We’re urged to regard armed government workers as “heroes” of the Omaha Beach variety and worthy of North Korean-style Dear Leader funerals when they “fall” in “the line of duty.”
And they might be entitled to such deference and awe – if in fact they conducted themselves heroically. But what’s “heroic” about hiding behind the legs of “officer safety”? A hero is by definition someone who puts his safety at risk. We seem to have a problem, Houston.
Semantically, at least.
These AGWs are (or pretend to be) neurotically fearful; that every day might be their last – doing work that is far less dangerous than roofing. But unlike roofers, AGWs are trained to hair-trigger belligerence and lethality at the first hint of what they feel to be a “threat” to their “safety.” It need not be an actual, objective threat – as is required of you or I with regard to pointing a gun at someone. Only that they “feared” for their “safety.” Something unintelligible because undefinable, “fear” being a matter of perception and “safety” something much more vague than he was trying to kill me and I had no other choice (backed up with physical evidence such as the assailant having been armed).
Before there were armed government workers, there were cops – and these generally prided themselves on never having had to unholster their gun during an entire career. These cops were far more actually heroic than today’s armed government workers in that they were trained to resort to force only as a last resort and to lethal force only in extremis.
Which brings up another problem – or rather, its possible cause.
It is the psychological element of kitting out a man (the term used loosely) like a Terror Trooper from a dystopian sci-fi novel. Body armor, multiple pistols and a Batman belt with three spare mags, web gear, etc. Anyone who dresses like this is probably going to act like this.
Probably compounded by the likelihood that dressing up like this appeals to a certain personality type. Which appears to be the type wanted these days – though not by us.
Back to this “hero” business.
The men who stormed the beach at Omaha – in the face of German machine gun fire – risked their lives for the sake of the lives of people they didn’t even know. That is heroic. It would also be heroic to refuse to abuse people you don’t even know, solely because you were ordered to or because The Law so commands.
To be heroic is to be disobedient when circumstances demand it; to not be a mindless automaton or – much worse – a nihilistically indifferent one who is “just doing my job.” To abuse people on that basis – even if the abuse is only a fine for transgressing some busybody edict such as those requiring adults to buckle up or only cross the street when the mindless light says they may – is a worse thing than to abuse them because you enjoy doing so.
And as far from heroic as hiding behind the legs of “officer safety.”
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9/11 has proven to be the Amerikan Reichstag fire. It “enabled” the creation of the national police state, in which every cop is an “operator” and every citizen is assumed to be a terrorist, who can be summarily executed, unless government decides you’re on their side.
The endless war in Afghanistan is just a training ground for domestic law enforcement. The Muslims are merely a pretext… YOU’RE the real target. In fact, I’d argue that our situation is potentially worse than Nazi Germany, because at least the Third Reich was rather upfront about who it’s enemies were — communists and Jews. If you weren’t a communist or a Jew, the Gestapo pretty much left you alone. If a German cop in the Reich went around shooting random Aryans on sight because he was “afraid,” there would’ve been hell to pay for it, because the Reich believed that it had a duty toward its own people.
But today, any one of us at any time could be victimized by the cops and the government… gonna get a lot worse going forward.
Your message on this topic is absolutely correct, but profoundly redundant. The choir has been preached to so often that they can repeat this sermon word for word. At least give us fresh examples of AGW “fear for their safety” atrocities. Shouldn’t be hard to find.
I gotta admit though… the video clip was hilarious.
Mike, I tried to laugh but at least some of those people seemed to be legitimately grieving and that was the part that gave me indigestion and I am forced to take ranitidine even though I detest the thought of it.
I had to live the first year of college in the dorm. I had this room mate who joined the ROTC. He kept me in stitches putting on his uniform and primping in front of the mirror. He even practiced and evidently found just the right way to hold his cig in his mouth since after a while it was always at the same place, same angle. He couldn’t get enough of himself and I had enough of him in about 3 minutes after meeting him.
He’s probably dead from smoking or from an accident he didn’t see coming due to admiring himself in a reflection.
To live is to risk, and for all human beings, today may be our last. That doesn’t give us the right to freak out
I remember when, half a lifetime ago, I would buy a gun every once in a while. I wanted nice ones and was told by friends to look for police trade-in Berettas, because they had more holster wear than bore wear. It was generally true.
Those pistols were 10 or 15 years old at the time and had only seen a few hundred rounds, even though the finish was worn off the corners of the slides.
OTOH, they created the situation by constantly escalating the War On Drugs™ and not allowing people who wished to supply a good or service to others. Drug dealing gangs (who did the calculation of being in a drug gang or working at a fast food restaurant), couldn’t turn to the police when their property was attacked by rivals. So everyone armed themselves. Most of the time cops got caught up in the mess and that’s when they got hurt. Pretty soon, people being what we are, started to glorify gang life and it spilled out into general society. Shame that.
These days, the cops are protecting the pot shops and making them safe for corporate America. If they did the same thing with all drugs they could go back to actual policing. But we’re so far down that road now I don’t think we’ll ever be able to come back.
The foreign wars of the past 20 years have been training exercises.
A significantly large number of “law enforcement” personnel are ex military, many of whom have psychological issues resulting from their time in combat. In many, if not most departments, they are specifically sought after. There is a video available on Amazon called “Do Not Resist”, part of which goes into the training methods that have created the modern Gestapo. They are literally trained to consider us enemies and criminals until proven otherwise. I would refute your description of armed forces as heroes, and instead describe them as well meaning suckers who have been conned into serving the US Sociopaths In Charge. There have been very few “just wars” in the history of the US, during which only about 20 years were the US armed forces not actively killing people.