Loading ...Local “Cop Shops” Around America Closing Down, Downsizing, Freezing Overtime, And Generally Feeling The Crunch…
Please — allow me to start this column off by saying, and from the bottom of my heart — I have the UTMOST respect for our law enforcement officers who keep our communities safe. Indeed, I absolutely do appreciate them and I’m glad we have so many great “first responders”, LITERALLY, at our disposal for the times they are needed by We, The People.
They are the enforcers of the laws those legislators we elect to office to write; some good, most HORRIBLE, and many of them do their jobs with integrity and honor. To those particular LEO’s, I tip my hat.
That said, there is also a fair share of pedophiles, crooks, psycopaths, murderers and hypocrites who abuse their power in both Washington, D.C., who make these laws as well as on the police forces who enforce them, and if it takes a little bit of downsizing to weed them out, I say “hoorah“.
I’m sorry, but yes, I know it’s against the law to fail to jam on your breaks until you feel your automobile jerk backward at a stop sign — it’s “the law”, of course. And I know the cop who pulled me over and wrote a “failure to stop at a stop sign” ticket as I SAFELY made my “pink stop” had every right to do so. The fact is, it was near the end of the month and my great RED City of Mobile, Alabama, was in it’s usual end-of-the-month hurry to rack up the charges against its Citizenry for committing lucrative (for the city and the state) victimless “crimes“.
This is not necessary, in my not-so-humble-opinion and if downsizing in the Law Enforcement agencies around America (The Washington Post) means less “cushy” jobs for less LEO’s whose main “job” is to commit a monthly shakedown of the Citizenry for their “chump change” and leads to only the best of the best remaining on the forces to bust the REAL criminals — those who actually pose a tangible danger to society, I say it’s time to celebrate. But that’s just MOI (and again… yep — part French and unapologetic). There’s more to this story, of course.
So, I go to this traffic school as my “criminal punishment” — $150.00 (USD) later. There was a law enforcement officer teaching this so-called “class”, which was really just a three-hour Q&A session between my fellow “criminals” and the (seriously) awesome LEO. He said, and I quote paraphrase:
“On any police force, twenty-percent shouldn’t have ever even been hired to do law enforcement work in the first place. They’re jackasses with a chip on their shoulder and they’re in love with their power. On any given day, twenty-percent of the rest of us should have just stayed home. Marital problems, money problems, family problems, sickness, weariness — whatever the reason might be. Probably only 50-60 percent of us on patrol on any given day should even be in uniform and on the clock.”
BINGO.
Same could be said (conservatively speaking) of the Congresses on both the state and federal levels who think it’s a great idea to spend TRILLIONS of our tax dollars going after and incarcerating hookers, johns, pot users and “pink stoppers” for no other reason than to — yep — you guessed it — CRASH OUR ECONOMY.
Not to mention, use wizz-poor excuses to rob We Citizens of our liberty in exchange for our cash. That is, for those of us who DO have the cash to trade for our freedom and the preservation of our civil liberties. Those who don’t have the cash to play in “the best justice system money can buy” game rot in prison. The “positive” in this is the fact we have people who are taught to make license plates, thanks to our (so-called) “justice system”. Let us tip our hats to these fellow Americans for a moment, shall we?
Roadblocks? We have a FINITE number of hours and minutes on this Earth given us by God and we allow the “State” to rob us of as many of those moments they deem “necessary” in order to keep the roads safe send welfare moms to prison due to their inability to pay that “criminal” traffic ticket from two years ago. Somehow, the Supreme Court Of The United States (“SCOTUS” for our acronym fans) agreed this was exactly what Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and the rest of our Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the Constitution. I don’t give a damn what the SCOTUS said about police check points — they were W-R-O-N-G and on the wrong side of the ORIGINAL, Creator-granted “law” our Founders had managed to put into writing.
Should this “shrinking cop shop crisis” lead to less of these unconstitutional invasions of our freedom and liberty, including all of the above-mentioned so-called “crimes”, and a dumping of the “rotten apples” lurking within them, I applaud this recession depression for leading toward a retreat from the “Nanny State” of the authoritarian liberals and the “Police State” of their authoritarian brethren who bill themselves as “conservatives” these days.
