Rent-A-Cop

The Sun-Times, today, ran a headline saying, "Rent-A-Cops to the Rescue." The headline goes on to say that a couple of aldermen on the Far South Side "want to give private security guards the power to write tickets".

Alderman Anthony Beale (9th) said, "It gives the community more control over illegal activity. Police are there to serve and protect. If we can give them some extra help to serve and protect, that's a win-win for everybody."

Everybody that's on the receiving end of the city payroll, that is.

Selling off yet another part of the city.

Just another example of fascism. We already see it at the airport (it's only a matter of time before O'hare gets sold off too), the benchmark standard for the illusion of security, overseen by TSA rent-a-cops. They're running the metal detectors, x-ray machines, eyeball scans, etc.

Eyeball scans? You gotta be kidding me. Who the hell would do that?

TSA workers are mainly minimum wage workers with little education and often-times shaky backgrounds. Not exactly an attractive combination.

Hmmm. Let's see. Overworked, underpaid, un-motivated. Yep, I feel safe. It already pisses me off that they feel that they have the right to treat you like a chump using "national (in)security" as their justification. God forbid that you should SAY anything during your hassles, lest you want the ol' "up your nose with a rubber hose."

I'm assuming that the rent-a-cops from the private security firm that would get this contract are not trained like cops. I'm guessing that their background checks will be minimal, and so will their pay. They will, however, be given a dose of power that could be detrimental and set a very bad precedent.

(Isn't the city broke, by the way? Who pays for it. Oh, yeah, right. The taxpayer. My mistake. My government can't give me health care, but they'll supply mall cops. Yippee.)

This amounts to nothing more than vigilante justice; gang mentality; Lord of the Flies and all that. Jimi Hendrix said that the only way to know peace is when "the power of love overcomes the love of power."

This is not the direction for our society to be moving in.

So it goes...