First off, a warning. This article is a rant. However, it is a rant that I believe needs to be heard. So, if you don’t like rants you can can be excused. For the rest of you, I’m going to rant about two different subjects, but then I’ll tie them together at the end.
Cop vs Cop?
A couple days ago I came across a site where police officers ranted and complained about other police officers writing them tickets. Now, as many of you know I am a former police officer (and do plan to return to that line of work in the future) so I’m always looking for new LEO websites. But after about ten minutes on this particular site I felt sick to my stomach.
In some of the submissions I read while there officers were complaining because other officers had the audacity to write them a ticket. One guy even admitted to having his “cruise set at 77-79 in a 65″ which means he was at least 12 mph over the limit. He states that he was “clocked by airspeed doing 84.9 miles per hour.” But he’s still pissed because he got a ticket and is asking all other officers to now return the favor to everyone who works in the same troop as the officer that wrote the ticket.
In another submission an officer is complaining about another officer in his department! He calls this other officer out by name and says that he was wrong to arrest a police officer’s wife for driving on suspended DL. Then he says this officer was wrong to ticket another officer who, while off duty, pooped a wheelie on his motorcycle and wrecked. And, in addition to those two incidents, this officer is known to have written other officers tickets when their tags (vehicle license/registration) expire.
As you will notice I’ve not given the name or URL of this website. That’s because, in my opinion, it casts LEOs in a bad light. They ask on the site, where’s the professional courtesy? To those who are writing in these complains, where is your professional courtesy? It’s extremely rude to go speeding through another officer’s jurisdiction and you know it. It’s cops like this that give the rest a bad name. You think you’re above the law, that just because you have a badge on you shouldn’t have to follow the law. WRONG! Because you are a trained law enforcement professional you should be held to a higher standard.
And before anyone asks, yes I did regularly give breaks to the family and friends of other officers. And there has been a time or three when I was cut some slack as well. But on the occasions that I was given a break I appreciated it because I knew that I was in the wrong. The times when I wasn’t given a break I was still polite to the officer because I understood that I was wrong and that I had gotten what I deserved. I guess what I’m saying here is, don’t go online fussing because you got caught doing something you shouldn’t have been doing in the first place. You were wrong, admit it and get over it. As an officer, you should know that the person writing that ticket has a hard enough job, s/he doesn’t need you throwing a temper tantrum, too.
On to the next topic…
In the most recent issue of Forbes there’s an article about illegal immigrants and the companies that hire them (Who’s Gonna Do the Work?). In this article Robert and Judith Ahlers admit that they suspect some of their employees are illegal immigrants and then argue that if they were to obey the law and not hire such employees that they would be be starving for workers. In a letter written to their local newspaper Judith Ahlers says
“Every contractor in our state knows that the construction industry has been built on the backs of Mexican workers, legal and illegal. We need the Mexican labor force to keep our businesses going. It is the same for many other industries–agriculture, hospitality and landscaping, to name a few,”
So, let me get this straight. According to the Ahlers, without the underpaid, illegal labor force they can’t build buildings? That’s odd. There’s buildings in every nation on this planet and I’m pretty sure there aren’t Mexican laborers doing the majority of the work in all of them… just here in the USA.
Laura Reiff, cochair of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, whose members depend on low-skilled labor is quoted as saying
“One of our employers got 25,000 no-match letters last year. You can’t lose 25,000 workers and continue to run your show.”
And to Ms. Reiff and her clients I say, if you had never broke the law and hired illegal immigrants in the first place then you wouldn’t be facing a problem now. Why should we feel sympathy for you because you fixing to get busted for breaking the law?
The article does give one example of someone who’s trying to do it right.
Road contractor Mark Gould of Glenwood Springs raised his wage from $14 an hour to $16 after half his new hires for unskilled jobs failed the E-Verify check. He got 90% of the workers he needed and passed the higher cost on to local governments.
Those two sentences point out the problem and the solution. The problem is all these companies don’t want to hire American laborers because then they would have to pay a decent wage so instead they whine about everything and act like they’re victims. The answer is as simple as it sounds, offer people a competitive wage and pass the cost along to your customers. That’s how business works. If your expenses go up, your prices go up.
To all those out there that are whining and complaining about the crackdown on businesses hiring illegal immigrents I say tough luck. I have no sympathy for you. You’re getting what you deserve. For years you’ve been using cheap labor which has allowed you to undercut honest American businesses.
All together now…
It seems to me that both of these situations I ranted about show the same basic thought process. The individuals involved feel, for some reason or other, that they should be exempt from the law. Evidently they feel that they’re special and that the rules don’t apply to them. They lack a strong moral foundation which, were they to have one, allow them to at least admit they were breaking the law. Instead they all seem oblivious to that fact. They seem to think life is like Burger King and they can have it their way.
What do you think about these situations and my opinions of them? Let me hear from you. How far off base am I?
In our accountability group class yesterday at church our discussion started out about tomorrow being the 6th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. As the topic shifted and new subjects were brought up I noticed that everyone in the group, myself included, seems to have their own opinion on what a Christian’s role in society is these days. Some seem to to feel that a Christian should pray for our government as commanded in the Bible but spend the rest of our time trying to spread the Gospel of Christ to the exclusion of getting involved in any politics. Others felt that while evangelism was important we still have a civic responsibility to promote candidates that support our beliefs.
