The recent video of Seattle Police Patrol Officer Ian P. Walsh punching a 17-year-old woman in the face as she tries to help her friend evade him has caused much controversy. There is an understandable reaction among many decrying the young women’s lack of respect for authority. This is correct, they do lack respect for the police, but the question is why?
Let’s start with the jaywalking citation situation in Seattle. As the rest of us around the country are now learning, Seattle is quite tough on jaywalkers. Even doing stings to catch the evil doers. All this, of course, is claimed to be for public safety, but is it really?
Like so many cities in our recession ravaged land Seattle has a budget shortfall. It is cutting services, which makes politicians mad as they have less pork to pass around. Naturally, they look for additional sources of revenue. Many cities abuse traffic citations and parking tickets to this end, but Seattle seems to have decided to go back to issuing excessive numbers of jaywalking citations to raise more money. They resort to this kind of legal plunder to avoid raising taxes or increase the deficit, hiding behind the guise of protecting the public. People know what’s going on. It’s just a form of robbery. When the police become a blue gang enforcing an extortion racket they command no respect. All they have left is their ability to use violence to get people to submit, a situation guaranteed to foster police brutality.
Instead of criticizing the young women for disrespecting a police officer they should be commended for their courage in standing up to him. It is only by not tolerating government abuses that we can put an end to them.
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Seattle residents should organize mass jay walking events.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteThx for the comment. That would be a great protest.
Your a stupid douche and should get hit by a car jaywalking, it's illegal for a reason it is very unsafe, and fucks up traffic. It's not some massive evil scheme by "The Man" you leftard
ReplyDeleteoh, well, you stupidtard, sometimes ya gotta suffer just a little, so others don't have to suffer so much. Which, btw, means you real soon. First, Darren is no leftist, o ignorant rightist, but libertarian. And guess what? Pretty soon the commie cops will be beating your ass, too, so wisen up, uh duh, yuh sheepletard.
ReplyDeleteThx, Maggie, I'm glad you're on my side!
ReplyDelete"stupid douche" Anonymous,
Your naivete is amazing. Perhaps you live in the 'burbs or a rural area & have never had to deal with the money hungry big cities.
This is from a Seattle based commentator:
"The jaywalk jackboots — traffic cops who once ticketed Seattle walkers into a cowering, and often pointless, obedience — are back.
"Police are on track to write 2,600 jaywalking tickets this year, the most in nearly two decades. It's up 40 percent over last year and triple the number in the early '90s.
"That was back when police realized the city's infamous zero-tolerance policy for jaywalkers didn't do much other than irritate the hell out of people. There were years in the '70s and '80s when police wrote 8,000 jaywalking tickets — one for every 70 residents, the most zealous enforcement rate in the country. Yet it wasn't making walkers any safer."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2003305511_danny15.html
Wake up! The govt doesn't protect you it just wants you to think it's helping you so you'll submit.
"…the state tells lies in all the tongues of good and evil, and whatever it says is lies, and whatever it has, it has stolen, everything it is, is false, it bites with stolen teeth, and it bites easily, even its entrails are false."
— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra [1896]
The ruling of Warren vs D.C. states that :
ReplyDeleteDC's highest court ruled that the police do not have a legal responsibility to provide personal protection to individuals, and absolved the police and the city of any liability.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia
Waken O' Sleeper.
Anon said..."DC's highest court ruled that the police do not have a legal responsibility to provide personal protection to individuals, and absolved the police and the city of any liability."
ReplyDeleteThen my question is, what is their purpose? As I see it, they have none other than to bow the head of the public. The courts, of course, are part of the same system and support it. Of course they ruled that the police don't actually have to protect the people. They would face to many lawsuits if they did. It's all about the money. The law is a for profit business. Just tell them that you can't pay their fines and watch their reactions.