Showing posts with label police. Show all posts
Showing posts with label police. Show all posts

Thursday 12 November 2020

You Have a Strange Attitude.





What were you doing -- I wanna know.
May I please have that?

I knew I was fucked -- The Pig had me on all counts.

See, you have two cases of beer, a basket of grapefruit, stack of T-shirts and towels, light bulbs --

You realise What You Did when you drive like that?

Yeah, I know. I'm Guilty. I understand that.
I knew it was a crime, and I did it anyway.
Shit, why argue? I'm a fucking criminal.
Look at me --

You have a Strange Attitude.

Maybe.

You know, I have a feeling you need to take a nap.
There's a rest area just up ahead.
I'd like you to go up there, pull over and get a few hours sleep.

That's not gonna help me.
I've been awake for too long, three for four nights, maybe.
Can't even remember.
I go to sleep now, I'm Dead for 20 hours.

What are you carrying two cases of soap for, son?

I wanna stay clean.

No...

Here's How it Is : -- What I put in My Book, as of noon, is that I apprehended you for driving too fast.

I ADVISED you to proceed to the next rest area -- STOP!

I advised you to proceed to the next rest area, your stated destination, right?

And take a long nap.

Do I make myself clear?

Well, how far is Baker?
I was sorta hoping to, I don't know, stop there for lunch.

It's not my jurisdiction. 
City Limits end 2.2 miles beyond the rest area.
Think you can make it that far?

I'll Try.
I've been wanting to go to Baker for a long time. 
Yeah. Heard a lot about it.

Excellent Seafood....
You know, I'm thinking, a guy with your kind of mind ought to try the land crab.

Excellent Seafood.

Land-crab.
All Right. Why Not?





The Intuitive Dog and Its Rational Tail

One of the greatest Truths in psychology is that The Mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict. To be Human is to feel pulled in different directions, and to marvel — sometimes in horror — at your inability to control your own actions. 

The Roman poet Ovid lived at a time when people thought diseases were caused by imbalances of bile, but he knew enough psychology to have one of his characters lament: “I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and Reason are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong.”


Ancient thinkers gave us many metaphors to understand this conflict, but few are more colorful than the one in Plato’s dialogue Timaeus. The narrator, Timaeus, explains how the gods created the universe, including us. Timaeus says that a creator god who was perfect and created only perfect things was filling his new universe with souls — and what could be more perfect in a soul than perfect rationality? So after making a large number of perfect, rational souls, the creator god decided to take a break, delegating the last bits of creation to some lesser deities, who did their best to design vessels for these souls.

The deities began by encasing the souls in that most perfect of shapes, the sphere, which explains why our heads are more or less round. But they quickly realized that these spherical heads would face difficulties and indignities as they rolled around the uneven surface of the Earth. So the gods created bodies to carry the heads, and they animated each body with a second soul — vastly inferior because it was neither rational nor immortal. This second soul contained

those dreadful but necessary disturbances: pleasure, first of all, evil’s most powerful lure; then pains, that make us run away from what is good; besides these, boldness also and fear, foolish counselors both; then also the spirit of anger hard to assuage, and expectation easily led astray. These they fused with unreasoning sense perception and all-venturing lust, and so, as was necessary, they constructed the mortal type of soul.

Pleasures, emotions, senses … all were necessary evils. To give the divine head a bit of distance from the seething body and its “foolish counsel,” the gods invented the neck.

Most creation myths situate a tribe or ancestor at the center of creation, so it seems odd to give the honor to a mental faculty—at least until you realize that this philosopher’s myth makes philosophers look pretty darn good. It justifies their perpetual employment as the high priests of reason, or as dispassionate philosopher-kings. It’s the ultimate rationalist fantasy—the passions are and ought only to be the servants of reason, to reverse Hume’s formulation. And just in case there was any doubt about Plato’s contempt for the passions, Timaeus adds that a man who masters his emotions will live a life of reason and justice, and will be reborn into a celestial heaven of eternal happiness
 
A man who is mastered by his passions, however, will be reincarnated as a woman.

