
2006
Soap Box Archives
Crossroads
Part Eight
Crime and Punishment
When an American policeman is forced to use his or her weapon
in the line of duty, especially if it involves a minority citizen,
they are raked over the
coals by the media and treated as if they were the criminals
themselves.
Selective video clips depicting the worst part of the violence,
the Rodney
King incident is a prime example, are edited and shown over
and over on
television containing nothing about why Rodney King was being
taken into
custody in the first place, which was to protect the people
of Los Angeles
from his maniacal driving.
I am not defending overreaction of the officers who beat Rodney
King, I'm
just saying that if he hadn't been breaking the law they wouldn't
have been
chasing him anyway.
Police who patrol high crime inner city streets take their lives
in their
hands every day, facing well armed violent street gangs, pimps
and drug
dealers, thieves, murderers, terrorists and just about every
bottom feeder
who preys on the poorest of the poor.
They face and handle hundreds of life threatening situations
every day and yet when one of them has to pull the trigger to
protect themselves and the people they are sworn to serve and
protect the media and opportunistic politicians come out of
the woodwork to condemn them before the incident is even investigated.
Even when they manage to get a criminal to jail they sometimes
walk before
the ink dries on the paperwork.
Judges who live in the suburbs and belong to country clubs sit
on the bench and judge low life criminals, never having any
idea of the terror and havoc they cause in some of the most
deprived neighborhoods in America and turn them back out on
the streets time after time to do it all over again.
Children who are brought into the world for no other reason
than padding the welfare check grow up on the violent streets
and their role models come from the bottom of the barrel. After
all, the guys with the money, clothes and cars are street dealers
and thugs. So another generation of criminals is planted and
nurtured and the cycle begins all over again.
It is a sorry mess, a self-proliferating cancer that grows more
pronounced
and more dangerous every day and it seems that anybody who has
the guts to deal with it is castigated and hung out to dry by
the media.
Our cops deserve a break. They deserve to be well paid and well
equipped,
well trained and well supported. They are the only thing standing
between us and the war that takes place in our streets everyday.
We take more and more authority and prestige away from our law
enforcement officers and still expect them to keep the wolves
away.
All that is required to stay out of trouble with the law is
not to break it.
Pray for our troops
What do you think?
God Bless America
Charlie Daniels
December 8, 2006
