Walter Russell Mead takes note of a massive group of police corruption indictments in New York City:
Together with a string of other recent cases, the Bronx case suggests that a culture of corruption and entitlement has spread through the ranks of the thin blue line. Worse, it is clear that police union officials are the mainstay of the illegal ticket fixing enterprise, so much so that prosecutors considered indicting the union as a corrupt organization under racketeering laws. The police demonstration in the Bronx was apparently orchestrated by the union, which sent text messages to officers urging that they show up to support colleagues involved in ticket fixing. “It’s a courtesy, not a crime,†was the slogan.
This of course is what everybody thinks of special privileges. That’s what doctors and lawyers think when they cover up professional wrongdoings by their guild brethren. It’s what investment bankers think when they pass on inside information to favored clients — a courtesy not a crime. It’s what politicians think when they do favors in exchange for money and it’s what Don Corleone and Tony Soprano think when they do favors for their friends. The essence of privilege (private law, etymologically speaking) is exactly that: exemption from the laws that govern other people. The police union in New York believes that based on longtime practice it possesses certain unique rights to circumvent the written law.
Whenever I hear of cases like this I always think of the lithograph that used to hang in Victorian parlors of Russian peasants in a troika being drawn in panic through the snow, tossing a baby out of the troika to slow the pursuing wolves. Can anyone reasonably believe the sixteen indicted in the Bronx were the only crooked cops or that many, many others knew about what was going on. I recall a scandal in a company for which I once worked. Not only were the dozen or so offenders terminated, scores more were terminated simply for knowing about what was happening and failing to report it.
Whether it’s police corruption in New York or police torture in Chicago, do not be fooled. These are not perversions of the system. They are the system.
Replace every reference to “police” with “City Hall,” “Congress,” “General Assembly,” “the Alderermen” etc and you understand my political worldview.
Its the system. Its not about caring, or not caring. Its not about the need for a safety net. Its not about a role for regulation. Its controlling the system.
Its practically like the law of gravity. Give them an inch, turn your head for a second …….and “the system” will morph into a corrupt mess.
The empirical evidence is on my side. And those who hurl invective at me and declare an uncaring soul – a self absorbed ogre – for recognizing that fact and desiring to minimize its reach need to do some soul searching themselves. You advocate a miserable state of affairs.