BEING of the blue collar class, still living in it. I've got relatives who are cops, or, the ones I'm in touch with who were cops. The ones presently working the job are in the next generation. I remember that once in an online disagreement I surprised people by saying I had an uncle and a cousin who were cops, it wouldn't seem many college-credentialed people who spend their time online actually know any as family members. Oh, yeah, did I mention I'm Irish from New England?
I had a discussion with one of my relatives over the weekend and said I thought it was strange, considering that a lot of the cops I'd known were in it to help people that more cops don't self-identify as liberal. I think a lot of them live their lives with more real, traditional American style liberalism than some white-collar, self-identified liberals do. I'd guess more cops live their lives with at least expecting to perform acts in line with traditional liberalism than most of the libertarian-liberals more in line with the "enlightenment" 18th century atrocity which also goes by the word "liberalism."
I've known lots of white-collar "liberals" who might give money to causes and might vote the right way but who have probably never put themselves in the slightest risk to ever help anyone. I've read about even cops who are not people I'd generally admire but who have done that, even for people they probably didn't like. Thinking about that recently I thought maybe it was a distinction between liberalism of words and money and liberalism as lived in life. If forced to choose between those who say it and those who live it, I'll take those who live it. If they don't do it consistently, I'd talk up having them do it consistently. I wonder if a lot of those cops aren't really more liberal than they'd think they'd like to think they are.
Of course, I'd rather they voted it too, maybe if the better angels of their nature got more praise they'd do that more. I have known cops who did vote the right way.
The left has a gift for coming up with slogans that are justifiable, make sense, are warranted but which are easily turned back on them by rotten people. One of those is "defund the police" which is all of those things. Like so many short-hand designations for complex ideas that one is so dangerously in need of explanation that destroys any advantage that it was supposed to gain through pithiness.
What the police need is to have their work load reduced by having social service agencies or other workers deal with a lot of the stuff that falls to their lot to handle BECAUSE POLITICIANS HAVE DEFUNDED SOCIAL SERVICES, SCHOOLS AND OTHER PUBLIC GOODS KNOWING THAT THEY CAN ALWAYS RELY ON THE POLICE AND THE PRISON SYSTEM. And Hollywood hasn't helped in that through its ginning up public paranoia to make the worst possible solution the one a public terrified by what they see on the TV screen will support.
I think TV has hurt the culture of policing too, by popularizing Hollywood cop-fascism since the advent of the movie industry. A lot of cop movies and TV shows have the same effect on the culture of cops that Birth of a Nation did on the white population, reviving one of our worst domestic terrorist movements. There are lots of cops with bad attitudes but I've known some who I know wish it was not that way.
What the left should have done is to drop the "defund" talk and talk up the decertification of cop unions, one of the worst forces in producing the mess with the profession today. Of course the left would have to be aware enough of its own romantic ideas about unions to get to that point. I'm not sure that doesn't play a part in this.
DeNazifying the police is what needs to be done. Respecting their better intentions and actions is probably more effective than coming up with slogans that don't work to do what they're supposed to. Allowing them to imagine themselves as people whose work is helping people, protecting people without the Hollywood-FOX kind of fascist adulteration might do more to actually change the reality of policing in the United States than an ephemeral slogan that will need to be abandoned as it is rendered a liability.
Note: I am reaching the limits of my ability to keep doing this on a daily basis as my financial situation tightens. In two months it will reach the end. I hope to perhaps weekly or occasionally post new pieces here if the worst happens. Well, I suppose if the actual worst happens I won't be posting at all.
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