Wall of Fame Assholes – Page 25

Victim Blaming

With all of the shit hitting the fan in Ferguson I think it’s a good idea to figure out what one needs to do in order to not get their ass kicked or shot by the police. Fortunately Sunil Dutta, a man who was an officer for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for 17 years, was kind enough to pen an article explaining exactly that:

Sometimes, though, no amount of persuasion or warnings work on a belligerent person; that’s when cops have to use force, and the results can be tragic. We are still learning what transpired between Officer Darren Wilson and Brown, but in most cases it’s less ambiguous — and officers are rarely at fault. When they use force, they are defending their, or the public’s, safety.

Even though it might sound harsh and impolitic, here is the bottom line: if you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you. Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names, don’t tell me that I can’t stop you, don’t say I’m a racist pig, don’t threaten that you’ll sue me and take away my badge. Don’t scream at me that you pay my salary, and don’t even think of aggressively walking towards me. Most field stops are complete in minutes. How difficult is it to cooperate for that long?

Emphasis mine. Did you get that? If an officer uses force, in a majority of cases, it’s the victim’s fault. You see the victim refused to roll over and be an obedient serf so the officer had no other choice but to beat his ass or shoot him! After all police officers truly love us and sometimes we make them do violent things by failing to properly respond to their love. Admittedly there are a few bad apples out there but for the most part cops only beat you because they love you.

Talk about unapologetic victim blaming. Mr. Dutta’s argument can basically be summed up as “Shut up, slave!” It doesn’t surprise me that a 17 year veteran of the LAPD holds this attitude. Although no statistics exist, as far as I know, documenting the reason for police interactions I believe, based on the way laws are enforced, that a vast majority of encounters involve the officer initiating force. A majority of police activity involves extorting money from the populace. We see this in the form of speeding tickets, parking citations, civil forfeitures, fines for drinking alcohol in public parks, littering, and other nonviolent acts. In each of those instances a police officer is approaching a nonviolent individual and threatening them with force (because all laws are ultimately enforced at the point of a gun). In those cases the person approached by police is the victim and the officer is the aggressor.

There is no reason, other than the threat of violence made by an officer, for anybody to be polite to a another person who approaches solely to make a threat. In fact anybody making threats should expect to get an impolite response. Police officers are fortunate that most Americans are polite to a fault. Even when an officer threatens a person that person will usually say a few harsh words, passively resist being kidnapped, or spit in an officer’s face. While police officers often talk about how dangerous their job is in reality they have it pretty easy in this country. Only once in a great while do they have to make good on their threats. Otherwise people blow off a little steam and pay the demanded extortion money.

But, as Mr. Dutta points out, even if your show the slightest amount of displeasure towards a badge-wearing aggressor you risk being pummeled or murdered. And this is somehow the victim’s fault.

I Wonder Where Their Reputation Comes From

More and more modern police departments are getting a reputation for being little more than violent thugs with badges. After reading some of the statements posted by police officers in regard to the Michael Brown shooting it’s pretty easy to see where that reputation stems from. For example, take a look at this gem I came across on Facebook:

Even though the facts aren’t in about what exactly went down this fine officer openly states that he would have tripped up Brown just so he could beat the shit out of him. Additionally he admitted to the fact that he wouldn’t stop until his fellow officers pulled him off of Brown (or, I assume, after Brown ceased living).

Social media has given us access to a treasure trove of information including how many people working for the state really think.

Freedom of the Press Means the Freedom to Shut Up and Obey

Welcome to America where the freedom of the press is ensconced in our Bill of Rights. What freedoms does the press have? For starters it has the right to shut the fuck up and do what its told:

While there was a spate of looting on Sunday night, Monday’s demonstrations were peaceful. Protestors faced tear gas and rubber bullets from officers trying to break their ranks up. At the same time, police told local media to get out of the area.

Of course after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) declared all airspace up to 3,000 in Ferguson feet a no-fly zone it’s not like the press was going to get helicopters in to cover the unfolding events. Living in a totalitarian state is fun!

The Next Front in the State’s War Against the Homeless

That state has been waging an ongoing war against the homeless for decades. The reasons for this are obvious, the homeless don’t have anything for the state to steal so the state would rather the homeless be wiped out. Fortunately for the homeless genocide is frowned upon but that doesn’t mean they’re safe. Most major cities have made the acts of being homeless and aiding the homeless crimes. The next front in the state’s war is criminalizing sleeping in vehicles:

The ban on sleeping in your car or truck is a downright trend with the number of laws criminalizing the action exploding by 119 percent since 2011 — a growth rate higher than any other anti-homeless law.

