Criminals With Badges—How the Police Create Crimes
Take heed, ye red-blooded American males. The police are operating a new sting designed to destroy your life.
The police are planting attractive women half-naked in parks. They entice passing males, engage them in conversation, lay back, spread their legs and rest their feet on the men's shoulders.
After being as friendly and suggestive as possible, they ask to see your penis.
Don't show it to them. You are being filmed by police. If you show your penis, you will be arrested as a pervert.
Only American police, judges and juries could think that responding to a seductress's invitation is proof of perversion. But, hey, you live in America, where Christians believe that killing as many Muslims as possible for Israel is God's work. Don't expect a dumb Amerikan jury, or a self-righteous Republican judge, or a mindless law professor to understand entrapment.
No, this is not a joke. It is actually happening. Last May in Berliner Park in Columbus, Ohio, Robin Garrison, a 42-year-old firefighter, was lured into arrest by a half-naked woman under a tree.
In reporting the story, the idiot—possibly some male-hating feminist—who wrote the headline for ABC News describes the above: "Topless Woman Lured Perverts in Police Sting."
Get that, red-blooded American males? You are a pervert if you show your penis to a woman who is seducing you.
The reporter, Marcus Baram, is not indignant about the sting. Neither is Gabriel Chin, a University of Arizona law professor who says, "It's not entrapment to give somebody an opportunity to commit a crime."
It was Anglo-Saxons who made laws against entrapment. Thanks to law professors like Chin, gullible reporters and jurors, and corrupt police, prosecutors and judges, Americans no longer have the protection of law. In the Orwellian world in which we now live, a male who succumbs to female seduction is a pervert.
The American police have never prevented crimes. In olden days, the police solved crimes by finding the guilty party. No more. In our time, the police create crimes. And that is why the U.S. prison population is twice the size of China's, an authoritarian country with a population four to five times larger than America's.
And not only in Columbus are crimes created by police. The corrupt New York Police Department ensnared 300 innocents during 2007 via "Operation Lucky Bag." Police place iPods, cell phones, wallets and shopping bags containing items in New York subway stations. The items appear to be dropped, lost or abandoned. Anyone who picks up one of the planted items is arrested for "subway grand larceny."
This particular police atrocity is in conflict with New York law, which allows someone who finds property 10 days to turn it in to the police or find the owner.
The corrupt NYPD says that the property left as bait has not been abandoned, but is the property actively left by an officer who is still in the vicinity.
There you have it. The American police—"support your local Gestapo"—spend their time engineering false crimes and not investigating real crimes. Americans are more at risk from the police than they are from criminals.
On Dec. 29, I received yet another email from a law-abiding American family harassed by police. The family refused to sell a $75,000 piece of property to a deputy sheriff for $4,000. Farm operations were obstructed. The mother was stopped every time she went out in the car. The son was framed and sent to prison.
Never make the mistake of calling the police, and never get stopped by a traffic cop. You run the risk that he will drop a bag of drugs into you car and arrest you on a drug offense. Most police charges are false charges. Americans need to wake up to this fact, or the American prison population will outstrip the rest of the world combined.
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"On Dec. 29, I received yet another email from a law-abiding American family harassed by police. The family refused to sell a $75,000 piece of property to a deputy sheriff for $4,000. Farm operations were obstructed. The mother was stopped every time she went out in the car. The son was framed and sent to prison.''
Once upon a time I would have been skeptical of such a story. Not anymore. Dr. Roberts is right, we've got an army of goons with guns and badges running around in this country.
I attribute the worsening quality of our law enforcement officers to the now nearly universal requirement that new officers have BA degrees, or at least an Associates degree in Criminal Justice (a laughable fluff credential if ever I've heard of one). However, there is a limited number of people with these credentials who actually want to be cops. So police departments have to hire any lowlifes who meet these standards. Ergot, if Billy Bob or Antwan want to turn their hobby of harrassing and shaking people down into a career, all they have to do is earn their AA degree in Criminal Justice from Wanker State Technical College-Online, and they will be shoe-ins for positions with some law enforcement agency. We had far better policemen in this country when they were simple Barney Fifes.
You are not supposed to be having sex in a public park, and if a woman attempts to get you to do so whom you have never met, common sense should tell you that something is wrong with HER---nevermind you. If the babe of your dreams comes onto you while you were out jogging near a wooded area of a public park, a "reasonable man" who likes sex would say to her, "put your clothes on and jog with me to my car and we can drive to my house or yours and make an afternoon of it". YOU DONT DROP YOUR PANTS right there. Duh!!!!
I dont condone the tactic, and it is entrapment. But men who were caught doing it, despite being entraped, still knew they were screwing outdoors on public property. If you and your wife/girlfriend were caught consensually doing it in a wooded area of a public park, you'd both be arrested if it was a police officer doing the catching.
Mr. Roberts, though I love him, is responding very strongly to this instance of strongarming tactics by civic-level law enforcement even though it deserves to be reported ON greatly.
If anyone wonders why we are getting more stings like this, its actually pretty straightforward. There is a lessening in honesty amongst the brass and district attorneys in this nation. Police chiefs, detectives are more likely to be "feminized" somewhat in their education also as folks who get post-B.A. degrees in law enforcement (which is primarily sociology courses) are more likely to be a little anti-white-male to begin with. You see white males are the only humans in this society who aren't "victims" by birth, so its so much more pleasing to drum up reasons to arrest one, so that you can feel good about yourself.
