I'm beginning to think cops as a subculture--and I do think they have to be thought of as a subculture for any of this behavior to make sense--simply have a vastly, vastly more in-group-out-group-focused mentality and, to be honest, moral code than we're used to seeing in the contemporary West. Anything done by an outsider to an insider is ten times worse than the other way around, regardless of the issue and even if the one is potential and the other actual. [/sage]
Yes, and the exact same mentality can be seen in France and Italy. Something about the police in itself is rotten at its core.
I mean, this isn't to
demonize cops--if anything I think this makes them more understandable, especially to those of us who come from extended families that operate more or less the same way--but it's obviously an incredibly inappropriate moral code for
public officials in what are meant to be democratic societies to have.
