I trace the whole weird syndrome we live with today – of cops being ridiculously polite and solicitous toward violent thugs and real criminals while often acting brutally toward ordinary citizens who commit minor infractions such as “speeding” or “talking back” – to the 1991 Rodney King Incident.
King was a violent thug who not only led cops on an extended 100-plus mph chase through populated areas where some innocent bystander could easily have been killed; he lunged at the cops and fought like an enraged silverback gorilla on a PCP bender when finally cornered.
The cops were crucified for administering a roadside wood shampoo to King.
Had I done what King did, I would have expected a beating – and not complained if I got one.
But ever since the King Thing, cops have been forced by political correctness to bend over backwards to accommodate thugs like King. Which must be infuriating. And which may explain why they often end up taking out their understandable frustrations on the rest of us.
Pre-King (if you’re old enough to remember) a routine traffic stop was just that – routine. You could actually get out of your car, walk over to talk with the cop – and not put yourself at risk of being shot to death, or having a gun pointed at you. It was not necessary to “freeze” inside the car, with both hands on the wheel.
You could even argue with the cop – and not risk being immediately body slammed to the ground, Tasered and arrested for doing so.
I know it because I lived it. If you’re over 40, you remember this Old America, too.
Then the King Thing happened and everything changed. Cops became much more aggressive (toward us) and much less so toward the King types out there. Because they understand that to be anything other than obsequiously gracious toward some violent thug (most often a Treasured Minority) practically invites a lawsuit for discrimination and all the rest of it.
Meanwhile, the average white guy (or white woman, even if she’s a mom with kids) is now subject to the sort of treatment that King got – precisely because such people are not sainted members of a protected victim class and by nature don’t sue, sue, sue.
The writer Sam Francis called it “anarcho-tyranny” – and it is the best term I know to describe the upended society we live in. Juxtapose the rough treatment meted out to Ordinary Joes and Janes at “sobriety checkpoints, ” the TSA feel-ups when they’re trying to board an airplane and the depressing knowledge that their every e-mail and phone call is probably routinely monitored against the way rapists and murderers are politely addressed as “sir” by cops and judges and other agents of officialdom; the revolving-door sentences (if they’re sentenced at all) and the endless conveyor belt of rights and privileges and entitlements theyreceive.
Because anything less would be discrimination n’ sheet.
affgate
Hehehe!
As Chris Rock summed it up, very cogently, in my opinion,
“Rodney wouldn’t have gotten his ass kicked if he had just followed this simple tip – when you see flashing Police lights in your mirror, stop immediately! Everybody knows, if the Police have to come and get you, they’re bringing an ass kicking with them!”
Had he ran over a little girl or killed a couple of people while he was driving high everyone would hate him. People forget that he was the criminal who resisted arrest and attacked the police. They tazored him several times but it had no effect so they had to resort to either their batons or guns to stop him. They should have used the guns. Would have solved the whole problem and prevented the riots.
And he just got another DUI. That’s number three, I think.
“They should have used the guns. Would have solved the whole problem and prevented the riots.” — Funny, I had the same thought!
It always floors me how these guys (afa-letes, rappers, lotto winners) manage to blow through a windfall of mega-millions. Any half-bright, half-responsible person would be set up for life on one million. Just one. Not several. A few hundred thou is enough to buy a damn nice house/land outright. Boom, there goes 50-plus percent of most people’s lifetime bills.If you spent say $300k on the house, that would leave $700k to live on. Use say $400k to buy rental property (or a couple of them) and now you own that, plus you’ve got renters paying you $1,000-$1,500 a month. And you still have $300k in the bank. The interest coming in on that would probably give you another $500 per month. So, not even working at all, you could own a nice house outright and have at least $2,000 coming in each month to live on. For the rest of your life.
How can anyone fuck that up?
Money you earn comes with a cost. You work and earn, work and earn. Cost and benefit. The money you earn therefore has value to you. You are better off (higher level of utility) trading your labor for the money. If you worked and received no money then your costs would outweigh your benefits and you’d be worse off so you don’t do that.
Similarly, if you receive money with no labor costs then the money has no value to you. Since it was free, if you blow it all you are still just as well off as before you got it. There’s no way to be worse off, whereas if you blow the money you earned, you are worse off because you’ve incurred the labor costs but now have none of the benefits.
I recently saw King on celebrate rehab with Dr. Drew. My man got a settlement of a few million bones back in the day and I think has blown it all. Seems like a decent enough guy now, but I don’t know. A few million for a half ass beat down ain’t such a bad deal!
I remember this incident; happened shortly after college… at the time, the media deified King, turning him into St. Rodney the Benign. It was non-stop. Every reporter/commentator either downplayed or ignored the fact King ignited the incident by refusing to stop and then leading the cops on a high-speed chase through crowded LA. He could easily have killed some poor bastard just trying to cross the street or entering an intersection… then, when the cops finally stopped him, he charged them like a rhino on PCP (wich is what he was; King was high on dope). The dude was a big guy; a ghetto black thug high on drugs. The cops defended themselves. King continued to get beaten because he continued to try to get up.
Then the ghetto blacks in LA riot – destroying the businesses and property of innocent people who had absolutely nothing to do with any of this – and viciously assaulting one poor trucker who got caught in the middle of it.
Throw St. King in the Woods!