Ding-dong, the Wicked Witch is dead. Daryl Gates, the man who created the modern SWAT team, invented the Big Brotherish D.A.R.E. program, and who said that casual drug users should be shot as “traitors” in the war on drugs, has died at 83.
Too bad it wasn’t decades sooner, before he had a chance to do so much damage, and too bad he left so many like-minded thugs to carry out his sick vision of law enforcement.
The SWAT team was a good concept for handling extreme emergencies. But being born in the mind of a violent, lying, racist, piggish man who saw innocent citizens as enemies to be slaughtered without benefit of due process, its catastrophic misuse was inevitable.
Gates is as responsible as any other individual for the police-state ruination of the country that once was the U.S.A.
Good damn riddance.
It’s a little strange to see such a sentiment coming from your recent work here, but I can’t find much cause to say it’s unwarranted. 🙂
I can’t bring myself to wish death on anyone*, even if I am perfectly capable of moving into Condition Red and acting in order to make someone stop. (I suppose there are some who may never be able to understand that, but I sleep real well with the Ma Moose approach.)
In that sense, I view Gates like I did Ted Kennedy recently. Didn’t wish him to suffer or die, but ain’t gonna miss him at all.
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* To be totally clear: not saying I got that from Claire’s post. I’m just speaking to the topic.
Claire, but how do you really feel about Gates?
[…] H/T: Claire […]
Sorry, Kevin. LOL, Jim. (I was kinda wondering if someone might ask that question.)
I don’t usually wish death on my enemies (though, like you, Kevin, I wouldn’t mourn). it’s wrong to say I wished Gates had died decades ago; I just wish he had changed — as if Cruella de Vil could change into an animal-welfare activist. Neither wish has any effect.
Gates just evokes a visceral response in me. Seldom has a man of such petty evil and power-mongering (after all, he was just chief of a local police force, however big) cast such a vast and ugly shadow.
A few minutes ago a friend and I were sitting outside in relatively calm winds when a dust-devil suddenly swirled up and blasted over us. My friend looked into the heavens and said, “What? I wasn’t saying anything bad about you!” So I recalled that I had just come from dissing Daryl Gates in unusually harsh terms. Maybe he … “I’m sure,” my friend said, “that Gates is in no position right now to influence the weather.”
Claire,
I appreciate the sentiment and say good riddance as well.
It seems to me that organizations like of OathKeepers should be working hard to dis-assemble the years and years of un-constitutional mindset and tactics he set in motion….I hope I am not being naive.
Don’t fret, there’s still Joe Arpaio, “America’s Toughest Sheriff.”
Oh, thank you SOOOOOO much for the good cheer, Dr. John! You’ve just made my day … 😉
He’s next. Please be patient while we clear some room; none of the current residents want to share a griddle with him.
At least his victims and/or their families can finally have closure. The same will be the case when justice finally catches up to that butt nugget, Arpaio, too.
I’m glad that someone has the nerve to speak ill of the dead! Dying does not make a P.O.S. a saint and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous at best.
I can’t honestly say that I don’t wish death on anyone. There are definitely some folks that this planet would be better off without. I may not take an active role in achieving that end but I will actively fantasize about a world without thugs.
Daryl Gates was a thug. He lived longer and better than he deserved. I’m sure he was loved by somebody who is mourning him today but the sum total of grief felt for his passing can’t hold a candle to the grief he caused his victims.
I can’t say it any better, Claire.
Good Damn Riddance.
Maybe this is where Dante’s notion of different circles of hell could be helpful.
It’s not like he was cut off in his prime. Personally, I blame the War on Some Unpopular Drugs for a lot of the damage that he did—he wouldn’t have been in a position to do that damage without the WOSUD.
Oh, and—hi, Claire!
wow what a gutsy article what a hoodlum that guy was!!!
You don’t wish death on your enemies?
Either you guys are really nice or I’m really not.