I recently watched the June 6, 2011 videos of police tackling citizens who were dancing in the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. , So I was moved to comment on how abusive that Law Enforcement has come over the past several decades.  In case you haven’t seen it, here it is:

Click to Watch the Capital Park Police Abuse Dancers
Click to Watch the Capital Park Police Bully Dancers

I must preface this rant by saying that the main protagonist of this incident is someone who calls himself Adam Kokesh and has a program on the television network Russia Today entitled Adam vs. The Man, accompanied by the organization known as “Code Pink,” both known rabble-rousers.  I do not necessarily agree nor do I disagree with their philosophies or tactics, but I will defend their right to dissent and assemble, even if it might have been a cheap publicity stunt.  You have been warned.

Abuse of authority is nothing new.  If you happen to believe accounts in the Christian Bible, there are  citations of numerous instances of rulers and other authority figures abusing their power.  The same for the Torah and Holy Qur’an.  I would even go so far as to say that it is quite possible that God Himself abused His power a time or two, but that’s between Him and, well, Himself.

Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely

John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (1834–1902)

You have undoubtedly heard this phrase numerous times.  It is most likely a paraphrase of a quotation by John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834–1902).  The moralist and historian, who was otherwise known simply as Lord Acton, expressed this opinion in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”

I disagree with the part about great men always being bad men.  For instance, if you believe in Jesus Christ you will undoubtedly also believe that he was a great man.  Was he also a bad man?  In more modern times, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was and is considered a great man by many.  Was he bad?  I think not!

I think that the classic Stanford Prison Experiment, back in 1971, did prove that given power and authority over others, even the most mild mannered individuals can become abusive given the correct environment. The Stanford experiment, which was terminated 6 days before its planned conclusion because the “guards” became sadistic and the “inmates” depressed.

The Stanford Prison Experiment, circa. 1971 courtesy Stanford University

Call it human nature or what you will, it nonetheless is true that those in authority tend to be abusive to the people subservient to them, to whatever degree and for whatever excuse or reason.  At first blush, it would appear that no amount of training, supervision, or restraint, either moral, legal, or otherwise, can stem this type of abuse.  None of these restrictions was placed on the Stanford “guards,” which, in my opinion, rendered the experiment only partially revealing as to abuse of authority.  Telling was, however, how average people react, on “both sides of the bars,”  under such circumstances.

There is nothing new to the abuse of of power by police.  During the days of the so-called [American] “Wild West,” Sheriffs and Marshals would oftentimes server as both judge and jury for their captives.  Those of you who are old enough to remember may recall the old sitcom called The Andy Griffith Show, when Griffith, in his character as Mayberry, North Carolina Sheriff Andy Taylor, or his trusty deputy, Barney Fife, would bring someone accused of a crime to his office/jail and, upon demand being made to see a judge, Sheriff Taylor would turn the SHERIFF placard on his desk around, revealing the phrase  JUSTICE OF THE PEACE.  This was, perhaps, a foreboding of the the future, or, perhaps, just plain conditioning.

Deputy Fife and Sheriff Taylor in a scene from

Some will argue that the the influence of the Central Intelligence (CIA)’s Operation Mockingbird to influence media might have been apparent in many sitcoms of the time, The Andy Griffith Show included.

During the days of the so-called [American] “Wild West,” Sheriffs and Marshals would oftentimes server as both judge and jury for their captives. Those of you who are old enough to remember may recall the old sitcom called The Andy Griffith Show, when Griffith, in his character as Mayberry, North Carolina Sheriff Andy Taylor, or his trusty deputy, Barney Fife, would bring someone accused of a crime to his office/jail and, upon demand being made to see a judge, Sheriff Taylor would turn the SHERIFF placard on his desk around, revealing the phrase JUSTICE OF THE PEACE.  This was, perhaps, a foreboding of the the future, or, perhaps, just plain conditioning.

I can remember watching the nightly network news programs showing images of police officers turning fire hoses on African American civil rights protesters and, in many cases, beating them.  The same is true for anti-Vietnam War protesters.

