Last week, one of my online friends reacted to news of an abhorrent act of violence against peaceful people by referring to the evil lurking in our society. But while I share her disgust and sorrow at the evil acts of terrorists, I have to disagree with her on one point: In a police state, evil doesn’t lurk; it leers out of every threatening sign, every TV screen, every police car. And so evil people are encouraged because they liken their own individual evil to the organized evil of their rulers; they’re shown evil is the path to power. When a soft-headed person lives in a society where evil is rewarded & even exalted, what does he learn? He learns that hatred and violence are the path to power. So when he feels powerless because he’s lost his job or can’t get women or whatever, he follows the lessons taught him by cops, politicians and other authoritarians: Might Makes Right. Violence Is Power. Suppressing those he feels are beneath him, as cops do, is OK. In short, in the modern US (and countries occupied by or dominated by the US) evil doesn’t HAVE to lurk; it holds most of the weapons and all the political power. Naturally it’s increasing.
Role Models
September 1, 2017 by Maggie McNeill
17 Responses
Leave a Reply
Visit my bookstore
This Month
Old Posts
Call me
Become a Blog Patron
If you want to donate but don't want a recurring charge, you can send any amount you like via PayPal to my email address (see below). Be sure to include a note so I can thank you!Contact Maggie
Maggie on Twitter
My TweetsBoring but necessary legal stuff
The Police State is You
It’s your acquittal of peace officer’s homicides against civilians.
It’s your elected District Attorneys justifying 99%+ of all police shootings for unarmed civilians.
It’s you falling for contrived police justifications in civil rights cases.
It’s your elected District Attorneys criminally prosecuting any shooting survivors or other victims of false arrest and the use of unreasonable force, for contrived “resistance offences”
It’s you sitting on juries and voting “guilty” for some contrived criminal “resisting offense” (often for your fellow civilians not immediately, and without question, complying with police orders) that precludes the innocent victim of police abuse from suing his assailant.
“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face forever”
George Orwell, 1984
On the one hand I agree that the US has a lot of police-state-like problems and they’re getting worse, not better. On the other hand, having talked to a lot of immigrants and traveled in Eastern Europe while the Berlin Wall was still up, we’re still in comparatively excellent shape vs most of the world for most of history.
On the third hand, looking at the police isn’t seeing the root of the problem. The root is not support for the police but too many laws; if you are always doing something illegal, and we all are whether we think so or not, the police have arbitrary power over us no matter who the DA is or what circumlocutions labelled ‘civil rights’ they must engage in to exercise that power. When all are guilty, the civil rights of the suspect and accused become only deck chairs on a sinking ship. It is, in fact, a wonder that they are still as restrained as they are in nation composed of no one but criminals ripe for asset forfeiture.
I agree with Charles that there are many police-state-like problems, but we’re in good shape vs. the hardcore police states of other times and places. He’s also right that the root problem is too many laws.
Without denying the abuses that Maggie details, we should acknowledge the countless acts of genuine police protection and service that happen every day.
Listen to yourselves! What y’all are saying is, “The Indian Ocean isn’t an ocean because the Pacific is bigger”. “The Alps aren’t a mountain range because the Himalayas are higher & longer”.
Good grief.
Listen to yourself. “Evil … leers out of … every police car.” Really?
Yes, really. Every single cop agrees to use violence to enforce ALL laws, no matter how evil. Every single cop has the power to drag me off to a cage, brutalizing me to any degree he wants, for doing things that hurt NOBODY. That is evil; people in the US just like to pretend otherwise because it helps them sleep at night.
No, I’m saying you can’t empty out the Indian Ocean by throwing buckets of water from it into the Ganges.
While I usually agree with Maggie, I have to disagree with much of what is said here. I certainly won’t argue that there aren’t serious abuses, but I have to agree with what Charles had to say that too many laws lie at the root of the problem. It’s said you can’t drive down the road in this country without breaking some law or other, and if anything, I think things are getting worse in that respect.
