The Dissident Dad: One of the toughest questions my 4 year old son has asked me to date is, “Are the police good guys or bad guys?”
After depriving him of all TV for the first 2 years of his life, occasionally him and I will sit down on the couch and look for YouTube clips of my favorite super-hero movie scenes. I’ll never forget my son’s face and reaction while watching a scene from the ‘Dark Knight Rises’ where Batman, played by Christian Bale, is being chased on his motorcycle by literally hundreds of police cars. My son turned to me and said, “but I thought Batman was a good guy. Daddy, are the police good guys or bad guys?”
Since day one I have taught my children that the government is not our friend; it doesn’t mean government is our enemy, but I have raised them to not have a default trust in any government or its representatives, including the police.
Government is not an institution that deserves any admiration in my opinion, at least not in its current form here in the U.S. Throughout history, governments regularly kill, destroy, lie, and engage in thievery as a virtue.
Perhaps one day I will teach my children about the America that was supposed to be. A grand experiment of human freedom, but for now, all they need to know is that the government is largely a force of violence and theft, regularly stealing money from our family and then using those funds to preserve a bloated class of sociopaths domestically, and military aggression abroad.
Living in an upside down world, where the death of innocent civilians is collateral damage and spying on citizens is sold as a tool the government uses to protect our alleged freedoms, I find it a bit difficult to raise a child when everyone and everything is passionately supportive and accepting of that very system. From church to cartoons, the government is the good guy, the police are our protectors, and the 700 military bases around the world exist to defend our freedoms.
Ask anyone about whether or not stealing, killing, or non-defensive violence is wrong, and they will tell you that it is…except when those actions are being done by the government.
So here is how I answered my son’s question whether the police are good guys or bad guys.
The people, the men and women who are police, might be good or they might be bad. However, even a good person enforcing the law is still enforcing unjust laws, taking people to jail for smoking marijuana, giving the homeless tickets for loitering, and physically detaining and harming people who oppose tyranny from the government.
If the laws are unjust, if a man must face prison for not surrendering his income, or faces jail time for relieving chronic pain with a non-prescription drug, then what do we say about the people who enforce these laws? I am sorry, but I can’t excuse them, wrong is wrong, especially when the government does it.
Batman ended up being a good example for my son to visualize and understand at a young age that just as easily as the police can be the good guys, they can also be the bad guys, even when they are merely enforcing the law and doing their jobs.
- The Dissident Dad
Source
X art by WB7
Since day one I have taught my children that the government is not our friend; it doesn’t mean government is our enemy, but I have raised them to not have a default trust in any government or its representatives, including the police.
Government is not an institution that deserves any admiration in my opinion, at least not in its current form here in the U.S. Throughout history, governments regularly kill, destroy, lie, and engage in thievery as a virtue.
Perhaps one day I will teach my children about the America that was supposed to be. A grand experiment of human freedom, but for now, all they need to know is that the government is largely a force of violence and theft, regularly stealing money from our family and then using those funds to preserve a bloated class of sociopaths domestically, and military aggression abroad.
Living in an upside down world, where the death of innocent civilians is collateral damage and spying on citizens is sold as a tool the government uses to protect our alleged freedoms, I find it a bit difficult to raise a child when everyone and everything is passionately supportive and accepting of that very system. From church to cartoons, the government is the good guy, the police are our protectors, and the 700 military bases around the world exist to defend our freedoms.
Ask anyone about whether or not stealing, killing, or non-defensive violence is wrong, and they will tell you that it is…except when those actions are being done by the government.
So here is how I answered my son’s question whether the police are good guys or bad guys.
The people, the men and women who are police, might be good or they might be bad. However, even a good person enforcing the law is still enforcing unjust laws, taking people to jail for smoking marijuana, giving the homeless tickets for loitering, and physically detaining and harming people who oppose tyranny from the government.
If the laws are unjust, if a man must face prison for not surrendering his income, or faces jail time for relieving chronic pain with a non-prescription drug, then what do we say about the people who enforce these laws? I am sorry, but I can’t excuse them, wrong is wrong, especially when the government does it.
Batman ended up being a good example for my son to visualize and understand at a young age that just as easily as the police can be the good guys, they can also be the bad guys, even when they are merely enforcing the law and doing their jobs.
- The Dissident Dad
Source
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