I, not unlike most Americans, was shocked and appalled to see images of Kent State students who were wounded or killed by members of the Ohio National Guard in 1970.  What came to be known as the Kent State Massacre was just the tip of the iceberg.  And so once again, “Captain Smith” ignored the warning signs.

John Filo's iconic Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio, a 14-year-old runaway, kneeling in anguish over the body of Jeffrey Miller minutes after he was shot by the Ohio National Guard.

If you are old enough, you may remember S.W.A.T., a 1970′s American television series about the adventures of a fictional “WCPD Olympic Division” Special Weapons And Tactics (S.W.A.T.) team operating in an unidentified California city.

S.W.A.T. was a spin-off of The Rookies (1972–1976) another police drama airing on ABC, and was a mid-season replacement, running on ABC from February 1975 to April 1976. Also, like The Rookies, it was produced by Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg. Its brief airing (thirty-some episodes) was, in part, because it was thought to be too violent at the time.

As with The Rookies, Starsky & Hutch, and a later Spelling/Goldberg cop series, T.J. Hooker, the setting was rarely, if ever, specified and the shoulder patch the team members wore on their uniforms said, “L.C.P.D.”. Richard Kelbaugh, a former member of LAPD’s S.W.A.T. team, was the technical adviser for the series.

Click here for a list of Spelling’s political contributions; not a Republican among them.  Goldberg was only very slightly generous to a very scant few Republicans, mostly those with Jewish surnames.  Click here to view.  Both were huge supporters of Senator Diane Feinstein.

TV series

In all fairness, while doing research for this article, I could find no information linking Spelling/Goldberg productions to the CIA or any other clandestine organization, but why would I?  However, I also could not find any other accusations, either.  Even so, there surely must be a special place in Hell for Crap TV producers!

A decade later, the series Hill Street Blues featured the character Sergeant Phil Esterhaus played by actor Michael Conrad as concluding his officers’ shift briefing by saying, “Hey, let’s be careful out there.”   Upon the death of Conrad in 1983, the replacement character, Sergeant Stan Jablonski, portrayed by Robert Prosky, came an even bolder tagline, “Let’s do it to them before they do it to us.” (Prosky was also the voice of the exuberant Inspector Fenwick on the Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties cartoon series.)

Do what? Kill you? Rob and pillage? Perhaps he was referring to the fleecing of America!

Of course, these actors were just reading lines of a script, but it remains to be seen if the writers were influenced by the CIA, or other nefarious agency.  Nonetheless, three generations of law enforcement grew up watching programs such as these, which contained ulterior catchphrases and innuendo.  Surely every kid watching Sheriff Taylor and the shift sergeants of Hill Street and wanting, someday, to become a cop must have been influenced by these not-so-subliminal messages.  As the years progressed, the subconscious messages became less and less subtle.  If the writers and producers of this programming were Communists, remnants of the 1900′s Red Scare, one in 1919 and a second in 1947, as Senator Joseph McCarthy brought to the forefront this paranoia with Senate Hearings on the threat of Communism in the entertainment industry.

Senator McCarthy and his acolytes had misplaced fears, I believe.  What they did not know, or, if they did dis not choose to investigate and/or make public, was the actual threat was from  a combined Fascist/Elitist/Corporatocracy, not Communism.  I am of the singular belief, however, that the publicity-seeking McCarthy was deliberately and purposefully misguided and misdirected by his minions, most notably Roy Cohn, who served as McCarthy’s Chief Counsel.  Note that Cohn was the progeny of prominent New York Democrats, and that McCarthy was a Republican.  Most troubling to be is the fact that Cohn was “recommended” to McCarthy by then Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover. I place “recommended” in quotes because when Hoover “recommended” someone or something, there was a tacit understanding that his “recommendation” would be dutifully followed, lest the person obtaining the “recommendation” come under the scrutiny of one of Hoover’s “special investigations” and the subject of Hoover’s famous “secret files,” if not already compromised.  Says Wikipedia of Hoover:

He used the FBI to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders, and to collect evidence using illegal methods.” [Quoting from Hoover, J. Edgar", The Columbia Encyclopedia (Sixth ed.). Columbia University Press. 2007 and Cox, John Stuart and Theoharis, Athan G. (1988). The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition. Temple University Press.]

