‘Tis true. Some of the toughest people in the world fish for a living. I wouldn’t do it. Descending underground a much as a mile before starting to work? Not me. Work with/under high-voltage power lines and transformers all day long? I couldn’t do it. Farming? Hard work doesn’t begin to describe it and nature is so unpredictable. Run a dairy? Nope.
I appreciate all Americans who do the “heavy lifting” for society every day: trash men, waitresses/waiters, cooks, grocery-store stockers, plumbers, butchers, ranchers, auto mechanics, cashiers, truck drivers, nurses, road crews and many others too numerous to mention.
flash
December 12, 2014 7:43 am
costumed heroes …because Dunkin’s Donuts needs a savior.
flash
December 12, 2014 7:56 am
Thanks to the timid non-producers of anything tangible, the “there oughta’ be a law” over bred rabbit warrens, two of the biggest job producing industries in America are now the military and the police …expect then, the forces of largess to be utilized frequently as circumscribed gainful employment is chipped away at via third world immigration and central bank induced rampant inflation….herd paranoia will ensue.
If your amygdala is developed, it has been developed through experience. When it encounters adversity, it scans your brain for a solution, finds it stored in memories of prior experiences, and it will then drive behaviors to address your adversity. As a self-sufficient non-rabbit, your amygdala will drive you to fix your own problems.
If, however your amygdala is not acclimated to adversity, then you will not be able to find a solution stored in your amygdala, and you will feel helpless. Once you are helpless, and your amygdala is applying aversive stimulus to drive you to take action, your focus will direct itself to making others solve your problems for you. Then, rather than fixing your problems yourself, you will focus on making everyone else miserable, in the hopes that to alleviate their misery they will solve your problem for you. Suddenly you are laying down in the middle of a freeway, basically telling other people that unless they fight your enemies for you and fix your problems on your behalf, you will stop traffic, and prevent them from getting home.
Notice, developed amygdalae solve problems, undeveloped amygdala make more, for everyone, in the hopes that increased misery all around will benefit them at some point. One builds a successful society, one screws everything up as they try to make others as miserable as themselves.
These overly triggerable amygdalae will produce unrest and turmoil that will be unlike anything we have seen in our lives, if the current path is maintained. Make no mistake, we have gone to unimaginable lengths to feed unimaginable levels of free resources into our ecosystem, producing rabbits of unimaginable mental instability, with completely undeveloped amygdalae. I do not believe there has ever been a more Warrior-like population, infested with a more viscerally repugnant and mentally unstable, rabbit-like cohort, whose panic and intolerance for any sort of discomfort is so immense and unappeasable.
Historically, the end result of conditions like these has been a societal turmoil of unimaginable proportions. These are the materials historic events are made of. If you have ever read an historical account, wide eyed and amazed at what someone in the past endured, understand those same types of events may someday present themselves to us. Be prepared.
Sensetti
December 12, 2014 8:07 am
Preliminary 2014 Law Enforcement Officer Fatalities
Jan. 1 through Dec. 11, 2014 vs. Jan. 1 through Dec. 11, 2013
2014
2013 % Change
Total Fatalities 114 90 +27%
Firearms-related 46 27 +70%
Traffic-related 43 39 +10%
Other Causes 25 24 +4%
Please note: These numbers reflect total officer fatalities comparing
Jan. 1 through Dec. 11, 2014 vs. Jan. 1 through Dec. 11, 2013
2014 Fatalities by State
California 14
Texas 11
New York 6
Florida 5
Alabama 4
Arizona 4
Georgia 4
Indiana 4
Virginia 4
New Jersey 3
Oklahoma 3
Pennsylvania 3
South Carolina 3
Tennessee 3
Alaska 2
Louisiana 2
Massachusetts 2
Michigan 2
Missouri 2
Nebraska 2
Nevada 2
North Carolina 2
Ohio 2
Arkansas 1
Colorado 1
Illinois 1
Kansas 1
Kentucky 1
Minnesota 1
Mississippi 1
Montana 1
New Hampshire 1
New Mexico 1
Oregon 1
Utah 1
Washington 1
Wisconsin 1
Federal Agencies: 5
Military: 1
U.S. Territories: 5
Note: All data are preliminary and are subject to change.
More people get shot to death during a weekend in Chicago than the number of cops shot to death in the entire U.S. in an entire year.
What would we do without the 2nd responders to draw the chalk outlines and collect lifetime gold plated pensions at the age of 50?
Administrator
Author
December 12, 2014 8:33 am
The ‘Thin Blue Line’ Serves No Purpose
Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market blog,
Like many people, I grew up watching numerous television shows and mainstream movies depicting a world in which the common police officer stood as a sentinel of civilized society against a seething underbelly of violence and chaos just beneath the surface of the world around us. Through public schooling, we were indoctrinated to fear the drug culture as a breeding ground of gangland destruction and to worship law enforcement officials as the only barrier between us and a cocaine-frosted wasteland. We were led to believe that every day police were holding back a tide of crime and terrorism. The so-called “thin blue line” was an indispensable part of a safe and prosperous nation.
To criticize or present opposition to the institution of state and federally funded law enforcement is often considered tantamount to treason – or, at the very least, it is considered unpatriotic. After all, we have all been told every moment of our lives that a world without police would immediately turn into a frothing, frenzied orgy of mass insanity and that average human beings cannot be trusted to take responsibility for the day-to-day security of their neighborhoods and towns. Official doctrine today demands a designated warrior class, separate from the rest of us, to handle the protection and care of weakling citizens.