Sleeping in your car is illegal even in progressive cities such as Minneapolis. In Palo Alto, where rent is two and half times the national average and there are only 15 shelter beds to accommodate a homeless population estimated at 150 people, the city has made sleeping in “one’s own private vehicle a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine or up to six months in jail,” the report’s authors wrote.

What I took away from this article is that being homeless is a crime and you don’t own your car. Of course nobody is allowed to own any property in this country. We are only allowed to possess certain items for limited periods of time. The second you fail to pay property taxes on your home you lose it. If a cop has decided that there may have been unpatentable drugs in your car they get to take it under civil forfeiture laws. Owning a firearm is a privilege that will be taken from you the second you commit a felony, which almost all of us commit daily. And now many cities won’t let you sleep in your car without threatening to take your money (and probably your car) and tossing you in a cage because some people who sleep in their car are homeless and the state wants to make the lives of the homeless miserable.

More Puppycide

At this point news articles about cops killing dogs is a daily event. But this story has an interesting slant:

David Kuge, the county’s chief probation officer, said two officers were contacting a post-release offender on Sequoia Drive in Oildale.

The officers rattled the gate to see if dogs would come out. They had previously been told that there were dogs at the home, and that the dogs would bite, according to Kuge.

No dogs initially came running, so the officers entered the yard. That’s when two dogs came out of the pet door.

One officer got out of the yard. The other officer was trapped and shot one of the dogs four times, because he felt threatened, according to Kuge.

How did the one officer become trapped in the yard? The gate obviously opened both ways since the other officer was able to get out. Was the second officer holding the gate closed to troll his fellow? How tall was the fence and gate? Since they officers could likely see over it since they noticed no dogs came out when they rattled the gate I’m lead to believe it was short enough to jump over. Was the officer who got out of the fenced area pushing his partner back into the fenced area? Seriously, this story is fishier than the coast of Iceland.

We Built This

As most of you probably realize I’m a huge fan of history. I love reading about it, talking about it, and visiting historical sites. That’s why reports like this really piss me off:

Iraq’s religious and cultural heritage is currently under attack from the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), report sources including Newsweek and Hyperallergic. The group has bulldozed, blown up, or otherwise destroyed churches, shrines, and mosques across the country, as well as ancient statues, artifacts, and archeological sites.

During the last Republican National Convention the party used the theme “We Built This!” And they certainly did build this. ISIS is the result of the United States stomping into Iraq, under false pretenses, and topple a horrible dictatorship only to replace it with another arguably more horrible dictatorship. That’s a recipe for large gangs of zealous thugs to gain support and begin a war. There also seems to often be a correlation between the viciousness of a current state and the viciousness of the revolutionaries fighting it. ISIS is one vicious group of assholes and we built it. It’s too bad we can’t rebuild the history being destroyed by what we built though.

Be Careful in Constitution Free Zones

According to the United States government everything within 100 miles of this country’s imaginary lines (often mistakenly referred to as a border) is a “Constitution free zone”. What this means is that the government can’t even be bothered to pretend to abide by the very document it created when it gave itself absolute power. So anybody living within 100 miles of this country’s imaginary lines, which is approximately two thirds of the country’s population, has fewer privileges than normal. For example, photographing Border Patrol agents inside of the “Constitution free zone” will result in your staring at the business end of a gun held by a Border Patrol agent:

About 10 days into the trip, an innocent action by one of the nearly two dozen Scouts at the Canadian border into Alaska set off a chain of events that lead to a U.S. border official pointing a gun at a scout’s head.

[…]

Fox said one of the Scouts took a picture of a border official, which spurred agents to detain everyone in that van and search them and their belongings.

“The agent immediately confiscated his camera, informed him he would be arrested, fined possibly $10,000 and 10 years in prison,” Fox said.

Just another day living under the most transparent government in history! This story should be a lesson though. Being a good citizen means doing what you’re told and not questioning authority. Good citizens are rewarded by being allowed to live, bad citizens get put down. So be a good citizen. Don’t question police actions, do rat out any of your friends who are committing acts of wrongthink, and don’t photograph the police. Failure to abide by the rules of good citizenry may result in your immediate termination.

