re: #283 jvic

How do you figure?

1. For one thing, it’s almost a corollary of the growth of the State.

2. The way they dress has changed. During the campus riots of the 1960s, police in some liberal jurisdictions dressed to blend in. Now the uniforms are explicit.

3. Small things: body language, blocking half a lane with their cruisers during traffic stops. In my semirural small town, it seems like I can’t set out the trash without an officer pulling up to ask what I’m doing.

4. Another small thing: Lightning knocked my power out late one recent night. I called the power company and got transferred to the police dept. The officer on duty was polite and got a truck dispatched—but I noticed he addressed me by my first name when I called the outage in and when I called back to thank him. Not Mr. ___ or ‘Sir’, my first name. I’m in late middle age; he sounded in his twenties.

5. These are all straws in the wind, but they all seem to move in the same direction.

6. Most police IMO are conscientiously doing a difficult job, but there are always the few. The police are given more power, and power tends to corrupt.

7. The Agitator is a blog by a libertarian (nonpracticing) lawyer who tracks abuses of prosecutorial discretion and police authority.

honestly, I wouldn’t read anything into 4. He may have been trained to use your first name in that situation, as a means of putting you at ease.