eloydrummerboy
& the Flaming Monkeys
I'm kind of down today. The needless deaths were bad enough, and this in no way means to downplay that, but it's not the topic of this thread. What has got me "in the dumps" is the number of posts on facebook along the lines of "Happy now, cop haters?" and "Let's see what [insert protesting groups, Al Sharpton, etc.] have to say about this!"
It's sad to see how many people are so completely devoid of nuance and the ability to separate unrelated events. Why does everything and everybody have to be lumped into easy to understand boxes? So, you're not allowed to protest what you see as police brutality. Because that makes you a cop hater. And then, every time a cop dies in the line of duty it's your fault and it's something you wanted to happen. That's the line of thought at work here and it's really depressing me today for some reason.
A police officer friend of mine even linked to an article and said "We are at war". I wrote a rather wordy reply, mostly saying "At war with who? The cop haters? How can you know who is who? You can't go into every situation assuming that it's war. Are you at war with the public? That attitude and approach isn't going to make anything better." I got the reply that "We at war with evil" and then was de-friended. I sent a message to apologize if I offended her, and to explain that war is a harsh term, and 'evil' is an abstract concept. It's not very useful to go around saying that you're at war against evil. You don't know who is reading it and how they might interpret it.
Anyway, rant over. I just needed to get this off my chest to a group of people who might understand where I"m coming from. I hope this doesn't start anything against the rules, but instead some healthy conversation.
Can somebody please tell me that I'm not alone in thinking that you can be against police brutality, specific instances and in general, (and think that it does in fact exist) yet not be against police in general and especially not the murder of innocent police officers?
It's sad to see how many people are so completely devoid of nuance and the ability to separate unrelated events. Why does everything and everybody have to be lumped into easy to understand boxes? So, you're not allowed to protest what you see as police brutality. Because that makes you a cop hater. And then, every time a cop dies in the line of duty it's your fault and it's something you wanted to happen. That's the line of thought at work here and it's really depressing me today for some reason.
A police officer friend of mine even linked to an article and said "We are at war". I wrote a rather wordy reply, mostly saying "At war with who? The cop haters? How can you know who is who? You can't go into every situation assuming that it's war. Are you at war with the public? That attitude and approach isn't going to make anything better." I got the reply that "We at war with evil" and then was de-friended. I sent a message to apologize if I offended her, and to explain that war is a harsh term, and 'evil' is an abstract concept. It's not very useful to go around saying that you're at war against evil. You don't know who is reading it and how they might interpret it.
Anyway, rant over. I just needed to get this off my chest to a group of people who might understand where I"m coming from. I hope this doesn't start anything against the rules, but instead some healthy conversation.
Can somebody please tell me that I'm not alone in thinking that you can be against police brutality, specific instances and in general, (and think that it does in fact exist) yet not be against police in general and especially not the murder of innocent police officers?
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