Now, it is important to note that there are in fact many good people working in the field of law enforcement. This is not under debate and not relevant to the point I am about to make. The problem is not necessarily with all the individuals who make up law enforcement; the problem is with the existence and mandate of the institution itself. I personally do not “hate” cops per se (though some of them deserve to be hated). But I do hate corrupt government structures, and law enforcement has become the grasping arm of the elitist machine.
The downfall of any policing system arises when individuals are separated from the responsibility for their own security and society is delegated into classes of protectors, or sheepdogs, and sheep. As I have outlined in many articles, government itself has become an entity foreign to the interests of the American people. Through the false left/right paradigm, elitists have taken away the ability of the public to participate in civic duties and to preserve our principles rather than sacrifice them in the name of the “greater good.” City and state police are not subject to the tides of political elections, even if elections actually mattered. They are part of an unaccountable bureaucratic monstrosity that shifts only according to the whims of the establishment.
The existence of a separate government-controlled warrior class has caused crisis and catastrophe all throughout human history. Invariably, this warrior class ends up exalting itself as superior to the functions and values of the citizenry, rather than maintaining a sense of duty to the citizenry. The claim that the average American is not capable of proper self-security or community security is perhaps the most successful lie of the past century. This is not to say that warriors do not exist. Some people develop the proper mindset, while others do not. However, becoming a warrior is a personal psychological and spiritual pursuit meant to overcome the detriments of fear and has nothing whatsoever to do with government recognition. The fact that many law enforcement officials often refer to non-LEOs as “civilians” is a rather laughable example of the delusions of the government-paid bureaucratic warrior class in action, fantasizing as if they have been deployed to Afghanistan while writing speeding tickets in suburbia.
In the early days of America, the common citizenry through the formation of the militia WAS the warrior class. Every last able-bodied person was a sentinel and defender of the peace. The sheriff, the only elected and constitutional form of law enforcement, often had a posse, which was, again, made up of regular citizens. There was no exalted Praetorian Guard — only friends, family and neighbors. There was no need for a government dominated law enforcement structure back then, nor is there a need for one now.
The militia system was slowly eroded over decades and replaced with centralized law enforcement under the direct influence of the political elite. Currently, using the Department of Homeland Security and the integration of “fusion centers,” the police are now an army under direct federal control, equipped with military-grade technology through the 1033 program. When Barack Obama called for the creation of a “civilian national security force” just as powerful and well-funded as the military back in 2008, this is clearly what he was referring to. The results of police militarization are thoroughly negative.
In my recent article ‘The Ferguson conundrum solved by community security,’ I discussed the complete lack of LEO protection against looting and arson during the Ferguson, Missouri, riots, which led the Oath Keepers to provide security for innocent business owners, filling the void left behind. Law enforcement officials were apparently too busy harassing peaceful protesters and journalists to deal with the threat of a burning city, or too busy guarding government building and revealing where their true loyalties rest. I have heard arguments that the Ferguson police were not to blame for the failure because they were under orders from their superiors and under pressure from the federal government. While I would note that each individual officer has the right and the duty to refuse immoral orders, regardless of whether or not LEO’s refused to protect businesses out of personal choice, or out of fear of losing their jobs, the fact remains that the public is often left to face criminality without the aid of police. And, because this is an undeniable reality, the public must take back responsibility for its security.
Whether one believes that the shooting of Michael Brown was justified or not, the police response after the fact only reinforced public expectations of corruption. Ferguson is only one example in a multitude of police abuses, and these abuses are not relegated to any one ethnicity. Leftists are not wrong when they point out the dangerous evolution of law enforcement into a government goon squad (the liberty movement was warning the world about it long before the left ever figured out what was going on). But in their half-sighted examinations, they make the mistake of believing police abuse is purely race-related. In reality, police abuse is universal — from Tamir Rice, the black 12-year-old in Cleveland shot dead by police less than two seconds after their arrival for having a toy gun in his pants, to the murder of Kelly Thomas, a white homeless man shot with a stun gun in the face and beaten for 10 minutes straight in the street until dead by California police for the crime of “not sitting still as ordered.”
In nearly all of these cases of overt police force, even when video evidence clearly indicates wrongdoing, LEOs are acquitted by the system. The reason for this should be obvious: The establishment must keep the warrior class happy, content, and untouchable; otherwise, the they loses power. No corrupt system is going to punish its own unless utterly necessary to its survival, because if it did, it would then have to admit that it is not entirely trustworthy, causing the people to question whether its existence is more dangerous than the villains it is supposed to protect us from. Government generally only cares about perpetuating its own existence; it does not care about the safety of the populace. In this way, police become a kind of Mafia or cult with their own set of rules outside of the purview of the rest of society and immune to any form of justice.
What is truly disturbing are the lengths to which some Americans (and other law enforcement) will go to rationalize any and all actions taken by police, even if they result in the death of an innocent. The Stockholm Syndrome certainly seems to be at work as portions of the public continue to worship LEOs as saviors who can do no wrong. Mention the idea of getting rid of state police, and the LEO fan club cries out in terror like children separated from their parents at a crowded shopping mall. In the end, though, all children must eventually grow up and start taking care of themselves.
At bottom, police are not protectors of the public good, not even in a technical or legal sense. Law enforcement organizations have even argued in the Supreme Court that their job is NOT to prevent crime but to enforce the law after the fact, and they have won using this assertion. That is to say, a police officer is NOT legally required to protect a person from harm, only to institute state policy once a crime is committed.
