Think fast: What would you take?

a policeman’s job is only easy in a police state

Being a urban police officer is a very tough job.  Our society assigns them the task of dealing with people and issues that most people don't even want to acknowledge.  Things like homelessness, drug abuse, domestic violence, a broken education system, ineffective immigration policy and too easy access to guns are everyday encounters for urban police men and women.  The emotional toll and resulting psychic damage are well documented.  Police have higher rates of divorce, alcoholism/drug abuse and suicide than other comparable demographic groups.  Additionally, since only another cop can understand what they deal with, many police officers become quite insulated from the general population.  Add to that there is the perception that their work is not sufficiently appreciated by society.  The people whom they police hate them and the population they police for look down upon them.  Basically, being a cop sucks.  And to top it off, after twenty years on the job you end up a virulent racist.  So the question becomes, is the pension and medical benefits worth it?

I love western movies.  To me they are the symbolize so much of the American mythology.  One of the frequent themes in westerns is that the townspeople want law and order.  The shop keepers don't want the cowboys coming in and shooting up the town.  So they hire a tough lawman and he straightens the town out.  But eventually the town begins to see the sheriff as a tyrant and they turn against him.

Right now in our country large segments of the populace are re-examining how they view the police.  The nation wants law and order, but they don't want the police simply to be the best armed gang of thugs.  Currently the police with their warrior training and surplus military equipment act like an occupying army in some neighborhoods.  People are asking if this is right.  Today it's happening in that neighborhood, but tomorrow it could happen in yours.

Sorry to go so far off topic, but I just thought Anotherbob's truth needed some context.

First, to the OP: you have our sympathies, no matter what our politics may be. We all hope you, and your fellow Oregonians, make it through this terrible year alive and intact.

I live on the Central Coast of California, on a mountaintop in a grove of huge, old oaks. If a firestorm blew through here and set the trees aflame, wetting the yard and roof would be pathetically ineffectual.

And we're currently surrounded by fires; the air rains ash, smells of smoke, and has done so for weeks now. We've had two hot spells with temps reaching 120! This, in a gentle climate with Sept temps averaging in the 80s. But I'm safe...at the moment. Twice before in my life in California--once in the south, once in the north--I've been evacuated because of fires. They're not a new phenomenon. But this intensity is new. 120 degrees blows away all previous records. 

As for the political rants.... I'll just say this. I lived through the "break-up" (an utterly inadequate expression here) of the former Yugoslavia, with Croats and Serbs murdering one another. Any reader of history knows these things happen repeatedly among human beings. Each eruption has its particular villains and victims. What's maybe worth pointing out is what brings out such inclinations to violence. The occasion in this thread was the tragic report of a common threat: fire. The occasion in our culture at the moment is a complex of common threats: a pandemic that kills more people every week than died on 9/11; raw race relations that have roots in slavery, Jim Crow--and, yes, the experience of crime in poverty-blighted urban environments. Oh, yes: and fires! And floods, too. One half expects locusts to be next (although there's the "murder hornets" to worry about, and I read only yesterday about swarms of killer mosquitoes).

Crises bring out the best and the worst in people. It's a commonplace to say that you don't know if you'll be a hero or a coward until you're tested--which is why reading about historical repetitions of crisis isn't the same as living through one. We're now living through several crises at the same time. Let's try to rise to the occasion: to help each other, not fear each other. Guns are useless against fires, plagues, floods. They're only useful against other people with guns. And then only until the other guy shoots first. 

Let's try a constructive, positive response. Put your guns down and help your neighbor load his car for evacuation. Wear the mask--not for your own sake, but just in case you may be infected and not know it, so you don't spread disease. And please, as the Brits said in WWII: try to stay calm and carry on.

grannyring

We don’t seem to understand each other.

I think we’re understanding each other quite well, actually. And none of the vitriol and wordy rationalizations have anything to do with the OP.

Contexts are always plural like radiating circles around any event....More larger the circle we dare to contemplate, the less vindicative we are....

Scapegoating is childish....

«Contexts are like suits, most choose the only one who fit them»-Groucho Marx

« i begin to understand when i stop explaining»- Harpo Marx

. No question I would take my guns and amo so I could Rittenhous any rioters I came across on the way.

My vote for most STUPID statement in this thread yet!!

Kyle Rittenhouse was attacked, chased, knocked to the ground and beaten by rioters, some of them armed. From on the ground still under attack he finally shot in self defense, and certainly in fear for his life, only the most dangerous and determined of his attackers.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOpW9lEEsDo

To say say you would "Rittenhouse any rioters" is saying you would defend yourself if attacked. To call defending yourself stupid, is beyond stupid. It is almost beyond belief. But the nonsense some people on this thread are willing to believe is truly off the charts and so I guess at this point to be expected. 

As Orwell said, "To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle." Never more so than with some of the people on this thread.