Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (34431)	4/11/1999 9:26:00 PM
From: nihil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Don't think so. Its the old problem of "who takes care of the caretaker's daughter while the caretaker's busy taking care." .. no, wrong song, .. its qui custodibiat custodes? (who shall watch the watchmen in your favorite, premium-paid language. You're too familiar with what goes on in police forces (especially in New Orleans) to believe that these enforcers reflect the sentiments of the people they control, or that even Big Brother controls the police. In most of the world (including LA and NYC) the police do as they damned-well please. They live on handouts from business (not all in free coffee and doughnuts), shoot pretty much whom they please (organized child killing in Brazil), extort sex from prostitutes and other offenders, lean easy on rich and powerful people who could injure them, and do quite well for themselves. And they are the people who protect civilization from barbarism. Without them, it would be the war of each against all, like Mogadishu. I once asked a gangbanger why they didn't fight the police instead of each other. He looked at me like I wuz an idiot. "Man, they'll kill you dead!" The deal in our cities is that as long as gangs shoot each other, why should the cops risk taking a bullet. In societies where Big Brother doesn't reward and protect the police against attack by legalists and citizens, the police (sometimes laughingly called "the army") take over control. For hundreds of years, the Roman Empire was controlled by Praetorians and Field Armies whose commanders bought their loyalty by donatives. The Empire was always up for sale. Feudalism was essentially the same gig. The powerful warriors were bought off with fiefs. Today we economize police by hiring leftovers and underpaying them, and then dissing them, and not demanding the highest levels of honesty and honor. Even good guys become thugs under the social pressure of blue solidarity. Any politician who betrays the police will be destroyed. Notice what was done to Clinton by Arkansas State Police and Secret Service Agents. Everyone, I think, knows that there must be watchmen set on the watchers. What better watchmen that watchers, thus shoo flies. Strange. I have several close former students who are policemen. As individuals, I like them alot. But officially, they are probably as bad as any of the others. It's the system. I could say the same about teachers or tax collectors. What is even stranger, is that I know and work with many lawyers. The ones I work with, and many on the other side, are among the most ethical and decent people I know. Even they are forced into situations where to represent their client adequately, they must do cruel and unpleasant things. I have seen Deputy Attorneys General for the State avoid actions (in civil cases) that might have won but were too prejudicial to meet their personal standards of what was fair. In most of the civil trials that I know, the State is usually right, because it settles when it's wrong, even when it could win on a "technicality". And then there are the really bad lawyers, often with the biggest wins. I hope I never have to sue, because I am not sure I would choose the most ethical lawyer that I know. Fortunastely, the best lawyers I know are quite ethical.