What government law enforcement is admitting to in its argument is that it does not provide security, which is what we in the liberty movement have known all along. The only service police provide is to clean up the mess left over when the carnage of a crime has subsided. If law enforcement has any purpose at all, it is to keep the public in check and in line – to promote the farce that without government protection, chaos will rule.
The communist Cheka, a security organization founded by Vladimir Lenin at the beginning of the Bolshevik takeover of Russia, was notorious for random arrests and killings of civilians in the name of peace and security. Many communist Russians, true believers in the Bolshevist cause, refused to accept that the Cheka were capable of criminal abuse. They assumed that those killed must have been enemies of the state, just as the government proclaimed. And when they themselves were arrested for no apparent reason, they wrote letters from the gulags to Stalin, naively believing that he would save them from what must have been a bureaucratic error.
In fact, the Cheka had been given orders directly from the state to fill a quota of arrests in order to justify the constant propaganda the state produced warning of agents of “capitalist evil” around every corner. The Cheka, the secret police, were given warrior-class status and free reign to assert their authority over anyone, at any time, for any reason. America is only a short step away from a similar nightmare, and many in our nation suffer from the same naive faith in statism as the Russians did years ago.
The only way to avoid such a horror is to remove state-sanctioned law enforcement from the picture entirely. Is this “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”? No. Rather, it is saving the baby from a swirling virulent cesspool.
As we saw in grand scale in Ferguson, LEOs are essentially useless to the public. In response, members of the Ferguson community welcomed the Oath Keepers and their Community Preparedness Team strategy. In time, Oath Keepers CPT will train locals to provide their own protection without need for any outside aid. When locals provide their own security, when every citizen is a member of the warrior class, abuse is far less likely because the watchmen have no motivation to abuse themselves.
Arguments that this will lead to a culture of “warlords” invariably pop up when discussing the concept of community based security. Of course, when every member of a community is trained to defend themselves, abusive warlord do not last long, but then again, neither do abusive governments, which I suppose is the true reason why decentralized community security is treated with such disdain. This is yet another contrived attempt to insinuate that the American people cannot be trusted with their own defense, but the government can. It is built around the illusion that state police are somehow “impartial observers” and actors. This has simply never been so. State controlled police have every motivation to protect state interests, and as long as they are given free license to do whatever they please without consequence, most of them will continue to do so. Impartiality is non-existent in the world of law enforcement.
Police misconduct has a cumulative effect on a culture. We do not forget all of the oversteps of the past; we merely file them away until we finally reach a breaking point. It is important for LEOs to understand that while they may have a relative immunity to legal reparations, they are not immune to the rage of the populace and will likely find their fragile warrior personas rather inadequate when that day arrives. For the true constitutional police out there, it is time to take sides, either with good American people or with the corrupt establishment. It is impossible to serve both. The illusion of the “thin blue line” is quickly fading. The only question now is: What is going to replace it? The establishment would have you believe there are only two options: total chaos or martial law. But there has always been a third alternative they seek to suppress: the return of community defense, the resurgence of localized responsibility and the victory of personal liberty over false security.
Bostonbob
December 12, 2014 8:43 am
Having worked in various forms of construction, including residential roofing, I can attest to the fact there it can and is quite dangerous. Power tools, heavy equipment, heights, heat, cold, etc I have only sustained minor injuries, though I suspect my 9 herniated discs may be from long term construction abuse. I have seen some nasty injuries and had a friend killed when a crane collapsed on him.
On the other hand I have a nephew who works in a sleepy suburb, as a police officer, where your biggest chance of injury is a car accident, pulled down $120,000 his third year on the force. Another friend on the force in a town closer to Boston, $160,000 in his third year. In 2012 we had 23 State Police make in excess of $200,000, and they get paid time weekly to work out. The list to get into the Sate Police Academy is in the thousands, not a few, but several thousand, and you can retire as young as 50 with a full pension, then often go back to work for the state or a town to work on a second pension. Nice racket if you are on the inside, not so much for the taxpayer.
Bob.
hardscrabble farmer
December 12, 2014 9:31 am
I fit in four of those categories, does that increase my risk or does my heightened amygdalic response offset it?
I feel a sense of pity for the police because I am sure the overwhelming majority of them are in it for the right reasons and they have watched the world turn upside down on them in the years since 9/11 when all cops were “heroes”. In the current political climate everyone gets turned on, there is no safe or protected class no matter how indespensible they may seem to the elites pulling the strings. If TPTB are best served by throwing them under the bus, then under the bus they must go. Being brave, risking your life, working insane hours, maintaining the status quo, protecting the downtrodden doesn’t mean bupkus if your masters need a scapegoat. I’m about a third of the way through The Gulag Archipelago and this all seems so familiar I can’t really believe that it took place in two different countries at two different times in history, it’s as if nothing has changed at all.
dc.sunsets
December 12, 2014 10:01 am
@Hardscrabble,
No, most are NOT in it for the right reasons.
Have you met any young adults studying “law enforcement?” Sorriest bunch of people anywhere.
Why go into “LE?” Simple:
1. Unlike STEM fields, it doesn’t require significantly above-average intelligence.
2. Instead of earning respect from others, you don a costume and immediately command respect, if not outright fear, without actually having to have done anything respect-worthy.
Show me another occupation where this is true.