Hoover, of course, was promoting the Red scare for his own intents and purposes, namely to garner more power for the FBI, and therefore, himself, and also undoubtedly to deflect scrutiny away from Organized Crime, which he denied existed, most likely because he, himself, was being blackmailed for his own unusual sexual proclivities, which is one thing that he shared in common with Cohn.

Says Wikipedia:

Hoover hunted down and threatened anyone who made insinuations about his sexuality.  He also spread unsubstantiated rumors that Adlai Stevenson was gay to damage the liberal governor’s 1952 presidential campaign.  His extensive secret files contained surveillance material on Eleanor Roosevelt‘s alleged lesbian lovers, speculated to be acquired for the purpose of blackmail.”

Several feature-length films, newsreel “shorts,” and a television series were produced with Hoover’s careful approval.  These productions were all made to enhance the image of the FBI, to foster fear, and to entice every little boy to grow up and become a “G-Man.”  The FBI, to this day, has made a concerted effort to maintain an unblemished image of the ignoble Hoover, without success.

So what has, therefore, been, wittingly or unwittingly, created is a so-called “police community” that thinks its okay to “bend” the laws a little, to suit the higher calling of law enforcement, complacent congress, and an unsuspecting public.

Most recently, the now defunct television series 24 (which I must parenthetically admit that I never watched since I do not watch television), features a character by the name of Jack Bauer, portrayed by actor Kiefer Sutherland, who begins the anesthetization of the American public to torture by stating:

I see fifteen people held hostage on a bus, and everything else goes out the window.  I will do whatever it takes to save them, and I mean whatever it takes. [snip]  Laws were written by much smarter men than me. And in the end, these laws have to be more important than the 15 people on the bus. I know that’s right. In my mind, I know that’s right. I just don’t think my heart could ever have lived with it.”

The Ends Justify the Means

The phrase “The Ends Justify the Means,” is often cited by the law enforcement community when they are caught “bending” the laws as a justification for doing so.  This is a so-called “judgment call” more correctly termed as consequentialism. Wikipedia defines it as:

… those moral theories which hold that the consequences of one’s conduct are the true basis for any judgment about the morality of that conduct.  Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right act (or omission) is one that will produce a good outcome, or consequence.  This view is often expressed as the aphorism ‘The ends justify the means.’”

Today’s law enforcement, in my opinion, has been literally “brainwashed” without any values or morality, and no cognitive thought of the consequences of their actions or, in some cases, inaction.

In the 1973 movie Serpico, Al Pacino depicts real-life New York City policeman Frank Serpico, who went undercover to expose the corruption of his fellow officers, after being pushed to the brink at first by their distrust and later by the threats and intimidation they leveled against him.  Officer Serpico was and is one of the true heroes of honest law enforcement.

The “COPS FAST” (Community Oriented Policing Services) and “COPS AHEAD” (Accelerated Hiring, Education, and Deployment) grant programs administered under the Bill Clinton regime were both designed to accelerate the training and, to use the Justice Department’s own world “deploy” more law enforcement officers did nothing but to exacerbate an already deteriorating situation within the law enforcement community.  At the rate of $75,000 per officer plus 25% in local matching funds over a 3 year period, did nothing but to attract all of those abusive ex-soldiers we have all grown to love.  By my math, that’s $100,000 per cop.

Meanwhile hypocrite Clinton was engaged in all sorts of unspeakable crime, but that’s an issue for another rant.

The Thin Blue Line

During the Texas criminal case of Randall Dale Adams, a man wrongly convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Dallas Police Officer in November of 1976 in which the Prosecutor, in his closing argument suggests that that the police are the “thin blue line” separating society from anarchy. After approximately a year after release of the movie The Thin Blue Line, Adams case was reviewed and he was ordered released.

