Taking a stand on police
Our elected officials need to declare where they stand on law enforcement and the criminal justice system as a whole, and they need to do it now.
After Elizabeth Warren recently called the criminal justice system “racist ... front to back,” and continued, “Our prison system is something that America should be ashamed of. What we do to other human beings is fundamentally wrong,” and declared that ICE should be abolished, it is clear that there is an anti-law enforcement strain prevalent in our politics.
It is appalling that the senior senator from Massachusetts would harbor such a negative opinion about those who protect our society, but at least she said it out in the open. Others should follow. Some have. As the Herald reported, Gov. Charlie Baker came to the defense of police officers who’ve been weathering the Warren-like criticism: “They absolutely feel like they’ve been on the wrong end of a lot of the rhetoric that’s gone on in this country for quite a while.”
Baker said he often hears complaints from police about a lack of public support.
“A lot of these folks they feel like, yeah, they come to work every day, they put their lives on the line, they do what they need to do to keep us safe and some people don’t appreciate it,” Baker said
U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, a Salem Democrat, sided with Warren: “There are aspects of the justice system that are clearly racist in their results. There are some real racial disparities in our justice system that need to be fixed.”
Calling the criminal justice system “racist” in any fashion — whether bluntly as Warren did or couched in perplexity like Moulton, serves to undermine the institutions of public safety and create more hazards and risks to those on the front lines. It is wildly irresponsible and cannot be justified as the unfortunate but necessary norm in today’s cynical politics. What might seem like benign pandering becomes far more pernicious in its divisive and inflammatory nature.
Our elected officials need to tell us how they really feel in order for us to know who they really are.