"Lighten Up, Francis"
Lots of people probably missed it because it came out on Christmas Day, but Idaho was in the national news again recently -- actually, the Police Academy just up the road from me here in Meridian made the news. Excerpt:
Idaho law enforcement leaders say they were "mortified" when a group of state police academy graduates chose a slogan that many felt was just too gung-ho.Lots of people have expressed extreme moral and righteous indignation, including commenters in various newspaper forums and at least one local blogger, who wrote:
The slogan, "Don't suffer from PTSD, go out and cause it," was emblazoned on the Dec. 14 graduation programs for 43 officers who completed the Idaho Police Officer Standards and Training Academy's latest course...
...Apparently, each class at the academy is allowed to vote on its own slogan.
The latest group, with officers bound for 19 police agencies around the state, included military veterans interested in issues such as mental survival.
"Our class president was ex-military," Black said. "It slipped in."
The decision by the current class of the Police Academy to send a message that they’re sadists who want to afflict others with PTSD will only make their jobs harder when they get on the streets of Idaho’s city and towns.Sorry, but I really don't think that local police officers are out there to hurt and abuse the law-abiding citizens of Idaho -- they're here to protect their communities. And I really don't think there are a bunch of law-abiding citizens who will no longer cooperate with the police because a class motto made it out into the civilian world. Maybe I've led a sheltered life, but I've never had a problem with police officers wanting to hurt me for no reason at all, and I don't think there is a huge problem with police going out of their way to pick on people just innocently living their lives. I mean, c'mon, it's a class slogan from a "boot camp"-style course of instruction -- no one takes those things seriously! No one, that is, I guess, except for people here in Idaho with way too much time on their hands and too little sense of intentional irony. (Believe it or not, military people don't actually revel in causing unnecessary bloodshed and destruction, even if we joke about it once in a while.)
posted by Bubblehead at 11:59 PM
4 Comments:
It is a class thing. As in upper lower. If you comport yourself upper class have a nice car, decent house, good neighborhood you get treated with respect.
Read this story:
The Biggest Cover Up Of All
Here is what Graham Greene has to say about it in his novel of the cold war "Our Man In Havana":
"The poor in my own country, in any Latin American country. The poor of Central Europe and the Orient. Of course in your welfare states you have no poor, so you are untorturable. In Cuba the police can deal as harshly as they like with emigres from Latin America and the Baltic States, but not with visitors from your country or Scandinavia. It is an instinctive matter on both sides. Catholics are more torturable than Protestants, just as they are more criminal.
Then try on these for size:
Class War
Treatment vs Recreation
Round Pegs In Round Holes
The reason nice people don't have problems with the police is that it can cause headlines.
No one gives a shit if you fuck with the underclass unless things go very badly wrong.
You do live a sheltered life.
12/29/2007 5:14 PM
thank you for supporting idaho's recent POST graduates. it's nice to hear a refreshing POSITIVE post about LEOs (law enforcement officers)--which is quite rare these days.
i know for a fact that these guys did not intend for the deeper meaning that the press took from it. and as far as m.simon's post... stick with the topic at hand. bringing other countries' political and economical issues into the idaho police academy is like trying to argue that "chewing bubble gum will solve a math equation". PLEASE.
1/20/2008 10:06 PM
OW,
Read the Class War link.
It is not about other countries. It is about America.
BTW class war is a natural human trait. My Graham Greene quote was just an illustration. To be civilized we must work against those natural tendencies which would bring down civilization.
Whether you like it or not the police are always more deferential to the upper classes. You can't eliminate it. You can work to reduce it. If it gets too bad you have revolutions. Bad for business.
BTW I'm a former skimmer nuke. Which may be one reason bubblehead tolerates my occasional comment. We come from a similar class. The geekiest job you can have in the military and still be at the pointy end of the spear.
BTW bubblehead - this might be of interest:
WB-7 First Plasma
I don't recall if I gave you a heads up or not. It is about the research going on to convert the Navy to fusion power. Latest news from MSNBC.
One of the researchers (R. Nebel) has some input in the comments. Actually he had commented twice last time I checked.
1/21/2008 2:49 AM
I suppose every person must read it.
10/19/2011 11:30 PM
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