On Wanting to Like Law Enforcement
I don't think people necessarily recognize how public anger toward law enforcement works.
Imagine you're pushing a tough case, but it just has to be brought. And your witness, your victim, gets up on the stand and brings the house down. Just crushes defense with all the dignity and vice a smart, furious, empowered survivor possibly can.
And maybe afterwards, some lawyers might actually say it: "I know you don't like prosecutors much. But we adore you right now. Never seen anything like that."
And the response: "I actually like being able to like prosecutors and law enforcement."
An awkward moment passes, and your witness continues: "It's a priority thing. Sometimes we disagree. And sometimes that really makes a difference in people's lives."
And maybe in your corner of the world that would seem like a really weird thing to say to a lawyer who just helped you devastate the criminal who hurt you, but in the U.S., it's the unspoken key to the real discussion behind the political theatrics.
Every society requires police.
Every society hates its police.
Yet this is not necessarily a fixed reality; it does not have to be this way.
The problem is that the differences between corruption of legend, when the police were just bandits with the right political patronage, and what goes on today aren't sufficient to break the arc of history, culture, and myth. FPOB's statement on unequivocal support of law enforcement actually fits neatly onto the arc; it's very nearly archetypal.
But that also fits into the counterpoint; we need laws and some way of enforcing them. It's a natural fact of society at this point in the human experience. But in the face of some spectacular awfulness, we're always expected to stop and remember all the good things cops do, and the underlying message is corrosive: It's okay that this person is dead because some other cop somewhere did his job today without fucking up.
It makes me think of when I was young and certain blocs on the conservative side used to denounce so much of modern society as some manner of hippie invasion. Because there has always been a complaint that stretches from amateur night at the comedy club to genuine, vote-for-me politicking, that complains about kids feeling special for just getting through the day. Citizenship ribbons at day camp, and the like, you know? I still know people who think "a school where students can't get an F" means they simply give everybody passing grades, yet compared to the schools I went to the functional difference on the ground is apparent; they're eliminating the idea of getting through on grade point yet being able to advance while failing a class. Nobody fails because they're not allowed to. The intention is the exact opposite of the complaint.
So where does the complaint come from? And why is there such overlap between such outlooks and those who want us to take special time out to be thankful for all the police who didn't screw up their jobs today because, you know, it's just not fair to think about the fact of a homicide with every appearance of someone with a badge fucking up.
Every once in a while I drag out an obscure thesis about how what we fear in others is some manner of reflection on what we fear about ourselves. And in some cases it is harder to tease out the evidence or the standards of neurotic translation, like really, you're never going to see a hippie supervillain; wake up to take over the world and say, "Fuck it, I'ma get irie." Yeah. I'll get on taking over the world, right after I finish getting high. Hippie supervillain. Never gonna see one. Still, though, the thesis can be reasonably argued to apply to liberalism; I fully admit that it is derived from viewing, not political conservatives, per se, but people who are generally more conservative and culturally patterned than I am.
Right now it's on naked display in other forms, and a lot of it is blatantly political, like small-government, tinfoil conservatives worried about the intrusive bureaucracy devising TRAP laws. Or the irony of the horrid "legal" justifications for American torture being written by lawyers in the service of a political outlook that happens to hate lawyers for their ability to parse and warp the law without conscience. Or the spectacle of certain vocal Christian movements essentially asserting that they are the victims of inequality if they are not superior under the law.
And it could be so naked in liberals, too; it generally doesn't seem so, but look where I'm looking from, you know?
But I'm banking on that at this point; something about this all in or fold approach is starting to seem like a natural behavioral thing with some outlooks. That is to say, the idea that many critics of police and other law enforcement would like to be able to support these institutions doesn't occur on these people's radar because it's not part of how they see the world; they're projecting the absolute dualism onto others, and since the others something something, then something something else.
And I did the something bit because it makes a point. It's actually a really complicated discussion some days, and as we're well aware, our American political discourse is not well-tuned for subtlety or nuance.
We don't have to imagine that the police are demanding unequivocal support; cops in Baltimore just did just that. We don't have to pretend that some police just tried suing the federal government on the grounds that it is impossible to do their jobs if they are not allowed to break the law in the course of being police officers. No, really, we don't have to pretend; that just happened in Seattle. And, yes, the complaint got laughed out. And we don't have to imagine a prosecutor tanking the enforcement of the law when the person of interest is a police officer; we just saw that in Missouri. We don't have to make up some fantasy that the police consider the People their enemies; again, Seattle, and we have it in writing.
Right now there is a reason people are pissed off at the police; this is as ugly as it has been in a long, long time.
And right now, here are two juxtaposed generalizations: We really need those good cops to stand up and be known, or, Unequivocal support of law enforcement is required.
Remember, the bloodshed that will continue, by the Fraternal Order's logic, is that people will keep killing cops. We're actually at a point where I am starting to worry that genuine hits against police departments are coming. Societally, we're probably lucky that those most inclined to threaten such violence are actually on the police's side, or else the shooting would likely have begun by now.
Oh, right. Tell that to Pittsburgh.
(sigh)
We really need those good cops to stand up, right now, and start breaking the cycle within police departments.
Think of the drug war. People can complain, "What about the rest of society? Why do you hate the poor, defenseless cops?" except, well, think of the drug war and just how much crime that created. Cleaning up that mess will take generations. And meanwhile those people can explain to me just what a crime-free society looks like; there has never been one in human history and the question of whether there can ever be one is probably a thousand years, at least, from possibility.
This is a society. It is supposed to be a civilized society. And all civilized societies need both laws and a means of enforcing those laws. We need to be able to support our law enforcement institutions. We want to be able to support our law enforcement institutions.
But this price? Unequivocal support? No, seriously, what the hell?