Hell... so do Liberals... but that's for another post.  Conservatives confuse me because they seem to have a basic mistrust of government power and interference, and yet seem perfectly willing to grant almost complete immunity to the arm of government which enforces that power which they distrust... the police.  Recently, a certain state assemblyman actually thought it was convincing to tell me that I shouldn't be so hard on Jim Sensenbrenner because he's a "law and order" Republican.  This was after I was introduced to him as a libertarian.  I couldn't help but laugh.  Talk about not knowing your audience.

Sometimes I think people get so caught up in the news reports of shootings, muggings, and robberies around town, that they forget that most people in this world are good and decent law abiding citizens.  Likewise, I don't actually think that most police officers are bad people on power trips all the time.  I do think that there is a real danger that the police encounter so many criminals on a day to day basis, that they begin to see everyone they encounter as a criminal deserving of the same basic treatment.  Of course this danger isn't new.  The problem is that we give the police new tools and tactics to use which have dire consequences when they are used against innocent people.

Tasers seem like a great law enforcement tool when used against criminals instead of a gun.  Yet when they're used against unarmed people who were pulled over merely for speeding it is more troubling, since tasers can kill.  Does someone deserve the death penalty for arguing over a speeding ticket?  Likewise, SWAT teams seem on the surface to be a necessary tool to use against hardened criminals who are heavily armed and could kill police trying to apprehend them.  And yet, when they are used against non-violent drug offenders, and burst into the wrong home and kill elderly women, they take on a much darker side.  When we send in heavily armed SWAT teams with assault rifles to take custody of an innocent child, does that not give anyone else pause?