If you have a problem with a particular police officer or a department, the first thing you NEED to do is get on the phone with both the STATE POLICE, and a lawyer. Files are indeed kept of complaints on police departments guys. The state of Tennessee just forced a guy in a speed-trap city just north of Nashville out. He was instructing cops to pull over army personel and Mexicans because they were more likely to pay their tickets instead of going to court. He lowered the speed limits to ridiculous speeds all over his town and of course his department gave out ludicrious amounts of them. A few of the officers testified that they were intimidated into aggressively handing out insane numbers of tickets, etc. If all else fails with a problematic department/officer, get on the phone and call the F.B.I., or even make a visit to your local representative's office and explain your situation.
If you can't tell, Ive had friends (roomates) and family in law enforcement and in the course of hanging out with the guys have gotten to hear some stories in which the law was applied very unevenly, usually at the behest of some newbie supervisor trying to make a name for himself and hoping to get into the newspaper, etc. Hint: If you are in a public park or driving down a street in the wrong part of town and an impobably youngish-looking-pretty woman is walking and seems to be soliciting sex, she will be a in a sting operation. Pretty girls, in the age of facebook, do not have to pull stuff like this to get sex, even if they can't wait for the bars to open that night. If someone "offers" you free or unbelievably cheap prices on drugs, dont take it----even if you smoke dope. Youre probably being entrapped.
Meanwhile we have a good 10 million illegal aliens walking around free in this country.
"Most police charges are false charges." How ridiculous. Mr. Roberts ruins more pieces that could be legitimate criticism of police policy by making such bitter, vicious smears at all of law enforcement. As a state prosecutor for more than 30 years, I've got my share of criticisms, particularly of federal law enforcement policies, but, in my experience, individual dishonestly in police officers and prosecutors has been the exception, not the norm. I don't see the point of slandering good men to make a point about bad policies.
Mr. Roberts,
As a cop I understand and take the concerns of a growing state serious.
I second what Jack wrote above.
"Most police charges are false charges" Wow! what happened to you? You have lost touch with reality.
A man takes his penis out in a public park, can't control himself and is arrested. Seems just like the Soviet Union to me. How do you get form there to cops planting drugs?
There are many stupid policies but stop with the cop bashing. I do hope that Chronicles and VDARE re-think your articles.
Mr. Roberts is a bit over the top on this one.
Most police charges are true, because the police are a bureaucracy, and it's easier to arrest people on the lawn with someone's silverware in a pillowcase than to actually investigate and solve a crime whose solution is not obvious.
However, there is a lot of police and prosecutorial abuse, and very often they get away with it.
And don't get me started on Child "Protective" Services . . .
Americans are more at risk from the police than they are from criminals.
Never make the mistake of calling the police, and never get stopped by a traffic cop.
Most police charges are false charges.
Wow, Paul Craig Roberts must have slapped on a fresh tinfoil hat before coming up with these beauties! It's good to see someone finally stand up for men who take their penises out in public parks. "The man" is always picking on the little guy . . .
I have to agree with Mr. Roberts that most charges brought by police are false.
Most police I have met are destined for a uniform; blue is a way of staying out of dayglow.
Police are not professionals, they are just some guy with the equivalent of a third-grade education and a loaded gun.
I remember one typical example. Driving my car, I turned out of a parking lot, and sped up to 35 in a 45 zone. I was immediately pulled over. The guy asked me how fast I was going. I told him. He turned beat red, began screaming like a very small boy, and flapped his arms up and down.
Another time, I asked a slightly less insane guy why he was pulling me over. I am the type of man to whom people confide in. I was very nice to him.
He confided in me and said he was ticketing me because "certain racial groups would be upset" if a certain number of tickets were not given to those of certain groups that I represent. Then he pulled out in a real hurry, flinging gravel behind him and leaving rubber on the road.
Another time, I left a bicycle outside a public library where a woman librarian told me to leave it. I didn't have a lock. Apparently, another woman inside was having a bad day. The end result was that the woman who asked me to leave the bicycle outside was fired, and I spent a day in jail, was given a few bruises, lost $500 and my teaching job -- for parking a "motor vehicle" on "private" property. Later, the library apologized to me and said they had mistaken me for someone else.
The police were notified of the error and apology, but they were able to throw me in jail for several years, if I dared try to correct their mistake. They knew that with no job, I had no money for an attorney.
It gets worse.
My mother, an RN, worked for several years for an MD who handled valid legal claims of policemen.
It turns out that policemen are some of the most insane, dumbest, and of the lowest character of any group you could imagine.
Despite the psychiatric "testing" they get, they are riddled with very obviously debilitating mental illnesses. They beat their wives. They beat their children. They hate everyone and believe the world is out to get them.
They abuse each other -- no holds barred -- and are riddled with VIOLENT jealousies.
The good cops among them are the biggest targets for abuse, because they make the mental cases look bad.
I have read hundred of pages about real heroes among policemen. And these are the ones who are abused, ruined, and treated with the most despicable calumny. The tales would keep you on the edge of your chair for days.
Tales of human evil.
The type of person most often attracted to police work is someone who has few if any talents, but is overcome with the urge to wield power over others -- especially over them whom they fear are better than they are.
