There is no line anymore

Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.-“Boondock Saints”

My father and my grandfather were cops.

That’s as easy as it gets. My father no longer works in law enforcement, my grandfather passed away from cancer. But, for a living, they were cops.

And I find it terrible I have to qualify this with “they were GOOD cops.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean they did their job well. They did, but that’s not what it means. It means they were the sort of police officers who understood their job was to SERVE AND PROTECT. Not to abuse the power they’d been given (my grandfather was chief of police, so there was a decent amount of power to abuse). But to help and protect people when they couldn’t do so themselves. I grew up being taught to respect the law, but also and possibly more importantly, that the police were not there to scare me into being good, they were there to stop bad people from trying to hurt me.

And yet there are people who would destroy everything they tried to do.

My friend Random posted this blog that I’m sharing with you. Read her summary. Watch the videos if you can. And see what some people consider to be an appropriate use of police power.

It’s an overwhelming situation. On all levels we are being taught that might makes right and that mistreating people who have done something wrong is correct. Currently, the American government is defending their use of waterboarding against alleged terrorists…when we have condemned other nations for using forms of torture like this. Our excuse is that we are trying to protect our people…but yet other leaders who have done so and cited the same reasons have been condemned as sadistic monsters.

It trickles down. The government condones this sort of thing because it was what they HAVE to do. It makes them look bad. A few members of the military act irresponsibly and suddenly the general view of the US military are seen as foreign invaders just looking to hurt people. And now police are acting in disgusting, power hungry ways, and how long until all people, even those of us who were raised to trust the police, can’t do so anymore?