Western philosophy has been worshipping reason and distrusting the passions for thousands of years.4 There’s a direct line running from Plato through Immanuel Kant to Lawrence Kohlberg. I’ll refer to this worshipful attitude throughout this book as the rationalist delusion. I call it a delusion because when a group of people make something sacred, the members of the cult lose the ability to think clearly about it. Morality binds and blinds. The true believers produce pious fantasies that don’t match reality, and at some point somebody comes along to knock the idol off its pedestal. That was Hume’s project, with his philosophically sacrilegious claim that reason was nothing but the servant of the passions.

Thomas Jefferson offered a more balanced model of the relationship between reason and emotion. In 1786, while serving as the American minister to France, Jefferson fell in love. Maria Cosway was a beautiful twenty-seven-year-old English artist who was introduced to Jefferson by a mutual friend. Jefferson and Cosway then spent the next few hours doing exactly what people should do to fall madly in love. They strolled around Paris on a perfect sunny day, two foreigners sharing each other’s aesthetic appreciations of a grand city. Jefferson sent messengers bearing lies to cancel his evening meetings so that he could extend the day into night. Cosway was married, although the marriage seems to have been an open marriage of convenience, and historians do not know how far the romance progressed in the weeks that followed.6 But Cosway’s husband soon insisted on taking his wife back to England, leaving Jefferson in pain.

To ease that pain, Jefferson wrote Cosway a love letter using a literary trick to cloak the impropriety of writing about love to a married woman. Jefferson wrote the letter as a dialogue between his head and his heart debating the wisdom of having pursued a “friendship” even while he knew it would have to end. Jefferson’s head is the Platonic ideal of reason, scolding the heart for having dragged them both into yet another fine mess. The heart asks the head for pity, but the head responds with a stern lecture:

Everything in this world is a matter of calculation. Advance then with caution, the balance in your hand. Put into one scale the pleasures which any object may offer; but put fairly into the other the pains which are to follow, & see which preponderates.


After taking round after round of abuse rather passively, the heart finally rises to defend itself, and to put the head in its proper place —which is to handle problems that don’t involve people:

When nature assigned us the same habitation, she gave us over it a divided empire. To you she allotted the field of science; to me that of morals. When the circle is to be squared, or the orbit of a comet to be traced; when the arch of greatest strength, or the solid of least resistance is to be investigated, take up the problem; it is yours; nature has given me no cognizance of it. In like manner, in denying to you the feelings of sympathy, of benevolence, of gratitude, of justice, of love, of friendship, she has excluded you from their control. To these she has adapted the mechanism of the heart. Morals were too essential to the happiness of man to be risked on the incertain combinations of the head. She laid their foundation therefore in sentiment, not in science.


So now we have three models of the mind. Plato said that reason ought to be the master, even if philosophers are the only ones who can reach a high level of mastery. Hume said that reason is and ought to be the servant of the passions. And Jefferson gives us a third option, in which reason and sentiment are (and ought to be) independent co-rulers, like the Emperors of Rome, who divided the empire into Eastern and Western halves. 
 
Who is right?

Saturday 10 October 2020

We are All Policemen : Cops are The Chosen People





HOBBES, on TV News :
The criminals don't accept consequences. They kill. 
“It's not their fault.” This is the consequence of what I do. 

JONESY :
Look who made it. 
How'd it go?
Mr. Consequence. 


HOBBES :
He died. 

LOU :
I told you. 
Get one more. 

HOBBES :
Nice to see you. 
How you doing, Gracie? 

LOU :
Don't tempt me with that. 

GRACE :
Sorry. 

LOU :
What's your poison? 
We got some Becks. We got some Guinness. We got some Bass.

HOBBES :
Budweiser's good for me. 

LOU :
Budweiser? 


HOBBES :
Yeah. 

GRACE :
Good. 



LOU :
No, we're going imported here. 
If you can't afford it, I'll buy. 


HOBBES :
I can afford it. 
Budweiser. 

LOU :
At least have a Bud-Ice or a Bud-Dry or something. 


HOBBES :
It is just a Bud, okay? 

GRACE :
You guys want anything? 


JONESY :
No. 

GRACE :
Here's your Bud. 



"He was one of the most notorious inmates...." 

GRACE :
Here you go. 


HOBBES :
Thank you, sweetheart. 

LOU :
You're an unusual cop, Hobbes. 

HOBBES :
Really? 