You see the sickos that dominate police forces everywhere honestly believe they are better than EVERYONE.
But when they face the reality that they have fewer talents and much less character than most, they feel murderous.
I have to agree with Mr. Roberts that most charges brought by police are false.
Most police I have met are destined for a uniform; blue is a way of staying out of dayglow.
Police are not professionals, they are just some guy with the equivalent of a third-grade education and a loaded gun.
I remember one typical example. Driving my car, I turned out of a parking lot, and sped up to 35 in a 45 zone. I was immediately pulled over. The guy asked me how fast I was going. I told him. He said he clocked me going 66.He turned beat red, began screaming like a very small boy, and flapped his arms up and down.
Another time, I asked a slightly less insane guy why he was pulling me over. I am the type of man to whom people confide in. I was very nice to him.
He confided in me and said he was ticketing me because “certain racial groups would be upset” if a certain number of tickets were not given to those of certain groups that I represent. Then he pulled out in a real hurry, flinging gravel behind him and leaving rubber on the road. I guess he shouldn't have confided that much.
Another time, I left a bicycle outside a public library where a woman librarian told me to leave it. I didn’t have a lock. Apparently, another woman inside was having a bad day. The end result was that the woman who asked me to leave the bicycle outside was fired, and I spent a day in jail, was given a few bruises, lost $500 and my teaching job — for parking a “motor vehicle” on “private” property. Later, the library apologized to me and said they had mistaken me for someone else.
The police were notified of the error and apology, but they threatened to arrest me and throw me in jail for several years waiting for my case to come to court, if I dared try to correct their mistake. They knew that with no job, I had no money for an attorney.
It gets worse.
My mother, an RN, worked for several years for an MD (psychiatrist) who handled valid legal claims of policemen against policemen.
It turns out that policemen are some of the most insane, dumbest, and of the lowest character of any group you could imagine.
Despite the psychiatric “testing” they get, they are riddled with very obviously debilitating mental illnesses. They beat their wives. They beat their children. They hate everyone and believe the world is out to get them.
They abuse each other — no holds barred — and are riddled with VIOLENT jealousies.
The good cops among them are the biggest targets for abuse, because they make the mental cases look bad.
I have read hundred of pages about real heroes among policemen. And these are the ones who are abused, ruined, and treated with the most despicable calumny. The tales would keep you on the edge of your chair for days at a time.
Tales of human evil.
The type of person most often attracted to police work is someone who has few if any talents, but is overcome with the urge to wield power over others — especially over them whom they fear are better than they are.
You see the sickos that dominate police forces everywhere honestly believe they are better than EVERYONE.
But when they face the reality that they have fewer talents and much less character than most, they feel murderous.
Excellent article, Mr Roberts. I’m from the Netherlands and I think America has gone stark raving mad. It’s astonishing that all those cops who commented on this site do not understand entrapment. The key issue is that otherwise unwilling persons are induced to commit a crime. If that’s not the case here, than the word ‘induced’ has lost all meaning. There wouldn’t have been a crime without the police sting. Thieves, murderers and drugtrafficers receive more protection from the law. Keep in mind that the victims of these police tactics are not even suspected of anything. On a scale of problems, how big is the problem of men having sex outdoors anyway?
Well, thanks Rudi. Now I understand entrapment.
@Grumpy
"Most police charges are true, because the police are a bureaucracy, and it’s easier to arrest people on the lawn with someone’s silverware in a pillowcase than to actually investigate and solve a crime whose solution is not obvious"
Really? One arrest is made by uniformed patrol and the other by detectives. I am wondering what you mean? What other crimes are there that don't have an easy solution?
@ PcH
"It turns out that policemen are some of the most insane, dumbest, and of the lowest character of any group you could imagine"
Name calling. Wel, if your mom told you, it must be true.
Never had a problem with police at all. If you get nailed you are usually speeding,etc. What worries me is this SWAT crap and hearing about all of these wrong break ins by these SWAT teams and they put guns to folks heads, etc, then just laugh about it afterwards oncethey find out it was a major screwup. Psyops if you ask me. These "mistakes' are growing in frequency it seems as things are progessively going downhill economically. Once the crap hits the fan and the masses wake up, watch out. These SWAT teams will be the norm.
we don't need no stinkin Bages, man. Reminds me of cheech & chong. no seriously 90% of car wrecks are because folks are strapped into via seat-belts missiles [i.e. cars] made of metal & glass, filled with highly combustible fuels, and shooting themseves down any road at uncontrollable speeds.
Ralph Nader has been pointing this out for almost 50 years - but yet of course thanks to media complicity, [remember the Tripod - big business big government big media], we're only now getting to the 10% of accidents possibly assisted by a driver's being impaired by alcohol or whatever substance. And technically it's still the missile or car that caused it. But the municipalities make so much money now off of 'catching' drunk drivers. There's universal drag-nets or MONEY-nets.
It's all about money, the apparently necessary symbol/Fact of the post-Barter age. ... Except more folks are in jail now in the u.s. per capita than during the worst days of the Stalin regime in the old soviet union. wow, man.
we don't need no stinkin'Badges, man.
here try some of this man, but don't drive, man. hey, and don't go for that chick man she's the Man... pu close those legs, bithch. i can smell the slammer from here. pu.
________________
One wonders, what can motivate one to become a "career" policeman? (Other than "default", that is - such as had to feed a family but could not find another job in a hurry.)
