WendyMcElroy.com

Jeanine, a blog reader, writes in response to a recent post entitled "Police abuse encouraged by higher-up thugs" in which I argue that the corruption of the cop-on-the-beat is no more than a reflection of the endemic corruption of the entire law enforcement system. She comments....

According to a trusted sister, both the New York and Los Angeles police departments maintain lists of (usually victimless) crimes committed by political figures, and have policies not to automatically charge these people, but to hold it over their heads as a way of ensuring the pols vote for more funding.

Whether this is actually true, it is true that a consistent effect of civil asset forfeiture has been to give police departments a means to generate revenue independent of any democratic political process. Certainly the police are part of a revolving door authoritarian subculture which recycles through the military, prison guards, the defence contractors, etc.

The logical outcome of this process is a Third World situation with a military establishment which allows the civilian government to operate with its permission and convenience. America now has an entire socioeconomic class of professional force-wielders. Clem Weatherby, meet Cuffy Meigs.

[NOTE: both Clem Weatherby and Cuffy Meigs are characters from "Atlas Shrugged." Weatherby is a government representative on the board of directors of Taggart Transcontinental who extorts concessions -- ostensibly in the name of "fair wages and decent transportation." Meigs is the Director of Unification for railroads who dresses in military uniform and ultimately seizes control of Project X; he accidentally destroys it along with the country's last railroad bridge across the Mississippi River.]

Wow...so much to comment upon in such a brief email. I'll limit myself to one observation: namely to comment upon "police departments maintain lists of (usually victimless) crimes committed by political figures, and have policies not to automatically charge these people, but to hold it over their heads." To the extent I have info on the inner workings of police departments, everything I know substantiates Jeanine's point. In the 1990s, I did extensive research with sex workers, especially call girls, and I became quite friendly with a few. They claimed it was commonplace for police to exchange a "get out jail free" pass for info on their clients/associates or for leverage on future snitching.

You see this dynamic at work even on wildly unrealistic TV shows like Law and Order. (I call them wildly unrealistic because almost all the cops portrayed are caring, honor-bound, decent human beings who feel shocked and demeaned by bad apples.) Even shows that seem designed to sink a halo into the skull of cops depicts them making 'street' deals by which drug possession etc. is ignored for information on other people. Equally, the real cops maintain an extensive network of information on 'people of interest' for which they aggressively bargain with (read blackmail) those who are in their iron grasp. Only a naive fool would believe they do not use such information on politicians to their own advantage.