This is why LE attracts lazy, short-cut oriented louts and people whose egos need constant feeding. This is why so many cops are short men and dumpy women. This is why the current training revolves around force-compliance rather than negotiation and persuasion.
dc.sunsets
December 12, 2014 10:03 am
Do not forget that LE and firefighting are the last bastions of making Big Money for people of modest intelligence.
The rest of the world is increasingly only paying for those with IQ’s above 120 (which relatively few people, and very-very few minorities possess.)
This makes getting a cop or firefighter gig one of the most lucrative lottery-winner events in a person’s life.
dc.sunsets
December 12, 2014 10:08 am
@flash,
Rabbits (like all leftists/collectivists) are completely dependent upon the existing power structure to leverage their behavior in the direction they want to go.
Imagine what happens when the existing power structure goes home with the cops, who in a time of unrest drop any pretense of public service and go home to take care of their families.
Someone laying in front of my car attempting to prevent me from getting home (to see to my responsibilities to my loved ones) will discover they’re not so much as a speed bump.
hardscrabble farmer
December 12, 2014 10:19 am
dc-
You may be right, my experience with LE where I live is not only on friendly terms, but respectful ones as well. They are casual, dress like Andy/Barney, are Johnny on the spot whenever someone is in distress or an accident, smile like they mean it, show up at community events as civilians, etc. They aren’t all screwed up like the urban warrior types I see in the news. So that’s just my opinion from where I live. When the local PD pull up my driveway I assume it’s to buy a dozen eggs or ask me if I can help round up someone’s lost goat. I even got pulled over on Father’s Day by the State Police on the highway for expired inspection sticker and expired license (only a month for each, but still, I was inn the wrong) The guy said if I showed up with both current he’d waive the ticket and did.
I think a great deal of it has to do with where you live- urban environments are bad for people and ratchet up stress and anxiety to a degree where everyone is behaving in an unnatural and unhealthy manner most of the time- but also how you relate to other people. If you think someone is going to be a specific way, you telegraph it to them and they respond.
What do I know? I am speaking from such a narrow view I’m probably the only person who feels this way any more.
dc.sunsets
December 12, 2014 10:27 am
hardscrabble-
You’re right. I sometimes succumb to the mood.
My local cops have tended to be good Joe’s. I’ve never encountered “Bad Cop” here, and while I think most of what they do amounts to tax-collection (via traffic citations), I’m not yet to the point where my local police scare the crap out of me.
Not true when I go to the Chicago area. The cops in most of the suburbs have iffy reputations, thankfully not anywhere near as bad as places like Prince Georges County MD or the cops in UT.
My biggest concern is that I had a tiny taste of the swaggering power trip of being a cop while I was in college. Even being on the “campus police” then gave me a bad case of Bad Cop.
Power is extremely corrupting. Those who claim they can be cops and not be corrupted by it do not earn my trust. Power is the ultimate opium, more addictive than anything on Planet Earth.
For this reason alone I am pushed toward my distrustful views of cops. Experience has been okay, even good once or twice, but that “Power corrupts” problem always pulls me back.
Stucky
December 12, 2014 10:59 am
dc.sunsets said;
Why go into “LE?” Simple:
1. Unlike STEM fields, it doesn’t require significantly above-average intelligence.
2. Instead of earning respect from others, you don a costume and immediately command respect, if not outright fear, without actually having to have done anything respect-worthy.
Show me another occupation where this is true.
===================================
Another occupation? Preachers, Ministers, Priests, etc.
—- On one hand, I’ve know some preachers who were quite intelligent. But, most are dumb as a box of rocks. Really.
— Their “uniform” is the Cloak Of God ….. THEY, not you, know what God wants.
— People in this career field …. err, “calling” …. have an ENORMOUS ego, which they are extremely adept at cloaking in false humility. Most NEED to be liked, even “worshiped”.
— These people have a burning desire to CONTROL others; “God told me this” so you must do this, don’t do that
— Not only do they believe God called them, but the sheeple flock also believe it … thus bequeathing upon these deeply flawed personalities the ultimate goal ……….. POWER.
Bostonbob
December 12, 2014 11:21 am
Hardscrabble,
I pretty much would have to agree with your assessment of the local cops, same around here. d.c. my nephew the cop is 6’6′ and about 250lbs of all muscle, works out 6 days a week. Fortunately I am his godfather and he still calls me “Uncle Bob”. Not very many short Staties in this state either.
Bob.
dc.sunsets
December 12, 2014 11:28 am
Bostonbob,
I still recall quite clearly Sgt. Huffman of the Greencastle, IN police back around 1981.
5’7″ in his cowboy boots.
400 pounds of swagger in maybe 150 lbs of man.
One night (night shift) he came in to Campus Police to chit-chat with one of the full time (actual) cops. He said, “Yeah, tomorrow I gotta answer questions to the FBI; they’re investigating me for a report of police brutality.” The campus officer, a truly calm and decent guy, asked, “Did you do it.”
Huffman looked at him and said, “Damn right I did! I threw the guy into the fingerprint machine that I broke it.”
He was a mean SOB, probably making about $13,000/yr at the time (this was before the 9/11 blowjob-fest of celebrating “first responders” with lavish salaries and pensions previously reserved for multimillionaires.)
I don’t know the future, but Americans’ obsession with coercion does not promise tranquility.
Tommy
December 12, 2014 12:06 pm
There’s no way one of the most dangerous jobs isn’t manning the convenience store graveyard shift, no way.
