Writer and editor Matthew Yglesias, who has already revealed himself to be an authoritarian who rejects “my body, my choice” with regard to other people’s medical decisions, said something on Twitter that was so mind-bogglingly stupid that I opened it in a new tab. I checked at least twenty times, waiting for someone to point it out to him. Nobody did (at least not that I saw), presumably because the authoritarian illness that has caused so many to reject “my body, my choice” has infected their ability to think. So, I will point it out here.
He responded to a viral video of a police officer who is no longer going to be a police officer, due to vaccine mandates, with the comment in the picture (and linked above).
He cheers the “self purge” of the most insubordinate police officers.
Insubordinate.
Our country has experienced an astonishing and very expensive (in dollars, property damage, and most crucially, lives) revolution with regard to policing and police culture. George Floyd died in large part because the other three officers near Chauvin on that day were not insubordinate enough. Our country desperately needs police officers who are willing to take a principled stand even when there are consequences to doing so — even when it might cost them something major, including their jobs.
Or does Yglesias think police culture is fine? The problem is that we need police officers who are more determined to be subordinate, to follow orders, to refuse to think or analyze the nuances of a situation, but simply obey?
If this is what he thinks, how is his belief compatible with a belief that police culture disproportionately harms minorities?
Does he think that a survey of poor Black citizens in America would find them cheering on the idea of more rule-following and less taking a stand on principles, even with consequences, among police?
The characteristics he wants in police officers would have, broadly applied, absolutely terrible consequences for citizens, particularly the poor and racial minorities.
Until very recently, I was constantly in a situation where I was committing a crime by being poor. It was rare for me to have the money to simultaneously have up-to-date license plates, functioning headlights, taillights, and brake lights on my old car. I am very grateful for the five police officers who accepted my word when I told them, “Getting that fixed is on the list for next paycheck, unless you write me a ticket that will have to replace it on the list for next paycheck” and let me off with a warning. The three times that police officers did not accept my word and wrote me tickets? It took that much longer to fix what needed fixing, because money is finite and I used to have very little of it.
Police officers who subordinate their own judgment to following orders cause far more problems than they solve.
The sad thing? I think Yglesias knows this, as do most of his cheering section in that thread.
They’re just blinded by their lust to see everyone forced to comply. They want my body, along with the bodies of all other unvaccinated Americans, penetrated with the vaccine, consent be damned. This overriding desire has short-circuited all other concerns, including something as obvious as the stupidity in cheering on police forces losing officers who prize principles over following orders.
2021: when people on the left have rejected “my body, my choice” and desperately want to get rid of police officers who are willing to stand up and not follow orders.
Clown.
World.