Man Woman Ethno

MCP · Guest

http://whatmenthinkofwomen.blogspot.com/2008/07/politicizing-police-cops-as-feminist.html

Politicizing The Police

Cops As Feminist Enforcers

A recent AP story begins: "Virginia is going statewide with another weapon
in its battle against deadbeat parents -- pink and powder-blue car boots .
The state is hoping the boots and conspicuous sticker will embarrass parents
into making payments."

Fairfax has been doing this since 1998, says the story. The idea is to
shame fathers--or, as the story carefully say, "parents," but since the
woman in a divorce almost invariably gets the children, 95% of them are
fathers--into paying. A sticker will be put on the cars, saying, 'This
vehicle has been seized by the sheriff for unpaid child support.'"

Not good.

Several worrisome trends exist with respect to the police. One is
militarization: the adoption of jackboots, military-like formations, and the
weaponry of military units. Another is the use of the military as police, a
very bad idea. And now we have the appropriation of the police to the
purposes of political pressure groups. The crusade, which is what it is,
against delinquent and allegedly delinquent fathers is a radical-feminist
hobbyhorse.

Such crusades are an excellent way to force a division between the police
and the public, to cause police not to be regarded as enforcers of the law
but as representatives of special interests. That's what the boot program
transparently is: cops being made subservient to militant feminism.

Perhaps it sounds desirable to embarrass deadbeats. But notice that only
the enemies of feminists are to be so embarrassed. No one suggests, for
example, going into the ghettoes, finding mothers (excuse me: "parents") of
illegitimate children who are cheating the welfare system, and making them
wear placards. (You would have to start a whole new placard industry: Uncle
Sucker takes a beating on welfare.) We do not make women who sell food
stamps to buy drugs wear a big WC, for "Welfare Cheat." We do not put
embarrassing stickers on the cars of divorced women who prevent
court-ordered visitation by fathers.

Why not? Because the culprits are women and, often, black. Apparently law
enforcement is now, like commerce, education, and politics, going to be
based on preferential treatment due to race, creed, color, sex, and national
origin.

Until now, the police have been recognized as politically neutral. A
Republican has gotten the same fine for speeding as a Democrat. Classes of
punishment have been similar for similar crimes. If you owed IRS money for
taxes and didn't pay it, you would be arrested in the normal manner. If you
failed to pay a large number of traffic tickets, you would also be arrested
in the normal way. Now, suddenly, debtors disliked by a special interest are
to be singled out for humiliation.

It is a bad idea because, among other reasons, the police are going to
take the heat for it. The police are always in an uneasy relationship with
the public. People don't like cops, or at any rate don't like being caught
by cops for speeding or drunk driving or whatever. Most people recognize
that there should be enforcement of laws. They just believe that it should
be applied to other people, not themselves.

What makes the system work reasonably well is the realization that the
cops represent society, not special interests. Punishments do not differ for
political enemies of the left or the right. A woman who failed to make her
car payments would not be publicly humiliated while a man who failed to pay
on a building lot would not. Neither would like being arrested. But there
would be no special treatment.

Now there is.

My objection is not to humiliation as punishment. If corrupt politicians
were put naked in stocks on Wilson Boulevard, it would be fine with
me--provided that the same treatment were meted out for corruption in
general, and not just to forms disapproved by particular groups. But when
some groups are humiliated at the political instigation of their enemies,
and others are not, real resentment ("hatred" is not too strong a word) will
result. And it will be hatred of the cops, who didn't make the law.

The Unites States is given to hysterias. In the Twenties we had
Prohibition. Later there was McCarthyism in which communists were imagined
to be under ever blade of grass. We had the Sixties. Now we have radical
feminism. All of these witless enthusiasms did enormous harm. We don't need
the police to become a toy of the current crop of zealots. Does no one in
Congress have the guts to say so? (No.)

Posted by Christianj

Ranting · Guest

Excellant article.

"MCP" <gf010w5035@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
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