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Do we really love uniforms so much?
by J.S. Magruder, Unknown News
whynotresist.blogsome.com
November 19, 2007
Last week, there was a touching (if somewhat poorly written) article in the newspaper
about a
teenager that was hit by cop speeding on a call. The girl was thrown quite a ways,
sustained serious brain damage and has essentially been in a sort of coma for the past
year. The article focused on how her family has stayed at her side, never giving up on
her, and the progress she's making.
A bit of background: The cop was speeding at night, over a hill on a quiet, residential
street without her lights on. The girl never saw the car coming. The police officer has
since quit the force and is the target of a lawsuit by the family. None of this was being
discussed in the article; it was instead trying to focus on the love of a family for their
child.
Enter, the armchairs. The comment section does a better job of illustrating how simple
it is to install a police state than anything I could ever write. Like the people who
blame rape victims for wearing a dress, these
uniform-loving, authority-worshipping, good-old-Americans seized on it as an opportunity to
blame a brain-damaged girl for her situation. Way to go! That'll show that little brain-
damaged girl to cross at the corner and look both ways.
By the time I read through the
comments, the girl had been blamed for "being out at that hour" (I believe it was
midnight, which as far as I know, it isn't illegal to be out at midnight when you're
nineteen), being drunk (she was not intoxicated) and being "reckless." I don't
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know about
Nebraska, but in every other place I've lived, pedestrians have the right of way.
Apparently, this does not apply when hit by a cop.
What I find so utterly disturbing is how (and this comes up again and again in other
articles where the public may comment) the police/military/other authorities/ are never at
fault. Ever. I'd expect that line from officials, but what universe are people living in
that they really believe this? Do we really love uniforms so much that any atrocity gets
ignored whether it is being tasered in your own living room, or taking out a village of
unarmed civilians?
I say, "we" and "us" because I do largely feel that unless you're out there actively
resisting (which I'm not) then there's a certain degree of complicity. I remember reading
something Merton wrote where he said when WWII began, he knew he was responsible because
evil doesn't exist in a vacuum. I'm certainly not free of sin, whether it manifests itself
as picking on a teenager in a coma, or something less glaring. No, I'm as guilty for
supporting the awfulness that permits attacking brain-damaged children as the people
posting are.
Beyond the power worship, I have to wonder how anyone (hiding behind a keyboard or not)
could get to the point where they would feel comfortable, let alone justified, to sling
mud at a girl in a coma? Where does that sort of anger come from? I mean, talk about an
unfair fight. He must feel pretty manly, and powerful. Are we so damn angry and frustrated
with our own lives that there's enjoyment to be derived from these kinds of attacks? I
left a comment in the thread saying I blamed talk radio for teaching people to behave this
way, but upon further reflection, it occurs to me that perhaps we've just been waiting for
our hatred to become socially acceptable. You know, like the vicious things people feel
comfortable saying about undocumented workers.
I keep insisting I won't read the paper anymore because I don't need to be brutalized
amid stories about the latest diet or shopping fad. If I'm going to be assaulted by
brutish reality, there are
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places I can (and do) see it laid bare in all its ugliness. I
don't need people pretending to be respectable as they engage in their violence of the
mind. I really don't.
Still, I cannot seem to help myself, as though I need to have it
proven to me, over and over that we've finally reached the point of no return in American
society and we're just a few steps shy of… God, I don't even want to think about it. I keep
getting images of Neanderthals clubbing each other over the head, but I suppose that's
unfair to the Neanderthals as they actually had pretty good-sized brains, and at least
some impulse to create art.
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Something to keep in mind when your oh-so-polite neighbors smile and shoot the breeze
with you -- that they'd hand you over to the authorities in a second if only that had
something on you.
Now just keep practicing clicking your heels, because they like us to have a crisp,
clean click when you Seig Heil.
© by the author.
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I keep insisting I won't read the paper anymore because I don't need to be brutalized
amid stories about the latest diet or shopping fad.
If I'm going to be assaulted by
brutish reality, there are places I can (and do) see it laid bare in all its ugliness.
I
don't need people pretending to be respectable as they engage in their violence of the
mind.
I really don't.
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