Support The Police - Defund Them

When I met Linda 33 years ago, she was wearing a jean jacket festooned with buttons. One said, "Support The Police". Under that in small letters it continued, "Beat Yourself Up". 

It was love at first button reading.

A few years before our fateful meeting, I was beaten up by a gang of city police. Before they smashed my face into the hood of a police car, one of them told me to, "Shut up you f-ing hippy." 

I hadn't done anything wrong, except for being a teenager in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I had long hair.  But I wasn't wearing bell bottoms, and I didn't have flowers in my hair. And it was the 80s - by that time most ex-hippies were wearing suits and carrying briefcases.

No, the attack on this unlikely f-ing hippy was unprovoked. 

I can't say I was much of a supporter of the police before that incident, but I definitely wasn't after. Ever since then I have had a simple rule: avoid the police at all costs. That means that I have never phoned the police for any reason ever. 

When I was a teacher they were not welcome in my classroom. Strangely enough, no one ever complained about that.

I feel awful for anyone that has been brutalized by the authorities. The sanctioned terrorizing of everyone that isn't wealthy and powerful has gone on far too long. 

I also feel bad for those officers that are publicly dealing with deep seated problems so extreme that they are driven to random and extreme violence against the most peaceful and vulnerable among us. 

If they were children we would interpret their acting out as a loud plea for HELP.

Defunding the police would benefit all of society, the general public and the police. We would be safer, and they could get the help they so desperately need. 

Once deprogrammed and returned to mental health, they could find a more productive, less violent way to support themselves and their families.

Then we can move on to defunding the military, because those returning soldiers are demonstrably messed up, too, after murdering innocent people in the greed wars manufactured by their handlers.

The whole damn system needs a good, cleansing enema, and the state sanctioned perpetrators of violence should be the first to get flushed out.

Imagine what we could do with the combined budgets of the police and the military. Budgets that WE pay for through our taxes.

Now I find myself wondering if Linda still has that button. It could be with one of the other ones from her faded blue lapel that said, 

"Mentally confused and prone to wandering."

Yes, that appealed to me back in the day, and still does. I just want us to be able to wander in peace.

If I had a button maker I would make Linda a new, updated wearable lapel meme that said, 

"Support The Police: Defund Them".