The New York Times is very, very upset that the NYPD is demonstrating their displeasure with Mayor Bill deBlasio … who has attacked the NYPD as racist and openly sided with the protesters who’ve been chanting “What do we want? Dead Cops!”
When he spoke at a police graduation ceremony at Madison Square Garden on Monday, some in the crowd booed and heckled him. This followed the mass back-turning by scores of officers when the mayor spoke on Saturday at the funeral of Officer Rafael Ramos; the virtual back-turning the day before by an airplane-towed banner (“Our backs have turned to you”), and the original spiteful gesture by officers on the night Mr. de Blasio visited the hospital where Officer Ramos and his partner, Wenjian Liu, lay dead.
Mr. de Blasio isn’t going to say it, but somebody has to: With these acts of passive-aggressive contempt and self-pity, many New York police officers, led by their union, are squandering the department’s credibility, defacing its reputation, shredding its hard-earned respect.
Note who the NYTimes is not condemning: The protesters who’ve been chanting “What do we want? Dead Cops!”
As for Mayor deBlasio, I am sure he envies the unquestioned power and authority the Communist Sandinistas … whom he went down to Nicaragua to support back in the eighties… and the Castro Communists in Cuba … where he went for his honeymoon… exerted over their proletariat.
Did the NYTimes complain when Mayor Bloomberg was booed when he spoke at NYPD Academy graduations?
Maybe Sean Penn can arrange for an introduction of Bill Di Blasio to Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas. Since those organized protests seem to attract some extremists and mentally deranged persons, it would be poetic justice if one of them should do some damage to the NYTimes building. Then the Times might return to journalistic integrity.
Were you expecting different behavior from leftist 2-3%er agitators and those complicit within the media?
I’m seeing that the Left is becoming afraid that the Michael Brown related protests are turning into a snowball effect. NBC news on Tuesday was describing & labeling continued protests as “anti-government” while showing the only footage they have of the agitators, being obvious Left Fringe scum. Their description allows mainstream Dems to see this all as something “that could be related” to conservative lesser government principles.
Though the NY situation with Blasio & the NYPD is nuanced with other union issues & failed backroom maneuvering, its direct link in the minds of most of the less intelligent protesting militant blacks remains related to the thug Michael Brown take down.
The NY Times is correct. If the past month is any indicator, it seems that the NYPD has a huge problem with having their little fee-fees get hurt. They get butthurt WAY too easily.
Sure Paul.
As long as you admit that police officers are better and more moral people the those like yourself who can’t seem to stop namecalling them, attacking them, and calling for their murders.
As long as you admit police are adults and anti-police bigots Ike you are violent children of which nothing better can be expected.
Maybe Bratton or someone in the NYPD can start a SJW movement for police officers. They can claim non-police have “civilian privilege.” Because the way the NYPD is behaving, they’re no different than SJW feminists who talk about “male privilege” or fat acceptance SJWs who talk about “thin privilege.”
Today would be a good day for the NYPD to have a ticket blitz of improperly parked NYT vehicles.
Some of the back story.
http://dnainfo.com/new-york/20141230/civic-center/city-hall-asked-pols-attack-pba-as-mayor-coaxed-unions-meet-sources
So Paul’s hilarious whine is that police are no better than civilians but should be held to a higher standard anyway.
THAT is the problem. Paul wants to operate under a lower standard of behavior than the police but with the same societal value and power.
No wonder this is coming from the entitled SJWs like Paul.
Considering police are representatives of the government, of course they should be held to a higher standard than private civilians.
We hold our President, Congressmen, Senators, judges, governors, state legislators, mayors, and city councilmen to high standards. The police should be no different.
I problem with the police has been (and always will be) that power corrupts, and if you give any group the kind of power that police are being granted across the country, somebody is eventually going to abuse that power in a bad way.
That said… I will choose the police every day of the week over these “protestors.” Nothing like attempting to claim political relevancy to justify their senseless bloodlust.
Paul: “We hold our President, Congressmen, Senators, judges, governors, state legislators, mayors, and city councilmen to high standards”
What? We hold our President to a higher standard? Not since Obama has been in office.
I’m talking about the general readership of GayPatriot. And if polls are to be used as a standard, a large majority of the country believes we’re going in the wrong direction.
I have little use for public employee unions but for the NYT to raise a stink – just wow.
