Friday 10 December 2010

Police take moral high ground by force, many flock to join them

Police impress their morality upon protesters
The police are reported to be in complete control of the moral high ground today after yesterday beating the shit out of anyone on the streets attempting to claim it for themselves. Politicians are reported to be flocking to the police-protected area of high ground, eager to point out that the protesters who were angry at the politicians have no moral high ground left.

The police attainment of the moral high ground was hard-fought, involving the detention of several thousand people without charge for some hours, and indiscriminate beatings of anyone who got in their way. Commentators have praised the police efforts but some have suggested that not enough blood was shed, and that policing should be firmer in the future in order to give the moral high ground greater security.

An anonymous protester, asked to comment on the police attainment of the moral high ground at first refused to comment, but when pressed said, "If you think about it, the police were protecting the politicians from their angry citizenry, and the police moral high ground - if we ignore breaches of fundamental rights and so on, which we seem to be - the police position, as I say, is is only actually a moral high ground if those they are defending are on the moral high ground themselves."

3 comments:

  1. Snort laughed. Could be the front page for the Mail without the irony.

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  2. The whole existence of the idea of nation states is predicated on force. One of the critical roles of the police and army exist is explicitly to protect the existence of said idea of state.

    There is no such thing as non-violent protest when one party has threatened to use (and used) overwhelming force to carry out its will.

    I think an argument has to be made for the practical reasons why the protesters should or should not have been able to get into parliament and prevent the vote. I'm not sure morality, or rights have much to do with it. Either that or the protesters need to get more, better, sticks of their own (impractical)/somehow prevent the police from having sticks(unlikely).

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