Don't fuck the police, ostracize them.

Cops… Cops are a hot button issue right now. A plethora of stories have bombarded many of our news feeds of police violence. There are two common comments on these stories, “not all cops are bad,” and “why don’t the good cops say something?” Let’s take a look at these. After I tell you what I think about these comments I want to share what I think is the only viable solution to the police violence pandemic.

“Not all cops are bad.” No shit. This sentiment is exactly the same that led to pejorative #NotAllMen campaign.  Of course not all cops are “bad cops” but the fact remains that the bad cops share that same blue uniform with the good cops. There is no way for you and I to know if the cop who just pulled us over is of the “shoot them in the back” persuasion, just like there is no way for a woman to know if that guy at the bar is the “rape her in the alley” type of guy. Saying that “not all cops are bad” is a useless sentiment, not all cops are good and the bad ones get the press.

When we hear about these “bad cops” the response to public scrutiny is always the same. When we hear about a child being tazed, it was justified, a homeless man being shot after surrendering? Justified. A man choked to death after helping break up a fight? Justified. Protestors, peaceful ones at that get tear gassed and pepper sprayed? Justified. This is because of the “thin blue line,” the “us versus them” attitude that is perpetuated by police departments and their advocates. We are told that we cannot understand the pressures and stressors of this job, and so we must just accept it when we are told that the heinous actions were “justified.” This leads us to the “why don’t the good cops say something?” comment. It is simple really; the “thin blue line” is a zero tolerance policy. If a cop speaks out about other cops, even the “bad cops” they risk being treated as a pariah among their department, trust gets tossed out the window. Speaking out against another cop could jeopardize your career, so you tow the party line.

That was my analyses of those two sentiments, here is my solution: Ostracism. We know which side of the “thin blue line” cops will always stand on, and we are not on that side; we are their “them” in the “us versus them” attitude. If they are going to treat us as beneath them, as though we have no right to question their authority, then we should ostracize them. Cops should be refused service in our coffee shops, our restaurants, our local farmers markets. When a uniformed police officer enters a business we are visiting, we should leave. I am not advocating for violence, or passionate confrontation, I am advocating the dispassionate disassociation from a group of people who have demonstrated that they do not have the best interest of the public at heart. A badge should be a road block, until the police rectify the situation that they are responsible for. As long as cops can shoot homeless people without recrimination, no cop will share my table. I will not stand in line with a uniformed police officer, because the pervasive attitude in that community makes me feel unsafe. I will not call the cops, the risk of being an accessory to murder (or the victim) is too great. When the police are more likely to kill an innocent than a terrorist there is an imbalance, by ostracizing the police perhaps we can help make our streets safer.   

The political right in America and the ruin of America

The political right in America has taken great strides towards not only the destruction of their own ideology, but towards the ruin of the America. The political right in this country has decided that they will pair their so called “fiscal responsibility” with the crazy religious fucktardedness of people like Michelle Bachman, and the loose flop sweat that is Mitt Romney. They openly embrace a policy of “bomb the shit out of all those people over there!”, and they have the giant brass testicles it takes to tell a man, who is directly responsible for the murder of over three hundred people, that he has not killed enough people. They use phrases like “support the troops” as an excuse to send our brothers and sisters to die on a foreign shore.

The political right has fully embraced the persecution complex of their Christian followers. They are attempting to reduce every political and social interaction to a battle between man and “God”. This group has successfully, and maliciously, pushed entire portions of the population to embrace ignorance. We can see this not only in senators who blatantly deny science, to the lay people who do not understand how snow melts. I fully lay the responsibility for the crazy nut case bull shit that people like David Icke preach at the feet of the religious conservative right.  By encouraging the rejection of the scientific method, and by attempting to manipulate people through an emotional attachment to a particular god, they have lent legitimacy to insanity.

The Republican Party likes to claim to be the party that stands for gun rights, they appeal to the tradition of rebellion and anti-tyranny that is prevalent in our society. Yet the more recent history of their leaders and spokesmen shows the lie. I mentioned Reagan in my last post but he is of special importance to this one, Ronald Reagan is often mentioned with such glee that he is nearly deified.  He is a paragon of economic salvation, a paladin against liberal gun grabbers, a savior of democracy the world over, and oh yeah he also passed California’s first real gun control law, and oh yeah it was racially motivated, and then he gave guns to… uh… ya know… terrorists… but yeah he saved America! Seriously here kids, let’s work on the consistency. Not only was Reagan a gun grabber, but the NRA has a history of back peddling and flip flopping on the issues that surround guns. The NRA has backed gun registration, limits on the types of firearms one can own, and has changed position multiple times on open carry rules. “Guns from my cold dead hands” my ass.

The other way that the conservative right has ruined things for Americans today is through imperialism. They, along with the collective right, have pushed us into wars, they have pushed a police state down our throats all in the name of “the kids”, or “freedom”. We live in a world made less safe by terrorists that our government trained and armed, we send our brothers and sisters to fight and die against people we incited to violence. We live in a time where the actions of the conservative right have lead to our being eight times more likely to be killed by a cop than by a terrorist. The drug war has led to some of the most heinous crimes perpetrated against Americans since riots of the nineteen sixties. This was not done to us at the whim of the state, this was done with the full support of the right(both the conservatives and the collectivists).