LOU :
I've been in this precinct about what, five, six months? 
Everybody says, "Hobbes don't take no cream." 
"Hobbes don't take no cream." 
Now is that True, or what? 

HOBBES :
No, I don't like cream. 

LOU :
That means "no"? 

HOBBES :
Yeah, it means "no." 

LOU :
Now, is that "No." as in "Never.", "No.", as in "Sometimes."... ...or "No." as in "I do, but I don't like to talk about it."? 


HOBBES :
"No." as in "Never." 


LOU :
This is a Big City, Hobbesy. 
We got a Tradition to uphold. 


JONESY :
Got something wrong with your ears? 
When The Man Says something, He Says it. 


LOU :
This is hypothetical : 
A Cop who's trying to make ends meet wants a little something on the side.... 

HOBBES :
I don't like cream... 
and I Don't Judge. 

LOU :
You don't judge? 
He's a fucking saint, huh? 
So you're telling me, that under NO circumstances, would a Holy Man like you ever, you know... 
...break The Law or do something.... 


HOBBES :
Look, Lou... I could jump across the table, snatch your heart out of your chest, squeeze the blood out, and stick it in your front pocket. 

LOU :
Oh, yeah? 

HOBBES :
If I lost Control. 
But if I did... I'd be no different than the people we bust. 




Now, as to your general question.... 
You take any cop on The Force, cream or no... ninety-nine percent of the time they're doing their job, aren't they? 

JONESY :
Ninety-nine five. 

HOBBES :
Point five. 
So he or she, cream or no... is doing more good out there every day... than any lawyer or a stockbroker or President of the United States can ever do in their lifetime. 
Cops are The Chosen People. 

JONESY :
Amen. 

LOU :
...guess I'm switching to Bud...!
Gracie, come here and get this foreign shit off my table and bring me three Buds.




 Harvey Dent: 
This is where they brought her, Gordon, after your men handed her over. This is where she died.
 

Gordon: 

I know, I was here... trying to save her. 

Harvey Dent: 

But you didn't

Gordon: 

I couldn't

Harvey Dent: 

Yes, you could've. If you'd listened to me. If you stood up against corruption, instead of doing your deal with The Devil. 

Gordon: 

I was trying to fight the Mob! 

Harvey Dent: 

You wouldn't dare try to justify yourself if you knew what I'd lost. 

Have you ever had to talk to the person you loved most... tell them it's gonna be all right, when you know it's not? 

Well, you're about to know what that feels like, Gordon. 

And then you can look me in the eye and tell me you're sorry. 

Gordon: 

You're not going to hurt my family. 

Harvey Dent: 

No. Just the person you love most. 

So... Is it your wife? 

Gordon: 

Put the gun down, Harvey. 

Gordon: 

Harvey, put down the gun. 

Gordon:

Please. Please, Harvey. Please. 

Oh, goddamn it. 

Will you stop pointing that gun at my family?! 

Barbara: 

No! 

Harvey Dent: 

We have a winner. 

Barbara: 

No, Jim, stop him! 

Gordon: 

Harvey. 

Barbara: 

Don't let him... 

Harvey! I'm sorry! For everything. Please don't hurt my son. 

Harvey Dent: 

You brought your cops? 

Gordon: 

All they know is there's a situation. 

They don't know who or what. 

They're just creating a perimeter. 


Harvey Dent: 

You think I wanna escape from this?! 

There is no escape from this! 

[Then another voice rips through the darkness] 

Batman: 

You don't wanna hurt the boy, Harvey. 

Harvey Dent: 

It's not about what I want, it's about what's fair! 

You thought we could be decent men in an indecent time. 

But you were wrong. 

The World is cruel. 

And the only morality in a Cruel World... 

(lifting his lucky coin) is chance. 

Unbiased. Unprejudiced. Fair. 

His son's got the same chance she had. 

Fifty-fifty. 

Batman: 

What happened to Rachel wasn't chance. 

We decided to act. We three. 

Harvey Dent: 

Then why was it me who was the only one who lost everything? 

Batman: (sad

It wasn't... 

Harvey Dent:

The Joker chose me

Batman: 

Because you were the best of us. 

He wanted to prove that even someone as good as you could fall. 

Harvey Dent: 

(a broken man) 

And he was right. 

Batman: 

You're the one pointing the gun, Harvey. 