But the “Thin Blue Line” has grown to become much more than a cutesy phrase or the name of a movie.  It has come to mean, at least to me, as paramount of what is wrong with law enforcement today.  It is the few honest, well meaning cops turning a “blind eye” to any form of wrongdoing by their fellow officers.  It is peer pressure at the foremost.  To my way of thinking, if an official has ever looked the other way when he or she knows about law enforcement corruption, then they are just as guilty as the person or persons perpetrating the wrong.  There is no “wiggle room.”  They fear from retaliation, either by loss or promotion, termination (generally for another reason), and even fear of their lives and that of their family.  But I am telling all of you law enforcement types who may happen to be reading this:  It you ever ignored corruption, even if you ever gave a fellow officer a pass after making a traffic stop, only to wave them on when they flipped out their badge, then you, too, are corrupt.  You are the major part of the problem.

Those who do report corruption, brutality, or other law enforcement wrongdoing, often are pressured to resign; some quit in disgust.  They are the true heroes.  Unfortunately, this perpetuates the problem, because only the corrupt or purposefully ignorant remain in their occupation, and subsequently are are the only ones which get promoted.  Having said that, I daresay that probably all of the law enforcement commanders are of the same ilk.

We were overtly reminded of this in the 1987 movie The Untouchables, starring Kevin Costner as Prohibition agent Eliot Ness, wherein Ness is depicted as recruiting young, supposedly as yet uncorrupted recruits from the Chicago Police Training Academy.  In reality, the real-life Ness went through the records of all Prohibition agents, not the police, to create a reliable team, initially of 50, later reduced to 15 and finally to just eleven men called “The Untouchables,” since they were, theoretically, untouchable from bribery.

In short, law enforcement has been conditioned to accept these values:

• That corruption in law enforcement is to be expected and is, in fact, the “norm”
• That there needs to be an “us” against “them” mentality when dealing with citizens
• That every citizen is a suspect (of something)
• That they must, at all times, intimidate the public and remain aloof from them
• That “The Ends Justify the Means” regardless of the legal or moral ramifications
• That if they want to keep their jobs and possibly their lives, they had best “toe the line”
• That they need not sacrifice their own lives. ever, for any reason

And all the while the general citizenry of the United States has gradually been introduced to several, insidious concepts:

• That corruption in law enforcement is to be expected and is, in fact, the “norm”
• That law enforcement can do no wrong and is, in fact, above the law
• That they should fear law enforcement

There was a time when police officers were truly peace officers.  They were brave souls who felt a noble calling.  Not so today’s law enforcement environment.

A good example of these contrasts are the University of Texas at Austin sniper incident in 1966 where Charles Joseph Whitman killed 16 people from the University’s Tower, after killing his mother and wife at their homes.  He was shot and killed by brave Austin Police Officer Houston McCoy, assisted by Austin Police Officer Ramiro Martinez, long before the situation became more deadly.

Flash forward to 2007, when perpetrator, Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 people at Virginia Tech.  Virginia Governor Tim Kaine later created an eight-member panel, including former United States Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, to review all aspects of the Virginia Tech massacre.  In August 2007, the panel concluded, among more than 20 major findings, that the Virginia Tech Police Department “did not take sufficient action to deal with what might happen if the initial lead proved false”  [See http://www.governor.virginia.gov/TempContent/techPanelReport.cfm.]

So where is the S.W.A.T. Team when you need it?  Why, they’re probably out on the highway harassing  motorists, of course.  They purposely dress in their Gestapo-like black uniforms to intimidate the public.  Yes, instill that fear!  Make them cower and grovel. Grrrr…

In October 2007, Seattle, Washington went on a rampage against citizens protesting the World Trade organization (WTO) meeting there.  If you watch all of the videos closely, you will see that the so-called “protesters” who are doing vandalism are all wearing nice shiny black shoes.  Just like you would find on someone wearing a uniform.

Click to Watch the Seattle Police run rampant October 29, 1999 

Click to Watch the Seattle Police run rampant October 29, 1999

“We will clear it with chemical and pain compliance.”

