“Papers Please!”
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When I was a kid I wanted to be a police officer. Well first I wanted to be an astronaut but that dream died pretty quickly when I realized being able to see out of BOTH eyes was something of a requirement. But after abandoning my dream of becoming the first lunar overlord I decided an officer of the law was next best option. Eventually that dream faded and my goal of being writer became an all consuming obsession which has lead to what I am now. That would be a borderline successful indie writer and all around online blowhard. I still respected cops even though I didn’t want to be one of them.
That has all changed.
You can’t take in the news these days without hearing about or reading about cops stepping over the line and taking on the roll of the bad guys. There is a reason nobody (yes I know that’s an exaggeration) trusts the police anymore. It would take something extreme for me to call the police to resolve a problem. I am not going to rundown a list of stories where the police are unequivocally the bad guys. I’m not Google and I am not a news outlet do your own gods damned research it’s not hard to learn all about police in America being giant jackasses.
Yes, I know it’s not all cops
I am 100% convinced that for every one bad cop there are a hundred good cops. I am sure that most cops really do want to help people and do the right thing. But I have known, personally known, police officers in my life who were the most racist, bigoted, misogynistic, homophobic, and totalitarian douche bags I’ve ever known. I’ve heard them laughing about how “The Niggers in East Dayton” are afraid to drive through our town and getting the hookers to give them freebies so that they don’t get run in on bullshit charges. I’ve heard them say horrible and reprehensible things and I knew one cop who liked to give faggots an occasional beating in hopes it would toughen them up and turn them straight.
And no I can’t prove a single word of this but I KNOW what I know.
Right now you are probably thinking what has brought on this rant against the establishment and authority. You may be thinking you need to log out of my sight and clean the cookies from your computer because the NSA might be watching me, the government hating fag, and through me you.
Calm down, I have a point. Read it and then run away.
The night before last my wife Karen picked me up from work. I have been carless since December of 2012 and Karen’s car has been dead for a month now. We are currently borrowing our oldest son’s car because he has no license and the thing was sitting on a flat tire in his apartment complex. We replaced two of the tires and did a few other things to it in order to make it useable. Not a big deal. On Monday we noticed one of the headlights had blown but we didn’t have the time or money to replace it, I’m not kidding money and time is super tight and add to that the situation with my mother in law and I think we can be forgiven for not replacing it until Thursday. When she picked me up on Wednesday night we were pulled over in the way home.
No I am not bitching about being pulled over. Having a headlight out is illegal and a valid excuse for pulling someone over. I also think it’s a complete asshole move and they should be doing something better with my tax dollars but it’s a legal reason and they had every right to do it.
The fat assed, I thought cops had physical fitness standards, sheriff’s deputy was really fucking smug when Karen rolled down the window and he told her that she had a headlight out. He acted like he’d just busted a drug mule with 20 kilos of Peruvian marching powder. Or maybe he was just enjoying the view of my wife’s tits. He informed her of the light out, stupid shit eating grin on his chubby face. Then he asked for her license and proof of insurance which she already had out and waiting for him.
Then he asked for my ID.
I was absolutely shocked. I was sure, and later research confirmed my surety, that as a passenger he had no right to ask me for my ID. Or at the very least I had zero responsibility to provide him with one. But I am at heart something of a coward. I do believe I’ve been pretty upfront about that in the past. I gave the fat jack booted moron my ID and said nothing. Inside I was seething. I’d done nothing wrong. I’d said nothing to him. All I was guilty of was being a passenger in a car with a blown headlight. But for some reason this asshole needed to run my ID.
Why?
What gives him the right to do this to anyone?
I guess I have been a complete moron thinking that the police were here to investigate crimes and keep the peace. I did not, and do not, think it’s their responsibility drive around and demand to see the papers of normal everyday citizens.
Are we in NAZI Germany?
Are we in Soviet Russia?
A lot of assholes like to say Obama is the new Hitler and the new Stalin. I may not be the biggest fan of Barack Obama and I freely admit he’s lied to us. But for fucks sake he’s not Hitler and he’s not Stalin. But our law enforcement organizations… kids I grew up at the end of the cold war and I am seeing things going on now that we would have taken up arms against back then. It’s like 13 years ago everyone decided we need to give away out rights as Americans in order to keep the Terrorists (Code Words for Non White) away from our kids and our churches.
It’s all bullshit.
The police work for us, or at least they are supposed to. We should not have to fear our “Protectors” more than we fear the criminals. I know the gangbangers are going to rip me off I should not have to know that the police are going to fuck me over as well.
I know some of you are going to say something along the lines of “He needed to check your ID to protect everyone” or my personal favorite “What are you worried about if you haven’t done anything wrong?"
Let me ask you assholes a question.
Would you like it if a police officer followed you around everywhere and looked over your shoulder?
Why would it bother you if you didn’t do anything wrong.
Freedom, real freedom, actually fucking means something to me.
-Josh