Interesting, I live in an area where I fully trust the police, well at least the older ones. Some of them now are so young that I was attempted to ask one for his driver’s license recently. He authoritatively waived me out of a line of traffic to pull over to the side of the road so he could tell me, “Washington State requires a front license plate”, on my, yes you guessed it, my Corvette. (You may have heard this story before). He was so young and I thought I might be shot if I ignored his request or pretended not to see him from the strong demanding way he was waving with both arms and signaling me to pull over. I could just see it now on the news, “73 Year Old Vietnam Veteran Shot to Death by a 20 Year Old Cop for Driving His Corvette Without a Front License Plate”. Hell, you ever seen how ugly a front plate looks back-to-back taped on the front of a ’09 Corvette. If they wanted a plate up there they would have designed a place for it.

I was breaking the law, but on the rest of the trip, another 4 or 5 miles, my wife counted 15 other cars without front plates, and that was just on the cars going the opposite direction. Somewhere I learned that is no excuse for breaking the law, breaking it because a lot of other people break it. Ignorance is also no excuse for the law. Both excuses seem to be used by some people in Ferguson and Baltimore that think they can use excuses to break the law. Robbery, breaking and entering, destruction of property, arson, defiance toward those we hire to protect us, all of them must be acceptable as long as they let you get away with it. They figure they can do whatever they want anymore. Why? Because we no longer enforce our laws. We don’t enforce laws because of a myriad of reasons, none of them really legitimate. Speeding laws aren’t enforced, except in (some) school zones. In fact I’ve heard they set speed limits around 10 miles per hour less than they want the traffic to flow, just to keep it somewhat under control. What’s a cop to do today to do his job? Maybe if we shot more people that didn’t have a front license plate, or maybe if they set up snipers to take out speeders, it would put an end to the problems. What we’re doing frustrates me because it makes me more fearful of even leaving the house. And it’s not the police I fear.

Oh, after he told me what the law was, he said, “Nice car, have a nice day”, and walked away. I learned my lesson, I’ll never drive on Willows Road again if I don’t have to. I sure hope none of my local police are Gulch members that might read this.

Jan,

It sounds like we agree on most every point. I did not expect that to be the case when I responded to your original comment. I honestly do accept and appreciate the comment you made when you said, "the problem is not ARMING the police. The problem is arming the POLICE." That is absolutely a brilliant soundbite that sums this whole conversation up in 13 very well crafted words.

I agree wholeheartedly about wishing that I could trust the police. Put simply, I do not. As they are absolutely unwilling to clean out the trash within their own ranks and apply the law equally to themselves as they do to us, they are unworthy of my respect or my trust. That includes virtually every cop because they can all pretty much be lumped into one of two categories. Either a cop is a problem case (unnecessary use of force, graft, some other form of corruption) or he/she is aiding and abetting those that are (looking the other way, falsifying police reports, charge stacking, etc.) so that the problem cops in category one can consistently get away with the crimes you and I would do hard time for.

As for the hypothetical argument about arming the cop we can trust, I'm not even interested in the discussion. I think they are well armed enough as it is. Giving them more firepower only makes the average citizen less safe. I'll take a well trained, well armed private citizen over a cop with a Rambo complex any day of the week. At least then when the worst case comes to pass and somebody screws up with a gun, I know the person making the mistake won't get a free pass as damned near every cop that mistakenly beats, tazes or shoots somebody will.

Regarding the "French solution", the whole conversation is a non starter. I am not suggesting that we should disarm the police. I am simply suggesting that they have more than enough firepower as it is now. If an average patrol cop has a handgun, a couple spare magazines, pepper spray, a tazer, a baton, a pair of handcuffs and a couple spare ziptie restraints on his person as his personal armament along with his body armor, I'd say he is better armed that virtually every thug he is likely to deal with 99.99% of the time. Additionally, he/she has their training to fall back on. Beyond that, they have their long guns, AR15 style rifles and shotguns, in their cars that can shoot both lethal and non lethal projectiles. They may even have helmets, shields and other riot gear in the cars for all I know. If they don't, they could carry those things without too much trouble. If you'll forgive me for saying so, I'd say that the average cop is almost as well armed as some of the troops we send into combat. If they need more arms/armament as you suggest, I'd rather just send in the 1st Armored Division and flatten the place if it's really that bad. In the meantime, give me a gun and a couple dozen other well armed (concealed or open, I don't care) citizens beside me when trouble comes along, and I will be just fine.

O'Reilly is book-smart, but, like so many bullies, including Obama, he was obviously emotionally traumatized - in his case, probably by Catholic nuns - during his upbringing. My psychological hunch-of-the-day is such abuse is why he became a school teacher and talks so much about kids.

I can't disagree that he's smart...but your other observations pretty much sum up my opinions of him, too. But sometimes a good source of information, and interesting guests...when he lets them talk.

Ouch! Zing!

My turn to laugh...

My pleasure, MinorLiberator.
It is so easy to be misunderstood. It happens to me too often. Attempting to be brief and succinct with the written word, combined with people trying to sift quickly through the sheer bulk, often results in situations usually avoided with elaboration and clarification that would naturally occur with verbal exchanges.

I have read enough of your material as well as woodlema's, to gather context enough to lead me to conclude it was likely simple misunderstanding.

I try to be clear myself, but depend upon benefit of doubt. I am always happy to clarify. :)
Regards,
O.A.

I started noticing O'Reilly's contradictions early on, and some definite liberal views creeping in (like opposition to "Big Oil"). I guess he's the talking head equivalent of a "mixed economy". I don't know if he's moderated his views at all (I think he may have), but I remember a few years ago he was part of the "if you don't believe 100% in Global Warming and it's threat to the planet, you're an idiot" crowd. That's certainly not a reasonable, objective position, and never was.

And yeah, gas taxes are everywhere, the equivalent of "sin" taxes on booze or cigarettes. And of course the States (or Feds) do nothing to "earn" it, they are counting on the fact that people will keep buying even with the added cost. Which is of course why they choose things to tax that people are possibly addicted to, or can hardly do without.

it is possible. She has had at least one other such conference-9/11 in 2012. The same day the embassy in Cairo and Benghazi happened

Even more impressive, one report said they were wearing body armor. No details or follow up though.

Martimus, because his cartoons are maybe considered offensive and he is now in the spotlight