So point it at the people responsible. 

Harvey Dent: 

Fair enough. You first. 

Harvey Dent: 

My turn. 

Gordon: 

Harvey, you're right. 

Rachel's death was my fault. 

Please don't punish the boy. 

Please, punish me. 

Harvey Dent: 

I'm about to. 

Tell your boy he's gonna be all right, Gordon. Lie... like I lied. 

Gordon: (whispering) 

It's going to be all right, son. 

Jimmy:  

Dad? Daddy, is he okay? 

Gordon: 

 Thank you. 

Batman: (looking down) 

You don't have to Thank me. 

Gordon: 

 Yes, I do. (also looking down) 

The Joker won. 

[Harvey Dent lies on the ground. Dead, his neck has been broken by the fall

Gordon:  

Harvey's prosecution, everything he fought for... undone. 

Whatever chance you gave us at fixing our city dies with Harvey's reputation. 

We bet it all on him. 

The Joker took the best of us and tore him down. 

People will lose hope. 

Batman:  

They won't. 

They must never know what he did. 

Gordon:  

Five dead? Two of them cops? 

You can't sweep that... 

Batman: 

 No. But the Joker cannot win. 

Gotham needs its true hero. 

Gordon:  

No. 

Batman: (panting) 

You either die a hero... or you live long enough… to see yourself become the villain. 

I can do those things, because I'm not a hero, not like Dent. 

I killed those people. 

That's what I can be. 

Gordon: 

 No, no, you can't. You're not! 

Batman: 

I'm whatever Gotham needs me to be. 

[He hands his friend a police radio

Batman: 

Call it in. 

[A montage is started: the commissioner gives a speech, an eulogy for Harvey Dent...

Gordon: 

A hero. Not the hero we deserved, but the hero we needed. 

Nothing less than a knight... shining. 

[...Gordon and his team, destroying the Bat Signal...] 

Gordon: 

They'll hunt you. 

Batman: 

You'll hunt me. 

You'll condemn me. 

Set the dogs on me. 

[...and Lucius Fox typing in his name on the machine he used to track the Joker, destroying it] 

Batman: 

 Because that's what needs to happen. Because sometimes... 

The Truth isn't good enough. Sometimes people deserve more. 

Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded. 

Jimmy:  

Batman? Batman! 

Why's he running, Dad? 

Gordon: 

 Because we have to chase him. 

[Back at the perimeter

Cop: 

Okay, we're going in! 

Go, go! Move! 

[Gordon's son stares to where Batman has disappeared

Jimmy:  

He didn't do anything wrong. 

Gordon:  

Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. 

So we'll hunt him... 

[Batman's theme kicks back in as he makes his way to the Batpod, driving it away, chased by dogs and cops

Gordon: 

 Because he can take it. Because he's not a hero. 

He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. 

[Batman drives his Batpod up to a slope. Street lights surround him

Gordon: 

A Dark Knight. 

[Cut to black. The credits roll]


Commissioner Gordon: 

Foley? Where’s Foley, dammit?!

[Gordon heads for the door]

Blake: 

You shouldn’t be out on the streets!

[Gordon turns up at Foley’s house and bangs on the door, Foley’s wife answers]

Foley’s Wife: 

Jim, He’s not here.

[Gordon looks down the hallway behind her]

Commissioner Gordon: 

You let your wife come to the door when the city’s under occupation?!

[Foley appears behind his wife]

Foley: 

Wait in the kitchen, honey.

[Foley’s wife turns and leaves them]

Commissioner Gordon: 

What did you do? 

Bury your uniform in the backyard?

Foley: 

You saw what they did to those Special Forces.

Commissioner Gordon: 

Have you forgotten all the years we were out on patrol when every gangbanger wanted to plant one as soon as our backs were turned?

Foley: 

That was different and you know it! 

These guys run The City, The Government’s done a deal with them.

Commissioner Gordon: 

Bane’s got their balls in a vice. 

That’s not a deal.

Foley: 

You move on Bane, the triggerman is gonna hit the button.

Commissioner Gordon: 

You think he’s given control of that bomb to one of ‘the people’? 

You think this is part of some Revolution? 

There’s only one man with his finger on the button, that’s Bane.

