BRADEN FELLINGER
LIBERAL COLUMNIST
Every day in the United States natural rights are being infringed upon. Some police infringe upon our natural rights while they are supposed to protect society.
When you are driving down the road and you see a police officer on the side you probably do not feel safe. You probably get nervous and make sure you are not speeding or doing anything abnormal. You are probably never glad when there is a police officer on the road. When you see the flashing red and blue lights behind you, you are being threatened with your life. They tell you to pull over and if you do not they will follow and chase you. If you disobey them they will use force and if you try to defend yourself, they will escalate the force.
The police are not here to serve us. In Warren vs. District of Columbia, a 1981 Supreme Court case, the court upheld that the police do not have a public duty to serve citizens. They are essentially here to serve the interests of the state. Police work under the assumption that the public has to consent to everything they enforce. If you go five miles over this arbitrary speed limit you can legally get pulled over and fined heavily. The same goes for any “problem” on your car or any personal decision you want to make that could potentially harm you. It is essentially the greatest racketeering scam in the United States.
When people were protesting DAPL, the militarized police got involved. According to an NBC News article, the police got a water hose and sprayed protesters at night, in North Dakota, in the middle of winter. Not one police officer tried to stop the others and said it was wrong. Some protesters had to go to the hospital because of that. It must be okay, though, because police officers are above the law. I do not even need to mention all the cases of police brutality and murder against unarmed people of all races. We all are aware that this is going on.
Everyone has a right to run his own life. If someone wants to do drugs and ruin his own life, we don’t need the police to protect him from hurting himself. If someone wants to smoke marijuana, they don’t need the police to break into their property, shoot their barking dog, send them to jail, and make them lose their job all under the guise of keeping them from ruining their life.
Police are big government, and a police state with militarized police is a frightening idea. Everyone is always paranoid about the government coming to collect their guns. If it happens they are not going to send people in suits, they are going to send the police armed with military grade weapons and armor to take your weapons. Keep supporting the police state and Trump’s big government ideals and this will become a reality.
Some might say the police are there to uphold the law. But the law does not justify what is right and wrong. Every instance of civil progress in our nation has been against what the law has stated—from ending slavery, to women’s suffrage, and even the birth of our nation. They didn’t say we shouldn’t rebel against the British because they are here to uphold the law. They did not bootlick tyranny back then like many do today.
“But the police are just doing their job.” Well, no. They chose their career knowing that they could be required to possibly beat, murder, and mistreat private citizens during their job in the name of self defense. It is ridiculous to think that the life of someone who is a policeman is worth any more than yours or mine because of the career choice they made. “Just doing my job” is never a justification of what is right or wrong. Shooting unarmed people and only getting punished with administrative leave is not “just doing my job.” Brutality and enforcing unjust laws is not just, even though they may just be doing their job. It is crazy to think that someone cannot be a bad person because they are just doing their job. Remember that the Nazis who killed people in concentration camps, scammers, abortion doctors, and even the people who crucified Jesus Christ were “just doing their jobs.”
We should treat the police as regular citizens just like you and me. Police brutality is no better than brutality on the police. There are many times when the police have been helpful and we all know some great people who happen to be police, but you should not bootlick random people just because they wear uniforms.