Okay, NWA was right

First, start with this.

A lot of people will read this and think the outrageous thing is that the cops beat the hell out of an aging foreigner who didn’t speak English and paralyzed him, after a neighbor saw a dark-skinned stranger walking around and felt the need to call police.  That’s shameful, but it pales in outrageous compared to the fact that 10 out of 12 jurors, all white men, wanted to acquit the cops involved.

Violent crime – and the killing of police in particular – is at an all-time low. And yet, the usual suspects are circling the wagons and accusing the President of leading “war on police” in the face of a “crime epidemic”, which is risible all by itself until you consider that these are universally the same assholes who are constantly screaming about governmental tyranny and the overreaching power of government and “I love my country but I fear my government” as if you aren’t infinitely more likely to run up against  your local PD at a traffic stop than an ATF tactical raid coming for your precious guns.

We have reached a point where we simply can’t extend the benefit of the doubt to local law enforcement anymore. After decades of hype, the police have internalized the conservative doctrine that all suspects are guilty and all criminals are super-powered movie villains. That’s why the cops of my youth had a big-ass revolver and a nightstick and the cops of today have a Glock with three clips, a taser, tear gas, a tonfa stick, a heavy aircraft-aluminum flashlight and as likely as not a couple of assault rifles in the trunk. All that surplus military gear had to go somewhere, which is why that limp-dick with the SR-25 in Ferguson was perched on top of the Army truck in the most vulnerable possible position – because he knew he wasn’t taking fire.

It’s about time the cops went back on Barney Fife rules for a while. You get one bullet in your pocket and you can load it when the sheriff says so. Having unlimited firepower to spray around like pissing off the porch – and carte blanche from racist juries – only incintivizes the worst sort of policing from the sort of people who should never have had access to a badge to begin with.

And miss me with the bitching about why people still think the way they do about Alabama. You know why? Because fifty-two years after four little girls were blown up in church, there are still plenty enough rednecks who don’t care if the cops only paralyze brown people.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.