 

Most cops have antisocial personality disorder

Again, the Seattle Police, on August 30, 2010, have shown their disdain for the laws that they purport to enforce by shooting Native American Totem carver, John T. Williams, in the back:

Note that there was no concern for the stricken man, condition unknown at the time.  Police had to wait for their friendly S.W.A.T. team to arrive before they would approach Williams.  Notice in the video the only concern of police is the condition of their fellow officer, shooter Ian Birk.  To their credit, and most decidedly to do a little damage control, the Seattle Police internal Firearms Review Board found that the shooting of Williams was unjustified (the details of the board’s investigation have not been made public), undoubtedly knowing the ultimate outcome.  Additionally, of an eight member inquest jury, only one of the eight jurors answered “yes” to the crucial question, “Based on the information available at the time Officer Birk fired his weapon, did John T. Williams pose an imminent threat of serious physical harm to Officer Birk?”

On October 6, 2010, the Seattle Times reported:

John T. Williams, the woodcarver fatally shot by a Seattle police officer Aug. 30, was struck by four bullets on the right side of his body, indicating he was not facing the officer at the time the shots were fired, the attorney representing the Williams family said Tuesday.

Did I mention that Mr. Williams was deaf?

On February 16, 2011, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg announced that there would be no criminal charges filed against Seattle police Officer Ian Birk in the fatal shooting of First Nations woodcarver John T. Williams, calling the shooting a “good-faith mistake, however tragic,” and said he believed Birk acted without malice.

The trouble is, many of these prosecutors and judges also live in fear of police retaliation.

There are numerous other instances of police brutality and abusive behavior.  For instance, at most every national Republican or Democrat political convention, and undercover police, agents provocateurs are spotted inciting and instigation protesters.

Wikipedia says:

In the United States, the COINTELPRO program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had FBI agents pose as political radicals to disrupt the activities of political groups in the U.S., such as the Black Panthers, Ku Klux Klan, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

“New York City police officers were accused of acting as agents provocateurs during protests against the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City.

“Denver police officers were also found to have used undercover detectives to instigate violence against police during the 2008 Democratic National Convention. This ultimately resulted in the accidental use of chemical agents against their own men.”

And remember, the brainwashed soldiers that tortured, physically, psychologically and sexually abused prisoners at the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq and at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp in Cuba are coming home to be your cops and prison guards.  After all, they’re not qualified for much of anything else.

Let’s also not forget what the federal police agencies did at Ruby Ridge, Idaho and Waco, Texas, either.  Wikipedia states:

Public outcry over Ruby Ridge and the subsequent Waco Siege involving many of the same agencies and even same personnel fueled the widening of the militia movement.   To answer public questions about Ruby Ridge, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Government Information held a total of fourteen days of hearings between September 6 and October 19, 1995 and subsequently issued a report calling for reforms in federal law enforcement to prevent a repeat of Ruby Ridge and to restore public confidence in federal law enforcement.”

Psychopathic Cop

No one was ever terminated or suspended from employment or changed with a crime in these episodes.  The state of Idaho tried to prosecute FBI Hostage Rescue Team sniper Lon Horiuchi who was indicted for manslaughter in 1997 by the Boundary County, Idaho prosecutor just prior to expiration of the statute of limitations for the crime of manslaughter, but the trial was removed to federal court and was quickly dismissed on grounds of sovereign immunity.

This is, by the way, why the employees of the U.S. Transportation Safety Administration by any state laws that may be used to prosecute them for sexual abuse.  Any politician, prosecutor, or collective legislature knows this, so any attempts to enforce existing laws or enact new ones to prevent this type of abuse will be for naught.  Its all just political rhetoric. Don not fall for it. You are being placated!   The precedent has been set!

To their vindication, the surviving members of the Weaver family from Ruby Ridge received $3.1 million settlement in 1995 to in their civil suit brought against the U.S. government for wrongful deaths of Sammy and Vicki Weaver.  In the out-of-court settlement, the government did not admit any wrong-doing.  Of course, those were your tax dollars, not Lon Horiuchi’s.

