Yesterday, we discussed the idea of law enforcement visiting the holocaust museum to avoid the authoritarian mistakes of the past.
Of course, the problem is, even as the linked article admitted, it’s not so easy to see past your own blinders when you’re the person heading down that path.
Several people yesterday pointed out this piece by Brimfield, Ohio Police Chief David Oliver: Open Letter to The Police Officers Who Want to Legalize Drugs where he disparages one of the most intelligent and full-of-integrity groups of officers I know: Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
The legalization folks are quitters.
Of course, that’s not true at all, and if Chief Oliver had an ounce of integrity, he would do more research on LEAP and realize that they find ending the drug war only the first part of the job. As Peter Christ said (paraphrased): “Legalization is about solving our drug war problem. Then we can actually deal with our drug problem.”
Oliver also uses the tired old washed-up and completely inane analogy of legalizing murder:
Having laws against murder does not work, because people still kill other people everyday. As a matter of fact, why don’t we just legalize everything?! If everything is legal, we can do away with police, prisons and courts. The “war on crime†is obviously not working. It is evident it has failed because of the continued rapes, murders, burglaries and assaults. Prisons are overcrowded not because of the choices of the people committing the crimes, but solely because of the police officers who enforce laws which keep us safe and protect our quality of life. Blah, blah, blah.
I tire of having to explain this, as to a kindergartener, but there’s a difference between prohibition laws and laws against crimes such as murder, rape, burglary and assault. If you take a drug dealer off the street, because of the simple and immutable economic laws of supply and demand, another one will emerge to replace them. If you take a murderer or rapist off the street, there is no demand for murderers or rapists that causes them to be re-stocked. The economies of prohibition also insure criminal profits, and tough enforcement rewards those criminal enterprises that are more ruthless.
These undeniable facts demand a different kind of policy.
When you see Chief Oliver’s other postings, you get a reinforcement of his warped world view – police departments are not becoming militarized, we haven’t really tried hard enough to fight the war on drugs, and police officers are dying because of loose talk on the internet.
If you are one of liberal friends, you will hear that we will plant evidence, violate your rights and search your stuff after stopping you for no reason. We will then convict you and send you to prison by committing perjury. If you resist arrest, we will tase you and probably shoot your dog. These ideas and this vitriol all has one thing in common. It is all hogwash… every last bit of it. These sites are publishing lies.
If by lies, you mean case after case of documented proof in the courts? Sure, not all cops are doing that, and we emphasize that fact all the time, but as long as cops like Chief Oliver deny the existence of this corruption and the blue code of silence continues to protect those who are corrupt, then we have a duty as citizens to hold these public servants accountable, or we face the very real threat of walking that road from yesterday’s post.
I’m sure Chief Oliver considers himself to be a good cop. He has a number of authoritarian-cheerleading commenters for all his posts who like him. And, from reading his posts on Facebook, it seems that he genuinely cares about his community and many of the people in it. But because he fails to see the damage done to society by his approach to policing, he is a big part of the problem.
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“The legalization folks are quitters.”
I’d think if he’s going down that road, he should be able to answer the question, “OK then, give me an example of prohibition that has worked well.”
Seriously doubt that a positive example can be brought to that question anywhere, and at any time in history, except he undoubtedly accepts all the collateral damage as just a necessary ‘overhead’ that society has to bear. (I don’t know how that conclusion can be drawn with all the dead bodies and ruined lives accumulating, but…that’s just me I guess.
Pity that.
Officer Fuckface there doesn’t recognize that there are indeed consequences for legalizing murder committed by police officers ( I love to start my weekend getting pissed off at The Fuzz, just hope it doesn’t end that way).
“Legalization folks are quitters” make me think of those t-shirts that read “Rehab is for quitters” and both lines are a joke.
The comment thread there is quite lively. LEAP is not going to “Stand aside”, however the Chief, in his own words, is “done”.
And apparently, the police are arresting and killing people due to their character. Very insightful.
I assume the chief is younger than my 62 years, so he grew up since the drug war began. He has had the opportunity to see the end results, same as I have. He has failed to see that he is, in fact part of the problem; the hammer of justice where the scalpel of reason is called for. The hammer does not know it is unsuited for the job, but it is very frustrated when its methods do not yield the desired results, and blames the unfortunate object of its attentions.
Having laws against murder does not work, because people still kill other people everyday. As a matter of fact, why don’t we just legalize everything?
hmmm… are we sure this isn’t Linda Taylor cross-dressing? That statement is incredibly doltish and it’s (again) straight out of The Calvina’s playbook.
