And They Wonder Why They’re Hated

Law-enforcers (the term is both apt and despicable) often wonder why they’re hated by people who aren’t criminals – at least not in any morally meaningful sense.

I’m a law-breaker in that I regularly ignore laws that I feel no moral obligation to obey – because disobeying them does not cause harm to anyone else. Why not “run” a stop sign, for instance, when you can clearly see there is no sound reason to come to a complete stop before proceeding – other than mindless obedience to signage? I also “speed” – which is against the law. So? Law enforcers “speed” all the time, too – so they know as well as I do that “speeding” is just another one of those “violations” that they make up to serve as the justification for causing harm to people who haven’t caused any. To give them them an excuse to flex their Authority. Or – rather – the authority of the state, which is who they work for by the way. Not you – even though you “pay their salary,” as the sad sheep bleat has it.

Similarly, I never “buckle up” – because I don’t like to and more fundamentally, my “safety” is not only no one else’s business, it also imposes no harm on anyone else if I do not “buckle up.”

I commit such “crimes” on a daily basis – as do millions of others who are not criminals in any morally meaningful sense but who are nonetheless subject to being treated as if they were because they’re law-breakers. It’s a distinction that ought to matter. That it doesn’t – insofar as whether a person who hasn’t caused any harm to anyone is subject criminal treatment – is precisely why so many people who never commit any morally meaningful crimes despise law enforcers, the tip of the state’s spear.

Here’s another reason for that justifiable contempt:

A Florida man in his 60s was assaulted in his own home because law enforcers thought they had a warrant for his arrest. Turns out they had a warrant for the arrest of his much younger son, who is in his 30s. The man in his 60s told the enforcers he was not the wanted man; he repeatedly asked the law enforcers whether he looked to be in his 30s, which anyone could see he didn’t. Apparently, the law enforcers could not tell the difference between a man in his 60s and a man in his 30s, which seems to be a common problem given that men (and women) in their 60s are routinely expected to produce ID to prove they are old enough to buy beer.

More likely, the enforcers were so target-fixated on the object of their Hut! Hut! Hutting! that they couldn’t dial it back for a moment to check whether they had the right man. Instead, they roughly handcuffed the man in his 60s, not because he constituted any kind of meaningful threat to the “safety” of the two enforcers but to show him who’s boss.

After awhile, a more senior enforcer appears and this one recognizes that the man in his 60s is not the man in his 30s that is described in the warrant (which description presumably has the wanted man’s date of birth, among other important facts). The older man is unshackled and let go. Cursory apologies are tendered.

But no consequences.

So: A couple of goons with badges and guns – and “the law” backing them up – show up at the door of a man who not only isn’t a criminal in any meaningful sense but isn’t even a law-breaker in any sense – and proceed to violently shove and manacle him, on the basis of not just false information but extreme stupidity. How else to describe anyone who cannot tell at a glance that a man in his 60s with salt and pepper hair and wrinkles is unlikely to be a man in his 30s?

And they got away with it.

More precisely stated, they got away with committing an unjustifiable physical assault against a man who had committed no crime – no offense, even – who could easily have been badly injured as a result of the attack he was subjected to. Yet no arrests were made – of the enforcers, I mean. They can commit a physical assault with effective impunity, just as they can “speed” with impunity, too, since they are – per Judge Dredd – the law. Which means they get to decide whether it gets enforced. It will be enforced if you or I “speed” or assault an enforcer, of course. And to the nth degree, too.

The old saying about who watches the watchmen? comes to mind.

Now, consider what could easily have happened if the man in his 60s – rightly affronted by having his home invaded and understandably fearing for his safety – had defended himself against the law enforcers. He might be dead rather than sore from the beatdown he got – and the law enforcers probably wouldn’t have been “punished” with as much as a few weeks’ paid leave while an “internal investigation” was performed that led to absolutely nothing meaningful in the way of consequences.

And they wonder why they’re hated.

More so because the scene depicted in the body cam video is not an aberrant incident but a routine one. This sort of thing happens all the time. Every day in in this country, thousands of non-criminals are harassed/mulcted/arrested for having “violated” some law or other who haven’t caused any harm to anyone and in many instances, could not even with a straight face be argued might have caused harm, as in the case of failing to “buckle up.”

It ought to be telling when people who aren’t criminals in any meaningful sense fear and loath law enforcers. But the latter do not comprehend. Some are affronted. They – many of them – actually believe the psychotic nonsense that began during the Bush years that law enforcers are  are “heroes” who are “keeping us safe.”

Which makes them even more dangerous than they already are.

. . .

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