The title alludes to this scene from “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”:
Here’s more proof that I’m a dinosaur: I was taught, from a very young age, that “The policeman is your friend.” If I were lost, I knew that a local cop would probably buy me an ice cream cone while trying to reunite me with my family. Our next-door neighbor and some of my friends’ dads were cops; one of my dad’s friends and an occasional dinner guest in our home was an NYPD detective.
NYC refers to its police as “The Finest,” and many other cities do likewise.
So it’s hard for me to accept the changes in America’s Law Enforcement community. Even when I was a hippie, I wasn’t on board with the practice of making the word “pigs” synonymous with “cops.”
Sure, I’ve been arrested a time or two, but I’ve managed to maintain the “presumption of regularity,” the concept that if a cop orders you to do something, you do it, rather than challenge the legality or constitutionality of the order. There’s plenty of opportunity to dispute that in court. One has to watch only a single episode of “COPS” in order to grasp that an argument or fight with cops on the street is something you cannot and will not win.
So I know that the best way to deal with cops when being detained and questioned is to be civil and compliant. And that usually works out well, in large part because (as I prefer to believe) most cops are still highly professional.
But a recent American Thinker article by Monica Showalter tells how California Governor (and presumptive presidential aspirant) Gavin Newsom, citing the need for “representation and diversity,” has signed a bill eliminating U.S. citizenship as a requirement for serving as a police officer in the Golden State. Instead, only a work permit is required, and those are apparently handed out freely to immigrants who claim to be asylum-seekers.
One such non-citizen police officer, on the police force of Belmont, California (a largely residential community on U.S. Hwy 101 about midway between San Francisco and San Jose), is now facing rape charges, and it’s been discovered that he had been arrested for domestic violence (in an alleged wife-beating incident) before becoming a policeman.
Showalter’s article reveals that the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has also experienced non-citizen officers being charged with violent crimes.
To be fair, non-citizens don’t have any corner on the market for being bad cops. But not requiring citizenship for Law Enforcement Officers makes it far more difficult to check the backgrounds of recruits and thus weed out those with criminal records or criminal tendencies.
And, if you’re as cynical about certain things as I am, you see this as part of a deliberate strategy to undermine America’s Law Enforcement community, one that has been advancing for some time, on several fronts.
Soft-on-crime prosecutors and “bail reform,” as well as cops prosecuted (and even imprisoned, or at least had their careers ruined) for just doing their jobs, and the whole “Defund the Police” movement have resulted in the attrition of decent, idealistic cops who viewed Law Enforcement (“To Protect and Serve”) as a noble calling, an opportunity to be “the thin blue line” between the law-abiding and the lawless, between civilization and barbarism.
They have been deliberately and systematically demoralized and driven out, and replaced with misfits and power-trippers who are only too eager to be the jackbooted thugs enforcing patently unconstitutional laws and edicts for tyrannical regimes or bureaucracies.
As in so many other aspects, the Leftist agenda is picking up speed and becoming more and more brazen.
We saw during COVID how eagerly so many of America’s police turned on the citizenry; that was merely a foretaste of what an ideal, Leftist-built and controlled police force would be, like Obama’s wet dream of a federal police (no doubt attired in brown shirts). Leftists love to promote a war on cops, until the cops are all working for them!
I’ve touched on this before, in Cops, Convoys, Conservatives, and Tyranny, “What are you, some kind of constitutionalist crazy guy?” and When the Government Targets Constitutionalists.
Meanwhile, should I find myself pulled over, I’ll turn on my interior lights, roll down the window, put my hands on the wheel, smile and say, “Hello, Officer. How much trouble have I gotten myself into?”
ST
Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers!? I think I still have a couple comic books somewhere in my hoard. You did it again--put into words what the rest of us are thinking.
We grew up in Stuyvesant Town. There were quite a few policemen living there. My father was a NYC police captain. He had several friends in walking distance. I didn't follow his example. I went into the Air Force, from which I retired. Even today I can make use of facilities on base, such as the commissary. Every time I go in and hit the checkout line the cashier checks ID cards. And every time I respond the same way ... Badges? We don't need no stinking badges! After which I show her my ID card.