Welshman
December 12, 2014 1:04 pm
Being a pilot for commerical airlines in not a very dangerous job. Pilots that fly in the bush, ag pilots,
small to medium cargo pilots, fire drop pilots, and helocopter pilots have huge risks. Since moving to N. Calif. 15 years ago just in our region we have lost four or five hospital helocopter pilots, ten to twelve fire drop pilots, and two or three ag pilots. Flying close to the ground and landing on crappy runways is not for the faint of heart.
‘Tis true. Some of the toughest people in the world fish for a living. I wouldn’t do it. Descending underground a much as a mile before starting to work? Not me. Work with/under high-voltage power lines and transformers all day long? I couldn’t do it. Farming? Hard work doesn’t begin to describe it and nature is so unpredictable. Run a dairy? Nope.
I appreciate all Americans who do the “heavy lifting” for society every day: trash men, waitresses/waiters, cooks, grocery-store stockers, plumbers, butchers, ranchers, auto mechanics, cashiers, truck drivers, nurses, road crews and many others too numerous to mention.
costumed heroes …because Dunkin’s Donuts needs a savior.
Thanks to the timid non-producers of anything tangible, the “there oughta’ be a law” over bred rabbit warrens, two of the biggest job producing industries in America are now the military and the police …expect then, the forces of largess to be utilized frequently as circumscribed gainful employment is chipped away at via third world immigration and central bank induced rampant inflation….herd paranoia will ensue.
If your amygdala is developed, it has been developed through experience. When it encounters adversity, it scans your brain for a solution, finds it stored in memories of prior experiences, and it will then drive behaviors to address your adversity. As a self-sufficient non-rabbit, your amygdala will drive you to fix your own problems.
If, however your amygdala is not acclimated to adversity, then you will not be able to find a solution stored in your amygdala, and you will feel helpless. Once you are helpless, and your amygdala is applying aversive stimulus to drive you to take action, your focus will direct itself to making others solve your problems for you. Then, rather than fixing your problems yourself, you will focus on making everyone else miserable, in the hopes that to alleviate their misery they will solve your problem for you. Suddenly you are laying down in the middle of a freeway, basically telling other people that unless they fight your enemies for you and fix your problems on your behalf, you will stop traffic, and prevent them from getting home.
Notice, developed amygdalae solve problems, undeveloped amygdala make more, for everyone, in the hopes that increased misery all around will benefit them at some point. One builds a successful society, one screws everything up as they try to make others as miserable as themselves.
These overly triggerable amygdalae will produce unrest and turmoil that will be unlike anything we have seen in our lives, if the current path is maintained. Make no mistake, we have gone to unimaginable lengths to feed unimaginable levels of free resources into our ecosystem, producing rabbits of unimaginable mental instability, with completely undeveloped amygdalae. I do not believe there has ever been a more Warrior-like population, infested with a more viscerally repugnant and mentally unstable, rabbit-like cohort, whose panic and intolerance for any sort of discomfort is so immense and unappeasable.
Historically, the end result of conditions like these has been a societal turmoil of unimaginable proportions. These are the materials historic events are made of. If you have ever read an historical account, wide eyed and amazed at what someone in the past endured, understand those same types of events may someday present themselves to us. Be prepared.
Preliminary 2014 Law Enforcement Officer Fatalities
Jan. 1 through Dec. 11, 2014 vs. Jan. 1 through Dec. 11, 2013
2014
2013 % Change
Total Fatalities 114 90 +27%
Firearms-related 46 27 +70%
Traffic-related 43 39 +10%
Other Causes 25 24 +4%
Please note: These numbers reflect total officer fatalities comparing
Jan. 1 through Dec. 11, 2014 vs. Jan. 1 through Dec. 11, 2013
2014 Fatalities by State
California 14
Texas 11
New York 6
Florida 5
Alabama 4
Arizona 4
Georgia 4
Indiana 4
Virginia 4
New Jersey 3
Oklahoma 3
Pennsylvania 3
South Carolina 3
Tennessee 3
Alaska 2
Louisiana 2
Massachusetts 2
Michigan 2
Missouri 2
Nebraska 2
Nevada 2
North Carolina 2
Ohio 2
Arkansas 1
Colorado 1
Illinois 1
Kansas 1
Kentucky 1
Minnesota 1
Mississippi 1
Montana 1
New Hampshire 1
New Mexico 1
Oregon 1
Utah 1
Washington 1
Wisconsin 1
Federal Agencies: 5
Military: 1
U.S. Territories: 5
Note: All data are preliminary and are subject to change.
Other causes = CHOKED ON A DONUT
Traffic Related = Cops aren’t good drivers
This Dunkin Donuts is safe.
More people get shot to death during a weekend in Chicago than the number of cops shot to death in the entire U.S. in an entire year.
What would we do without the 2nd responders to draw the chalk outlines and collect lifetime gold plated pensions at the age of 50?
The ‘Thin Blue Line’ Serves No Purpose
Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market blog,
Like many people, I grew up watching numerous television shows and mainstream movies depicting a world in which the common police officer stood as a sentinel of civilized society against a seething underbelly of violence and chaos just beneath the surface of the world around us. Through public schooling, we were indoctrinated to fear the drug culture as a breeding ground of gangland destruction and to worship law enforcement officials as the only barrier between us and a cocaine-frosted wasteland. We were led to believe that every day police were holding back a tide of crime and terrorism. The so-called “thin blue line” was an indispensable part of a safe and prosperous nation.
