Don't know about you, but law enforcement is starting to scare the crap out of me.

First Trump gave a horrid, authoritarian speech in LI, and the audience of cops cheered him on.

Now he gives a racist, authoritarian speech to the freaking FBI, and they cheer him on.

I know LE personnel are generally on the conservative side, but I always held out the hope that they understood the values that made America (kinda) great. I was willing to dismiss the excesses that we see as the end of the bell curve, not the middle.

But I guess they don't - they're just a bunch of authoritarian aholes, ready to line up behind Trump when he signals the revolution.

Great.

And before you say - there he goes again - over-reacting - today the Trump admin told the CDC to ban certain words from their reports.

Words like "fetus" and "science based".

Great.

I haven’t seen anything about the FBI speech, but you’ll want to read this piece on his CIA speech. 

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/01/donald-trump-cia-speech

White House press secretary Sean Spicer, meanwhile, billed Trump’s visit as a massive success, claiming during a press conference later Saturday that the president’s speech had elicited a five-minute standing ovation from the audience. But since the event, a number of officials and attendees have pushed back on the narrative that Trump’s visit was well received by everyone in the crowd, describing a largely lukewarm audience stacked with Trump staffers and invitees, who filled the first three rows.

One official told CBS News that much of the applause had come from the roughly 40 people who had been brought by Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and Mike Pompeo,Trump’s nominee to lead the spy agency. According to the official, the senior C.I.A. leaders in attendance withheld their applause, particularly as Trump launched an attack on the “dishonest media” over the reporting of his inauguration crowd size. The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler made a similar claim on Twitter, writing that “the folks in the front apparently didn’t react until the end.” NBC’s Katie Turnoted that “senior leadership remained stoic, and did not applaud the more political lines.”

I'm less concerned about that CIA speech, because the applause was coming from his plants, not the rank and file. The cop and FBI speeches had audiences full of cops and agents, our "defenders" of our liberty.

kthnry, this is the latest FBI rant:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42370506 

The FBI academy speech --- Loud cheering when he explained how much he supported law enforcement. After all, he's probably the most bigly supporter of law enforcement since the first laws were disseminated by Hammurabi. He continued repeating this truth. As he continued, the applause diminished until the feedback was just a couple of claps. Then he went on to another theme. 

Trashing the FBI, as he is doing, is very anti-law-enforcement.

You're missing what he's doing. He's trashing the brass and accusing them of politically driven incompetence - not the troops. The troops he gives red meat to.

shoshannah said:

Trashing the FBI, as he is doing, is very anti-law-enforcement.

Now you're getting worried about law enforcement?  How many people have been needlessly killed on camera by law enforcement officers with no consequences?

yahooyahoo said:

Now you're getting worried about law enforcement?  How many people have been needlessly killed on camera by law enforcement officers with no consequences?

I only got 20 digits to count on if I take off my shoes.

well yes, but you have to admit that taken as a percentage of all LE personnel, the number of these killings is extremely small

It looks like there's about 750k police in the U.S. Let's say there were 100 of these killings a year - that leaves a percentage of .01% of cops who are involved. That's pretty damn small.

So it's safe to consider these incidents as extreme outliers, as ugly as they may be, and not necessarily indicative of a pervasive behavior or mindset. (and I'm not trying to excuse anything here - just trying to place it in context)

But when you have large audiences of cops cheering Trump's authoritarian messages, that strikes me as more worrisome.

YMMV

yahooyahoo said:

Now you're getting worried about law enforcement?  How many people have been needlessly killed on camera by law enforcement officers with no consequences?

Don’t talk to the police and you’ll be fine. 

The percentage may be small- but isn't one enough? 

Search 'Daniel Shaver' and watch and listen to his murder and then let's discuss the validity of something being an 'extreme outlier'.  

Trump's speechifying is a meaningless diversion. The problem is real and has been long before he was elected. Far more than 100 killings occur per year and very seldom do they only involve one officer. 

drummerboy said:

well yes, but you have to admit that taken as a percentage of all LE personnel, the number of these killings is extremely small


It looks like there's about 750k police in the U.S. Let's say there were 100 of these killings a year - that leaves a percentage of .01% of cops who are involved. That's pretty damn small.

