{"id":2817,"date":"2012-03-25T19:39:07","date_gmt":"2012-03-25T09:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bikeme.tv\/?p=2817"},"modified":"2013-09-05T14:50:45","modified_gmt":"2013-09-05T04:50:45","slug":"how-typical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/how-typical\/","title":{"rendered":"HOW TYPICAL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some of you may have noticed the Letter of the Issue in Vol 61, Issue 19. I was going to respond to the policeman\u2019s irrational nonsense rant, but after discussions with Sam, I felt his typical ad hominem<\/em> attack on me, that failed to address any of the quite serious issues I\u2019ve raised in recent columns, merited a more detailed exploration. His letter perfectly illustrates the point I have been making about how the police consider us beneath contempt and respond to any condemnation of their behaviour by attacking the critic rather than the actual criticism.<\/p>\n

Let us begin by examining the first of several lies you tell in your letter, officer. It was the lie about how you normally \u201cflick past\u201d my columns. Now, I know you only told that fib to hurt my feelings, but given you were somehow compelled to respond to columns you apparently don\u2019t even read tells me you are quite breathtakingly dishonest.<\/p>\n

That you think my genuine offer for an officer to speak to me anonymously is in some way \u201cbrave\u201d is also most revealing. Why would you consider such an offer \u201cbrave\u201d? Am I exposing myself to some kind of danger?<\/p>\n

Then you go ahead and get all confused \u2013 which is not surprising, since I doubt you were hired for your vast intellect. Firstly, I am not a \u201cjourno\u201d. Secondly, journos are not normally required to have an \u201cimagination\u201d since all they do is report facts. Thirdly, I never asked for a \u201cformal response\u201d, did I? If I\u2019d wanted that, I\u2019d have approached your Media Unit.<\/p>\n

You go on to style the cops as some kind of \u201cumpire\u201d and declare that criticising them is an \u201ceasy mark\u201d. Well, given how much material for critique you\u2019ve recently provided, it is easy, but please do not imagine you\u2019re any sort of \u201cumpire\u201d and thus immune to criticism. You are the armed enforcers of the State\u2019s will. That is not an unbiased referee-like position, is it?<\/p>\n

You then reveal you\u2019re struck with how \u201cflimsy\u201d the image used to illustrate my column was, given my comment on how polite foreign cops are. \u201cFlimsy\u201d is not the word you\u2019re looking for, but perhaps I should have used a shot where you\u2019re Tasering some unarmed foreign student, or beating some hapless Palm Island Koori to death. Would that have been less \u201cflimsy\u201d?<\/p>\n

\"yamaha-fjr1300a-nsw-police-960x683-960x420\"

Note how they are motivated by honourable incentives<\/p><\/div>\n

So now we are halfway through your letter and apart from attacking me personally, you have yet to address a single issue I have raised. Happily, you do then attempt redemption by allowing there is the \u201codd wanker\u201d in the police, but then drop the ball by calling me a \u201ctool\u201d in the same sentence. And then, quite typically, you launch into the age-old cop-mantra about how the vast majority of cops \u201cserve their community with integrity and respect\u201d. Dead-set? Is this the same community your bosses state has lost all respect for you, spits on you, calls you names and won\u2019t help you find the bad guys? Or is this the community of cops to which you actually belong? I am unclear as to which \u201ccommunity\u201d you purport to \u201cserve\u201d. If it is the former, then one cannot help but wonder that if what you state is even a little true, why does that community hold so little respect for you? Can it truly be apropos of nothing? Really? We don\u2019t like you \u201cjust cos\u201d? Is that it?<\/p>\n

You then admit that the Highway Patrol cops are referred to as \u201ccockroaches\u201d by General Duties cops, but that the term is \u201cused light-heartedly\u201d. Damn shame you didn\u2019t go on to explain why they\u2019re called that in the first place, or would that negate the \u201clight-hearted\u201d aspect of it? You also proclaim they\u2019re motivated in their work by \u201chonourable incentives\u201d and begin to spin me some fantasy about being \u201cfirst\u201d on the scene and blocking off arteries, etc. Stop it. In all the years I have been riding and with all the ensuing road trauma I have witnessed, the cops have NEVER been first on the scene. The people who call the ambos are the first on the scene. Then it\u2019s the ambos. And then the cops turn up to direct traffic, automatically decide the cause of the accident is \u201cspeed\u201d and start issuing Neg Driving infringements. \u201cHonourable incentives\u201d? Sure.<\/p>\n

And then you make an appalling attempt to obfuscate matters by declaring it \u201cdeplorable\u201d that my column even went to print after David Rixon was shot in Tamworth. How dare you cheapen that officer\u2019s tragic death by linking these two utterly disparate things? What a dire and pathetic attempt to draw attention away from your own abject failure to address the issues I raised \u2013 issues the entire community faces when it is continuously confronted by a police force too damn arrogant to accept any criticism of its behaviour.<\/p>\n

Good work, officer. I\u2019m sure your colleagues are proud of your infantile attempts to defend the indefensible where you play the man and not the ball. You are exactly what is wrong with today\u2019s police and you damn yourself with your own words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of you may have noticed the Letter of the Issue in Vol 61, Issue 19. I was going to respond to the policeman\u2019s irrational nonsense rant, but after discussions with Sam, I felt his typical ad hominem attack on me, that failed to address any of the quite serious issues I\u2019ve raised in recent [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[220],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2817"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3215,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817\/revisions\/3215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}