The concept of sovereign immunity is one of the most dangerous concepts to freedom. The larger and more powerful governments become, the more sovereign immunity becomes a black hole where citizens’ rights can be sucked in and never seen again.  Sovereign immunity basically stems from early English common law (but not embodied in the Magna Carta) which Wikipedia states:

Sovereign immunity, or crown immunity, is a type of immunity that in common law jurisdictions traces its origins from early English law.  Generally speaking, it is the doctrine that the sovereign or state cannot commit a legal wrong and is immune from civil suit or criminal prosecution; hence the saying, In many cases, states have waived this immunity to allow for suits; in some cases, an individual may technically appear as defendant on the state’s behalf.

Only the United States Government and state governments enjoy immunity, but courts have increasingly sided with government as to immunity from suit.  Attorneys for citizens suing a government often erroneously include the state as a defendant.  This is wrong.  Under what is called the “stripping doctrine,” an action must be brought to bear against an individual or individuals who used their position in an illegal manner. This strips them of their immunity.

Where and how will we put and end to this abuse is beyond the scope of this rant.  I do know, and caution against, any type of retaliation against the Law Enforcement establishment, for that will give them just the excuse that they need.

Just a Few Rotten Apples?

Today’s “bad cops” are not just rotten apples.  I think that the whole barrel is rotten!  Let’s examine their psychological composition.

The “Rotten Apple” theory states that deviant police officers are those who psychological testing fails to screen out.  This concept is favored by police administrators because it offers a quick and easy solution to police deviant behavior. However, there is a growing body of literature that suggests that it is the stressful occupation that is policing that is the fertile soil from which police deviant behavior springs otherwise known as the “Rotten Barrel” theory.  Allow me to explore police deviant behavior from the perspective that it is the “Rotten Barrel” that leads to police deviant behavior.

There are many studies which bear this out.  Each and every one came to the same conclusion.  The most notable was a treaties prepared by Catherine Griffin and Jim Ruiz in 1999. “The Sociopathic Police Personality” in the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 14:1, 28-37.

The study, which pointed out that police work tends to select for potential and latent sociopathic personalities, since:

[Police work] offers unlimited opportunities for corruption and deceit” coupled with a very tribal professional culture.”

The problem is that this demonstrates the prevalence of a certain type of sociopathic personality in both crime and law enforcement, because:

… the characteristics of `supercops’ [are] similar and perhaps even interchangeable with those of habitual criminals.”

Among the pertinent traits of both groups are:

… a disposition toward control, aggressiveness, vigilance, rebelliousness, high energy level … high self-esteem, feelings of uniqueness … and a tendency to avoid blame.”

“The extent to which police officers may abuse their authority seems limitless as does the extent fellow officers will go to protect each other,” they observe. “The loyalty and `brotherhood’ of the police that appeals to so many has caused many officers to neglect their primary duty to protect and to serve.”

The problem is that most of those employed in law enforcement do not see “protecting and serving” as their primary duty, but rather as one incidental to their fraternal responsibilities to each other and their obligations to the government that employs them.

Psychopath or Sociopath?

All of these studies did not examine the fact that many migrate to law enforcement also demonstrate characteristics of BOTH sociopathic and psychopathic behavior.  Let me explain the differences and the similarities.  According to Wikipedia, Psychopathy:

… is a term which, until the 1980s, formally referred to a personality disorder characterized by the inability to form human attachment and an abnormal lack of empathy, masked by an ability to appear outwardly normal.  The publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders third edition (DSM-III) changed the name of this mental disorder to antisocial personality disorder, and also broadened the diagnostic criteria considerably by shifting from clinical inferences to behavioral diagnostic criteria. However, the DSM-V working party is recommending a revision of antisocial personality disorder to include ‘Antisocial/Psychopathic Type,’ with the diagnostic criteria having a greater emphasis on character than on behavior.  The ICD-10 diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization also lacks psychopathy as a personality disorder.  The 1992 manual included dissocial (antisocial) personality disorder, which encompasses amoral, antisocial, asocial, psychopathic, and sociopathic personalities.”

