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of Seattle Police Patrol Officer Ian P. Walsh punching a 17-year-old
woman in the face as she tries to help her friend evade him has caused
much controversy. There is an understandable reaction among many
decrying the young women's lack of respect for authority. This is
correct, they do lack respect for the police, but the question is why?
Let's
start with the jaywalking citation situation in Seattle. As the rest of
us around the country are now learning, Seattle is quite tough on
jaywalkers. Even doing stings
to catch the evil doers. All this, of course, is claimed to be for public safety, but is
it really?
Like so many cities in our recession ravaged land
Seattle has a budget
shortfall. It is cutting services, which makes politicians mad as
they have less pork to pass around. Naturally, they look for additional
sources of revenue. Many cities abuse traffic citations and parking
tickets to this end, but Seattle seems to have decided to go back to
issuing excessive numbers of jaywalking citations to raise more money.
They resort to this kind of legal plunder to avoid raising taxes or
increase the deficit, hiding behind the guise of protecting the public.
People know what's going on. It's just a form of robbery. When the
police become a blue gang enforcing an extortion racket they command no
respect. All they have left is their ability to use violence to get
people to submit, a situation guaranteed to foster police brutality.
Instead
of criticizing the young women for disrespecting a police officer they
should be commended for their courage in standing up to him. It is only
by not tolerating government abuses that we can put an end to them.
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