neoncowboy
Member
I'm 32 years old. My generation watched the ATF burn down the Branch Davidians at Waco and get away with it. We read '1984' in high school and saw Rodney King have the ???? beaten out of him by LA's finest. I'm not bashing cops, just trying to give some perspective to my attitude and preconceptions. I have grown up respecting the police and appreciating their work, while at the same time maintaining a certain level of misapprehension and mistrust. From my experience, when the police (or any other branch of government authority) get involved in anything, there is as much a potential for injustice as there is for justice.
The laws of the land are not just or morally true/right anymore and represent in many cases gross disregard for personal rights, even those protected by the constitution. It doesn't seem like anyone is doing anything about it.
This recent NOLA thing is very scary to me for a couple of reasons:
1. A big city metro police chief said (to the press, no less) that only the police should be armed. I know that you aren't one of them, but you have to acknowledge that a lot of LEOs share that stupid sentiment. Now, that idea is well enough accepted that a police chief can just openly say it to the press!
2. Citizens of NOLA who (for whatever reason) chose to stay on their property and defend it were forcibly disarmed by law enforcement. Yes, staying their is dangerous. Yes, it might be stupid to remain in NOLA after the evacuation order...but don't people have a basic civil right to make that decision for themselves? Are property rights just nonexistent anymore?
3. A dangerous precedent could be set here. Government declaring responsibility for an emergency = evaporation of all rights of citizens. That scares the crap out of me! I am training because I anticipate an emergency in my community, in my lifetime (terrorism, civil unrest, invasion of foreign enemy, etc.). These are dangerous times. If the ???? hits the fan, that's the absolute worst time for my government to turn against me and try to forcibly deny me the means to respond/defend against whatever emergency.
I'm not anti-law or anti-law enforcement. I am, however, cognizant of a long history of unjust laws being instituted by our nation's legislative and judicial branches along with far too many cases of abuse of power on the part of some cops. There also seems to be a move afoot to make as many people as possible guilty of a crime and therefore subject to a loss of rights.
I'm really struggling to balance my respect for authority, desire to be a law abiding, morally upright citizen and suspicion of the government. I want to be a good guy. I want to hang with the other good guys. I want to be able to trust and respect the good guys.
The laws of the land are not just or morally true/right anymore and represent in many cases gross disregard for personal rights, even those protected by the constitution. It doesn't seem like anyone is doing anything about it.
This recent NOLA thing is very scary to me for a couple of reasons:
1. A big city metro police chief said (to the press, no less) that only the police should be armed. I know that you aren't one of them, but you have to acknowledge that a lot of LEOs share that stupid sentiment. Now, that idea is well enough accepted that a police chief can just openly say it to the press!
2. Citizens of NOLA who (for whatever reason) chose to stay on their property and defend it were forcibly disarmed by law enforcement. Yes, staying their is dangerous. Yes, it might be stupid to remain in NOLA after the evacuation order...but don't people have a basic civil right to make that decision for themselves? Are property rights just nonexistent anymore?
3. A dangerous precedent could be set here. Government declaring responsibility for an emergency = evaporation of all rights of citizens. That scares the crap out of me! I am training because I anticipate an emergency in my community, in my lifetime (terrorism, civil unrest, invasion of foreign enemy, etc.). These are dangerous times. If the ???? hits the fan, that's the absolute worst time for my government to turn against me and try to forcibly deny me the means to respond/defend against whatever emergency.
I'm not anti-law or anti-law enforcement. I am, however, cognizant of a long history of unjust laws being instituted by our nation's legislative and judicial branches along with far too many cases of abuse of power on the part of some cops. There also seems to be a move afoot to make as many people as possible guilty of a crime and therefore subject to a loss of rights.
I'm really struggling to balance my respect for authority, desire to be a law abiding, morally upright citizen and suspicion of the government. I want to be a good guy. I want to hang with the other good guys. I want to be able to trust and respect the good guys.