The Government is Even Incompetent at Things It Used to Do Well

Governments are good at much but there are a few things they excel at. Killing people is one of those things. You only have to look at the number of people killed in democides to see how ruthlessly efficient government are at killing people. But the government seems to be slipping as it can’t even execute a man properly:

US death row inmate Joseph Wood has died after an execution in Arizona took nearly two hours to kill him.

[…]

The execution should have taken 10 minutes, his lawyers said, but Wood, 55, gasped more than 600 times before he died.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened in recent memory. No wonder it’s approval rating is in the shitter, it can’t even do the one job it’s supposed to be good at effectively!

Minneapolis Police Department Created More Aggregate Demand for Dog Breeders

From my understanding there is a bit of a rivalry between the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments. Not wanting his department to be outdone by the St. Paul department in creating aggregate demand for dog breeders a brave soldier of the Minneapolis department stepped up to the plate and executed a family pet:

In the alley, Tito — a nearly two-year-old, 120-pound Cane Corso — approached an officer who was still hunting for the car theft suspect. The officer ended up opening fire and killing Trott and Lyczkowski’s beloved dog.

“I ran out the door and was hollering for him,” Trott tells us. “I didn’t get halfway to the gate when you could hear the officer yell, ‘Stop!’ He just yelled ‘Stop!’ and shot him and that was it.”

St. Paul is still in the lead but I’m sure another fine soldier of the Minneapolis Police Department will find a litter of puppies to execute, which would put his department ahead of St. Paul’s.

Not surprisingly the officer was quick to jump on the “You weren’t here, man. You don’t know what went down!” justification:

“The only thing [cops] kept saying is, ‘You weren’t here, you don’t know what’s going on, you don’t have time to discern pet from animal and in our mind they’re just animals,'” Trott says. “It was, shoot first, think later. You know, I understand where they’re at — I worked four years for the Illinois Department of Corrections as a correctional officer. But [Tito] had a collar, tags, and he’s clearly not a stray.”

This has become the police officers’ equivalent to the Obama supporters’ race card. And like that race card this “You weren’t there, man!” card has worn thin. The officer apparently said that he didn’t have time to discern pet from animal but if you’re using a firearm you better be 100 percent sure of your fucking target. Shooting a dog or person because you didn’t have time to discern the situation is not an acceptable excuse. If needing to identify targets before deploying lethal force is too rigorous for you then you shouldn’t be a police officer.

Whenever I mention these strange views I hold somebody invariably falls back to the polices’ other favorite excuse, officer safety. They claim that officers have to be given considerably leeway in these matters because “They’re putting their life on the line to save ours!” I’m sorry but that’s a bullshit excuse as well. Most of an officer’s time is spent extorting the citizenry by issuing speeding tickets and parking violations, arresting people participating an mutually agreed to transactions that the state has declared prohibited, and kidnapping people who have failed to give the state a cut of the action. The lives saved by police officers seems to more and more be a happy accident than purposeful action, which makes sense since saving lives seldom results in more funding for a department. Maybe if today’s police spent most of their time saving lives I’d be willing to cut them a bit of slack but they don’t so I’m not.

Hopefully our society will eventually stop shielding police officers from the consequences of bad actions. Until then aggregate demand for dog breeders will continue to increase.

Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t

Damn I love government. Well, OK, I hate government but it gives me a never ending fountain of things to write about. For example, California has been suffering from major droughts (because turning a bunch of arid desert into farming land was a stellar idea). Because of this Michael Korte and Laura Whitney, wanting to be good citizens, decided to cut back on watering their grass. You would think the local government would be ecstatic about the idea. This could convince other fine citizens to stop watering their grass and save scarce water for most important uses. But that’s not how the local government responded. Instead it is planning to punish the couple because their grass isn’t green enough (must be part of the government’s green initiative):

(Reuters) – A Southern California couple who scaled back watering their lawn amid the state’s drought received a warning from the suburb where they live that they might be fined for creating an eyesore – despite emergency statewide orders to conserve.

Michael Korte and Laura Whitney, who live near Los Angeles in Glendora, said on Thursday they received a letter from the city warning they had 60 days to green up their partially brown lawn or pay a fine ranging from $100 to $500.

Talk about mixed signals. On the one hand the government is complaining that there is a drought and water needs to be conserved. On the other hand the government bitches when somebody’s grass isn’t green enough. What the fuck is a person caught in that situation supposed to do? It’s almost like the entire system is rigger so that no matter what you do the government gets to take your fucking money.