And Bristol Palin, while totally indigestible, is low hanging on her particular family’s branches. She is on the Patheos network, writing a journal of sorts. A blog. Why she is there, I do not know, because she isn’t having a conversation on faith. Oh, she may write the occasional Jesus Is Great post, but she’ll glomb onto just about any subject. I should move my blog over there because I have much more to say about matters of faith than she does. It would be a great platform for people like me who thinks religion is barely tolerable garbage and who enjoy jamming four letter words into every other sentence they write. On second thought, I may just stay here. They’d probably have to bowdlerize me. Nope.
So anyway, why should anyone listen to her? I can write and think a hundred times better than that little snot, yet her blog is read by tens of thousands of people at least. So can most bloggers I know, many of whom are a hundred times smarter than I am. But her fucking family name carries weight in some circles. Her audience is built-in. Me? You motherfuckers never come to see me. I have thirty followers, who in all likelihood delete me when they see my blog’s name in their mailbox.
I allow comments. I am thrilled that you say anything, even if it is mean-spirited or totally at odds with what I am putting across. Bristol has disabled hers, because like her mother, she can’t stand scrutiny or criticism. That’s why Katie Couric torpedoed John McCain’s presidency; because his vice-presidential pick couldn’t name a magazine. She could have said, “No, I don’t, but here are some books I love to read. Here are some blogs I follow”. That would have been enough to get her off the hook. But no, we all know how that turned out.
(Her spiritual heir in this latest election is Ben Carson, by the way.)
Back to Bristol. What’s she going on about this week? The latest act of police brutality caught by cellphone. You’ve all seen the video plenty of times. That South Carolina campus cop got FIRED posthaste by his boss, the sheriff. But Bristol thinks she knows better than the top brass:
Yesterday on Facebook, I linked to this story about a cop who was called to deal with a student who was asked by her teacher, administrator, and the police to leave a classroom after being disorderly.
She refused.
Every time.
Eventually, the policeman grabbed her, tipped over her chair, and put her in cuffs.
Whoa, Bristol, stop right there. Using a cell phone is not “disorderly”. It’s disruptive. I don’t know what she means by “disorderly”. Truculent, perhaps, but the word “disorderly” conjures up the idea that someone broke the law…and that’s just not the case here. She broke the rules. And she concatenated that whole scene in that classroom. Sure she was grabbed…by her neck. Sure he cuffed her, but not before he threw her halfway across the room after pulling the student from her desk, not her chair. That asshole cop went from 0 to 100 in less than a second.
That, my friends, is why Officer Slam lost his job. When I was in the Army, we were given cards to help us remember to use “escalation of force” before we went and put bullets through things and people. It seems that police know this concept as well.
That includes school cops. It should especially concern school cops. They are dealing with kids, who are insouciant at times but usually pose no danger to the policeman or the school. I have seen it in more than one place that the girl was “punching” him. Did anyone else besides me get a gander at Officer Slam’s physique? Of course you did. That’s why you don’t buy this bullshit that he had the right to grab her by her neck and throw her across the floor.
But let’s be done with that. Bristol has a larger point to make after she distorts the facts:
I can’t believe this, when are we going to look at what KIDS are doing wrong? Instead of instantly blaming police and higher authority?
When will parents take full responsibility for their kids, teach them not to act like punks, and listen to AUTHORITY?
Honey, we blame authorities because they are to be held to a higher standard of conduct than the rest of us. That’s how they got to be authorities and professionals. And we do reserve the right to question that authority and usually it is their job to do a better one once we point out their shortcomings. That’s how things work in a society based on liberty and fraternity. But that’s not Bristol’s America. Like most members of the right, the natural tendency is to defer to authority. They thirst for the day when they can become one. They have a love affair with power. Don’t think, don’t question, just obey.
I suppose in her little stunted way, she is enjoying being an authority herself. As soon as I see justification for that, I will let you know. Watch this space. Not hers.