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This article by Austin White was originally published on his blog, Stop the State:

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There are no good cops anymore. They’re all bad. Even this former New Orleans cop says 70% of his department should be fired or indicted.

Don’t email me about your best friend from high school who you swear is a good cop. He’s not a good cop. Neither is the cop who lives down the street who has the fun July 4th party every year. Your cop uncle isn’t a good cop either. They’re all bad cops. They might all be good people, great people, when you hang out with them on their days off, but being a good person outside the job does not translate into being a good cop.

If your cop friend has ever ticketed or arrested someone for a victimless crime he’s a bad cop and the poor souls he arrested or ticketed were so for committing acts that harmed nobody.

Imagine if a normal citizen started going around acting like a typical cop. Imagine a normal-looking guy in regular clothes handcuffing people, throwing them in the back of his vehicle, and then locking them up in his dungeon because he doesn’t approve of them consuming marijuana, carrying a handgun on their person for self-defense without government permission, or even fishing without a license. Imagine if this guy was demanding that people who don’t wear their seatbelts give him money. Imagine if this person was claiming the right to use violent force against anyone who didn’t comply and the right to kill anyone who physically fought back.

Regardless of whether or not he believed he was doing a good deed, such an individual would rightly be seen as crazed and criminal. But this is exactly what typical police do on a daily basis.

The only good cop is an ex-cop who left the force disgusted by the number of victimless crime laws he was asked to enforce.

“Well, we’ll see who how much you hate cops after my cop friend saves your life!”

See one of my previous articles challenging the claim that police provide any protection at all. Cops are too busy ruining young pot smokers’ lives and giving single mothers $200 tickets to worry about protecting me from bad guys. On top of that violent crime rates are at a four-decade low (in spite of the bad economy and in spite of a great deal of that violence being a result of the government’s drug war) and there’s evidence that an American is more likely to be killed by an American cop than a terrorist. I also own and carry firearms, have a security system, a loud dog, and no compassion for aggressors – so bring it on bad guys.

History will not look kindly on the modern American police. We have the highest incarceration rate in the world and there are daily police-brutality incidents, each one slightly more horrific than the last, being documented on YouTube so historians fifty years from now will be able to look back and study the Great Amerikan Police-State.

School children in other countries will watch footage of American police dressed up like Darth Vader kicking down families’ doors, pointing guns at the children, and killing the family dogs over minor marijuana possession the same way American school children learn about (or used to learn about) the frightening brutality of police in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.

When that time comes you won’t want to admit that you were related to or friends with American cops anymore than someone would want to admit that they were friends with or related to Nazis. If you’re related to one of the really bad cops you might even have to change your name and move far away.

Take steps now to prevent yourself from being put in that position and to reverse the trend towards tyranny. Shame your cop friends into getting real jobs and if you’re unsuccessful gradually cut them out of your life completely. We need potential police to know that becoming a cop could cost them friendships and their invitation to the family Christmas dinner. Police need to know that a rapidly growing percentage of the American population looks at them with disgust. Only then will wannabe thugs stop joining police forces. Only then will the idea of becoming a cop be so degraded that law makers will be forced to end the war on vices because there won’t be any people willing to put on the badge and enforce the vice laws anymore.

More from Austin:

How Much Protection Do Police Really Provide?

How to Assess Your Local Police-State