The work slow-down by the cops is essentially doing everything exactly by the book.
What people (like Paul) seem not to realize is that when the message you send to cops is that doing your job proactively carries a high risk of ruination – job loss, persecution, death threats, and possible imprisonment – the natural reaction is to minimize the risk. The cop’s motto becomes, to quote Sgt. Schulz, “I see nothing! Nothing!”.
If I were a cop in a minority area with a crime problem and if I were working in a climate where virtually any interaction with a minority carried a high risk of being targeted by the Revrum Al or Eric Holder, I’d make damn sure that I “don’t see nuthin'”. That attitude may get innocents killed but it might keep me out of prison and unthreatened by the mobs.
As I’ve written in the past, police are not beyond the law and there are far too many cases where over-the-top police operations have resulted in death of innocents. As with any government agency, oversight is required.
But I also realize that police, when acting in good faith, should be accorded a fair amount of latitude. Police frequently face circumstances most civilians won’t encounter in a lifetime. They have to make snap decisions that can mean life and death… they don’t have to luxury of convening a meeting to deliberate. Sometimes their decisions are wrong and, sometimes, their decisions are right but nevertheless result in a bad outcome. We need to realize this and learn to separate real injustice (e.g. the Florida case I mentioned a few days back) and a media-fueled crock like the Michael Brown shooting.
And one other thing: there is no use of force that looks good on TV. Just because it looks bad doesn’t mean the cops wrong. Cops are seldom golden gloves boxers and the suspect seldom drops on the first punch. More likely, it’s a brawl looking a lot like the Eric Garner arrest. The Vulcan knockout pinch isn’t an actual option.
We hold our President, Congressmen, Senators, judges, governors, state legislators, mayors, and city councilmen to high standards. The police should be no different.
Hmm, perhaps Paul can point me to his condemnation of the IRS exceses, the DoJ’s selective prosecutions or Obama’s ordering the execution of an American citizen without due process?
His “Higher standards” only apply to people he wants to shut up
R-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-g-h-t. I mean, why can’t the NYPD just shrug off a pair of cops being executed by one of the street agitators the mayor has been cheering one… you know, like President Obama did.
De Blasio will turn back the clock of time.
I do remember NYC in the 70s – open drug selling, under the cops’ noses, in Grand Central and Penn Station. Muggings in the subway on a regular basis which gave rise to folks protecting themselves like Bernie Goetz did.
Suburbanites (and others) who ventured into the city always carried “mugging money” in their shoes. It was so that after you were mugged you would have enough money to catch the train or bus home.
NYC had a reputation, and it was well deserved, as a hostile city, dangerous to tourists and locals alike.
Guiliani (yep, the New Yorker Magazine called him a colossal asshole; liberals for some reason don’t like folks who like order unless they are calling the shots) changed all that, he helped to turn a dying city around. He made cops care about their jobs. You could now depend on the police to protect and serve.
Just look at the result of the city-wide black out in 1977 – city-wide looting, arson, just general mayhem. Compare that to the city-wide blackout in 2003 – calm throughout most of the city; neighbors helping neighbors. Mainly because folks felt safer so they didn’t try to “lock themselves inside away from the dangerous outside world.” I’ll give credit to Giuliani and New York’s finest for that.
De Blasio seems determined to undermine all that and go back to the days of lawlessness.
Broken Windows was only a VERY small factor in contributing to the decline of crime.
Newt Gingrich economics, a rising middle class in NYC, gentrification, and a reduction in lead pollution are the main reasons why crime went down in NYC, as well as the rest of the country.
Paul @19:
And how will you explain it when crime goes BACK UP under Kaiser Wilhelm’s regime? I’m sure it will be some obscure conservative/Republican’s fault, right?
That’s a chicken little prophecy, BF. The NYPD has been ignoring petty crimes ever since the 2 officers were murdered, and the number of reported crimes has gone down.
I can not make heads nor tails of what Paul is attempting to communicate.
The NYPD has backed way off of general law enforcement since the assassination of Liu and Ramos. Parking tickets are down by 94%. I would imagine that this is a form of “blue flu” as the meter cops are mostly fee collectors for the city and this form of “blue flu” would get de Blasio’s attention PDQ.