(While professions do vastly vary in intellectual rank, most are honorable. The obvious exceptions are prison guards, animal experimenters, slaughterhouse employees and corporate HR clerks.)
It's nothing but pure government's hypocrisy. On one hand they "take good care" of public morality the above mentioned way, while at the same time tens of thousands (perhaps hundreds thousands?) girls and women, our daughters and sisters (moms too) yearly are lured into worst kinds of pornography and prostitution and all that protected by the free speech part of the first amendment. Of course, researching and showing the truth about this cannot be protected by the same amendment. The producers, some bergs and steins, decide what can and cannot be covered by the constitution.
As far as the cops are considered, it's the same way in every country. Remember the case from a few months ago when a polish newspapers published a story about how the polish government do the testing for the wanna-be officers? A guy who applied for a police officer job was declined because computer showed that he was "too inteligent" for the position.
Sorry, Paul, no sale. What weirdo would try to go at it in a public park? I'm not sympathetic. This is the Darwinian way of separating the dumb genes from the pool.
P.S. Mr Roberts, you seem awfully peeved by this particular type of sting operation -- is it because it happened to you?
Mr. Robert's hyperbole aside, entrapment is simply wrong -- whether it's undercover officers posing as prostitutes or dope dealers.
The proper function of government is to punish criminals who harm innocent victims. When the state stages situations whereby to make a moral point or strike fear in the hearts of citizens, it has ascribed to itself messianic prerogatives. There is enough state-worship already -- something truly to be feared.
The police forces in America have become dangerously militarized. Here in NY, regardless of Rudy's lies, the police are more like an occupying army than beat cops. Sure, we can prevent crime by turning our cities into police states, but this is like the argument that the trains ran on time in fascist Italy. If people had better morals; if there were less third world immigrants; if black culture was not equated with street thuggery; if men had not been emasculated by feminism and were more self-reliant; if the state had not taken over parenting in the inner cities, etc. - this would not be happening. Today people just expect the police to over-react and hog-tie suspects, six-on-one, for even looking at the NYPD the wrong way. What one sees on "Cops" TV is disgusting.
One sees the change in the toys: my Fisher Price policemen drove a patrol car, wore a nice uniform and carried a small gun at his side - and a smile. Today's police toys are SWAT Team military men with bullet proof vests, riot gear and helmets, machine guns and tear gas cannisters. The more savage we become as a people, the stronger the police presence we will demand. It's a perfect formula for the state to grow. Self-government starts at home.
Marty-
No that wasn't name calling. Policemen as a whole really ARE dumb, really DO think the whole world is out to get them, and really DO persecute competent colleagues.
This was name-calling: "Police are not professionals, they are just some guy with the equivalent of a third-grade education and a loaded gun."
To policemen reading this:
Persecute - means attack and harass.
Competent - means some who knows what he is doing.
Colleague - means someone you work with.
Equivalent of - means "about the same as."
Hope that helps!
Mr. Roberts may be over the top and a prudent man would not engage in erotic acts with a woman in the park, but his central point is perfectly valid: Entrapment, even in a good cause, is a violation of the Anglo-American legal tradition, and this is not a good cause. I wonder if any of these virtuous commentators are aware that fornication is not illegal in most parts of the US and positively encouraged by most of the major institutions of American life? If fornication is not wrong, according to the law, then public fornication is at the worst bad taste and then only if it is done in the presence of others. If the only witnesses are the police, then there are no witnesses.
What are some of these people thinking? That because a man is foolish enough to be seduced, the police are justified in such an abuse of power? Where do these people come from and how do they find our website? Some of these write-backs defending the cops are all the proof we need that the internet attracts idiots and probably creates them. The cops are crooked everywhere but at least here in Italy a sting of this type would be opposed and derided by all normal people. I suppose that is the operative word, normal.
Leaving discussions about "which came first, chicken or the egg" to the idle Chronicles' theologians, the fact is that police entrapment spectacles are what the American public simply loves! You know, it takes two to tangle. MSNBC cable has a vastly popular show "To Catch a Predator". Court TV is loaded with would-be-Jon-catching docs where "gorgeous" police whores lure all manner of sinners-in-their-hearts. Etc. Blaming cops here would be almost like blaming Colombian peasants for cocaine epidemic in the U.S...
Dr. Fleming,
Amen.
I have to agree with Dr. Fleming @24 and Jay @25.
People complain about oil at $100 per barrel oil, along with any other trivial vexation and fail to notice the common sense (and decency) embargo that manifests itself in near every aspect of life. Isn't this just part and parcel of the republic's death? Even though it stinks to high heavens most can't see the corpse in the room much less find the decency to give it a decent burial.
Dr. Fleming makes a point that is largely ignored in most of the posts, though he tends to go overbroad, like Mr. Roberts. I wouldn't bring an entrapment case of the kind Mr. Roberts describes before a jury in my county. I can picture them roling their eyes as they retired to the jury room to talk for 30 mintues about how the police must have better things to do, before returning an aquittal. In that respect, maybe rural Texas and Itally still have something in common.
What are some of these people thinking?
They are thinking that even though Paul Craig Roberts makes a good point, it is obscured by his infantile and uncharitable generalizations about police officers. So you're saying we must either accept Roberts' adolescent rantings in their entirety or we are fascists who support unjust abuses of power by police?
