Claiming that cops are the 'enemy' is, in my mind, sort of like claiming that garbagemen or sewer maintenance guys are a menace to society. They've got a thankless and miserable job that just happens to be utterly indispensable to a real, functioning society. Oh, and, theirs is bloody dangerous on top of being unpleasant.
Are there abuses? Do some of them go too far? Do the examples cited in this thread qualify? Absolutely. But the real world, the one that includes actual people at any point, let alone both sides, rather than ideal principles, is imperfect on a statistical bell curve, from shining beacons of heroism to truly ugly fuckups. The moral outrage rightly spurred by cases like this needs to be used to minimize the number of 'zeroes' rather than rail against the inherent villainy of the system, because frankly, anyone who thinks that we can afford to go tossing out this particular baby, no matter how nasty the bathwater is, is deluding themselves something fierce.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Are there abuses? Do some of them go too far? Do the examples cited in this thread qualify? Absolutely. But the real world, the one that includes actual people at any point, let alone both sides, rather than ideal principles, is imperfect on a statistical bell curve, from shining beacons of heroism to truly ugly fuckups. The moral outrage rightly spurred by cases like this needs to be used to minimize the number of 'zeroes' rather than rail against the inherent villainy of the system, because frankly, anyone who thinks that we can afford to go tossing out this particular baby, no matter how nasty the bathwater is, is deluding themselves something fierce.
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===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."