On the other hand, special unit drug crime arrests are down by 66% and I can well imagine that those cops in high risk crime settings are holding back until they know what the rules from de Blasio will be before they expose themselves to the mayor’s two-timing demagoguery.
Yes cops are held to public scrutiny and they should be. But the public scrutiny must be as neutral in its bias as the public expects the cops to be in enforcing the law. That standard automatically dismisses Sharpton and de Blasio as they have both taken the low road of demagoguery over the principled method of providing evidence and using the grand jury system.
What I do know that a bias against the cops is usually a clearer sign of an individual’s bigotry than it is of police corruption. And, power corrupts people who are willing to be corrupted. Power is benign.
I think there are a few reforms we can agree on. These would be implemented at either the local or state level, depending on what state law allows:
1. An independent review panel for criminal and civil cases involving police brutality and/or police misconduct. Ban the police from doing internal investigations of alleged brutality or misconduct, as that is a major conflict of interest.
2. Scott Walker-esque policies aimed at police unions…Scott Walker did a good job by sticking it to the teachers. Now Act 10 needs to reach ultimate perfection and cover all public workers, including police.
3. Re-train police with a mentality that they are servants of the community, not soldiers in a battle or SS officers who “enforce.” We are supposed to be a constitutional republic, not a police state.
4. Demilitarize the police by taking away military-style weapons or goodies from them. If complete demilitarization cannot occur, maybe have a VERY limited “firearms unit” like Britain. Such a “unit” would only be deployed for major crimes like bank heists (think the LA bank robbery from the 90s), gang shootouts, school shootings, and such.
5. COMPLETE AND OPEN TRANSPARENCY in police departments. There have been many instances of bad police behavior and corrupt departments, especially in medium and large cities, sweep it all under the rug.
And although this is not a police reform, it is one thing that will help drive down crime even further…
-The abolition of gun ownership restrictions and laws allowing for concealed and/or open carry.
Whoops…that last part may be grammatically incorrect. Just in case it is…
“The abolition of gun control laws and a passage of laws allowing concealed and/or open carry.”
That sentence structure was NOT meant to call for a ban on conceal carry.
The end is near. Not the end of the world, but democracy as we know it. In reporting demostrations the media has concentrated on the supposed motive, namely police brutality in the form of killing young blacks and the justice system’s failure to indict the officers involved. However, the organizers have provided a conduit for the communist party to become visible, and they might be active in organizing protests. The Cloward-Piven conspiracy states create riots,feel your anger, and let the hatred flow. The goal is to show the government as impotest to control situations that Marxism becomes the only solution. The community activist in the White House and his helper in the DOJ, are the enablers. I believe it was President Reagan who declared the death of the evil empire. The empire may have died but the soul or ideology lives on and is reincarnating in many parts of the world including the U.S.A.
Paul, you present a cogent and reasoned set of points for discussion. However, I take total exception to the notion of comparing our policing system to a police state and COMPLETE AND OPEN TRANSPARENCY is not the antidote to not trusting a police department. We can not televise police planning, preparation, emplacement and arrests and expect quality policing to be unaffected as a result.
St. Lactantius informed us that “the first point of wisdom is to discern what is false, the second to know what is true.” In the case of corruption in the police universe, it is our civic duty to learn what is corrupt (false) and then know what is true —- and then fix it. That is the meaning of popular sovereignty.
Discernment is a habit of the spirit to separate, to judge, and in particular to distinguish between what is true and false; what is good and what is evil. The absence of discernment permits corruption and corruption is a cancer that feeds on more corruption and grows until it catches the attention of the host.
“Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time?” Luke 12:56 chides us to know ourselves. What are our weaknesses and how do we guard against them? Certainly, each of us knows what temptations lie in assuming power.
Socrates mused about the “guardian” class which is chosen to protect society. Glaucon queried Socrates about the guardians needing a guard. Socrates admited that the ideal is that each person be a “divine ruler within himself” but know that everyone is not willing to rule himself by divine reason.
Then Juvenal took up the question in Satire 6 when he asked “who will guard the guardians?”
After which followed St. Lactantius and St. Augustine of Hippo and Hobbes and Locke and Montesquieu and Rousseau and Hume and many others made extensive examinations of the nature of man.
