This week's news story of note, aside from whacked out coverage of the medical expenses issues set before the Congress, is all about a black Harvard professor who was accosted inside his home by a white police officer. Barack Obama has chimed in with some comments of his own (to the effect of labeling the police officer 'stupid' for taking on a citizen inside his own home), and the press has decided that this event, and all the stuff that surrounds it, is the story that should occupy our culture for two weeks, or so. It is what television is doing to us these days. They decide, and you sit here, with me, and get only what they vomit out over that screen. We get almost nothing international. We get no real substance on anything nationally, and the medical costs issue is a typical example of that. Has anybody really talked about what doctors, dentists, and hospitals are really making in actual take-home cash? Is anybody talking about why it is perfectly legal for medicine to use extortion (you pay or you die) to collect money, and make profits from such behavior? Is anybody talking about why these drug companies can charge whatever they want for any drug, even to the point of copyrighting our very genes as their own property, and selling them back to us in a tube? Nope. Nothing. Nada.
We get all this crap about a truly stupid-acting police officer (whatever his merit as a human being and intelligent person may be) who encounters a black professor in the professor's home, does not like the professor's attitude, so illegally and unethically violates him. This story should occupy small news slots locally, not occupy all of us, nationally. The police officer should be promptly indicted, arrested, and then relieved of his badge and gun after being released on bond. He, most probably, broke at least three laws. He entered a private home without the owner's permission (that is criminal trespass, even for a cop). The police officer placed the professor in handcuffs, against the professor's will. That is assault (yes, even for a police officer, as cops must act within the law at all times). The police officer removed the hand-cuffed professor from his home, forced him into a police car, then transported and held the man in a cell at the police station. That is called kidnapping. Yes, the big felony. Police officers are specifically denied the right to do just what this cop did, every step of the way. He should be charged and then prosecuted for his crimes. The onus of the legal system (called our system of justice) should fall with a terribly weight upon this man's shoulders, and life.
What will really happen? Nothing. Most probably, the professor will be awarded some sum of money for the embarrassment he went through. The only saving grace of the entire affair is that the professor is black and the police officer is white. Only race can keep this affair in the spotlight, not that that spotlight should be national. The spotlight is needed to illustrate that policemen, especially post 911, cannot be allowed to brutalize citizens. Ever. And this kind of behavior is going on all across the nation. Our citizenry is afraid of the police. How has this come to be? It has come to be because of a surrender of public trust. Our police have come to resemble skin-headed thugs, dressed up like Star Wars soldiers of the Imperium, and acting like out of control school yard bullies. Thank God nobody got shot at the professor's home. These school yard bullies have guns!
When a police officer deals with a citizen of this country, any citizen, he or she should do it with respect and full consideration. If that police officer wants to enter private property, then he or she should ask permission, and, if denied, consider getting a warrant if the situation merits it. The other officers who showed up, at the site of the Harvard professor's arrest and kidnapping, should also be taken in. They permitted a felony to be committed in their presence. They, the police standing around outside of the home, should have sprung into action to stop the illegal series of events from going any further. They did nothing. They acted just as actively stupid as the arresting officer. Now, the Chief of Police (behind this errant acting police office) is standing behind the man and stating that he was acting within the scope of his authority. The Chief of Police reduces himself to just another stupid acting cop.
It is regretful that our President has chosen to withdraw most of what he said about this series of illegal and unethical behaviors. I expect more of him. He now throws the professor into the same puddle as the dumb cop, by saying that both men 'over-reacted.' Bah! Humbug! The professor can say anything he wants to the cops...within the privacy of his own home. That is speech protected by our Constitution. You can call a cop a pig and not get arrested! I was a cop. I was actually trained to accept talk, directed my way, of this kind. But no cop can break into a residence, enter it against the will of the owner, cuff the man, drag him from his home in front of the entire neighborhood (and most of his fellow-idiot-acting police officers) and incarcerate him in a prison cell far from home. Those things are not 'over-reactions.' Those things are crimes. We are a nation of laws. If our enforcement officers do not act to support that then we do not have a nation (not as we know it) anymore. We have a police state.
Meanwhile, the health issue resolution (or, so it is hoped) languishes on the sidelines, almost ignored by the media. Will we ever be graced with a regular newscast that seriously takes apart our legislation and makes its provisions apparent and understandable to us? Before and after the voting? A long time ago, when a man I now despise (Rush Limbaugh), took a piece of legislation apart (it was called NAFTA) on the radio I was so very impressed. I had never had anyone go through a bill, page by page, and make me aware of what was in it...both good and bad. I did not even mind the man's obviously skewed opinion. I just enjoyed getting in on the front end of a coming vital piece of legislation. I have never had that experience again. Neither on television, nor on the radio, does anyone do this. Instead we get idiotic sound bites which usually have nothing at all to do with the bill's potential effect. The Medical mess is all about over-charging. It is not about uninsured Americans. It is about such things as the 'rent' for a surgery theater being fifty thousand dollars an hour. The surgeons, other doctors, tools, x-rays, chemicals, medications, and all other things are add on charges. An X-ray is five hundred dollars. The surgeon gets three thousand for ten minutes work. And so it goes, on and on. But nobody is talking about any of that. And all of that is outrageous.
I was a police officer myself, as I stated. I do not lack respect for the profession or for the problems endemic to doing that job. I understand it. I admire many of the people who wear the uniform. But, and especially since I am a former cop, I am very demanding of the requirements which must lay at the foundation of performing police services. We need the police to be friends of our citizenry, acting in partnership with the societal public. They cannot be the 'parents' or the 'guardians' of our cultural values. We, as citizens, must never surrender our position as purveyors of those values. We must create the rules by which we live. We must insist, from our servants (in this case, the police), on the manner of how those rules are enforced. The police do not get to decide. They get to follow up on the decisions we make
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