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Title: The Horrific Life of the Police Officer
Source:
Lew Rockwell
URL Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com/crovelli/crovelli58.1.html
Published: Mar 24, 2011
Author: Mark R. Crovelli
Post Date: 2011-03-24 08:38:16 by Eric Stratton
Keywords: None
Views: 397
Comments: 30
Few people in the world seem to appreciate just how awful it is to be a government police officer. It’s not that the job involves particularly physically demanding work, or that the job is particularly dangerous. In fact, the work is not nearly physically demanding enough (as the cop fatness problem demonstrates), and neither is it particularly dangerous (being a cop doesn’t even make the top ten most dangerous jobs). Nor is the job terrible because of the unstated obligation to wear a tawdry mustache in public. Instead, what makes the job so horrific is the fact that it requires living a completely contradictory moral life. Unlike normal human beings, whose jobs require adherence to the same moral standards that apply in their private lives, police officers are required to act in ways they would never even consider in their private lives. For forty hours a week (or more, if they are trying to milk their departments’ overtime rackets), police officers are required to forget the moral standards that govern their private interactions with their own friends, families and neighbors and adopt the moral outlook of the sociopath and the gangster. Specifically, the job of the police officer involves giving orders to strangers and locking them up in cages if they choose not to obey. Unless the police officer is a complete sociopath, he would never consider acting in such a way in his private life. With his blue polyester in the closet, for example, the off-duty police officer would never consider putting his grandpa in a cage if he refuses to obey orders. He would never consider electrocuting his children or his grandmother for refusing to do what he tells them. He would never consider beating up his neighbor if she refused to stop her car and show a picture of herself embossed on government plastic. But he is expected to do precisely these types of things to people he doesn’t even know in his "professional" life if they refuse to do what he and his bosses tell them. The fact that many, many police officers are indeed complete psychopaths should thus not come as a particular surprise. Indeed, the job is tailor made for the psychopath and the sociopath who is comfortable with feelings of cognitive dissonance. People with normally calibrated moral compasses would shudder to think that they would be required to lock people up in cages, electrocute them, or beat them with clubs for not doing as they are told. It would confuse and trouble the normal person to think that by putting on a blue polyester suit, mustache, and riding boots it was suddenly morally acceptable to order people around at the point of a gun (not to mention the icy shudder they would feel at the thought of wearing the ridiculous kit itself). It would horrify the normal person to think that part of his job involved smashing down strange people’s doors, taking their children, shackling them, locking them in cages, stealing their drugs and guns, and shooting them if they happen to resist. The man with a normally calibrated moral compass is equally disturbed to contemplate that the purported justification for acting in these barbaric ways was that politicians, of all people, told them to. It is not as though God Himself or the Pope gives the police officer sanction to lock people in cages and to order them about. Quite the reverse, the sanction comes from people of such sterling moral character as the coke-snorting drunk driver, Bush II, and the drug-cartel-connected perjurer, Clinton I. The sociopath and the psychopath are not troubled by the fact that their only justification for ordering strange people around is that a pack of corrupt millionaires in Washington or Denver told them to, which is what makes such people sociopaths and psychopaths in the first place. The normal person, in contrast, is not willing to do things to other people that they clearly resent or despise, or to order them to do things they oppose, just because a politician says so. The person with a normally calibrated moral compass would begin to wonder why the moral standards that govern his private life with friends and family, and which produce relative peace and harmony in that sphere of his life, do not apply to all situations. Why, the normal person will inevitably wonder, is there any peace in his family, when no one wears a special blue suit or has the right to order everyone around and shackle resisters? How is it possible that he can get along with his friends at the bowling alley, when none of them is assigned to break into cars to search for substances the politicians dislike, and none of them has a right to steal anyone else’s children? In short, the normal person will begin to wonder why the people who claim to "protect us" are not held to the same moral standards as everyone else. The answer to these questions is simple, even if the person with a normally calibrated moral compass often cannot see it through the clouds of propaganda that have been spewed over police officers and politicians. The answer is, quite simply, that the defense of people’s lives and property is a job just like any other, and it ought to be provided on the free market just like every other good and service by people who are held to exactly the same moral standards as the rest of the civilized world. The uneasiness that the normal person feels when confronted with the existence of a group of fat blue-polyester-clad thugs who are not bound by normal moral standards is completely understandable and justified. There is no need for these thugs at all, and there is definitely no justification for exempting them from the moral standards we hold every other person to. The provision of bread and chairs and computers does not require exempting anyone from moral standards, or empowering them to beat people up and order them around. All that is required is to open the door to competition, and people fall over backwards trying to please customers in their quest to make money. The same is just as true of defense services, which can and ought to be opened to competition between private providers so that consumers of these services can choose what kinds of defense services they want to purchase. In that case, the providers of the services can be held to exactly the same moral standards as everyone else. Their sole purpose would be to protect their customers’ lives and property – not to enforce arbitrary and unjust rules written by rich politicians on unwilling strangers. The key to liberating the police officer from the contradictory and perverted moral life he currently leads is simply to privatize the provision of defense services. Freed from the need to push arbitrary and unjust rules written by rich politicians on strange people, the police officer would then be a moral equal to everyone else in the world who was striving to make money by serving consumers. He would also, one hopes, be liberated from the requirement to wear the most ridiculous bureaucratic costume ever devised by man. March 24, 2011 Mark R. Crovelli [send him mail] writes from Denver, Colorado. Copyright © 2011 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given. The Horrific Life of the Police Officer
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#1. To: Eric Stratton (#0)
That has long been my attitude to those of the cop pursuasion.