The point of the complaints is that Chronicles generally maintains a certain level of intellectual rigor which is completely lacking in Paul Craig Roberts tinfoil hat ravings.
Simply put gents,
If you get caught having sex in a PUBLIC PARK or PUBLIC SPACE, you will be arrested for indecent exposure.
We have been battling a problem in Nashville of gay men meeting in our public parks around Percy Priest Lake. There are many parks around this large lake with fifty plus miles of shoreline. Three or so of these little parks that include boat ramps seen a huge influx of men parking in their cars, making facial and hand signals to each other, and then going into the woods a couple of dozen feet and having anonymous gay sex. Due to the internet, alot of gay men found out about this and so foot traffic increased a good deal in the parks of these sorts of patrons. Another park not around any lake in North Nashville was also seeing this kind of activity. The Metro Council had one member who actually wanted to put cameras in the parks and publish photos of these men's faces in our local newspaper, but the idea got (thankfully) nixed.
However, you can see why the police here in Metro Nashville did do something positive and set up a sting operation at these parks in which undercover officers mimicked the facial cues of the gay men, and arrested them when they went into the woods together as soon as the other guy started to get undressed.
Paul Craig Roberts may think that this is entrapment, and although I think the world of Mr. Roberts, Im glad Metro implemented this sting operation. These are family areas with picnic tables, play areas, sandy beaches, fishing areas, and boat ramps (and sometimes volleyball courts and jungle gyms). People taking their families to these places should not have to be subjected to gay men cruising and going off into the damned woods to have sex.
Metro also had a positive (in my opinion) sting in a large park in North Nashville where prostitutes were walking therein. Usually they WERE going to a motel with the men who picked them up, but some car-sex was also going on. Metro sent some undercover gals out there, arrested quite a few men, it got in the paper ALONG WITH THE MEN'S NAMES, and of course after the talk made the rounds, the would-be johns mysteriously dried up and the hookers stopped walking the park.
Do I think having a woman go topless or pull down her pants is entrapment? YES. SHE IS BREAKING THE LAW by doing this in a public park.
Do I think dressing an undercover officer up like a streetwalker and have her strut around a park waiting FOR MEN TO PULL UP IN THEIR CARS AND ASK HER "HOW MUCH AN HOUR PRETTY GAL?" is entrapment? NO, that is NOT ENTRAPMENT. The cops dont want to waste their time in general doing this kind of thing and would rather just be chilling' in their cruisers, maintaining a presence and thus letting the public know that they are there (which deters more crime without arresting anyone than about any other method), than conducting stings. But if they get complaints and see alot of hookers walking our public park in front of families (and especially kids who shouldn't have to see that), its kind of their JOB to try and stop it. They can either act like potential Johns and arrest the walkers, but the whores quickly learn who is a cop and who is not and tell each other what the cops look like and what they were driving, and its kind of pathetic to arrest drug-addicted women over and over......................OR ...............they can arrest 20 guys one weekday, get an article in the paper about it that mentions the johns BY NAME, and all the potential johns cruising that aforesaid park just magically dwindles to nothing in a week or so (when everyone has found out about it).
Its not the seventies folks. AIDS, STD's that no longer respond to penecillin. Public health is different than the wink and nod' days of thirty years ago regarding this kind of thing. Having a woman take her clothes off will induce men who wouldn't otherwsie break the law to do so, and thats wrong. Having improbably good-looking-young-pretty-undercover policewomen do the walking is also wrong in my opinion because it will induce men who otherwise wouldn't even consider stopping for an ordinary drug-addicted skank to take a long look at the Britney Spears-look-alike that we have placed out there in short-shorts and tanned legs. But we have to do SOMETHING about street prostitution, especially in our parks.
Libertarian is not supposed to mean, "juvenile". Lets grow up.
As my brother Mark pointed out when this topic came up over at Taki's, forget for a moment about the legality of this type of entrapment, what about the morality? If you are trying to induce someone to commit a mortal sin - something which may result in the eternal damnation of their souls - haven't you already committed a mortal sin yourself to begin with? No one who believes in the teachings of Christ could possibly think that it is good to involve him or herself in such sting operations.
In order to appreciate Dr. Roberts' point in this article, as well as his other articles, you have to view it in the proper context. In all his articles, Dr. Roberts conveys his sense that America is relentlessly sliding toward Third World status. While Pat Buchanan focuses primarily on our increasing ethnic and political Third Worldization, Roberts focuses more on the decline of our social institutions - our schools and universities, the news media and our legal system.
The creeping Third Worldization of our schools and universities, both in demographics and quality, has been well documented. That our mainstream news media has degenerated into lying cheerleaders for the state, as one would associate with some Third World banana republic, has been widely exposed in the past decade. But Dr. Roberts is one of the few syndicated columnists who has closely examined and reported on the undeniably growing abuses of our prosecutors and law enforcement agencies. Dr. Roberts depiction of our court system and our cops is consistent with what we know to be typical of Third World countries as well.
As America's decline into the status of a non-Western - ie. Third World nation - is a central theme of this website, this article is most appropriate.
Thomas Miller---agreed...................heartily.
For all of you defenders of Paul Craig Roberts, who give such "nuanced" interpretations of his article, tell me . . . do you assent to each of these propositions that appeared in his article?:
Americans are more at risk from the police than they are from criminals.