If there was a word w/ the power of “nigger” or “fag” to call us, the chief would be one of those doing the calling. Bigotry sucks and bigots… well, bigots have been spreading their poison far too long.
We, the peoplez, need to quit letting ourselves be divided over stupid shit. We need to stand together, every boy, girl, woman and man (going up the country, canned heat). I see it in the millenial kids in their 20s. They don’t care about race, sexual preference, drug of choice or any of the greatest generation’s hangups – and they’re going tribal (read Samuel R Delaney’s Dhalgren). Watch that bunch… I have hopes for them.
I’ve said it before, we’re not the Jewish holocaust, nor the great crossing and certainly not the American genocide of indigenous people (tho’ the drug war is trying to keep that one alive in Latin America), but we are our own great social/civil tragedy.
THEY are breaking down OUR doors and terrorizing US. To not see that for what it is is a symptom of the bigot. How about a bowl of humility soup for the chief? His ego is kind of obese.
Dear Chief Oliver,
If it was possible to make prohibition work, there would be no illegal drugs found in controlled situations now, like in jail or prison for example. If we haven’t been able to accomplish even that in forty years utilizing about a trillion bucks, we’re barking up the wrong tree.
It is a health issue, and a personal choice issue, not the criminal issue our laws define, (which of course is not your fault).
The laws are wrong, but they cannot be fixed in such a way that eliminates drug use. Even if they’re fixed, drugs will not be vanquished from our (or any) culture. The desire to self-medicate is part of our genes, (as it is with animals in the wild), and legislation won’t alter that.
Thinking we can control our fellow man against his nature in this and any case is a fools errand. Even Jesus didn’t try to put an end to prostitution or alcohol. He knew better.
Drugs and drug consumers symbolize the authoritarian’s ongoing fear of social decadence and irreversible political change. Drugs are considered threatening if they can’t be controlled, as the authoritarian objective is to control everything. That includes people’s personal lives. For the authoritarian, independence is an anathema.
I get the impression David Oliver is a man who believes his ignorance is superior to everyone else’s knowledge. For someone like that to survive, they must depend on a highly regimented society that allows them to function without having to think, because thinking is hard and probably forbidden by their culture.
Strict regimentation is impossible in a country as culturally diverse as the United States. Yet, the authoritarian and quixotic Chief Oliver is convinced it exists somewhere in the far reaches of the fantasy world-view he still clings to. Some would say it’s because Mr. Oliver’s brain is wired up that way. If that’s the case, it’s not the drugs and drug consumers we need to worry about. It’s authoritarians like Chief Oliver and their negativity bias.
In my experience, maybe one in five cops can do basic math. The remaining 90% are complete idiots.
If this thing counted every like I have on your comment it would be at 90%.
The chief is a prime target for asking how much federal grant money his agency rcvd in the last decade.
Chief Officer Oliver makes his point murderously, over tobacco.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/staten-island-man-dies-puts-choke-hold-article-1.1871486
The chief embodies the phrase “ignorance is bliss.”
Anyone who truly cares to learn need only look up, on google or the library, the origin of cannabis prohibition, the congressional hearing at which Harry Anslinger gave unscientific, and outrageously bigoted testimony, upon which our current drug war is based.
There was never, in fact, any public health or safety reason to outlaw cannabis or any other drug. It was only ever motivated by racial animosity. That racist legacy is carried on today in the skewed enforcement towards people of color, while whites, who use and sell drugs at an equal rate, receive impunity. The drug war is a race war, and prohibitionists are racists, whether they acknowledge it or not.
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Going to the source make’s the edited quote “ignorance is bliss” hold a different meaning than most people acknowledge..
“Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”
/snip/
To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemned alike to groan;
The tender for another’s pain,
The unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
‘Tis folly to be wise.
~~ Thomas Gray (1742)
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Thanks for that insight Allan!
The great thing about crashing the site of a bigoted LE blogger and lobbing the real issues about their house is not that we can convince anyone in there that their ill-gotten booty was actually gained under false pretences. Its for the quiet ones that have to live in the neighbourhood and deal with the usual idiosyncratic household homilies preached over the fence as they walk their dogs.
As in; ‘Sure seem like nice enough neighbours in their own way, but all these helpful links those strangers provided sure make short work of the supposed profundity of their armoured personnel carrier that chews up all the asphalt around here.’
Brimfield, OH; pop. 3248 !
in the city you can’t watch your back all the time, and you don’t know who you can trust, so you have to have some place to enjoy a quiet donut and read the paper. that’s why he needs an armored personnel carrier. i think he deserves a little respite from his neverending fight to rid the city of crime, whatever the category.
