Sometimes I wonder why our law enforcement folks are so incredibly stupid. They don’t seem to realize that they’re actually supposed to uphold the laws, not circumvent them for their own needs. We saw it recently on video in South Florida when some cops concocted a lie to explain why a deputy ran into the back of a woman’s car. The problem is that they did all of this while recording it on the police car’s dashboard video camera. Can we trust people that stupid to carry guns and have authority over the rest of us?
Today were here about a story where a gang task force deputy in Polk county arrested a man (already in jail) for the lyrics of a rap song he posted on MySpace.
Let’s face it, the guy who came up with a song about killing cops is not someone I want in my neighborhood. I don’t doubt for a moment that he belongs in the prison where he sits. However, he belongs there for his actions, not his words.
That’s because we place a great importance and value on freedom of speech. That’s true even if the speech is hateful. We don’t protect this speech because it’s about killing cops. We protect speech because the right to dissent is critical to freedom. Protection of our rights is the crucial issue here, not the young man who rapped about killing cops, and not the cops who sought to silence him.
People risk their lives for the right to express themselves. We watch it on the evening news in Iran as protestors face beatings & bullets, but yet our Polk & Lake county deputies deprive an American citizen of his right to express himself. It’s a song of protest.
I’ll make no excuses for the rap song. Hell, I hate rap. I’m not a proponent of threatening to kill anyone, either. The boy is seriously messed up. However, the folks we hire to uphold our laws ought to have a slight notion of the U.S. Constitution.
It’s not like he’s the first person to rap about this subject, either. N.W.A. recorded “Fuck tha Police.” Ice-T recorded “Cop Killer.” Check out a search on Google for “anti-police songs” and you’ll get a list of them.
So why is this young man with a MySpace page being imprisoned for two years? He named names. He mentioned Lake County deputies by name. He mentioned Polk County Sheriff Williams by name. Hell, he even named a dead dog. That’s cause enough to lock his ass up in Polk County.
Worst of all, they talked him into it. There was no trial. They got the guy, sitting in prison, to plead No Contest and they trumped him up in front of a judge with equal disrespect for the First Amendment. Maybe the judge went along because the song lyrics also mentioned he’s “got a grudge with a judge.”
Do the cops have a right to be afraid of this man? Maybe so. He has violent thoughts, but I’m glad to see that he chose a song for an outlet instead of killing a cop. On the other hand, the cops have guns, body armor, tasers, radios to call more cops, and a host of more powerful options that a 20 year-old man sitting in jail can’t conceive.
I must be getting old, because I’m really sick of heavily armed cops defiling essential rights of citizens. If you’re that afraid, quit and get another job. It’s hard to respect officers who place themselves above the law.
A Native Guide to Life in Central Florida