Never make the mistake of calling the police, and never get stopped by a traffic cop.
Most police charges are false charges.
Yes or no?
Kirt Higdon---------------
By your logic the police who conduct sting operations such as putting a plant prostitute out there attemtping to catch a serial killer who preys upon them (like the pig farmer in Canada who apparently killed about 20 whores and let his pigs eat them), or the police who go online and pose as underage boys and girls in an attempt to catch active online sexual predators (and end up having tons of men show up at the house ready to have sex with a fifteen year old who include men like Rabbis and professors, former soldiers as well as the expected losers), the undercover sting operations that attempt to catch identity theives are all going to burn in your God's hell, and thus it should not be legal for the police to try and catch pedophiles, serial killers, and identity thieves in this fashion?
How are we supposed to catch them? Blind luck?
There was no fornication or sexual act between the police-bait female and the firefighter. She showed him her private parts or some of them, and asked to see his. He unzipped his pants and was arrested, but remained fully clothed. No one saw the firefighter's penis but the woman who asked and the police cameras. It was the police agent who was half-naked, not the firefighter who was arrested for responding to the woman's sexual approach. Yes, he should have known it was a dirty police trick, but, no doubt, like some of the commentators above, he believed the police were above such tactics, once regarded as impermissible by courts.
It is extraordinary reading people who think of themselves as "conservatives" defending gestapo police state tactics whereby the police create the crime.
Documentation of police and prosecutorial abuse is provided in my book with Lawrence Stratton, The Tyranny of Good Intentions (2000), new edition out in February from Random House. Wrongful arrests and wrongful convictions are very widespread problems acknowledged by many experts.
Dr. Fleming,
The man took his penis out in a public park. I a surprised at your view. . It is not Roberts point on this case in particular, but his point about cops in general.
I have read his book and agree with much of what he wrote.
I have been a cop for 12 years and have never seen a cop plant drugs. Roberts has not either. So, he makes what may be a good point and turns it into cops planting drugs and why not to call 911.
With this and his views on the World Trade Center you have nerve calling me an idiot. I know you hate cops because a female cop was rude to you one day, so you can't see through this lunancy.
I am a cop that has supported this magazine with a subscription and donations I could afford. I will continue because of the the work that you and your writers do. I don't care that we disagree, but please try and refrain from calling me an idiot when you publish pieces like this.
Dr. Fleming,
Italy. The place where the mafia ran the government and facism took hold. At least they would allow men taking their penis out in parks.
I have received over the years numerous letters from former police officers who say they left the police force because they could not tolerate the corruption. Many said that it was impossible to be a whistle blower without suffering serious consequences.
Former US Attorneys have also described to me the corruption of the criminal justice (sic) process. A former Associate Attorney General of the US is on public record describing the corruption of the system. If memory serves, he is quoted in my book.
Many Americans are, of course, naifs, and they will remain naifs until it happens to them.
Every time I write a column about the false arrests and prosecutions I receive scores of letters from stunned Americans who cannot believe that it recently happened to them or to a family member. They usually ask for my help, thinking that public exposure will save them or their loved ones from prison. Little do they know that most of the public will believe the police regardless of the facts.
Although there are still a few exceptions, in general the police are in the business of ruining people, creating "crimes" rather than solving real crimes. Police work is seldom tested as, according to the US Department of Justice (sic), about 95% of all felony charges are settled with a plea bargain. Most defendants, or rather their lawyers, know better than to trust jurors or prosecutors. No one expects a fair trial, so they cop a plea to stop more charges from being piled on.
Dr. Roberts,
What police agents do to civilians is nothing compared to what they do to each other.
Dr. Roberts,
I wish you would have included this paragraph in your original article:
"There was no fornication or sexual act between the police-bait female and the firefighter. She showed him her private parts or some of them, and asked to see his. He unzipped his pants and was arrested, but remained fully clothed. No one saw the firefighter’s penis but the woman who asked and the police cameras. It was the police agent who was half-naked, not the firefighter who was arrested for responding to the woman’s sexual approach. Yes, he should have known it was a dirty police trick, but, no doubt, like some of the commentators above, he believed the police were above such tactics, once regarded as impermissible by courts."
That would have cleared up alot of things for everyone. No crime was committed if he kept his clothes on. If she displayed herself, she broke the law, not him. Its a dirty tactic to do this, and citizens should complain about it. Police routinely overcharge and D.A.'s overcharge all the time. Its wrong and unfair, but so many things these days are also wrong and unfair. Living in crime-ridden areas beholds someone to this kind of environment. Thats yet another reason why suburbia is so enticing. The local fuzz there is usually alot less martial, militaristic, and confrontational. If urban police seem "rough" folks, remember they get to deal with scum and have to listen to lies all day long. I try and keep that in mind.
Mr. Roberts,
I agree and have agreed with you since reading your book that pleas bargains, at least in Felony cases should be stopped. I don't know if th esystem coudl handle it on all cases to start.
You make a good point that cops would agree with you and than you write that cops are planting evidence in large numbers. We are not and we are not making up crimes.
This incident seems like it was too much but I don't know how many complaints that the community was giving to the police to do something.
In my job I handle a felony crime but that does not mean I don't handle quality of life work such as loud music or even writing tickets and making arrests parks where my family and friends want to relax and enjoy.
