Warning: this post may offend you.
Imagine, if you will, a world in which every living being on this planet is happy. There are no conflicts, no us-versus-them, no left, no right, everybody is living in peace and harmony. All people have everything they need to be happy, no one goes without life's basics and the most important function of law enforcement is directing traffic and getting cats out of trees. Birds are singing, the sun is shining and the lawn mows itself.
Now slap yourself in the face and come back to the real world.
We all know that idyllic setting will never exist; the only point in time in the history of mankind it did exist was in the Garden of Eden, before the whole 'forbidden fruit' incident.
Oops! I probably just upset a whole class of folks for mentioning something from the Bible. Get over yourselves, Darwinists and atheists, because I don't care.
Now imagine a country in which the vast majority of citizens actually have respect for the men and women in law enforcement and the laws that govern this land we call America.
That world once existed, too, just as the Garden of Eden did.
Every day, watching the news on television or reading the headlines, we see the regression of society, the erosion of respect between people regardless of class or social standing. Right is becoming wrong, black is becoming white (that is not a racial statement, readers, so don't get your underwear in a bunch) and bottom is becoming top.
What has happened to us?
There's not enough space on this forum to attempt to compile a list of driving factors responsible for the growing chaos spreading across our nation, the causative forces that are dividing...and then subdividing...us.
So let's just look at one that is in the news seemingly every day: the NFL player protests.
It all started when a player, whose name I won't devote space to, decided to kneel during the playing of our National Anthem before a game to protest police brutality toward minorities. Then said player wore socks at football practice that depicted police officers as pigs.
Many of you are too young to remember the 60s and early seventies when folks who would, today, be considered 'social justice warriors', chanted slogans like "Off (kill) the pigs! Off the pigs!"
I remember those times well. It angered me as a young teen and it still does today, only now it is much more pronounced, thanks to the advent of the internet and social media. Everybody has a video camera on their phone and instant access to a world-wide viewing audience, so let's just keep beating the horse until long after it dies.
Oops! I just made a statement that might anger PETA. Too bad; that phrase has been around since long before the folks of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals were ever thought about. Mind you, I'm opposed to mistreatment of animals to any extent...except for mice, rats, snakes and mosquitos.
The player 'protests' have since snowballed, gaining momentum like an avalanche, and spread across the entire league, causing a disconnect between a large portion of the fan base of the National Football League and its players.
"But what about their right to free speech?", you ask?
Hey, have at it, NFL players, only don't do it on company time...or mine. You can protest all you want in the offseason or during time away from the practice field. Owners have a right to govern how you act before, during and after games while representing their teams, teams they spent hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire.
Imagine, let's say, that I insisted on wearing a 'Save the Whales' button on my uniform during my police career. Think I would have lasted 31 years? Negative. I wouldn't even have made it off the first day of the probationary period. Would the Chief have been within his rights to fire me for disobeying uniform regulations? Absolutely and without doubt. Could I have worn that same button off-duty on my civilian clothing? Again, absolutely and without doubt I could have.
There are rules that must be followed, set by those that run NFL teams and police departments. The league has specific rules regarding uniforms, just as law enforcement agencies do. They also have rules of conduct...the same as law enforcement agencies. Players and police officers must obey them or face punishment. Period.
Kneeling during the anthem? That's just a whole lot of disrespect to our nation, flag and those who defend them, which includes military and police.
Now let's look at the specific issue of 'police brutality'. Anyone who says it doesn't exist, that all police officers are upstanding, by-the-book coppers, lacks intelligence. There's bad apples everywhere, those that slip through the cracks in the hiring process.
The fact is, though, that throughout the course of any given year, law enforcement officers across the nation engage in multiple millions of public contacts; considering that, there's bound to be incidents in which bad or wrong decisions are made and actual criminal acts on the part of police are committed. No one wearing a badge wants that, believe me, but it happens.
No one wants misconduct on behalf of, say, clergymen, physicians or educators, either, yet compared to police officers, those groups have a much higher rate of misconduct than law enforcement. Do the research.
So why, then, do NFL players choose to say that police brutality is a bigger issue, larger than, say, black-on-black crime or domestic violence, for instance? Why do they not instead protest all the gun violence and killings in Chicago, a city with the strictest gun-control laws on the books?
Because, you see....us coppers are easier targets.
It's the culture of a segment of our society....and I don't like it at all.
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