Washington’s Blog notes correctly much of what we see today has been in the works far longer than most people realize.
From my earliest memories, I have always been trying to see the forest, and not just the trees. Something about the gestalt, the holistic view always appealed to me. I wanted to know where current events came from, and how we got into this mess. It has always been easier to decide how to act if you understand why following your internal inclinations causes pain and conflict with your circumstances.
So, as a Military Policeman in the late 1980s, when given access to high level training guidance and national professional standards for policemen, I began trying to understand the pattern. Our Provost Marshal was big on such things, and I kept overhearing talk of evolving standards and greater federal influence in local police training. I picked his brain often. At the time, I was foolish enough to be on board with this stuff.
By the time I began having serious knee trouble, I also began having doubts about what I was learning. A career in Law Enforcement was less and less appealing. I wanted out. So when my term expired, I didn’t take the offered promotion to reenlist, offered despite my permanent knee problems. I came home. A short time later I watched on TV news the unfolding drama in Waco. A few years later, I was the object of federal harassment myself. All of which merely confirmed my growing apprehension while still in uniform.
Thus, I can confirm from inside the system itself that during the late 1980s, things changed for policemen everywhere in the US. Those US Marshals had easy access to my military records, and could have known I was ostensibly on their side. But the days of doing the work, of thinking before jumping in and “making a collar” (an arrest) were long gone. When the federal government interferes directly in the politics of a tiny rural Baptist church, it doesn’t matter whether it was intentional. They never so much as twitched a finger to help me clean up the mess they made of my life.
And they call it “professional standards.” It was all part of the long term plans to make life a living hell for folks here in the US, and I’m sure they have been the same for all the world.
Morning Ed. Interesting post and worth pondering. As to what led to us being where we are insofar as law enforcement is concerned, I’ve developed a few thoughts on it over the years beginning in the 80s when I was attending some night courses also attended by fledgling wannabe cops as an alternative to having to attend the law enforcement academy to become certified. I had a chance to observe them closely enough to get the thinking started which matured several years later teaching courses in Emergency Management occasionally at the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy.
What I saw then was a developing us/vs/them brotherhood I came to suspect the combination of the LEAs all over the country, combined with the increasing militarization of police forces has created a mental boundary police officers unconsciously adopt, along with a concurrent and gradual change in the types of individuals drawn to law enforcement as a profession, and a siege mentality adopted by most.
Time was, before the LEA fetish was adopted police officers were much like the draftees prior to the all-volunteer military. I’m sure they had some ‘brotherhood’ tendencies, but it was manifested in an alienation mode from the general population.
Just my personal opinion. Jules
Afterthought: I think something similar has happened with the all-volunteer military in sufficient force to create a situation that would never have happened when a large portion of the military were conscripts. The ‘easy’ potential decision to ask US troops to fire on US citizens wouldn’t have been anywhere near so easy.
I don’t believe there’s a hell of a lot of difference between the people making a career out of the military today than there was prior to the beginning of the draft prior to WWII. The career military were people who couldn’t get jobs anywhere else, weren’t potentially productive citizens outside the military, and might as well be there as hanging around making nuisances of themselves in civilian life.
The difference is the population as a whole recognized this fact and harbored no illusions as to whey they were there.
The Merle Travis song, Reenlistment Blues [my blog yesterday] describes pretty well what made a career soldier, and how the civilian population viewed them, circa 1950, though the draft had been in force for a decade.
My Veterans Day post tomorrow might get me out of the blogging business because I’m going into this in a way nobody’s going to care for.
Thanks for the post. Jules
Thanks for your addition to this discussion. Stuff like this matters.