My family should be able to have the freedom to enjoy that park too.
With respect to the remarks of Miles (#35), I can't comment on the entrapment (if such it is) of identity thieves, since I don't know how it is done. And an entrapment aimed at a serial killer who has already committed crimes of the same type could not be considered as creating a proximate occasion of sin. Such a person makes his own occasions.
But the entrapment of so-called on-line sexual predators for the titillation of TV audiences is indeed a good example of what I and Dr. Roberts are talking about. The overwhelming majority of the people so entrapped are pathetic losers who have never done anything of the sort before and clearly would not have done it had they not been enticed. Much of the entrapment work in at least one of these series was done by a truly weird group of cyber vigilantes calling itself (appropriately) "perverted justice". This odd alliance of fundamentalists, computer geeks, and (strangest of all) libertarians, were financed by the producers of the TV show and local police forces were invited to observe and make arrests. Since the PJ gang were technically not working for the police force, they were free to used tactics which would have been flat out illegal had the police themselves used them. It appears that the overwhelming majority of arrests of "on-line preditors" have resulted from these stings which certainly seems to confirm the theory of crime being created for the purpose of making arrests - although in this case more by the media with the police in a supporting role.
Finally, genuinely dangerous on-line predators will not be caught by these methods since they avoid any on-line discussion of sex and merely seek to solicit information to enable them to stalk their prey and strike at a time and place of their own choosing - not showing up conveniently at a pre-arranged meeting.
What about college towns, where the police run dragnets through the bar districts in search of (gasp!) underage drinkers?
Back in the day, I worked as a short-order cook at a pub in a college town in Ohio -- and discovered to my lasting relief that the police were dutifully protecting me by hiring under-21 college students to go into bars & use fake ID's to try to trick bartenders into serving them.
Then their cop/mentor would step in to make the bust.
A repugnantly Wonderbread-wholesome girl who my wife knows (not a friend of hers) once spent a high school school summer vacation working for the state fuzz in a similar fashion -- roving about the entire commonwealth to buy cigarettes from the vending machines in various bars & establishments, so that the joint in question could be busted.
I second Mr. Higdon's response to Miles, and also --in all respect-- must point out the tabloid-headline quality of the horror-stories brought up -- "Demon-Farmer's Pigs Eat 20 Hookers", "Rabbi Rapes 10-year old".
This is the hallmark of utilitarianist ethics -- whenever some tradition of justice or English common law is to be broken, what is inevitably evoked is some appalling extreme case which goes straight to the gut via quasi-pornographic imagery, appealling to the senses of horror, pity, disgust, etc.
And we are then expected to let such oversimplified and hyper-emotional images become the defining denominator of our existence, our unconscious focal points for making decisions.
I.e., whenever I get angry about being monitored all the time-- at having cameras at every stoplight and aircraft clocking me from overhead -- somebody clucks their tongue at me and pulls out shell-shocking before & after photos of a sweet little old grandmother and her adorable baby grandson and a basket of kittens, that all got run over by a speeding driver.
Y'know, you can get on your high horse about not torturing prisoners ....... but hey, like, what about that one episode of *24*, when there was a nuclear bomb planted under the kindergarten where Jack's kid went to school -- and Jack captured the terrorist who knew the secret code to defuse the bomb?
What, you want all those cute kindergartners to die in a radioactive hellstorm?
What, you reject torture -- *and* entrapment?
What, Mr. Higdon -- doesn't the thought of women being butchered and dished out into a swine-trough *bother* you?!
What, Mr. Higdon, you don't appreciate the Patriot Act? But weren't you *upset* by the destruction of the World Trade Center?!
Don't you *care*?
If we don't take stern measures, mon ami, then we in effect hand the world over to the hands of the Islamofascist-pedophilic, mass-murdering, pig-farming, park-ruining firefighters.
@ Marty,
I think I can safely say that most of us are not attacking policemen qua policmen or the concept of law enforcement per se.
When I was assigned to a military base security department in Naples after Sept. 11th, one of the best, most intelligent, and most likeable mobilized reservists I worked with had formerly been a small-town police chief -- a really good guy.
I suspect the ethos & culture of law enforcement depends, like any other generalized category of people, on which individuals you look at and where you go -- LA, New Orleans, or Mayberry.
In some small-towns I expect the cops are integrated into the community and have the interests of their community at heart; in others I expect they are just corrupt thugs.
If the latter situation predominates that's not so much a specific indictment of law enforcement as a career, as it is an indictment of the decline of community spirit writ large.
If none of the people who live in a community feel any attachment to it, and if they are all content to live in a rootless sea of anonymity alienated from their neighbors -- why would we expect the cops to be any different?
The same goes for cities, even. I get the impression that some big-city cops are decent enough, because they have more important things to worry about than concocting goofy entrapment schemes -- i.e., gangs, drugs, murders, etc.
Though of course I've no doubt that many big-city cops are Giuliani-esque brownshirts, too.
Police corruption is so widespread and so harmful to so many that I cannot believe anyone who claims to be a good police agent in a good department and is unaware.