As a Christian informed by the brilliance of St. Augustine, I know myself to be a weak vessel always challenged by attraction of the vices. In order to trust another, I must discern his dedication to the hard work of being honest and of valued judgement. That is my only hope that he will do unto me as I would comport myself in my dealings with others.
A corrupt police department is a conspiracy against the people. Such corruption should be easy to discern because it is almost always known to those who are the victims of the corruption. Conspiracies are easy to formulate by those with vivid imaginations, but they are usually very rare and short lived.
However, ideology, bias and bigotry are a substitute for discernment and operate on the basis that facts do not matter to a mind that is operating on the willing suspension of disbelief.
Instead of painting all police with a broad brush, perhaps we could start with just one thread of corruption and pull on it to find what unravels. Until we deal with the reality of corruption, we allow ourselves to be victimized by our suspicions.
“It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment” – Marcus Tullius Cicero
de Blasio has seen fit to castigate the NYPD with spurious claims of bad policing. He has used the muscles in his mouth to impugn the integrity of the thin blue line which stands between civility and the chaos of mob action.
I would be better satisfied if Obama, Holder, Sharpton, de Blasio and DemonizingRats in general were to come forward and share their thoughts and judgments in a logical, factual, plan which identifies the specifics of the evils and demonstrates the diagnostic good to bring about the correction.
Roberto, Happy New Year! Have you found this guy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlpODYhnPEo
Happy New Year, Heliotrope.
Thank you for the video. As he described the soviets inhumanity, it told me that they exported it to Cuba and Venezuela, and to a lesser degree Iran. I recalled Obama’s conversation with then President Medvid, on how much more independence he will have in his second term, with the intent that it will draw the two nations together. Ortega in Nicaragua with his reelection and with a proposal to go before the National Assembly for life. However, he is not as extreme as his partners in ALBA, which includes Ecuador, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic (Charlie Rangel’s vacation home.) The leftist president here in El Salvador keeps extending one han, of friendship to Maduras, ad the Castros and the other to Obama. Rudy Giuliani is due here later this month to assess the situation and advise on how to reduce violent crime, (12 murders a day in a country smaller than L.A. County.) His Minister of Security has already stated publicly that he will probably implement very little of Giuliani’s suggestions. The FMLN owes the maras big time. After under the direction of the Frente the maras were used to destabilize and embarass the conservative government during its twenty year reign. In the six years of the FMLN, gang membership inceased 200% to 60,000 known members (6,000 currently in the U.S.)
This and seeing how conservatives, particularly in high school, colleges, and universities have their First Amendment rights abridged. The soviets have been successful in brainwashing our media our politicians who are member of Socialists International. Conservatives are ignored by the MSM and bloggers, except to ridicule them and their comments. It appears to me that we are in the last days of democracy.
Roberto, I share your dark pessimism, but I can not bring myself to stop trying to help shine light on the problem.
The DemonizingRats are floating the notion that Rudy Giuliani’s “broken windows” policies didn’t start the trend for restoring law and order in NYC. Those who depend on broken spirits for their power can not afford to “let a crisis go to waste” or for enlightenment or spiritual awakening to succeed. They depend on tamping down the positive notions of the society so that they can lead the people with bits of cheese and promises.
The interesting point about the Progressive media and academics is that they so readily attach themselves to vague, fact-free concepts and will not permit their minds stoked by hope to be challenged on the specifics. Dictators look at those with solutions as a threat to the stability of the dictatorship. That is the sum of a dictator’s sense of law and order.
The DemonizingRats are a ship of fools who steam uncharted waters without a compass or a rudder. For them, progress is change for the sake of change. Because everything is demonized, change has to be positive in the truncated minds of the Progressive. Change for the sake of change is the ideology of the cancer cell. Progressives selling Utopia are merely snake oil hucksters using power to glorify themselves and to line their own pockets.
Rahm Emanuel’s son got mugged in front of daddy’s home in Chicago. What could be more symbolic of mass corruption than that? The only way the DemonizingRat Mayor of Chicago could have made hay out of the incident was if the mugger turned out to be a cop. In machine politics or petty dictatorships, you don’t shine lights behind the refrigerator at night because it pisses off the cockroaches.
Mark Steyn brilliantly (as usual) nailed our Progressive head ornament:
No wonder the KGB guy in the YouTube clip said that useful idiots like Obama and his band of Progressives are the first to be executed by the “government” when the serious dictators take over.