Tuesday, May 29, 2007
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The War
Currently Reading
The Teeth Of The Tiger (Jack Ryan Novels)
By Tom Clancy
see relatedOfficer Alexander Johnson pulled the car over. It was a ’69 Oldsmobile. By the looks of it, the fact that it could still go down the road was a miracle. He called the license plate in. Nothing but a ticket from a few years back.
Johnson opened up his door and squeezed out. His doctor had long told him that he needed to lose some weight. All the weight strained his heart, he was told. Johnson always ignored the pleas of the doc, and said that he was “as healthy as ever.”
He walked up to the motorist. The car had only been going four or five miles over the limit, but he decided to check this one out just the same. Johnson was semi-famous among the state troopers for having a nose for druggies and their products. That always made him feel kind of good about himself. There’s nothing quite like being known for doing your job well. Besides, this old junker was almost assuredly used by druggy, given the way it looked. There was no one characteristic that leaped out at him. It was just a feeling, and a darned good one at that.
The woman in the driver’s seat looked pretty scared, he thought to himself as he walked up. She wasn’t dressed too well. She obviously didn’t have a lot of cash to blow at Dillard's. That was always sobering to Johnson. A lot of the people that got put behind bars were desperately poor. He thought about just giving her a warning, and driving off. “No”, he thought, “can’t do that. Got a duty to the American people to check this poor lady out.”
He requested to look through the car, and hoped she wouldn’t say no. She didn’t. That always shocked him. The fact that people always let him look through the vehicle. Heck, even the druggies didn’t tell him he couldn’t search the vehicle. He never knew why, except possibly they were intimidated, and thought their game was up. But Johnson wasn’t complaining.
The fear in her eyes turned into dejection. She didn’t look fearful anymore as much as she looked, well, sad. He opened the back doors, then the trunk. It was in the trunk. She hadn’t gone to great pains to hide the cannabis – he found it in a brown paper sack sitting in plain view. She had so much it was fairly obvious that she was transporting it.
A couple of hours later, the whole “dramatic” ordeal was over. She was incarcerated and waiting for the trial. She'd probably be in prison for a decade or so. But Johnson’s department fame increased a tad, and that was good. Johnson checked his watch. It was time for a well-deserved break.
He walked to the bench in the break area towards the back of the building. Officer Davidson was sitting there, feet propped up, drinking a cup of his coffee, or, as the other officers teased him, a cup of sugar with a little coffee added for flavoring. Davidson hated being teased about his coffee.
“You got another one, Johnson", Davidson said with a smile. “I still don’t know how you do it, man. What’s the secret?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just lucky I guess”, Johnson shrugged. Just have to be at the right place at the right time, he didn’t say. He pulled out his Winston cigs and lit one up. He liked the sticky-yet-smooth feeling of the smoke going through his mouth, down into his lungs. Healthy or not, it was worth it, in his book.
_____
Based on thousands of true stories which reflect hypocrisies and disgusting policies of the State. Written in honor of the 26-year-old mother who was sentenced 10 years for transporting recreational drugs. May we stop the insanity.
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Comments (7)
New debate topic: Is it moral to enforce an unjustified law?
(re: Monica's post)
Your comment didn't explain where the "hypocrisy" in this situation was. I agree with your comment, but that is irrelevant to the points you seem to be making in your post, as is the question in the comment above; you are both confusing two issues. Whether or not immoral laws, as defined by God's laws, ought to be personally enforced (which is a question dealing with each person's personal responsibility to a natural and higher law; for example, if you, Shaun, have a moral problem with a tobacco law and know that police officers have a duty to enforce those laws at times, don't become a police officer in this country at this time) is an issue separate from whether or not we should honor the laws currently in place if they don't directly contradict God's laws.
BOTH of those issues, more importantly, are futhermore separate from the fact that a police officer's duty IS to enforce those laws, and to /be/ a police officer and neglect that duty would be for that officer a crime more serious than the issue of whether or not some (unclarified) hypocrisy is taking place behind the scenes, because the hypocrisy is not the police officer's responsibility, but upholding the law and fulfilling his duty is certainly his responsibility.
If you feel that a certain law is hypocritical for any ethical reason, then don't take a job like policing or any other law enforcement position, because that would put you in a dilemma. However, for those currently in the position of enforcing the law by occupation, dishonor would be to continue in that occupation and personally disregard their duty to the current law.