{"id":6651,"date":"2011-08-05T02:53:42","date_gmt":"2011-08-05T09:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=6651"},"modified":"2011-08-05T02:53:42","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T09:53:42","slug":"copitude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/05\/copitude\/","title":{"rendered":"Copitude"},"content":{"rendered":"

“We intend to walk into Lansing after the summer break and ask the Republicans who have been so eagerly screwing us, ‘who’s next?’ If we cannot earn their respect we will do what we have always done; hit it with a flashlight until we gain compliance.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s a Michigan cop speaking (H\/T to Ellendra). Or rather emailing. And what a perfect example of a joke that isn’t funny<\/a>. Yes, after being caught, John Barnes, president of the Warren Police Officer\u2019s Association, claimed he was just joking when he threatened to bash legislative heads.<\/p>\n

Then — if his original statement didn’t already scream, “NO JOKE!” — the estimable Officer Barnes added, “I will refrain from using inflammatory language as soon as those attacking me and my fellow police officers refrain from using the same.”<\/p>\n

Now, I admit I don’t follow Michigan politics day-by-day. But I do believe that if Republican politicians anywhere had threatened to hammer police officers with flashlights until they “gained compliance” (or made any equivalent threats), the national media would have gleefully reported the fact. <\/p>\n

Much though I hesitate to defend Republicans (or Democrats) it’s important to note that this violent example of copitude comes because — get this — Republican legislators in bankrupt Michigan think maybe cops should pay into their own health care and retirement funds<\/a> just like most private sector working stiffs. And unlike those of us in the non-elite who can’t even have health insurance or retirement plans.<\/p>\n

Of course, Barnes and his fellow thugs had no actual<\/i> intention of walking into any actual<\/i> legislature and smashing any actual<\/i> politicians’ heads. So in that sense, yes, he was “joking.” But oh my, what he’s revealing about cop attitude! Do cops really believe that concussions — or death — are proper responses to every form of “non-compliance”? Do cops really consider themselves empowered to do violence to anybody who disagrees with them, even when the disagreement is polite? Do cops consider any<\/i> form of opposition as a violent “attack” deserving a violent response? <\/p>\n

Oh, what a host of unintentional truths you revealed about yourself and your profession, Officer Barnes! A gore-besmeared parade of the dead, disabled, disarmed, disfigured, and demoralized testifies that you mean precisely<\/i> what you say.<\/p>\n

I don’t want to see cops beating their nominal masters any more than I want to see them beating gentle schizophrenics, epileptics, grandmothers, political protestors, dancers, or any of the other non-violent folk they like to pound on. But if mucky-mucks ever got a taste of how cops increasingly treat those Will Grigg<\/a> calls mere “mundanes,” there might be some chance their political masters would eventually leash these vicious mutts, well and truly. <\/p>\n

At this point, I’m supposed to say that thugs like Barnes (and the hordes of other thugs Grigg, Radley Balko, and others report on every day) are just “rogues” or “bad apples.” Yeah. Right.<\/p>\n

On the day that cops around the country rush to join organizations like Oathkeepers<\/a> and crusade passionately to drive the gangsters, thieves, puppy killers, graft-takers, crazed control freaks<\/a>, bullies, sexual predators, and other — there is no word for it but — pigs out of their own ranks, I might buy that the Barneses of the world aren’t representative. But the silence from the law-enforcement community gets more deafening all the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“We intend to walk into Lansing after the summer break and ask the Republicans who have been so eagerly screwing us, ‘who’s next?’ If we cannot earn their respect we will do what we have always done; hit it with a flashlight until we gain compliance.” That’s a Michigan cop speaking (H\/T to Ellendra). Or rather emailing. And what a perfect example of a joke that isn’t funny. Yes, after being caught, John Barnes, president of the Warren Police Officer\u2019s Association, claimed he was just joking when he threatened to bash legislative heads. Then — if his original statement didn’t…<\/p>\n

Continue readingCopitude<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thuggery-and-bad-law","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}