Thursday, August 14, 2008

To Serve and Protect - and Protect

A two part post based on a few things of interest to me that I saw on the local news recently.

Part 1: To Serve and Protect

This story about the Denver cops completely losing control and beating the tar out of some guy in front of Coors Field on opening day was more than a bit bothersome, particularly because of their attitude and what they had to say when onlookers instinctively tried to come to the aid of the man getting beaten. I like to think I'm pretty even keel when it comes to my thoughts and views about policemen. I appreciate the difficulty of the work they are required to do and respect the ones who are good at it but crap like this is just appalling and unacceptable. Seriously, imagine what kind of time any normal civilian would be looking at if he assaulted someone like these cops did. I'm going to make an effort to follow this story a bit. I'll be very disgusted if some kind of serious penalty is not dealt out to the cops involved. Anyone have any thoughts about what a fair punishment is for the cops involved in this incident?


Part 2: and Protect

On the same newscast that the 'cops beating the hell out of a guy' story ran, they were talking about how the Secret Service will be posting snipers on multiple (unnamed) buildings downtown and around the Pepsi Center and Invesco Field as a measure in the effort to protect Obama when he's in Denver. I found a story in the Post about this where it says they requested an additional $9.5 million in order to cover unexpected costs of protecting both presidential candidates. My question here is, why does the Secret Service protect people who are are not yet presidents (or ex-presidents)? What I'm really getting at is, why are tax payers responsible for the protection of someone they have not elected (yet)? Is there some constitutional amendment or law or court ruling that exists that gives the powers that be some warrant for simply throwing money (to the tune of $9.5 million) at situations like this? Or are the people holding the purse strings just arbitrarily assuming the power and authority to spend money in this manner?

3 comments:

Demian L. Neidetcher said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Demian L. Neidetcher said...

http://cbs4denver.com/denver2008/denver.protesters.arrested.2.793930.html

...things might get interesting. Good week to work remote maybe.

Bryan said...

File this update under Part 2 from above - and Protect.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/03/paul-tops-off-rally-for-republic-with-fiery-speech/

“And guess what? Not one single taxpayer cent was spent on this rally,” Paul said with reference to the Democratic and Republican events, which were funded with about $20 million each in public money to pay for security costs.

How do people not think this guy is the best candidate? One of the things I may like most about him is his humility in terms of not acting as though he is particularly special. He comes off as very matter of fact, zero Hollywood feel to him. As in, it's not about him, it's about the smaller government libertarianish goals and ideas. The man genuinely seems like he could care less if he got elected president or not, so long as the guy who was elected had the same ideals. It fits with his philosophy of government I guess, how messiah-like can one seem when your foundational ideas are to do less [harm], and continually make a staunch effort to make sure all the government cronies around you are doing less [harm].

To listen to either of the other two electable candidates, you'd think they personally have THE magic wand that will fix all the problems, particularly Obamassiah.