Thursday, April 09, 2020

This Is Not America

At the moment, it is. Behold the efforts of local law enforcement in Brighton, Colorado:


While I share skepticism about the overall utility of social distancing, I have made a point of doing so; other than daily walks around the neighborhood and getting a morning cup of coffee at the gas station a few blocks away (which is more about keeping them in business than anything else), I have not been leaving my house much at all. But there are people who cheering this sort of behavior right now -- I see it on my social media feed every damned day.

When we begin the reckoning of this moment, we are going to need to demand answers about behavior like this. But more importantly, we need to consult a mirror to see why we were willing to use the Constitution as we would use a 48-roll jumbo pack of Kirkland toilet paper.

4 comments:

Gino said...

its just cops being cops. obey, or will harass you to let you know they are the boss, and not you.
they knew damn well that father was doing nothing wrong. but, hey ya know... cops gonna cop. its who they are.

Petercorp said...

Gino's right about cops. Law enforcement, and medical porfessionals take oaths. It'd seem that the only ones that take their's seriously are the ones that work in medicine. I hear that attorneys and doctors are supposed to perform pro bono work every year. Maybe some doctors do.

But didn't Adams, Lincoln, and Wilson all use existing laws at their disposal to silence dissent, and even more against those that disagreed with them? And can't the POTUS make a request of the Homeland Secretary to order the dirctor of FEMA to declare marshall law? The federal government has a lot of power that they can yield during times of emergency. I'm not sure if they can had off any of that power to the states, or what authority the states have during times of crisis, but I'd have to imagine that there are some. And as much as I'm not a fan of authority, a cop directs me to do something, unless it's something of a sexual nature to them, I'm most likely going to do what it is, and figure out who to voice a cpmplaint to later.

Mr. D said...

But didn't Adams, Lincoln, and Wilson all use existing laws at their disposal to silence dissent, and even more against those that disagreed with them?

Indeed they did. And those precedents haunt us to this day. Wilson might be the worst human being to ever serve in the office, which tells you something.

Petercorp said...

Wilson was pretty bad at not only presidenting, but probably life from what I know of him. He may have been the last C&C to have such close ties to the Klan. But people always forget how bad Jackson was, and the two that surrounded Lincoln were both a lot of awful. People think that Trump is bad, but there were plenty in the last half of the 1800's that were luckily forgotten. And if they hadn't have been, we'd be talking about what grand jobs they did whilst in office instead of every, or every other POTUS being the worst one ever. Nixon, and LBJ were probably not even good men.

And Tricky was a genious. But a lawyer also. Trump just acts like they did, but when the cameras were rolling too. They just benefit from people not knowing who they truly were until they were out no longer at the house on 1600. He could still turn things around, but he needs the country to open up just as much as the rest of us do. He's starting to crack with not being able to be on the road where he's adored.

People are chomping too soon at the bit to continue their trampling of him. China really messed the world over on this. The WHO practically assisted them in that. And leading isn't Trump's strongest suit. But Pence has done a pretty solid job at picking up any slack. Hopefully soon enough we'll develop a herd immunity, or enough of us have the antibodies already. But those on the otherside may try to keep this train going long enough to keep the econonmy from being able to rebound, and which it will in a strong way once this gets back on the track again, but with too much collateral damage that we're not even begining to see.