I’d like to know who in the hell ever appointed cops to be the moral compass of the people. Especially drug cops, the most corrupt on the planet. From lies in court to stealing in the name of confiscations. Extortion and entrapment as the sales people advertising for the prison industrial complex. All paid on tax dollars. It seems with this full tilt bozo’s gossip we have surpassed the Police State and actually live in a Police Country. Even a Police Continent. I find their ugly words just cause to roll another one just like the other one.
Police Planet.
he is part of the problem. we need to remember every day just who started this problem a hundred or so years ago. i’m petty sure the police were in the vangard for this piece of social engineering. police and their corrupt partners in the legislatures have written laws they know won’t ever be followed in order to exercise illegitimate power over their fellow citizens. that’s why have decided to disobey the cannabis statutes every day.
that last sentence if supposed to have another “i” in it somewhere.
The problem with ‘vessels of power’ is that they are forever forgetting their true status…and equate holding the power to be equivalent of being the power.
And, in this case, the power is the electorate. Which is, more and more, signing on to our point of view.
Push is coming to shove in every local police precinct. Soon, every one of them will have to come to terms with the fact that those who gave emotional and fiscal support for anything even remotely scenting of drug prohibition that they once enjoyed almost gratis is literally dying off.
And what they’d hoped would replace the earliest marks in their grifter’s game have instead wised up to what they were being programmed into being and said, “No, thanks. Oh, and by the way, LEGALIZE IT!”.
It’s really very simple and not much more complicated than this: Police attitudes will have to adjust…or police salaries will. In a downward fashion.
Drug prohibition, particularly the cornerstone of its foundation, cannabis prohibition, does not sit well with late Boomers or Millennials. Not when so many know so much more, thanks to the Internet, than many of the previous generation did.
Ignorance of illicit substances – and the origins and practices of prohibiting them – can no longer be used as a weapon by those most used to wielding it, the prohibitionists. To quote a line from a favorite TV series of the 1990’s, “The Truth is Out There”.
And so, two generations that know the truth and is sick-and-tired of the lies is rapidly entering a position to end the madness. And if those who wish to feed out of the public trough want to keep their snouts clamped on its teats, they better wise up and soon.
For…we’ve been patient g-d-mn long enough.
Is it possible that “The truth is out there” was because Mulder was based in D.C.? We all know that that the truth is seldom to be found in the halls of the federal government.
It’s what I would expect to hear in the high school locker room before a big game. I don’t think our chief has ever really got past adolescence. How did the good folks of Brimfield come to elect this bozo?
Local elections around the country have a typical voter turnout of about 20% of registered voters. Around 60% of eligible voters are registered to vote. Most of our elected law enforcement officers are chosen by about 10% of the people, and winning with votes from about 5% of the local population. Same with mayors and city councils who appoint police chiefs. These are the folks who control the military assault tactics being used everywhere nowadays. They need to be defeated at the ballot box if we want to win this drug war in a timely fashion.
And I liked watching Bozo the clown’s tv show growing up, so its kind of insult to Bozo to be compared with these drug war monsters.
You’re right. He’s probably more of a John Wayne Gacy clown than a Bozo.
and let us not forget, as the Firesign Theater so rightly pointed out, We’re All Bozos on This Bus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmWFrMq3qNY
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Bozo is a proper name. bozo is a noun.
The noun predated the clown by right around 3 decades.
thasnks duncan. that pretty much sums up our police chief i think: big strong and stupid.
These are the folks who control the military assault tactics being used everywhere nowadays.
Local elections around the country have a typical voter turnout of about 20% of registered voters.
Voter turnout in the United States fluctuates in national elections, but has never risen to levels of most other well-established democracies. In countries with compulsory voting, like Australia, Belgium, and Chile, voter turnout hovered near 90% in the 2000s. Other countries, like Austria, Sweden, and Italy, experienced turnout rates near 80%. Overall, OECD countries experience turnout rates of about 70%, while in the U.S., about 60% of the voting eligible population votes during presidential election years, and about 40% votes during midterm elections.
The Police Are Now Domestic Occupying Soldiers
The most in-demand police vehicle in America is the Lenco BearCat G3, a ten-officer 16,000-lb, bullet-proof tank that can thunder along at 80 mph. The federal government buys dozens of these vehicles each year for local police departments. The feds are directly outfitting these departments with military hardware.
Police Illegally Raid Homes with Tank
Sheriff Lott’s New Toy
This is the freaky piglet trying to bust Michael Phelps for a bong hit.
