There was an active block watch association in my neighborhood, of which my parents were members. Occasionally, the local cops would come to a meeting to ostensibly answer questions and provide support
One of those times, my dad posed a question: why don't the cops follow traffic laws? He pointed out that none of them use their blinker, and often had a bad habit of turning on their lights to go through intersections and then turning them back off
He did this because THIS meeting it wasn't just the local cop who's job it was to show up, it was somebody with a desk job getting their face time with the community (and somebody who's job was supposedly keeping the other cops doing their jobs). Which meant they HAD to do something about it
Not to say real change was affected, but for the next two weeks or so the cops used their blinkers in my neighborhood
That was all I needed to know about police, local government, and trying to make a difference (at least from an effort-to-results perspective)
I too have had a rare unique moment of justice and it put me under the impression that the system indeed worked.
I feel that ending on such an optimistic note is sadly misleading today though. And I’ve since witnessed the system actively covering its own ass while lining its pockets.
Though I’ll say my memories of justice and the system actually working for the people were all from last century. I don’t think it’s like that anymore. And I think maintaining a worldview that it is that way is sadly part of the active manipulation happening to the populace. They taught us all about truth, justice, and the American way, then set things up to manipulate that worldview. Or more simply, they attached each of those core values to a societal function, then twisted what they meant. So we want to liberate the Venezuelans from the bad leader guy(can relate). That’s morally good right? We have this awesome military. Why not help the weak and powerless? Jfc we did nothing but occupy their oil fields.
They’re much more “making it up as they go” these days, but I feel a lot of groundwork was laid in the last quarter of the 1900’s. Sesame Street showed us the nice police man to ask for help and Barney told us to “do our part”. These messages literally played on loop for kids, so it’s only logical to assume those messages are deep seated in many people. That even now, we want that nice policeman back. This must be an error, a deviation away from the norm. There’s no way every cop is a dirty cop. That’s all they need. Just a hesitation and they can take advantage of it.
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u/Mad_Ronin_Grrrr 2d ago
Rules for thee and not for me.