And Wikipedia says of sociopathy (or, ore correctly, Antisocial personality disorder):

… is defined by the American Psychiatric Association’s Axis II (personality disorders) of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV-TR) as ‘… a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.’  Antisocial personality disorder is sometimes wrongly referred to as psychopathy or sociopathy.  Currently, neither psychopathy nor sociopathy are valid diagnoses described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and the ICD-10 of the World Health Organization also lacks psychopathy as a diagnostic disorder.  Psychopathy is normally seen as a subset of the antisocial personality disorder, but Blair believes that the antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy may be separate conditions altogether.” [Referring to Blair, J; Mitchel D; Blair K (2005). Psychopathy: Emotion and the Brain. Blackwell Publishing. p. 16.]

Based upon the above two definitions, it appears that there is disagreement as to whether psychopathy and sociopathy are valid diagnoses.  Based on this conflict, I will refer to it as Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASD).

“I was Just Following Orders!”

I think that, based on the Stanford Experiment conclusions, once a person is given influence over another, their latent ASD tendencies come out.  In other words, the Stanford Experiment demonstrated that almost anyone is subject to power tends to lose empathy with their prisoners.  The unfortunate circumstance of former military personnel migrating to law enforcement-type employment only exacerbates this.  For example, that clean cut, friendly teenager goes off and joins, for example, the Marines where he is conditioned to blindly follow orders and then becomes a cop.  Because not only did he discover that he enjoyed power over life and death, but he cannot find other gainful employment.

So we have police forces of obedient little soldiers that fear no retribution and know that the”brotherhood” will do its best to mount an intense cover-up, if need be.  Fortunately, with the advent of the cell phone camera and other recording technologies, police have been “caught red handed” numerous times.  The response is to attempt to regulate photography of any type (for instance, motion picture production permits), on the pretext of “Public Safety” and, more recently, protecting infrastructure from terrorism.  A great example of this was the murder of unarmed citizen Oscar Grant by Bay Rapid Area Transit (BART) Officer Johannes Mehserle on New Year’s Day, 2009.  Wikipedia says:

Efforts by BART officers to confiscate witnesses’ cellphones during the incident created controversy.” [Citing Radley Balko (July 12, 2010). "Justice for Johannes Mehserle". Reason. http://reason.com/archives/2010/07/12/justice-for-johannes-mehserle.]

BART Officers attempted to confiscate all cellphones on the premise that they were “evidence of a crime.”  The reality is that they were trying to destroy that very evidence.  In other words, a cop has carte blanche to destroy this evidence that might be incriminating to law enforcement.  Once it is destroyed, its gone forever.  There is never any recrimination.  Fortunately, passengers in a passing train also captured video of the incident and were gone long before they were “caught.”

The U.S. Capital Park Police Thugs

As I watched the bullying Capital Park Police, I was again embarrassed to be a United States citizen.  How far from the Founders’ precepts have we come.  Those people were doing nothing wrong.  Only one one cop’s whim were they deemed disruptive and naturally his brother officers backed him up.  Just what constitutes “dancing” anyway?  That certainly is subject to interpretation and I surely do not want some low-life cop making that judgment call.  And what’s up with the damn sunglasses?  Why don’t you guys just wear black ski masks?  That’s what you want, after all.

The issue of “dancing” was decided by a U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia firmly agreed, stating that:

… expressive dancing falls within the spectrum of “prohibited activities” and that “the Park Service has a substantial interest in promoting a tranquil environment at our national memorials.”

They agreed with the U.S. Park Service that it has a duty to maintain “decorum” at the nation’s monuments and that any demonstrations, whether one person or many, are not allowed inside the nation’s memorials.

Gee, and here all this time I thought we had freedom of expression. My bad!”

The woman who brought this lawsuit, Mary Oberwetter, and her attorney, Alan Gura, were duped.  Now the Government has the precedent to stop anything deemed a “demonstration.”

And this all happened under the watchful “eye” of the statue of Thomas Jefferson, champion of our Constitutional rights!  You cops and judges should be ashamed of yourselves, but you aren’t because you’re brainwashed.

To quote and old 1960′s protest phrase, “Why do you think we call them pigs?”

A subsequent Jefferson Memorial “dance” which was scheduled for the following week was scheduled was canceled.  They closed the memorial and called in the S.W.A.T. Team.  I wonder if they’ll try to arrest Tom Jefferson; after all, he’s probably rolling over in his grave and they might consider that “dancing!”