There has been a lot of talk on here about the police. Most people for, but a few adamantly opposed to people who are cops and the profession itself and very angry that we even have them calling them tax collectors and other names. We get angry when people judge us for being crotch-rocket hooligans. We shouldn't turn around and do the same to them. Here is my perspective on the whole issue.
If you want to live in a place that doesn't give a shit about what you do on your sportbike, what you do on a daily basis, or even your life, move to a 3rd world country. I grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, one of the most violent cities in this hemisphere. The cops were there to protect those who could afford their fees. The rest of the population could fuck off. Death was an hourly occurrence, not even a blip on the radar in the daily fight to survive. Life means nothing there. It is the first and only place I've ever lived where we had to have bars on the windows, bars on our doors and a constant vigil to keep thieves, kidnappers, rapists and murderers out. By the time I was 12, I had survived two murder attempts.
Justice does not exist there. If a poor man was accused by a rich person or a person of power, they were automatically guilty. There was a man who was accused of stealing. A mob chased him up Red Hill waving machetes. There was no trial, no jury, no process. They killed him with out even questioning his innocence.
The cops did not care how fast my dad rode his sportbike. He never once got pulled over and knowing my dad, I'm sure he went as fast as he possibly could. The cops also didn't care if we got killed in our sleep. There was no 911. You paid for what protection you could afford. We are safe here, and I think we forget what that means. We are rich enough to afford the sanctity of life. If we call for help, someone will respond. That does not happen in most of the world. Safety is not even something most people dream of. We have forgotten what it means to live each day not knowing if you'll survive to the next. Name one person you know personally who's starved to death. Most of us can't. The one's who can, I am truly sorry.
If you want to be truly free, you have to have nothing to lose, and I'll bet every single one of you has something to lose. Here, violence still makes the front page. I don't have to bar my windows, I don't have to protect my family with military escorts. I don't have to be constantly vigilant that someone is going to try and take me away from my parents, that someone is going to try and hurt me. My nephews can walk to school and I don't have to worry that they will be harmed. Not like I did there. Yes, our police here can seem like tax collectors. It costs money to provide the kind of protection we see as our right. Frankly I will be happy to pay a few speeding tickets if it means I don't have to bar my windows at night and know for certain that if I am in a situation that I can no longer handle on my own, I can call 911 and the cops will show up.
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