“Liberal” (with a capital “L“)? PROUDLY so. “Democrat”? Nope. “Liberaltarian”? Perhaps. “Independent” (with a VERY small “I“), indeed. “Optimist”? Of COURSE.
Join me in my glee.
***
Your tale of crime and punishment and deep insight reminds me of a scene from a 60′s movie, Alice’s Restaurant, based on the song by the same title, in which Arlo Guthrie, sitting in a cell with “mother rapists and father rapists” is asked, “What were you arrested for, kid?”
“Littering,” he answers.
As a person who has LEO’s in her family, I can only say Amen, Brother.
I really feel sorry for Phelps. If he’d been slugging down beer, he would have been hailed and probably got a beer ad endorsement. Unfair, not right and BS.
Good piece, Guns. EXCEPT your bit about ‘first responders.’ Now, you know…you know that that it isn’t often that Officer Obie, um, the police are the first on the scene with their crime shiffin’ dawgs an’ takin’ photographs to be used.. um, to take care of things.
It is We the People who are first on the scene and I mean, I mean We are there with our shovels and rakes and impliments of destruction in the back of our VW micro-bus, and we are the ones who have to pick up, I mean, we are the first to render aid right there on the Group W bench. An’ we are the ones to call in the professionals with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one.
Ain’t gonna touch that one, Joe
RIGHT ON, bro…
Gaia: how can I argue with that one? he’s a KID — NOT a friggin’ “role model”.
GIB: EEEEEEEzaxly!!!
Nicely done! (from a fellow gun-toting liberal)
Just wanted to let you know about a website I started with a few friends: http://www.liberaltarian.net — it’s set up as an open blog, so anyone who registers can submit posts to it. Would love to have you add your voice to the discussion, either in comments, or by posting blog entries — you could even repost this one if you like.
Thanks for helping keep both sides in check (and for your optimism, too).
You ran a stop sign and got caught and your pissed. That is understandable but was it not you that blew the stop sign? Your lucky they didn’t find the nearest tree to string you up on bro! Spend an hour in one of these guys or gals shoes and then tell me you think they are 80% hacks. You have no clue what they deal with day in and day out and rightfully so and that is because they are doing the job nobody else wants to see. The Sherriff of Notingham was an Ass, our local cops and state cops are not. They take the bite out of crime every single day so simple folks like you and I don’t have to worry about a crack head or meth addict isn’t breaking in our doors to steal from us to get their next fix.
Pay the damn fine and stop bitching. Ya got caught, you knew you blew the stop sign, aka “Pink Sign” end of discussion. Laws are there for a common society to exist and there is no such thing without the men and woman doing the job to make sure that you and I can sleep at night. And every single day they could be killed by a crack head or crystal meth addict or worse just because they punched a clock and started a shift of work. Folks working in law enforcement are not the ones you need to attack. They are just feeding their families like you and me bro.
Hugs at ya bro but I can’t sympathise with ya on this one. Friging baby caught with his hands in the cookie jar by Da Man… LOL! Pink sign… I loved that one.
Mat — you’re BANNED from commenting on this site, bro!!! You must ALWAYS toe “The Gun Toting Liberal” line; right, wrong, middle, or indifferent…
Thou Shalt Assimilate
LMFAO!!!
ROFLMFAO! Damn funny bro…
You know, of course, that the cutbacks will only effect those LEOs fighting actual crime. The nanny state enforcers will never see any reductions and will probably get increased funds. Then when real law enforcement suffers, we will be told we need more money to get more cops on the beat. Happens here in the LA area every couple of years, good times and bad. Then the people get suckered in to passing bonds or increasing taxes. Wash, rinse, repeat.
As soon as Obama’s “Civilian Security Force” plans kick in, we won’t need any police officers anyway. From what I heard before Obama’s people “edited” the speech on his web site, it sounds eerily like ACORN with automatic weapons, tanks, and helicopters.