Two sets of rules: One for the public and a very different set for police

By David McElroy · May 24, 2012

As I was approaching the ramp to get onto I-59 in Birmingham Wednesday, I noticed in my rearview mirror that there was a police car behind me. I don’t know about you, but I start worrying a bit while they’re behind me. Is it past time to renew my tag? Do I have a tail light out? What’s the speed limit on this little road?

I was hoping he wasn’t turning onto the interstate, so I was watching his turn signal in my mirror to see if it came on. It never did — but he turned behind me anyway. Part of the way down the ramp, the asphalt widens, but the lane for the interstate hasn’t started, so you’re supposed to stay on the ramp. He didn’t. Part of the way down the ramp, he floored his engine and went around me, going through the striped lines you’re supposed to stay away from.

In the time I could still see him, he impatiently tailgated a car and then passed it way too close to a car in the other lane. He lost me after that, but it doesn’t really matter what he did. He has a gun and a badge, so he can do whatever he wants.

Have you ever noticed how flagrantly many police officers violate the traffic rules we’re supposed to obey? I routinely see them speeding (without emergency lights), tailgating and failing to use turn signals. There’s one set of rules for us, and there’s another set for them. Is there any wonder that more and more people are losing respect for police?

Police almost never get into trouble for what they do driving. Even when they do get stopped for something — even for more serious offenses such as drunk driving — other officers routinely let them go. The euphemism for it is “professional courtesy.” In reality, it’s a “Get out of jail free” card for police who do almost any offense that another officer can justify as minor.

When I noticed the officer Wednesday afternoon driving in a way that would get a citizen ticketed, I mentioned it on Facebook and immediately got a flood of responses from people who see the same thing routinely. My friends seemed irritated at the double standard, but resigned to the reality that we can’t do anything about it. Isn’t this a perfect recipe for loss of respect for police?

I wrote about a New York City officer who was caught on video making serious threats to local men. There were other officers with him, but if this video hadn’t existed, it’s a sure bet that they would have sworn none of this ever happened — because that’s what many police officers do. They lie and break rules for each other. They hold themselves above the law in the interest of what they see as a higher good. They see themselves as something like vigilantes on the street protecting us — and they frequently see the legal rules as getting into their way.

More and more, police are willing to break the rules — sometimes about small things and sometimes about big things. Quickly, the problems are bigger than just flagrant disregard for traffic rules. Soon it’s beating suspects and planting evidence and lying about what happened in order to get a bogus search warrant.

The Cato Institue has just taken over a project to report on this kind of misconduct — to shine a light on something that’s a cancer for a free society. It’s at PoliceMisconduct.net, and it promises to be a good resource for anyone who is naive enough to believe that police in this country aren’t out of control.

It’s still true that police in totalitarian countries are far worse than our police. There’s no question that we’re safer from our police than many people are from theirs. But I’m honestly worried about the direction in which things are going.

I don’t trust police and I frequently have no respect for them today. Respect is something that’s earned, not something that’s given just because you have a uniform and a gun. Many of today’s police seem to believe they’re the masters and we’re the underlings. It’s way past time to force them to remember that they’re our servants, not the other way around.

Share on Social Networks

We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

Related Posts