The Richland County, South Carolina Sheriff’s Department (that’s them above) just obtained an armored personnel carrier, complete with a belt-fed, .50-cal turreted machine gun. Sheriff Leon Lott has charmingly named the vehicle “The Peacemaker,” and insists that using a caliber of ammunition that even the U.S. military is reluctant to use against human targets (it’s generally reserved for use against armored vehicles) will “save lives.”
Neighborhoods are not warzones & #police should not be treating us like wartime enemies. https://www.aclu.org/militarization
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This one is from the “it doesn’t mean that they aren’t out to get you” category:
In order to more “accurately” demonstrate the results of choosing to enjoy cannabis we injected synthetic THC into the study subjects. I am flabbergasted. Oh well, it just goes to show that you just can’t fool a prohibitionist! Well, that is unless you dress up a fatherly, scientist looking guy in a lab coat and have him deliver the propaganda in a somber tone of authoritative gravitas. Then you can get them to fall for just about anything you can possibly imagine.
How Black Pepper relieves Cannabis Anxiety
http://cannabisdigest.ca/black-pepper-relieves-cannabis-anxiety/
Regarding drugs vs. other crimes argument, the only rebuttal I’ve heard from a drug warrior is that public order crimes exist which aren’t necessarily violent crimes.
The prohibs believe drug law reformers are committing a category error.
Brimfield Police Dept. answers all of our questions:
Q Why is Brimfield Police so aggressive with traffic enforcement?
A Traffic enforcement is one of our best tools to enforce laws, find the criminal element, and locate impaired drivers/drugs. Even though we have an assertive department, we write very few tickets.
Q While traffic stopped, why did your officers ask me if I was in possession of any illegal drugs or weapons?
A Our officers ask these types of questions as a standard procedure. If you were asked, it does not mean the officers suspected you of any of these crimes. We have found that uniformly asking these types of questions limits the claims of harassment by officers. We can tell all motorists stopped for a traffic violation that we ask everyone these types of questions and they are not being singled out. Secondarily, asking these types of questions often yields surprising results. Many times people admit to crimes that would have gone unknown or the question itself incites a change in behavior that clues an officer to the fact that other criminal activity may be occurring.
Q How does Brimfield Police afford to have all of these new police cruisers?
A We currently use revenue from criminal enforcement to pay for our equipment- no tax money is used. The money comes from drug arrests, court fines, and our police impound lot.
http://brimfieldpolice.com/faqs/
I just pushed enter and saw your post. I had the same one.
Question – Why does little Brimfield need four K9 units?
Answer – In law enforcement when we have a bad call and a K9 is needed, we need one quick. If we have to call one in or try to locate one it takes valuable time. We have one narcotics trained K9 on every shift, and we are training the only bomb certified dog in the county. Our K9 units are highly trained and nationally certified. Since we are a state certified K9 training facility, we can add K9 units at very little cost to our community.
Yeah, I forgot to include that one! I had meant for it to be between the third and last question in my comment above.
Hmm, perhaps he blocked me, other seem to be able to see comments there and I have not been able to see any of the comments since the last one I posted about 24 hours ago.
Sad to say it, he probabbly had his boys go out and bust on some stoners and youth extra hard because of how angry he had to be to block the majority on his page.
Bottom line:
The police are the real terrorists. Not some uneducated goat rancher living 8,000 miles from our borders.
The police are a threat to the lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness of all Americans. One day, the pendulum of justice will swing back towards the truth and on that day the police will be recognized for what they are: criminals with badges and excellent health care.
Protect & Serve (themselves!)
But Mr. Oliver is making it where some goat herder 8,000 miles away can be the real threat. Al Qaeda are billionairs in the dope game as is the Taliban. He is the reason why Muslim terrorists can enter the country illegally: drug money buys a lot as seen on 9/11 when said hijackers spent money living in and moving around America. He is the reason why my prison not only had insurgents and terrorists, but the Italian and Russian Mafia and Latin American traffickers stuck in a CIA/DoD/Iraqi prison.
Police chiefs in my neck of the woods are hired or appointed from within the dept by city councils and managers,,with heavy input from the DA,CA and any judges/JP’s.
That is part of the problem,,this group has also embraced the prohibition teat and will require education and or removal from office.
They speak of character?
The construction of character often comes from admitting your own faults and working to fix them. Vehemently defending 40 years of mistakes without any recognition of those faults isn’t character but cowardice.
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Well score one for the good guys. It appears that a not insignificant number of “drug tourists” respect the law.
one of the great advantages to driving Conde’s lumber truck painted with garlands of cannabis was the quality of tips I rec’d at deliveries. I didn’t have to buy pot, people kept giving it to me. Good pot. Homegrown Oregon kind bud… I detest the policies, the politicians and prick prohibs that stole that job from me.