Did that
policeman, or any policeman in fact, make the law? Of course not. Is it up to them whether or not to enforce it? Again, no; it is what the
state pays them to do, and if they ignored it they could be subject to sanction, dismissal, or worse. Is shouting "FUCK YOU" at an individual police officer going to make even the slightest
ripple of change in the system? I say a third time,
for the love of God, no.
Why, then, do those of us whose
lifestyles are in breach of the laws these people enforce, feel more violently towards the enforcers and not the ones who should be held
accountable for these laws? I can't speak for the
train of thought of someone I don't know, but simply speaking for myself, I know that I have harbored distasteful and even violent thoughts towards police officers. Still do, in fact. I'd like to think that I've matured past the point of shouting; it gives me less credibility if for some reason I am forced to prove my sanity. But whenever I see those stupid blue flashing lights on the side of the highway, or have to stand in line at the
convenience store in front of a uniformed officer, well... I get chills. I feel uncomfortable. Stoned or sober, it doesn't matter.
One obvious argument is that they are soldiers on the opposite side of a stupid, but high-stakes war. If you were part of the
American Revolution, or the
WWI French Resistance, you probably realized that the
redcoats/
Nazi stormtroopers weren't the ones that made the decision to fuck up your country. You might even realize that if they took your side, or just took themselves out of the fight,
military protocol would demand that their own men kill them. Still, you fought them, or hid from them... and you certainly didn't like them. There is no room for
sympathy in
war.
But I think a more
daunting and
philosophical explanation is that in our minds (my mind, anyway), these men and women are
traitors,
robots. They cannot POSSIBLY believe in the
validity of all the laws they
enforce. And I know that this does not apply to every single police officer out there, but many of them pursue their job with a
single-minded power-mad sense of
authority. There is a
subconscious (or maybe, in the worst cases,
conscious) belief that the
badge they wear gives them power over EVERYONE who doesn't have one. Some of the ridiculous, inane questions I have been asked by Mass.
State Troopers, just for driving 73 in a 65.... but I digress. The point is that these people are
PUBLIC SERVANTS. SERVANTS, as in
SERVE and PROTECT. And really, I have to wonder how many cops out there keep that outdated slogan in the back of their head while
performing their duty. When an officer detains me on the street and tries to bully me into answering
irrelevant questions just because I look like a
punk stoner kid, well... how is he
serving or
protecting ANYONE?
I am not an
anarchist;
anarchy is, in my opinion, a completely
indefensible political/social position. I agree that a proctoring system of armed public servants is NECESSARY for a stable, safe society. But we are PEOPLE, not robots, and so are the
proctors. When their stated role is to "
serve and protect", and 90% of the enforcing they do REALLY doesn't fall under those categories by ANY reasonable stretch of the imagination, well... I have lost respect for that individual, and can no longer, in good faith, consider him or her a
rational,
functional member of society....