Foley: 

Look, we’ve all gotta keep our heads down till they can fix this. 

If you still had family here…

Commissioner Gordon: 

This only gets fixed from inside The City! 

Look, Peter, I’m not asking you to walk down Grand in your dress blues, but something has to be done.

Foley: 

I’m sorry Jim. I gotta…

Commissioner Gordon: 

Keep your head down? 

What good’s that gonna do tomorrow when that thing blows?

Foley: 

You don’t know that’s gonna happen.

[Foley closes the door in Gordon’s face]

Friday 12 June 2020

Loyalty Means Everything to The Clones














"It's awkward having a policeman around the house.
Friends drop in, a man with a badge answers the door, the temperature drops 20 degrees.

You throw a party and that badge gets in the way. 
All of a sudden there isn't a straight man in the crowd. 
Everybody's a comedian. 
"Don't drink too much," 
somebody says, 
"or the man with a badge'll run you in." 

Or 
"How's it going, Dick Tracy? 
How many jaywalkers did you pinch today?" 

And then there's always the one who wants to know how many apples you stole.

All at once you lost your first name. 
You're a cop, a flatfoot, a bull, a dick, John Law
You're the fuzz, the heat
you're poison, you're trouble, you're bad news

They call you everything, but never a policeman.

It's not much of a life, unless you d on't mind missing a Dodger game because the hotshot phone rings. 

Unless you like working Saturdays, Sundays, 
and holidays, at a job that doesn't pay overtime.

Oh, the pay's adequate-- if you count pennies you can put your kid through college, but you better plan on seeing Europe on your television set.

And then there's your first night on the beat. 
When you try to arrest a drunken prostitute in a Main St. bar and she rips your new uniform to shreds. 

You'll buy another one-- out of your own pocket.

And you're going to rub elbows with the elite-- pimps, addicts, thieves, bums, winos, girls who can't keep an address and men who don't care. 
Liars, cheats, con men--  the class of Skid Row.

And the heartbreak-- underfed kids, beaten kids, molested kids, lost kids, crying kids, homeless kids, hit-and-run kids, broken-arm kids, broken-leg kids, broken-head kids, sick kids, dying kids, dead kids. 

The old people nobody wants-- the reliefers, the pensioners, the ones who walk the street cold, and those who tried to keep warm and died in a $3 room with an unventilated gas heater. 

You'll walk your beat and try to pick up the pieces.

Do you have real adventure in your soul? 
You better have, because you're gonna do time in a prowl car. 
Oh, it's going to be a thrill a minute when you get an unknown-trouble call and hit a backyard at two in the morning, never knowing who you'll meet-- 
a kid with a knife, a pill-head with a gun, or two ex-cons with nothing to lose.

And you're going to have plenty of time to think. 
You'll draw duty in a lonely car, with nobody to talk to but your radio.

Four years in uniform and you'll have the ability, the experience and maybe the desire to be a detective. 
If you like to fly by the seat of your pants, this is where you belong. 
For every crime that's committed, you've got three million suspects to choose from. 
And most of the time, you'll have few facts and a lot of hunches. 
You'll run down leads that dead-end on you. 
You'll work all-night stakeouts that could last a week. 
You'll do leg work until you're sure you've talked to everybody in the state of California.

People who saw it happen - but really didn't. 
People who insist they did it - but really didn't. 
People who don't remember - those who try to forget. 
Those who tell The Truth - those who lie. 
You'll run the files until your eyes ache.

And paperwork? 
Oh, you'll fill out a report when you're right, you'll fill out a report when you're wrong, you'll fill one out when you're not sure, you'll fill one out listing your leads, you'll fill one out when you have no leads, you'll fill out a report on the reports you've made! 
You'll write enough words in your lifetime to stock a library.

You'll learn to live with doubt, anxiety, frustration. 
Court decisions that tend to hinder rather than help you. 
Dorado, Morse, Escobedo, Cahan. 
You'll learn to live with the District Attorney, testifying in court, defense attorneys, prosecuting attorneys, judges, juries, witnesses. 
And sometimes you're not going to be happy with the outcome.

But there's also this: there are over 5,000 men in this city, who know that being a policeman is an endless, glamourless, thankless job that's gotta be done.

I know it, too, and I'm damn glad to be one of them."