To criticize or present opposition to the institution of state and federally funded law enforcement is often considered tantamount to treason – or, at the very least, it is considered unpatriotic. After all, we have all been told every moment of our lives that a world without police would immediately turn into a frothing, frenzied orgy of mass insanity and that average human beings cannot be trusted to take responsibility for the day-to-day security of their neighborhoods and towns. Official doctrine today demands a designated warrior class, separate from the rest of us, to handle the protection and care of weakling citizens.
Now, it is important to note that there are in fact many good people working in the field of law enforcement. This is not under debate and not relevant to the point I am about to make. The problem is not necessarily with all the individuals who make up law enforcement; the problem is with the existence and mandate of the institution itself. I personally do not “hate” cops per se (though some of them deserve to be hated). But I do hate corrupt government structures, and law enforcement has become the grasping arm of the elitist machine.
The downfall of any policing system arises when individuals are separated from the responsibility for their own security and society is delegated into classes of protectors, or sheepdogs, and sheep. As I have outlined in many articles, government itself has become an entity foreign to the interests of the American people. Through the false left/right paradigm, elitists have taken away the ability of the public to participate in civic duties and to preserve our principles rather than sacrifice them in the name of the “greater good.” City and state police are not subject to the tides of political elections, even if elections actually mattered. They are part of an unaccountable bureaucratic monstrosity that shifts only according to the whims of the establishment.
The existence of a separate government-controlled warrior class has caused crisis and catastrophe all throughout human history. Invariably, this warrior class ends up exalting itself as superior to the functions and values of the citizenry, rather than maintaining a sense of duty to the citizenry. The claim that the average American is not capable of proper self-security or community security is perhaps the most successful lie of the past century. This is not to say that warriors do not exist. Some people develop the proper mindset, while others do not. However, becoming a warrior is a personal psychological and spiritual pursuit meant to overcome the detriments of fear and has nothing whatsoever to do with government recognition. The fact that many law enforcement officials often refer to non-LEOs as “civilians” is a rather laughable example of the delusions of the government-paid bureaucratic warrior class in action, fantasizing as if they have been deployed to Afghanistan while writing speeding tickets in suburbia.
In the early days of America, the common citizenry through the formation of the militia WAS the warrior class. Every last able-bodied person was a sentinel and defender of the peace. The sheriff, the only elected and constitutional form of law enforcement, often had a posse, which was, again, made up of regular citizens. There was no exalted Praetorian Guard — only friends, family and neighbors. There was no need for a government dominated law enforcement structure back then, nor is there a need for one now.
The militia system was slowly eroded over decades and replaced with centralized law enforcement under the direct influence of the political elite. Currently, using the Department of Homeland Security and the integration of “fusion centers,” the police are now an army under direct federal control, equipped with military-grade technology through the 1033 program. When Barack Obama called for the creation of a “civilian national security force” just as powerful and well-funded as the military back in 2008, this is clearly what he was referring to. The results of police militarization are thoroughly negative.
In my recent article ‘The Ferguson conundrum solved by community security,’ I discussed the complete lack of LEO protection against looting and arson during the Ferguson, Missouri, riots, which led the Oath Keepers to provide security for innocent business owners, filling the void left behind. Law enforcement officials were apparently too busy harassing peaceful protesters and journalists to deal with the threat of a burning city, or too busy guarding government building and revealing where their true loyalties rest. I have heard arguments that the Ferguson police were not to blame for the failure because they were under orders from their superiors and under pressure from the federal government. While I would note that each individual officer has the right and the duty to refuse immoral orders, regardless of whether or not LEO’s refused to protect businesses out of personal choice, or out of fear of losing their jobs, the fact remains that the public is often left to face criminality without the aid of police. And, because this is an undeniable reality, the public must take back responsibility for its security.
Whether one believes that the shooting of Michael Brown was justified or not, the police response after the fact only reinforced public expectations of corruption. Ferguson is only one example in a multitude of police abuses, and these abuses are not relegated to any one ethnicity. Leftists are not wrong when they point out the dangerous evolution of law enforcement into a government goon squad (the liberty movement was warning the world about it long before the left ever figured out what was going on). But in their half-sighted examinations, they make the mistake of believing police abuse is purely race-related. In reality, police abuse is universal — from Tamir Rice, the black 12-year-old in Cleveland shot dead by police less than two seconds after their arrival for having a toy gun in his pants, to the murder of Kelly Thomas, a white homeless man shot with a stun gun in the face and beaten for 10 minutes straight in the street until dead by California police for the crime of “not sitting still as ordered.”
In nearly all of these cases of overt police force, even when video evidence clearly indicates wrongdoing, LEOs are acquitted by the system. The reason for this should be obvious: The establishment must keep the warrior class happy, content, and untouchable; otherwise, the they loses power. No corrupt system is going to punish its own unless utterly necessary to its survival, because if it did, it would then have to admit that it is not entirely trustworthy, causing the people to question whether its existence is more dangerous than the villains it is supposed to protect us from. Government generally only cares about perpetuating its own existence; it does not care about the safety of the populace. In this way, police become a kind of Mafia or cult with their own set of rules outside of the purview of the rest of society and immune to any form of justice.
What is truly disturbing are the lengths to which some Americans (and other law enforcement) will go to rationalize any and all actions taken by police, even if they result in the death of an innocent. The Stockholm Syndrome certainly seems to be at work as portions of the public continue to worship LEOs as saviors who can do no wrong. Mention the idea of getting rid of state police, and the LEO fan club cries out in terror like children separated from their parents at a crowded shopping mall. In the end, though, all children must eventually grow up and start taking care of themselves.
