Which conclusion? First you make an assumption that my previous post referred to personal experiences. Then, when I correct that erroneous assumption, you refer to the previous post but don't include whatever "conclusion" you're asking about.
My sources are my eyes, ears and powers of discernment that reside in my brain. I don't need an outside source to justify forming my opinions around what I see and how I digest what I see.
Are you taking "debate" lessons from Robgmn now?
Really? Cops and other government workers that my whole previous post was dedicated to commenting about, that's who. If you want just one among many examples of how *official* extortion works, listen to this piece about Ferguson, MO's scheme that manufactures hatred and distrust of cops out of jay-walking infractions and other exceedingly minor offenses. It's called "policing for profit," and Ferguson is hardly unique in its reliance on that "business" to keep the doors at City Hall open at the expense of the citizens they purport to "serve." I don't know about you, but if I were forced to walk out of my neighborhood to find a cross-walk to avoid getting a $500 ticket for jay-walking, I'd consider myself the victim of outright extortion. That story x 2 can be heard at the 31:23 mark, but the whole segment on how the court system is used to keep The People down instead of protect them, starts at about the 29:00 minute mark. Anyone really interested in "sources" and "data" should listen to the whole thing, though I would be surprised if such folks questioning what "sources" and "data" I have to justify my opinions will take the time to hear from the victims of *official* extortion, but here is a small part of it nonetheless.
I have never, and will never, be pregnant, but it doesn't require personal experience to believe to my core that abortion is murder. Nor does it require the personal experience of having an abortion to believe that Planned Parenthood is built upon a foundation of racism, eugenics and for all intents and purposes, Nazism.
I've never been shot and killed, choked and killed, or beaten and killed, but that personal experience isn't required for me to believe to my core that Oscar Grant, Eric Garner and Kelly Thomas were all murdered by brutal thugs for doing nothing more "wrong" than being mouthy. And those three examples don't even begin to exemplify the "few bad apples" that blind supporters of cops like to assert are the exceptions to the myth of the "good cops rule." All of those three, and hundreds of other cases similar to them, had many cops just hangin' around watching the brutality take place in front of them, and none tried to stop it and none jumped at the chance to testify against the thugs who actually did the killings.
It might take a thirst for knowledge of what goes on outside one's little bubble of life that inspires them to read, research and verify the truth (or not) of the things they hear or are otherwise exposed to, but personal experience is not necessary for one to base their opinions and conclusions upon a solid foundation of truth.
There are thousands of "reasons" for me to come to the conclusions I have. They're all publicly available in news accounts, personal accounts on blogs, forums and video repositories, driving through ghettos and barrios on any given night of the week and on and on and on. My question for you is, how do you even avoid being able to see it? There must be a reason.
Good grief Reba, why do you work so hard at trying to make it about me? I never said I've never had negative contacts with cops, I only said the post you replied to wasn't a personal-experience post, and it wasn't. For cryin' out loud, of course I've had personal experience with cops! It would be impossible to claim otherwise since there's an account of one such experience linked in my signature!
And obviously neither is a militarized police state that treats even those
Link Removed who
call for
help as
enemies adequate to generate "politeness."
I know you can show some, maybe even many, scenarios where the cops involved did nothing wrong and even helped people in one way or another. That's not my point. Those same cops, if they've been on the force for any amount of time, have seen first-hand violations of citizens' rights and/or of law, and done nothing about it. The "thin blue line" is real. Whistle-blowers who snitch across that line rarely are supported in any official sense, and many times are ostracized and marginalized to such an extent that their jobs are orders of magnitude more dangerous coming from both sides of that thin blue line, than they were before snitching across it.
I will never call cops for help, and will choose instead to take my chances with deescalating potentially violent situations myself, or reacting appropriately in my and/or my wife's own defense if deescalation isn't possible. Period.
Sure, but if they were no longer cops we'd at least be "legally" able to defend ourselves against them. Legitimate resistance to unlawful entry by cops results in killings of both homeowners and pets on a fairly regular basis these days, and cops rarely face anything more than a rubber stamp on their personnel file saying, "Justified!" I'd feel no more insecure about dealing with them when they're not sworn LEOs than I would preparing as I have to deal with any other scumbag on the street who thinks his desire to victimize me or mine trumps my right and/or ability to defend against his attempt to do it.
But cops aren't going anywhere anyway. I know that, so why we're sussing out what it would be like if they were abolished or some such nonsense is a mystery to me. I simply admit to myself what they are and stay as far away from them as I can. I further don't pretend that they're anything but what my powers of discernment tell me they are. Why you wish to dissuade me from recognizing the truth that the God-given power of discernment gives me is also quite the mystery.
I don't know.... Oligarchy beats anarchy? I fail to see how that could be true, but it's for damn sure The Constitution doesn't have near as much control over policing as the black-robed oligarchs who have taken upon themselves the authority to twist and contort it into saying absolutely anything they want it to say. Whether it's oligarchy or anarchy though, as long as the feigned pretense of relying on The Constitution is maintained by government/law enforcement, we are living in a lawless society either way.
I have no idea what you're even talking about here. I don't advocate my rights being superior to anyone else's rights, and no person has any right to infringe on anyone else's rights anyway. That's true whether cops are involved or not. And we weren't talking about how citizens relate to each other in disputes, we, or at least
I, was talking about the current atmosphere of militarization, intimidation, violence, *official* extortion and violation of rights being ubiquitous when the same people who are so unimaginative as to not be able to resolve their own disputes between themselves, opt to insert cops into the equation. The other side of that coin is that cops many times insert themselves, but either way, all I've said is that
I don't need or want them in my life
at all.
I presume that is why you carry a gun, is it not?
And lots of people who have done nothing morally, ethically, or most important,
legally wrong get "restrained" or worse all too often while these jack-booted thugs go about plying their control-trade. I'm sure they appreciate your support. I decidedly, do not.
Blues
