The thing about police is...most of them are bastards.
Just after my birthday, I happened to stop by a notorious den of sodomites, limiting myself at all times of course to the behaviour one would expect from an impeccable gentleman such as myself. Following a drink or few and a certain amount of time "after hours" as they call it, an associate of mine and I took to the streets on a search for pizza, maintaining the utmost standards of verticality and steadiness. A police car happened past, as they sometimes do. My associate, being of a boisterous disposition, in passing flipped this car the bird.
Now, this is not a particularly friendly gesture, but I believe we can all agree it's also not quite on a par with flying airplanes into a tall building. The police officer, however, seemed to disagree. He pulled over and emerged onto the street, stopping us and demanding to see some ID. As (even now) there's no law on the books against being unfriendly, we declined to provide any. The officer summoned backup. Two or three additional cars arrived in time, and a cordon of officers emerged, fondling their nightsticks. The original officer continued to demand identification, hinting darkly of nights in jail for drunken troublemakers as he strutted (in so far as so fat a man is capable of strutting) pompously before us.
We weren't what you'd call a threatening pair. We didn't hurl insults or exhibit any signs of violence. We just...didn't offer up any ID. We hadn't done anything. We weren't even accused or suspected of having done anything: we even asked. (Well, I say "we", but the officer wasn't particularly interested in me and barely acknowledged that I was there at all.) The situation quickly became a farce: the officer would ask for ID over and over and over again without ever giving any particular reason, and we (or my associate) would refuse and cite civil rights and free countries and such. This went on for some time, perhaps ten minutes or more, before we just walked away. The police didn't try to stop us, as we still hadn't done anything illegal. I fear this was a great disappointment to them.
The officer was trying to intimidate us. He was a thin-skinned man with a badge and a gun, and these had somehow given him the impression that he was entitled to demand respect. It is a poisonous notion, that authority figures are automatically to be respected, and one that we ought to fight by giving the bird to as many authority figures are we can. It's undemocratic. Police or presidents or CEOs aren't our lords and masters, and we certainly don't owe them deference or even respect; they're just like us, just like little folk, only they have badges and guns and titles and money. And power, it's true, but only in a limited sphere. But they like to forget that. And often they want you to forget it too.
It's only to be expected that cops would try to hassle someone like this. That doesn't make it right.
The moral of the story is: fuck you, fatty.
Posted by aloysius at January 02, 2006 09:02 PM |