When I see headlines of police brutality, such as the cases involving Sandra Bland, Rexdale Henry and Dillon Taylor, and then see the complacency with which many Americans view this issue, I can’t help but see an extreme disconnect between the attitude of Americans today and the ideals that propelled the American Revolution.
With phrases such as “Give me liberty, or give me death” liberally peppering the rhetoric of pre-Revolution America, contrasted with the blasé attitude many Americans take towards authority today, I see a general trend of complacency that not only disappoints me, but also makes me worried for the future of the United States.
Despite the horrors of slavery, racism, sexism, classism and other phenomena of bigotry that plagued the America of 1776, we still must consider the virtues and values that early America represented and push them into the present and future.
Despite the negatives, there were positives as well, and positives well worth fighting for.
As Americans, it is our patriotic duty, if not to hate authority, then to be extremely suspicious of it. We need to hold our leaders accountable, and always have regulation and oversight.
We absolutely can not tolerate abuse of power in any way, shape, or form, especially not from those who are supposed to serve the public, those who are obligated to serve you and to serve me.
A pernicious way that power has been taken from us, the people, and transferred to the ones who are supposed to be public servants, is in the form of speeding tickets being used as a main source of income for towns, municipalities, counties or whatever the case may be.
If an area needs revenue to fund its roads, or anything else for that matter, it ought to come from taxes, not the exercise of power in the form of police pullovers. Having a quota for the number of people needing to be detained by officers is ridiculous, and a gross violation of everything for which the United States is supposed to stand.
This is a matter of principle. A police officer should only have to pull over people in case of extreme danger and emergency. The police should have a friendly face, a member of the community who is there to serve and help, and not the long arm of the law that punishes and inflicts fear.
Going along with this, the police should have nothing to fear from the truth, and thus wearing body cameras to verify the truth would benefit everyone involved, by revealing what actually happened in contentious cases between police and other civilians; as police officers are civilians as well.
I do not understand why in the United States of America, the home of the free and the land of the brave, we do not have the bravery to stand up for our freedoms and break free of the shackles of unnecessary authority, as well as authority without regulation or limits.
We ought to be up in arms about violations of anyone’s rights and freedoms; we need to protect the freedoms of everyone, especially minorities, if we are to keep the spirit of the American Revolution alive.
The swirling torrent of public opinion foaming forth from the minds of the masses needs to be directed at those seeking to oppress and control us, and we need to be constantly vigilant for those wishing and seeking to take our freedoms away, stripping them and replacing them with the undue burden of excess authority.
Gratuitous authority is a real problem and needs to be handled through surveillance and regulation.