If the exchange of sex for money were legal, there would be one less legal pretext for police to arrest and harass sex workers. There might still be abuses, but there would be at least one less legal pretext or defense for them. And I tend to think there would be far fewer abuses as a result. Getting rid of Jim Crow laws didn’t mean that racism or abuses disappeared, but arguably there are far, far fewer incidents of them than there were 50 years ago.
Having lived, worked, and traveled all over the world, I can also tell you, Maggie, that there are way worse offenders, way more repressive and abusive countries, than the U.S. Evil is by no means an American characteristic but can be found, often in much larger and uglier measure, in many other countries, countries that have no particular connection or domination by the U.S.
It will take realism and determination to effect change, and exaggeration and lack of perspective aren’t allies in the struggle.
Why are y’all all ignoring the politicians who MAKE THE FUCKING LAWS, who are clearly mentioned in the text? Are y’all really THAT willfully blind?
And then there’s this: “I can tell you, Maggie, that you needn’t worry about drowning in the Mediterranean because the Atlantic is MUCH bigger.”
Let’s drop this foolishness now, before I close the fucking comment thread.
In one sense, evil doesn’t need to lurk here anymore: the bad guys have the upper hand.
In another, so long as the bad guys find it useful to still have some of the public convinced they’re good guys, it does make sense for them to hide their participation in at least some evil acts by compartmentalizing them as “terror groups” which those in power can disown if they commit a major PR mistake.
This is why Antifa and BLM are not openly state actors, even though the state conveniently orders police to stand down when they want to beat up innocent people for disagreeing with them.
Paul Hindemith, Albert Einstein, Billy Wilder, Freddie Mercury, Victor Hugo, Iman, Madeleine Albright, Regina Spektor…. like them or not they were smart cookies and voted with their feet. Others stayed, infected with the idea that an empire can be reformed from within. Historically, this doesn’t happen, and those who stay are often too bright to be allowed to survive. I got the hell out of the police state, and have run into surprising numbers of people who have left my country of birth as well… but superpower media doesn’t really report on that (not surprising).
Maggie is right. The system encourages abuse and corrupt cops. Dozens of departments all over the country are removing or disabling their civilian oversight. Police are shielded from the consequences of their actions. In New York, there is a police union that wants to expand hate crime definitions because Blue Lives Matter.
On another board, I’ve been having an ongoing exchange about if cops and police are corrupt. This was my answer after she posted a link to the Utah nurse being arrested.
“Just so I am not misunderstood, let me tell you what I see.
A senior police officer broke both the law and his department’s policy. That wouldn’t have happened unless he thought he could get away with it or unless he thought it was expected. Neither paints the department and it’s command structure in a good light.
I’m pretty sure that this isn’t the first time this officer broke policy and the law to “get the job done.” Are there other officers on the force who do similar things if the law gets in the way of the job? And again, that goes straight back to the department and it’s command structure.
There were at least three other officers there, none of whom made a move to stop him before or after the incident. Were they too shocked to uphold the law? Or was this business as usual?”
No one contradicted that. I and others argued that the system needs to change to make any progress changing the cops.
“If we just put the right people in charge and hold them to a higher standard…”
Pardon, but I have heard that before.
If you give “the system” the power to detain people at the point of a gun, then that is exactly what the system will do. This year there will be more reasons than last year, and next year there will be more reasons yet.
Abuse of power is not only an artifact of “the system,” it’s one of the primary functions.
All I am saying is that the bigger problem may be “the system” itself. Particularly the ongoing fight over who gets to call the shots.
Do you know you’re agreeing with me? It’s kinda written like you don’t, what with the “pardon” and the beginning quote that is totally in opposition to what I wrote. I’m confused by the attitude in this thread. It’s like everyone is swinging at people who aren’t here but everyone thinks those enemies are each other.
I try to be polite on threads.
I’m not agreeing with you. I don’t think “the system” can be fixed. I think “the system” rests on assumptions that destroy freedom.
It’s one reason why I started reading Maggie to begin with. She has a perspective I don’t, and she’s not afraid to tell people about it. She’s a lot closer to everyday police power abuse.
Well, that and the fact that anyone libertarian with pagan leanings obviously thinks for herself. *grins*
OK well I am now agreeing with you as I did in all my previous comments. 🙂