 am
How long before those ‘Committees of Vigilance’ members see themselves as your betters? I think the whole thing boils down to voting. If enough people hate the local police, the mayor gets voted out, and so on down the line to the federal level. If voting doesn’t matter anymore, and it obviously doesn’t, this is the kind of society you get. I still don’t hate a cop in uniform and expect the worst, until he proves unworthy to wear it. Then my recourse is the courts and hopefully, my jury of peers to agree with me.
Gaston Gilroy · September 17, 2023 at 10:36 am
“If enough people hate the local police, the mayor gets voted out, and so on down the line ……I still don’t hate a cop in uniform and expect the worst, until he proves unworthy to wear it. Then my recourse is the courts and hopefully, my jury of peers to agree with me.”
That Path of Recourse assumes you were not killed by Officer Unfriendly and are now dead, unable to pursue recourse in the courts. Or, if you’re still alive but because “the cop in uniform …..who hasn’t proved unworthy of wearing it” has taken action that financially destroys you and your family. Seizure of assets? Incarceration under false assumptions or pretense? Fabricated investigations and indictments against which you will pay thousands, or more, to defend yourself while still paying taxes to those who are abusing you?
How many years of court battles, how many dollars to attorneys, is acceptable? Five years? Ten? Twenty? $250,000? One million? Five million? What’s your plan if you run out of money before an appeal is filed? For whom will you or your spouse vote to correct the problem? How many voted for Michelle Grisham expecting her to reasonably represent them within the Constitutional structure of both the United States and the state of New Mexico?
As to “How long before those Committees of Vigilance members see themselves as your betters?” you are acknowledging that they won’t start that way. What about the police who enter law enforcement service with that attitude to begin with? Will you send a sternly worded letter to Governor Grisham complaining about it? Would Committees of Vigilence be more or less responsive to public opinion and public pressure than appointed police chiefs or officers with 20-year sinecures behind the protection of Qualified Immunity? (And, yes, I know, Grishham did away with that 2 years ago; one state down, 49 + D.C. to go).
For whom would you vote to correct the current problem in New Mexico? Would there even be a candidate who would claim to be able to fix the problem, and what is your recourse when that turns out to be “just another campaign promise” ?
Anonymous · September 16, 2023 at 3:53 pm
A monopoly is similar to a patent, in that a legislature had declared only one entity is permitted to offer some product or service. Microsoft does not have a monopoly, it has market power.
Monopolies produce high prices and bad service. There is no exception for any subject matter area. Not courts/police/armies/sewer/electricity/telco/roads/airports/schools/research, not anything.
Firefighting service in the USA used to be supplied by non-government, non-tax-funded organizations. Farther back, roads were privately built, too. Ask a paving construction company owner today and they will tell you there is an interlocking web of laws which add up to, only government may make a road. Why would government pass these laws? Because without these laws private people would be building roads! Only government can build a road, because government says so.
The IRS has a worksheet to determine if you are an employee or a contractor, to determine which party should be collecting and remitting taxes on the payments for your work. Worksheet asks who is mostly directing the work, the employer or employee. Do this worksheet and you find all medical doctors are government employees.
At what point does the deterioration of law enforcement services in a community legally and morally justify shooting cops in self defense because their actions pose a greater threat to citizen life and safety than the criminals?
What percentage of the penis needs to enter before you are morally justified in stopping the rapist, no matter what that takes? You have phrased the question from the personal moral worldview that you are a debt slave, and you wonder how far away your indenture is from chattel slave. Is this the proper moral worldview to have?
Divemedic · September 16, 2023 at 10:40 pm
Private fire companies were an unmitigated disaster. I posted on this 12 years ago.
https://areaocho.com/private-fire-departments/
Anonymous · September 17, 2023 at 12:12 pm
Why would the building owners put up with this behavior? If your house was burning down and the responders were fighting each other instead of the fire, you wouldn’t stand by passively. But you portray the building owners as so passive that you haven’t even mentioned them. Something else was going on, to have produced the result you describe. Perhaps the government police were protecting the “plug guard” from being shot by their victims. Just like today the government police protect the Burn Loot and Murder rioters from rooftop Koreans.
Divemedic · September 17, 2023 at 12:34 pm
I didn’t mention them because there is no mention of the property owners in the historical record. As to why property owners didn’t shoot the plug guard, you must remember that there was no such thing as years of appeals back then: if you committed murder (and that’s what this would be) you were pretty much guaranteed to hang by the neck until dead, usually within a month or so, if not sooner.
There wasn’t a library full of law books making everything into a crime back then, so the courts weren’t as ineffective as they are now. You shoot a firefighter, you are going to be executed sooner rather than later.
Anonymous · September 17, 2023 at 1:33 pm
News is anything anybody wants to suppress; everything else is public relations. — Poorly Sourced
Funny how the mainstream media didn’t interview the property owners ruined by volunteer arsonists. Imagine if after every fire the property owners complained in print about the government police threatening their rooftop Korean-ing with death? Urban density is full of envious neighbors to snitch on you when you don’t comply with government policy. I think the ‘private firefighting didn’t work’ argument has as a foundation the idea that the 1800 legal climate was a libertarian paradise, therefore the test results of libertarianism are valid, but that legal climate claim just isn’t factually true.
Scot Irish · September 16, 2023 at 4:51 pm
People should watch some Lackluster or James Freeman on YouTube.
Very enlightening stuff. Never consider “peace” officers your friend and record every encounter with them.
Anonymous · September 17, 2023 at 8:40 am
I have worked with several cops in my jobs in the past. I can count on one hand (exactly one time) that I had a positive interaction with a pig. These assholes nee to be forced to pay a bond to insure themselves when they screw up. I think that a $2,000,000 bond per officer should be a good start. When I was a licensed mortgage banker, back in 2007, I had to post a hell of a lot more to keep my license.
Divemedic · September 17, 2023 at 12:25 pm
Yeah. I have to carry malpractice insurance as well.
Gryphon · September 18, 2023 at 3:52 pm
There are No ‘good cops’. Period. End of Sentence. “Law Enforcement” has ALWAYS had one, and only One Purpose – protecting the Regime from the Citizens. Anyone participating in a Corrupt System is by Definition, Corrupt, and unworthy of Public Trust. It’s a little difficult to do, but looking up about what happened to the ‘STASI’ in (((communist))) occupied East Germany after the (((government))) Fell is rather Interesting… Ever wonder why, after the collapse of the ‘soviet union’ that millions of the (((parasites))) fled from Russia? They were the ‘Apparatchiks’ or ‘deep state bureaucracy’. We need that kind of Purge here and now.
Guest Post: In Defense of cops – Area Ocho · September 19, 2023 at 10:14 am
[…] few days ago, I posted a request that my cop readers send submissions as an “equal time” rebuttal of my disdain for modern police. I received exactly one response, that I enclose it below, without […]
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