deleted
The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one. "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Ben Franklin
If they would concentrate on attacking criminals (in the true sense of the word) I wouldn't have a problem with them. But they dont do that, so I don't care if they live or die. I wouldn't lift a finger to save one. ,
"The fact that many, many police officers are indeed complete psychopaths should thus not come as a particular surprise. Indeed, the job is tailor made for the psychopath and the sociopath who is comfortable with feelings of cognitive dissonance."
#2. To: ndcorup (#1)
#3. To: Eric Stratton (#0)
Click for Privacy and Preparedness files
ruin everything, including sig lines.
#4. To: Eric Stratton (#0)
Great article you posted here. A search of the 3 titles abvove (separately) should be required reading for every dope in UhMerika. This would dispel the nonsensical myth that we need cops "to keep us safe".Cops lawyers argue the opposite, ALWAYS.
Police have no obligation to protect any individual from harm... Justices rule police have no constitutional duty to protect anyone...Cops plant drugs and guns in cars, laugh about it
"if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing." 1 Cor 12:31—13:13
"I don't know where Bin Laden is. I truly am not that concerned about him"
George W, Bush, 3/13/02 http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html
#5. To: PSUSA (#3)
deleted
The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Ben Franklin
#6. To: Artisan (#4)
deleted
The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Ben Franklin
#7. To: Eric Stratton (#0) (Edited)
Idealistically, the police exist to prevent criminals from inflicting harm on innocent people. Decades ago, that may have been the case. That has obviously changed however. They have been deliberately militarized and given free reign to inflict TERROR in order to impose the will of the rich and powerful unto the poor and weak. For instance, the "War on Drugs" has served the purpose of making it common practice for unannounced breakins at 4AM by heavily armed masked men to occur in order to "search" a person's residence. Decades ago, such a thing would be seen as a criminal action; today, it's seen as standard procedure. If they "accidently discharge" their weapon into a resident, whether it be man, woman, or child, they are routinely given a paid vacation and exonerated of any fault or wrongdoing. I don't know if there's a way of legally and peacefully reversing any of this. I hope there is, otherwise I see a very bloody future for this country.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#8. To: FormerLurker (#7)
deleted
The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Ben Franklin
#9. To: Eric Stratton (#0)
I've learned that the many of the police are indeed sociopaths. The higher the rank, the more psycho they are. The most rotten apple of the police force is usually the chief of police.
sociopath and gangster.
#10. To: sizzlerguy (#9) (Edited)
deleted
The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Ben Franklin
#11. To: Eric Stratton (#8)
And they'll simply make stuff up out of thin air if they think they can get away with it, and they usually do.
And then while searching on their "drug" raid they find anything and everything that can be used to paint the person/people as being "bad."
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#12. To: Eric Stratton (#10)
What I've also noticed is that many if not most of them view themselves as highly superiour to any civilian. Just the other day I was walking past a cop who was standing next to his car and said "how ya doing". He just looked at me with a suspicious look, and didn't say a word. Did he think he was so much better than I that I didn't deserve a response? Perhaps I should have just said "fuck you pig". I'm sure he would have responded to that.
LEOs are trained nowadays to distrust everyone, therefore they must disrespect them.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#13. To: FormerLurker (#12)
deleted
The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Ben Franklin
#14. To: Eric Stratton (#13)
The four legged pigs and baboons probably have more brains than most LEO.
pigs in politics and baboons
#15. To: Eric Stratton (#0)
I am afraid the author ruined an otherwise good piece by extracting a faulty conclusion. Privatizing Police is not a guarantee of social behavior. It is just extending the right to be antisocial to another group. Only a fool would think that such contractors would be free from political influence. Blackwater anyone? No, the first step is sane laws. The second step is doing away with unwritten Police Department "Omerta" Codes. The penalty for not reporting misbehavior by another officer should be AT LEAST AS SEVERE as the penalty for violations by the officer observed doing wrong if not more so. Failure to report an instance should be first suspension followed by dismissal for a second offense. However, if it is a felony being covered up it is a Board of Review followed by dismissal if the covering officer is found to have done so knowingly. To be followed by prosecution for obstructing justice.
The key to liberating the police officer from the contradictory and perverted moral life he currently leads is simply to privatize the provision of defense services. Freed from the need to push arbitrary and unjust rules written by rich politicians on strange people, the police officer would then be a moral equal to everyone else in the world who was striving to make money by serving consumers.
#16. To: Original_Intent (#15)
Where I live, IAD is a joke, reports on bad cops are reviewed and supposedly investigated by the police chief, and he's the most corrupt cop on the force.
