The Sage Observer

Law and Order

In my posting today, I’m going to talk about something of which I know very little–only what I have learned from the television program, Law and Order. Nothing! Absolutely nothing! 

What I do know, however, is how I feel; and that is one of aversion, disdain, and, in a way, downright fear. I don’t know why. Maybe it is because of when I was born and the times in which I was raised. I was born at the bottom of the great depression, raised in the thirties and forties during the rise and fall of Hitler’s Third Reich, his Gestapo Police, and World War II. I graduated right into the lap of the Korean War and America’s occupation of the Far East. The propaganda and mind control then was horrendous–every bit as bad (if not worse) as the political propaganda being spewed forth in these times. Maybe that is the reason I have these feelings.

           Whatever! I was watching CBS’s Sixty Minutes on television yesterday evening and they were discussing the Springfield, Massachusetts’ police control of gangs in their city, modeled after our military’s anti-insurgent efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. I watched and listened to the policeman, an Iraq veteran, who had initiated the program. He was obviously a really nice, sincere, and conscientious person, and I really liked what he was doing. I hope it works. We need to do what he is doing there. But, do you know what? I looked at his shaved head. I looked at his crushed hat. I looked at the wrap-around shiny boots he was wearing. I looked at his starched shirt, shiny belts, gun, cuffs, and all that paraphernalia; and I listened to his voice–you know–that special tone which some of our military people use when they talk. I can’t explain it, but you know it when you hear it. All I could see and hear was GESTAPO.

          Earlier this year, Governor Chris Christie was giving his State of the State Address in New Jersey. He was giving an excellent speech on the floor of the New Jersey Legislature. On either side of him was a soldier policeman. There were those crushed hats, boots–all that paramilitary stuff. The image? GESTAPO.

          I am sure there are many people in this country who will disagree with my views and opinions on many issues; but there is one issue on which I am dead certain I can get 99% agreement. We don’t want any dictators in any way, shape, or form in authority in the United States of America. I find just the very image of paramilitary authority to be threatening and objectionable. Such may be cool to some but not to me.

That’s my view. What’s yours?

Ronald Miller

mtss86@bellsouth.net