So it's safe to consider these incidents as extreme outliers, as ugly as they may be, and not necessarily indicative of a pervasive behavior or mindset. (and I'm not trying to excuse anything here - just trying to place it in context)


But when you have large audiences of cops cheering Trump's authoritarian messages, that strikes me as more worrisome.

Certainly one is too many - that's not the point. I'm just saying that perhaps audience reactions to authoritarianism is more indicative of what the general LE mindset is than is the occurrence of these extra-judicial killings.

The point is that both of these things are bad, but only one of them is "new". To have LE people cheer the ravings of a madman is worrisome to me. Number one, that they feel or think that way at all and number 2, that they feel empowered to not care that they're showing us that they think this way.

This is a very bad thing, and its meaning should not be diminished by dismissing it just because cops also do other bad things.

flimbro said:

The percentage may be small- but isn't one enough? 

Search 'Daniel Shaver' and watch and listen to his murder and then let's discuss the validity of something being an 'extreme outlier'.  

Trump's speechifying is a meaningless diversion. The problem is real and has been long before he was elected. Far more than 100 killings occur per year and very seldom do they only involve one officer. 

drummerboy said:

well yes, but you have to admit that taken as a percentage of all LE personnel, the number of these killings is extremely small


It looks like there's about 750k police in the U.S. Let's say there were 100 of these killings a year - that leaves a percentage of .01% of cops who are involved. That's pretty damn small.

So it's safe to consider these incidents as extreme outliers, as ugly as they may be, and not necessarily indicative of a pervasive behavior or mindset. (and I'm not trying to excuse anything here - just trying to place it in context)


But when you have large audiences of cops cheering Trump's authoritarian messages, that strikes me as more worrisome.

Point taken. But, surely you know that policemen cheering the ravings of madmen or at the very least doing the bidding of the powerful at the expense of the public really isn't new. This is in fact part of the problem. By design law enforcement's first responsibility is to do the bidding of the power elite and not to 'protect and serve' the public. When the methods used to accomplish the former are not carefully monitored we get  distrust, corruption and extrajudicial killings of Americans.

I was witness to thousands of NYPD officers running amok in NYC back in the 90's. They gathered at City Hall at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge and yelled racial epithets at Mayor David Dinkins. They were joined and egged on by the then current madman and mayoral candidate Rudy Giuliani. They disliked Dinkins because he supported civilian review of NYPD actions and they championed Giuliani because he didn't. The officers trashed private property, endangered the public and refused direct orders from higher ups to disband. 

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/17/nyregion/officers-rally-and-dinkins-is-their-target.html

Bottom line is- you're absolutely right- it is a very bad thing and it's good that you've noticed what many of us have known/experienced for generations. 

Yes I was thinking of NYC and the 90's  while writing my post.

And certainly the Blue Wall of Silence, the exact opposite of what police should be doing, has been around since forever.

But when you've got the President being the guy to egg you on and feed your worst traits, that's something else.

Then again, while I haven't seen numbers on this, police support for Trump during the election was very strong, so I shouldn't be too surprised.

flimbro said:

Point taken. But, surely you know that policemen cheering the ravings of madmen or at the very least doing the bidding of the powerful at the expense of the public really isn't new. This is in fact part of the problem. By design law enforcement's first responsibility is to do the bidding of the power elite and not to 'protect and serve' the public. When the methods used to accomplish the former are not carefully monitored we get  distrust, corruption and extrajudicial killings of Americans.

I was witness to thousands of NYPD officers running amok in NYC back in the 90's. They gathered at City Hall at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge and yelled racial epithets at Mayor David Dinkins. They were joined and egged on by the then current madman and mayoral candidate Rudy Giuliani. They disliked Dinkins because he supported civilian review of NYPD actions and they championed Giuliani because he didn't. The officers trashed private property, endangered the public and refused direct orders from higher ups to disband. 

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/17/nyregion/officers-rally-and-dinkins-is-their-target.html


Bottom line is- you're absolutely right- it is a very bad thing and it's good that you've noticed what many of us have known/experienced for generations.