#17. To: Original_Intent (#15)
Problem with that is they get to investigate themselves, and almost always clear the person being investigated, no matter WHAT they did or didn't do. The fact is, the system has major flaws, not the least of which is that the powerful will never relinquish their power, and will use the power of the state to enforce their will.
However, if it is a felony being covered up it is a Board of Review followed by dismissal if the covering officer is found to have done so knowingly. To be followed by prosecution for obstructing justice.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#18. To: FormerLurker (#17)
The solution to that is a Citizen Review Board selected much as a Jury would be. No system is perfect but where the Perp is allowed to "investigate" themselves then the abuse is predictable. I won't say never but you rightly point out one of the major problems. Only when enough citizens get pissed off enough to do something will it change. Part of the problem is that the system has been allowed to become so entrenched that a lone citizen trying to raise awareness becomes a target.
Problem with that is they get to investigate themselves, and almost always clear the person being investigated, no matter WHAT they did or didn't do.
The fact is, the system has major flaws, not the least of which is that the powerful will never relinquish their power, and will use the power of the state to enforce their will.
#19. To: Original_Intent (#18)
Oh, so true. But my slogan is "Live free or die."
a lone citizen trying to raise awareness becomes a target.
#20. To: sizzlerguy (#19)
Oh, so true. But my slogan is "Live free or die." I haven't shut up yet. Don't intend to either.
a lone citizen trying to raise awareness becomes a target.
#21. To: Original_Intent (#18)
Not just the "lone citizen". Now all Ron Paul supporters are "domestic terrorists" according to the memo distributed across the country from some "anti-terror" branch of the government. And not only Ron Paul supporters, but US military veterans, those who support and promote constitutional law, and those who criticize the bankers and corrupt politicians.
Part of the problem is that the system has been allowed to become so entrenched that a lone citizen trying to raise awareness becomes a target.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#22. To: Original_Intent (#15)
deleted
The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Ben Franklin
#23. To: FormerLurker (#21)
Not just the "lone citizen". Now all Ron Paul supporters are "domestic terrorists" according to the memo distributed across the country from some "anti-terror" branch of the government. And not only Ron Paul supporters, but US military veterans, those who support and promote constitutional law, and those who criticize the bankers and corrupt politicians. They might as well make it explicit: Anyone who questions or protests against government corruption, or the Nazi antics of Shittylittlestan, is a "terrist'". In short standing up for the rule of law and demanding that the government stay within the bounds of the law is now considered tantamount to a criminal act.
Part of the problem is that the system has been allowed to become so entrenched that a lone citizen trying to raise awareness becomes a target.
#24. To: Eric Stratton (#6)
in my #4 msg to you, the top part has 3 sentences. each is an article title which outlines horrific real court rulings where the victim was raped, killed, maimed etc. the cops never came after the victims called 911.the cops argued they dont have to come.
"if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing." 1 Cor 12:31—13:13
"I don't know where Bin Laden is. I truly am not that concerned about him"
George W, Bush, 3/13/02 http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html
#25. To: Artisan (#24)
deleted
The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Ben Franklin
#26. To: FormerLurker (#12)
thats really funny. because i made a cartoon video of just that precise scenario on youtube a few months ago. a guy walks by a cop, says hi, just to be nice, & it goes bad. LoL. and some people thought i was exagerating.
"if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing." 1 Cor 12:31—13:13
"I don't know where Bin Laden is. I truly am not that concerned about him"
George W, Bush, 3/13/02 http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html
#27. To: FormerLurker (#12)
The vid i referred to is 2 minutes: the title on youtube is POLICE STATE 2011: CITIZEN WALKING TO THE STORE MISTAKENLY SAYS HI TO A COP
"if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing." 1 Cor 12:31—13:13
"I don't know where Bin Laden is. I truly am not that concerned about him"
George W, Bush, 3/13/02 http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html
#28. To: Artisan (#27)
Yep, I think I remember watching it. Thankfully all I got was a dirty look and not the third degree like in that vid. It's pretty sad when a satire like that turns out to be more true than not.
The vid i referred to is 2 minutes: the title on youtube is POLICE STATE 2011: CITIZEN WALKING TO THE STORE MISTAKENLY SAYS HI TO A COP
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#29. To: FormerLurker (#28)
ive never been charged with any crime ever.But i see how rotten & crazy cops are today.I think people need to report & file official complaints against abusive cops.They must be held to account.This is what will help turn the tide, imo.
"if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing." 1 Cor 12:31—13:13
"I don't know where Bin Laden is. I truly am not that concerned about him"
George W, Bush, 3/13/02 http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html
#30. To: sizzlerguy (#16)
Most corrupt cop on the force = most qualified to be the chief of police.
reports on bad cops are reviewed and supposedly investigated by the police chief, and he's the most corrupt cop on the force
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton
He (Gordon Duff) also implies that forcibly removing Obama, a Constitution-hating, on-the-down-low, crackhead Communist, is an attack on America, Mom, and apple pie. I swear these military people are worse than useless. Just look around at the condition of the country and tell me if they have fulfilled their oaths to protect the nation from all enemies foreign and domestic.
OsamaBinGoldstein
The only difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits. Albert Einstein
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