“Given a choice between an agreeable fantasy and a disagreeable fact, Americans will choose the fantasy every time.” —Adlai Stevenson
I suppose I do "have a lot of nerve" in insisting on the legal and moral traditions that are partly responsible for the decent society in which we used to live. And I suppose it is painting with a broad brush to stick to the central argument instead of gettting into a shouting match between cops and their enemies. Among the many amusing things about these conversations is this argument--a pretty tired cliche by now--that anyone who expresses himself with clarity and vigor, as Dr. Roberts typically does, is somehow missing all the fine points.
I do not hate the police or think they are all bad. However, I do think that most of the police I run into these days are rude, arrogant, and threatening. A hormone-crazed female cop shook her night stick at my wife and put her hand on her gun, because she could not pin anything on us as we waited quietly for our daughter to come out of a movie theater. We were well-dressed and listening to Mozart on the radio, and she accused us of being passed out drunk. After 20 minutes of grilling, she could find nothing but still would not leave us alone. Later, I asked a cop about this madwoman, and he said she was a byword on the force for this kind of behavior. So far as I know, Officer Darlene is still one of Rockford's finest. I have nothing but respect for good cops, but it is disheartening to see how most of them seem to close ranks to defend the rogues.
I have never received any help from the police. When our garage was burglarized, the cops said the items (bicycles, chainsaw, etc) were not valuable enough to waste time filing a report on. When, after receiving an automated telephone call informing me of a burglar in the neighborhood, I called 911 to report that I had seen him and had his license number and the make and model of the car, an illiterate colored woman screamed, "Jus' ca'm down and someone get back to you." They never did, because in Rockford, the cops have more important things to do, like checking for seatbelts and city stickers, things that produce revenue. Now they are trying to get the chief fired because he cracked down on a cop who used time on the job and a police computer to look at porn!.
Oh, I forgot, when our somewhat intoxicated son knocked on a window to ask directions, he found himself in handcuffs and arrested for attempted auto-theft. He had walked into a stake-out managed by a private security firm with strong ties to the police department. One of their men came by the house to apologize to my wife, but the security firm still refused to drop the charges, and the head of the company boasted of his connections with the Rockford cops and with the FBI. The last thing in the world I will ever do is to call the police in an emergency. I no longer keep guns in the house, but if I had any fears, I would rely on myself and not on the government to protect me.<br.
I particularly love the argument that the police must try to seduce men because STD's are so dangerous now. When have tyrants and bullies ever lacked for good reasons to violate the law? By what right do the agents of any US government agency think they can tell us that prostitution and fornication are wrong? As Cicero said of Cato, that he acted as if he lived in Plato's republic and not among the dregs of Romulus, so the cops and their defenders pretend they are living in Jefferson's Virginia or with the Pilgrim fathers instead of in the anti-Christian despotic squalor created by FDR and his successors. PCR refers to American naivete, and he is right, but to me it seems like a self-inflicted and suicidal ignorance.
For most normal Americans, police offenses are on the petty side, pretty much limited to speed traps, also known as revenue enhancers. Of course, speed traps are a cynical use of police power and are usually emplaced where the police can most easily ring up a high amount of tickets with little trouble. That the police claim that the road blocks are used to decrease speeders increases the cynicism of the public who know all too well that the police are lying.
The entrapment that Dr. Roberts puts forward with the prostitution sting shows the childish streak of many police. The policewoman strutting around as a prostitute gets to fantasize about herself as an object for desire, for honest money of course. The policemen who arrest the john get to lord it over an inferior, the john, who apparently must pay someone for sex. Ironically, in these prostitution entrapment games police play the most villainous member of the world of prostitution, the pimp, is usually not targeted. They are a bit tougher to corral than the pathetic john or prostitute.
Although no sane person will say that Americans can do without police protection, it should be remembered that the policeman is an armed member of the state who does as he is told. He wields state power and subordinates himself to that power, whether the leadership is Hillary Rodham Clinton, George W. Bush or Huey Long. If a policeman is told by his leadership to do something that is morally wrong, he will almost certainly do as he is told. It is very rare that a policeman will turn in his badge as some sort of protest against the immorality of the leaders who pay his salary. Former policemen(and army officers) of Tsarist Russia were more than happy to do Lenin's bidding for money. If a political order is corrupt or immoral, the police of the regime will begin to reflect the morays of their paymasters.
One of the seven Corporal Works of Mercy
3. To clothe the naked.
Hey laddyy!
The naked cop ladddyy is morally held accountable for committing some of the following:
We may either cause or share the guilt of another's sin in nine ways:
1. By counsel.
2. By command.
3. By consent.
4. By provocation.
5. By praise or flattery.
6. By concealment.
7. By being a partner in the sin.
8. By silence.
9. By defending the ill done.
But this is America a protestant godless land with no moral compass to guide it. The Cops are doing what is expected.
Why the fuss. Look at this way until the country converts to the True Faith, (which most of you to a man will acknowledge that this will never happen in your lifetime) nothing will change.
Auto-destruction. So much for godless democracy.
Hey officer I was just trying to practice one of the seven Corporal Works of Mercy to clothe the naked.
Now if the cop arrested the man for covering the naked ladddyy up then that might be a problem.
But men like this were not taught about the seven Corporal Works of Mercy. It's not allowed in this country.
We get what we deserve. If you posters have a problem with the actions of the cops, then change a few things in your own life.
For starters, financially support only those Roman Catholic Schools that teach such things as the seven Corporal Works of Mercy.
Stop pretending that this country is "Christian" and that the protestant faith has something to offer anyone. It does not.