At bottom, police are not protectors of the public good, not even in a technical or legal sense. Law enforcement organizations have even argued in the Supreme Court that their job is NOT to prevent crime but to enforce the law after the fact, and they have won using this assertion. That is to say, a police officer is NOT legally required to protect a person from harm, only to institute state policy once a crime is committed.
What government law enforcement is admitting to in its argument is that it does not provide security, which is what we in the liberty movement have known all along. The only service police provide is to clean up the mess left over when the carnage of a crime has subsided. If law enforcement has any purpose at all, it is to keep the public in check and in line – to promote the farce that without government protection, chaos will rule.
The communist Cheka, a security organization founded by Vladimir Lenin at the beginning of the Bolshevik takeover of Russia, was notorious for random arrests and killings of civilians in the name of peace and security. Many communist Russians, true believers in the Bolshevist cause, refused to accept that the Cheka were capable of criminal abuse. They assumed that those killed must have been enemies of the state, just as the government proclaimed. And when they themselves were arrested for no apparent reason, they wrote letters from the gulags to Stalin, naively believing that he would save them from what must have been a bureaucratic error.
In fact, the Cheka had been given orders directly from the state to fill a quota of arrests in order to justify the constant propaganda the state produced warning of agents of “capitalist evil” around every corner. The Cheka, the secret police, were given warrior-class status and free reign to assert their authority over anyone, at any time, for any reason. America is only a short step away from a similar nightmare, and many in our nation suffer from the same naive faith in statism as the Russians did years ago.
The only way to avoid such a horror is to remove state-sanctioned law enforcement from the picture entirely. Is this “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”? No. Rather, it is saving the baby from a swirling virulent cesspool.
As we saw in grand scale in Ferguson, LEOs are essentially useless to the public. In response, members of the Ferguson community welcomed the Oath Keepers and their Community Preparedness Team strategy. In time, Oath Keepers CPT will train locals to provide their own protection without need for any outside aid. When locals provide their own security, when every citizen is a member of the warrior class, abuse is far less likely because the watchmen have no motivation to abuse themselves.
Arguments that this will lead to a culture of “warlords” invariably pop up when discussing the concept of community based security. Of course, when every member of a community is trained to defend themselves, abusive warlord do not last long, but then again, neither do abusive governments, which I suppose is the true reason why decentralized community security is treated with such disdain. This is yet another contrived attempt to insinuate that the American people cannot be trusted with their own defense, but the government can. It is built around the illusion that state police are somehow “impartial observers” and actors. This has simply never been so. State controlled police have every motivation to protect state interests, and as long as they are given free license to do whatever they please without consequence, most of them will continue to do so. Impartiality is non-existent in the world of law enforcement.
Police misconduct has a cumulative effect on a culture. We do not forget all of the oversteps of the past; we merely file them away until we finally reach a breaking point. It is important for LEOs to understand that while they may have a relative immunity to legal reparations, they are not immune to the rage of the populace and will likely find their fragile warrior personas rather inadequate when that day arrives. For the true constitutional police out there, it is time to take sides, either with good American people or with the corrupt establishment. It is impossible to serve both. The illusion of the “thin blue line” is quickly fading. The only question now is: What is going to replace it? The establishment would have you believe there are only two options: total chaos or martial law. But there has always been a third alternative they seek to suppress: the return of community defense, the resurgence of localized responsibility and the victory of personal liberty over false security.
Having worked in various forms of construction, including residential roofing, I can attest to the fact there it can and is quite dangerous. Power tools, heavy equipment, heights, heat, cold, etc I have only sustained minor injuries, though I suspect my 9 herniated discs may be from long term construction abuse. I have seen some nasty injuries and had a friend killed when a crane collapsed on him.
On the other hand I have a nephew who works in a sleepy suburb, as a police officer, where your biggest chance of injury is a car accident, pulled down $120,000 his third year on the force. Another friend on the force in a town closer to Boston, $160,000 in his third year. In 2012 we had 23 State Police make in excess of $200,000, and they get paid time weekly to work out. The list to get into the Sate Police Academy is in the thousands, not a few, but several thousand, and you can retire as young as 50 with a full pension, then often go back to work for the state or a town to work on a second pension. Nice racket if you are on the inside, not so much for the taxpayer.
Bob.
I fit in four of those categories, does that increase my risk or does my heightened amygdalic response offset it?
I feel a sense of pity for the police because I am sure the overwhelming majority of them are in it for the right reasons and they have watched the world turn upside down on them in the years since 9/11 when all cops were “heroes”. In the current political climate everyone gets turned on, there is no safe or protected class no matter how indespensible they may seem to the elites pulling the strings. If TPTB are best served by throwing them under the bus, then under the bus they must go. Being brave, risking your life, working insane hours, maintaining the status quo, protecting the downtrodden doesn’t mean bupkus if your masters need a scapegoat. I’m about a third of the way through The Gulag Archipelago and this all seems so familiar I can’t really believe that it took place in two different countries at two different times in history, it’s as if nothing has changed at all.
@Hardscrabble,
No, most are NOT in it for the right reasons.
Have you met any young adults studying “law enforcement?” Sorriest bunch of people anywhere.
Why go into “LE?” Simple:
1. Unlike STEM fields, it doesn’t require significantly above-average intelligence.
2. Instead of earning respect from others, you don a costume and immediately command respect, if not outright fear, without actually having to have done anything respect-worthy.
Show me another occupation where this is true.
