Like I said, if you're not FOR our beautiful nation, then you are AGAINST it. You ain't fixing anything, you just like to knock it down. Do yourself and all of us a favor and move to Mexico, Canada or Europe. Write us when you miss this place and want to come back.
Define our nation. I ask that because we all have different visions of what the nation was, and what it is, and what it can be.
On paper, our nation is the only one where the rights of the citizens are granted not by some potentate, but by God, unassailable by any man. On paper, we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal. On paper the rights of the citizens shall not be infringed.
In practice, we fall far short of those lofty ideals. We don't have to fall so short, but we do.
Let me ask you another question. Let's say I rape a woman. Does the fact that there were thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands of women I did not rape matter one bit? I came into contact with those women, but never so much as said boo to them. But that one woman, doesn't that make me a rapist?
If I rob a bank, does it matter that I've walked into hundreds during my lifetime and not robbed them? Does it matter one little bit that I drove past even more and did not rob the bank?
I ask these questions, because when it comes to police misconduct, it seems to matter not at all what the cop did, but what he didn't do. If he did not physically abuse a hundred people he arrested, the one he did abuse doesn't matter. If he did not plant evidence in a thousand traffic stops, the one he did plant evidence in should not define him.
Odd isn't it, this reversal of the same standard we use for everyone else? The things they didn't do defines them, while the thing we did defines us. For everyone else, that one bank you robbed, that one woman you raped would define you. For all eternity you would be a rapist, a bank robber, a criminal. For the cop, the one event was an aberration, and should be viewed not during sentencing against his total life experience, but before he is even investigated.
I wonder if you even see this odd reversal of the standard. In a nation which was founded upon the idea that we were all created equally. In a nation where we are specifically forbidden from allowing a King to be crowned. Where royal titles are prohibited, we grant royal treatment to the police. We grant them the same kind of unquestionable and unassailable authority that we rebelled against when the authority was wrapped in a red jacket.
So define our country? Is the Constitution a limit on Government? Many people would say yes. Or is it a Cursed set of vaguely worded hurdles that the Government must get around to do the right thing?
