I haven’t written for long enough that the last few days I’ve been jonesin’.

The problem isn’t that I haven’t had anything to write about.  Quite the contrary: I’ve had too much to write about.  The problem is that what I’ve had to write about made me so angry that I decided to try to cool down a bit first.

You see, the thing is, I hate a great number of you.  You self-righteous, pompous, law-and-order-until-the-cops-come-after-me-or-mine types.  Some of my family members are like that and, frankly, I think I’m just going to start disowning them.  Just as I disown the rest of you who are like that.  You’re the reason I believe that the rest of us should all carry weapons strapped to our waists, or in shoulder holsters, or anywhere else whence we can quickly retrieve them when we run into you.

Except, I don’t really feel that way, because if I did, that would make me just like you.

For example — and this is when I really knew I hated you — the other day there was a video posted showing a police officer punching a 17-year-old girl in the face.  The officer apparently wanted to stop a girl from jaywalking.  According to some pin-headed pundit, the girl refused to stop when he ordered her to do so and the officer grabbed her arm, whereupon she tensed up and her friend pushed the officer.  Thus, the officer was justified for punching her friend in the face.

I’m sorry, but had I been there, that would have been the end of it for either the officer, or for me.  I watched people circling and voicing their outrage to the officer and the only thing I could think of is “what the fuck are you standing there for?!”  In my opinion, the crowd should have taken that officer down the minute they saw him punch that girl.

Tony Norman writes,

As for the two females, they were clearly in the wrong, especially the young woman who shoved the officer. One of the first things loving parents tell their children as they enter their teen years is never to put their hands on an officer under any circumstance.

If I had children right now, I’d be sending them to classes where they could learn hand-to-hand combat and the fastest way to take down an out-of-control police officer.  Contrary to what Norman says, I think parents should start teaching their children how to lay hands on them in the way that will end any confrontation the quickest.

And I’m sorry, law-and-order types, but one reason more people are resisting the police is that the police have earned this response. I realize that it’s still possible for white people throughout the United States to remain largely ignorant of the extent of police misconduct: it’s still the case that the police treat white people differently than they treat everyone else.  It’s still possible for white people to wonder aloud, “What’s police brutality?”

As Bob Herbert points out,

If the police officers were treating white middle-class or wealthy individuals this way [the way they treat non-whites], the movers and shakers in this town would be apoplectic. The mayor would be called to account in an atmosphere of thunderous outrage, and the police commissioner would be gone.

Things are changing, though, as the police expand their mistreatment of non-whites to include more whites.  You only have to stop ignoring stories like this one, or this one, or this, or this (2015 update: link has vanished), or this, or this, or this — I could, quite literally, go on all day.  Hell, just watch this for awhile.

And it’s not just because — as in England — the police are trying to balance out their racism by hitting up more white people.

The sad reality is that the police simply feel that they have the right to do whatever they want, whenever they want.  Sometimes it’s because they actually saw someone do something wrong, but then the police overreact.  Sometimes, it’s simply an unsubstantiated hunch that someone might be doing something wrong and then,as noted in this comment to a story of an attack by police on a viola player for carrying a can of Mountain Dew in his pants…

…their initial suspicion of criminal activity [results] in no charges. All of the charges bought against the student come exclusively from the encounter with police.

Sometimes it just because they think a crime might occur. Maybe. I mean, there’s a chance, isn’t there?

Regardless of the reason, the fact of the matter is that our police force is quite simply out of control. (You really want to watch that entire video and listen to the foreign commentary.  This is how badly we look to other police states.)  This is why I’ve begun to tell clients that the only way to obtain justice — and I warn them it could dramatically alter or end their lives, but it is the only chance at justice — is to fight back.

You certainly can’t get it in the courts. Courts today — not that there wasn’t an undercurrent of this in the past — wholly support those in power over those without power.  And the best way to do that is by condoning and even encouraging a police state.  So that is what they now do.

But too many of you believe that all this is okay.  Whatever the police want, the police should get.  (Until they come for you.)

So I’ve been having a little anger management problem that interferes with my ability to entertain — or even enlighten — you through my writing.

I’m more about helping to start the Revolution.