This is why LE attracts lazy, short-cut oriented louts and people whose egos need constant feeding. This is why so many cops are short men and dumpy women. This is why the current training revolves around force-compliance rather than negotiation and persuasion.
Do not forget that LE and firefighting are the last bastions of making Big Money for people of modest intelligence.
The rest of the world is increasingly only paying for those with IQ’s above 120 (which relatively few people, and very-very few minorities possess.)
This makes getting a cop or firefighter gig one of the most lucrative lottery-winner events in a person’s life.
@flash,
Rabbits (like all leftists/collectivists) are completely dependent upon the existing power structure to leverage their behavior in the direction they want to go.
Imagine what happens when the existing power structure goes home with the cops, who in a time of unrest drop any pretense of public service and go home to take care of their families.
Someone laying in front of my car attempting to prevent me from getting home (to see to my responsibilities to my loved ones) will discover they’re not so much as a speed bump.
dc-
You may be right, my experience with LE where I live is not only on friendly terms, but respectful ones as well. They are casual, dress like Andy/Barney, are Johnny on the spot whenever someone is in distress or an accident, smile like they mean it, show up at community events as civilians, etc. They aren’t all screwed up like the urban warrior types I see in the news. So that’s just my opinion from where I live. When the local PD pull up my driveway I assume it’s to buy a dozen eggs or ask me if I can help round up someone’s lost goat. I even got pulled over on Father’s Day by the State Police on the highway for expired inspection sticker and expired license (only a month for each, but still, I was inn the wrong) The guy said if I showed up with both current he’d waive the ticket and did.
I think a great deal of it has to do with where you live- urban environments are bad for people and ratchet up stress and anxiety to a degree where everyone is behaving in an unnatural and unhealthy manner most of the time- but also how you relate to other people. If you think someone is going to be a specific way, you telegraph it to them and they respond.
What do I know? I am speaking from such a narrow view I’m probably the only person who feels this way any more.
hardscrabble-
You’re right. I sometimes succumb to the mood.
My local cops have tended to be good Joe’s. I’ve never encountered “Bad Cop” here, and while I think most of what they do amounts to tax-collection (via traffic citations), I’m not yet to the point where my local police scare the crap out of me.
Not true when I go to the Chicago area. The cops in most of the suburbs have iffy reputations, thankfully not anywhere near as bad as places like Prince Georges County MD or the cops in UT.
My biggest concern is that I had a tiny taste of the swaggering power trip of being a cop while I was in college. Even being on the “campus police” then gave me a bad case of Bad Cop.
Power is extremely corrupting. Those who claim they can be cops and not be corrupted by it do not earn my trust. Power is the ultimate opium, more addictive than anything on Planet Earth.
For this reason alone I am pushed toward my distrustful views of cops. Experience has been okay, even good once or twice, but that “Power corrupts” problem always pulls me back.
dc.sunsets said;
Why go into “LE?” Simple:
1. Unlike STEM fields, it doesn’t require significantly above-average intelligence.
2. Instead of earning respect from others, you don a costume and immediately command respect, if not outright fear, without actually having to have done anything respect-worthy.
Show me another occupation where this is true.
===================================
Another occupation? Preachers, Ministers, Priests, etc.
—- On one hand, I’ve know some preachers who were quite intelligent. But, most are dumb as a box of rocks. Really.
— Their “uniform” is the Cloak Of God ….. THEY, not you, know what God wants.
— People in this career field …. err, “calling” …. have an ENORMOUS ego, which they are extremely adept at cloaking in false humility. Most NEED to be liked, even “worshiped”.
— These people have a burning desire to CONTROL others; “God told me this” so you must do this, don’t do that
— Not only do they believe God called them, but the sheeple flock also believe it … thus bequeathing upon these deeply flawed personalities the ultimate goal ……….. POWER.
Hardscrabble,
I pretty much would have to agree with your assessment of the local cops, same around here. d.c. my nephew the cop is 6’6′ and about 250lbs of all muscle, works out 6 days a week. Fortunately I am his godfather and he still calls me “Uncle Bob”. Not very many short Staties in this state either.
Bob.
Bostonbob,
I still recall quite clearly Sgt. Huffman of the Greencastle, IN police back around 1981.
5’7″ in his cowboy boots.
400 pounds of swagger in maybe 150 lbs of man.
One night (night shift) he came in to Campus Police to chit-chat with one of the full time (actual) cops. He said, “Yeah, tomorrow I gotta answer questions to the FBI; they’re investigating me for a report of police brutality.” The campus officer, a truly calm and decent guy, asked, “Did you do it.”
Huffman looked at him and said, “Damn right I did! I threw the guy into the fingerprint machine that I broke it.”
He was a mean SOB, probably making about $13,000/yr at the time (this was before the 9/11 blowjob-fest of celebrating “first responders” with lavish salaries and pensions previously reserved for multimillionaires.)
I don’t know the future, but Americans’ obsession with coercion does not promise tranquility.
There’s no way one of the most dangerous jobs isn’t manning the convenience store graveyard shift, no way.
Being a pilot for commerical airlines in not a very dangerous job. Pilots that fly in the bush, ag pilots,
small to medium cargo pilots, fire drop pilots, and helocopter pilots have huge risks. Since moving to N. Calif. 15 years ago just in our region we have lost four or five hospital helocopter pilots, ten to twelve fire drop pilots, and two or three ag pilots. Flying close to the ground and landing on crappy runways is not for the faint of heart.
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Most bad cops work in Democratic Dead Zones.