Tough to be a cop

Except for the driver of that police van who tried to mow down protesters, I cannot see why many other policemen have been charged in connection with that recent violent dispersal at the US embassy in Manila. If every policeman who gets attacked by protesters only ends up getting sued, then maybe the government should stop sending policemen to leftist rallies at all.

Or maybe policemen should be given the right to refuse being detailed to rallies because we all know how these leftist rallies ultimately end. They always end in violence. That is the only purpose of these rallies-to provoke violence. A peaceful rally does not get into the headlines. We all know how the violence in that embassy rally started. And it did not come from the policemen.

Policemen at rallies are always seen by leftists as the enemy. A person in uniform is always viewed as a representative of the establishment. His presence at a rally on the other side of a barricade is always seen as a hindrance, an obstacle that must be swept aside. Just by sight alone, a man in uniform already instills resentment in the leftist who think he alone has the right to public space.

On the march, leftists rallyists are already hyped up, egged on and agitated by comrades with megaphones. Once the phalanx of uniformed personnel hovers into sight, the blood starts to boil. The sight of the enemy provokes hatred of authority. Mobs always despise authority, especially the one that stands in the way. All it takes is one firebrand to agitate for an attack and an attack instantly happens.

Go check the video tapes again. It is very clear who started running toward the line of policemen and smashed into the waiting shields. Before long it was a full-blown attack, with stones, paint, and other projectiles hurtling through the line. Eventually the policemen were overwhelmed. And why should they not be when they were crippled by a stupid and impractical dictum called maximum tolerance.

But what really is maximum tolerance? Who defines the line that determines when tolerance must continuously be held? Until when, in the heat of battle, can a policeman hold himself until he finds out his life is already in danger? When he is already dead? Maximum tolerance is a byproduct of the same hypocrisy that has crippled all governments worldwide by restricting appropriate actions for fear of offending someone.

Offending someone? When you are already under attack. Self-defense should apply everywhere. The life of a policeman does not get any less worthy of being defended if he is manning some barricade than if he is at home. Why is it that at home self-defense appears to be stronger and more compelling when actually they involve the same thing-the life of a human being.

If a man can defend his home against an intruder, why does it become so much harder if the man happens to be a policeman at the picket line? Does the value of human life depend on where the threat to hid life happens to be at. To me, all lives are the same and threats to life do not diminish by reason of circumstance. A piece of uniform does not bestow invincibility on a person. If attacked, he can die.

That is why I am aghast that it is the policemen who are being sued when all they did was do as they were told, which was to protect the US embassy from the outside. Besides, they did not start the trouble. They were attacked. People should not be punished for reacting the way any normal person would do. Other than the uniform, the policemen cannot be considered a superior force because they are unarmed except for sticks, which they cannot use because of maximum tolerance.