TL:DR

Do not fall prey to the rhetoric of the Right, do not be afraid of science, do not fall into the trap of their gun rhetoric. These people are not your friends, they are not allies of freedom, they are liars.

The hypocrisy of the Progressive.

Progressives are hypocrites. Yup. Done. I don’t have to say anything more, right? We all understand how demanding rights while dismissing other rights makes you a silly git, right? Do we get that criticizing one type of violence, but not another is inconsistent? No? Dammit, alright let me break this down for you.

The so called “Progressive” left in the united states, in reality they are the collectivist right, like to think that they are the champions of the little guy, the enemies of corporate power, the peace bringers. They are wrong. They are merely the smuggest of the dupes in this country.  Don’t worry I am not going to make this assertion without trying to back it up.

Let’s start with the latest and newest darling of the progressive, The Affordable Care Act. There is an attitude that this law is the best way to get everyone insurance so that we all can be healthy. This was championed as a blow against corporate healthcare, a way to curtail the predatory practices of insurance companies. Who wrote this bill? President Obama? Mitt Romney? The Congress? Come on you know this one. Who always writes bills that effect an entire industry? The lobbyists who represent the industry most effected. The bill was written in partnership with the major insurance companies, and what is the average cost of the most basic insurance available to the private individual? According to my research it is one hundred and seventy dollars a month. Who do you think shoulders that burden? The rich? Please. The destitute? We already have programs for them. The lower middle class, the least poor of the poor, they shoulder this, WE shoulder this. We get to decide what bill doesn’t get paid because the law says we must have this expense. What we don’t get to decide is who gets rich off of us, we do get to watch the CEO’s get rich off of American “socialism”. Here is my accusation; the progressives have committed the biggest act of capitalist wealth redistribution in this nation’s history. You have stolen money from the poor and given it to the rich, all in the name of protecting the poor.

What’s next… let’s see… Gun control. Let’s tackle this issue, and for those of you who consider yourself on the “right”, don’t delude yourselves you are just as bad and I will get to you later. The “Left” is all about restricting access to guns, they use such sophist excuses as,  ”guns are scary and kill people”, “every other civilized country has restrictive gun laws”, “what about the kids!?”, “why do you need a gun, call the police.” These are not now, nor have they ever been valid reason to remove a person’s property, nor to restrict their access to the acquisition of property. It also ignores the history of gun control in this country. Throughout the history of our country the people who are targeted by, and most effected by, gun control legislation has been the marginalized minorities. In the eighteen hundreds the government of Illinois passed a law that limited access to cheap pistols by taxing them. Who do you think was the target? Well off white folk? No, it was the poor black man who was tired of getting picked on by the despotic police. What about in 1960’s California? Was Ronald Reagan’s gun registration bill about protecting children against nasty people? Absolutely not, it was about controlling the minority population; it was passed to keep fire arms out of the hands of the Black Panthers who were a direct challenge to police violence. Now at whom do you think modern gun control attitudes are focused at? Is it the crazy fucker who kills kids? The terrorist who shoots up a mall?  Nope, it is the people who most challenge the power of the police to beat, shoot, and harass the people. The progressives may not dress this up as racist or classist, but it is. The police always have and always will be a more direct threat to the poor, the underrepresented, and disenfranchised. While the comparatively wealthy progressives sleep in their homes the police will be out there endangering the homeless, the destitute, and the minorities. Are you ready for another accusation? American progressives do not really care about the violence in American streets, You only pay lip service to it. What you care about is that you feel good, that you can look down on the men and women who have been beaten to death by the police and feel vindicated that at least no one was shot. You want to be able to watch with satisfaction as armed men with badges point guns at children, and find no weapons.  In fact I will go this far, you do not fear guns or gun violence, you fear people who are “different” in any way.

I’ve got one last point that, to me, proves that the Progressive “left” is just as fascist as the “Conservative” right. During the Bush administration there was heavy criticism of the “War on Terror” and any action taken in its name. We invaded Iraq, the “left” complained loudly and rightly. We used drones to blow up people, the left complained. We passed the PATRIOT act and the left claimed it was a violation of our rights. NAFTA was criticized as bad for not only the economy, but for freedom. The list was long, the list was right. However now we have one of You as our commander in chief, and you make excuses, and you ignore the truth. Obama is often lauded for bringing us out of Iraq, yet you ignore that it was only pressure from the Iraqi government that got us out, he tried to keep our soldiers in that quagmire for another TEN years. The President was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, yet he has been personally responsible for the murder of over three hundred innocents, he has even gone so far as to say that he can kill ANY ONE he views as a threat, where is your outrage? Or are you comfortable with being so transparently hypocritical? I heard your outcry when the PATRIOT act was passed, yet when the president passed a law that gave the military to detain any American citizen without trial, without charges, for an indefinite period of time who did you blame? You blamed the republicans. The man holds the pen, and the republicans didn’t have a two thirds majority, he could have vetoed and forced them to remove that portion of the NDAA, but no he passed it. He knew that you would defend him, because he knows that you don’t care about the rights of the poor, the working man, you only care about your self satisfaction.

TL:DR

The Progressives in this country are capitalistic war mongering bigots who have deceived themselves into thinking that they are socialists.

Yeah I know this was inflammatory, yeah I know it was full of generalizations. I don’t care.