Friday, June 24, 2011

To truly be free, we should all become cops.

The cop is given the benefit of the doubt, the assumption of innocence, the freedom of individuality. When one officer does something outrageous, we are derided, ridiculed and scorned if we associate those outrages to the culture that the cop came from. We're told not to judge the group by the actions of a few individuals, but to allow the overriding principles of duty and integrity to shape our opinion of the society of police, and to give each officer the freedom to live up to those principles as an individual, free from the stereotypes brought upon by the an overbearing public wishing to exert their control over the police society as a whole.

The double standard is obviously in how the police policy is towards the public. One guy puts a firecracker in his underwear and we're all terrorists who have to be radiated and molested, because really "anyone could be a terrorist", in other words, "all of you are defined by the worst among you", which is exactly the opposite of how we all are expected to view the police.

So is this a double standard? Only if you believe that an average joe has the same value as an average cop. Double standards must be applied uniformly, it's not a double standard for a society to jail a man for stealing and then praise a dog for it's intelligence in accomplishing the same feat. Does an average Joe have the same value in society as a cop. Obviously not.

Joe can't have the same value as a cop. Joe hasn't gone through the training, made the sacrifices, nor taken the oaths. Joe is an untrustworthy heathen, he is not beholden to any authority except himself, and is a threat to the principles that are the foundation of the freedom of all officers.

The cop is granted rights and freedoms from the state. He is free to take any action he pleases so long as it does not harm another officer. In fact, even illegal actions, if not harmful to another officer, will routinely be overlooked by other officers in order to maintain the liberty of the police society. Only officers have this right, the rest of us must cower in fear as we see an officer approaching, we have not been granted power by the authority that the officer freely lives in.

Here is a pretty clear example of what this problem looks like in real life:



So how do we as the cowering public overcome this problem.

I see 3 possible solutions:

1. We all become cops. Then we would all have rights, and could be demanded to be treated as individuals and held accountable only to the law, and not to the perception of the group we belong to.

2. All cops become citizens. This could be done by overthrowing the state and removing the authority from which cops get their freedom.

3. Live in our freedom. Or in other words, appeal to a higher authority.

So let's say I decide to carry a weapon such as a handgun. This is a right only available to free people, not subhuman serfs or slaves. Our constitution in fact lays it out in one simple sentence, that my right "to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed".
Now, this right does not come from the constitution, it comes from God. The constitution is not granting me the right to keep and bear arms, the constitution is recognizing my right and then restricting the government from infringing upon it. The constitution is not a right-granting document, it is a government-restricting document. My right to keep and bear arms exists by the mere fact of my humanity.

Unfortunately this is not the view of the Federal culture that empowers police to mistreat average Joe's. The culture that has led to the militarization of the police and the tyranization of the average Joe stems from the misguided premise that rights are granted by government. This is why we are developing into a dichotomized culture where cops are given freedom, and average Joes are all suspect until proven innocent. So how do we combat this?

I guess I could buy a spy camera, protest loudly about my mistreatment, and have my constitution ready, to some degree this is necessary to expose the hypocracy within our system to the other average Joe's out there. The problem with this tactic is that I'm just average Joe. I haven't gone through the rituals that have granted me rights via the state like the cop did, so all of my protests will simply be seen as the antics of a wailing child who does not realize his place in society. My freedoms were given to me by God, but I live in a country that has ceased to recognize God as someone with the authority to grant freedom. Since, the state has not granted me any freedom, and as long as I operate within this context, I will remain an average joe, subject (read: slave, sub-human, serf) to the freedom loving cops.

The only way to get around this is to:

a.) live by means of my freedom, carrying guns, saying things, and going places as if my freedom to do these things was granted to me by God himself (because they were), and

b.) treat all other humans beings (including ones dressed up like cops) as equals and with love, abstaining from any use of force unless it is in direct response to force initiated against me.

So what would this look like in the case of my carrying a handgun. Well, what are registration, classes, permits, fees, paperwork, etc if not infringments upon my God given right to be armed?

If I am carrying a gun, do I have any obligation to inform the officer? It might be polite, but demanding that I do this upon every encounter with an officer first of all makes it seem like the police officer is somehow in control of me (and he's not, he's just another human like me), and second, it is an infringement by the state (who the officer is representing) of my right to be armed. The reason that cops are outfitted with guns isn't to protect them from people like me. As long as the cop doesn't approach me with violence, I'm not going to approach him with violence. Cops carry guns for the same reason that I do, to protect themselves from people who would initiate violence, without any concern for the law or for my humanity, and use it to force thier will. The only reason that I would not be as free as a cop to be armed would be that I am not actually free at all, and I simply don't accept that.

Bottom line, the solution is for me to live free and love. To treat everyone, including cops and TSA agents as humans first, and ask to be treated the same by them. If they choose to trample my rights, berate me, beat me, treat me as something less than human or even kill me for attempting to live as a free human being created in the image of God, then the authority they will be answering to, unfortunatly for them, is God, whether the state takes notice or not.