How to Set the Standard for Stamina

 

How to Set the Standard for Stamina

An Amazing Feat of Endurance

Kenny the Rooster

 

George had about 500 hens, but no rooster, and he desperately needed chicks to replenish his flock and keep egg production maximized. He went down the road to the next farmer, explained his problem, and asked if he had any roosters that he would sell.

His neighbour thought about it for a while and then said

“George, you’ve got a real problem there. Normally you’d have to get about ten roosters to service that many hens and even then it’s going to take some time. You need a quick fix but I've got this great rooster, named Kenny, he'll service every chicken you got, no problem. He’s done his job here and I can spare him, but he doesn’t come cheap."

Kenny the rooster cost $3,000!!! It’s a lot of money, but the George decided he'd be worth it, so he bought Kenny.

The farmer took Kenny home and sat him down in the barnyard and gave the rooster a pep talk. "I want you to pace yourself now, Kenny. You've got a lot of chickens to service here, and you cost me a lot of money. I need you to do a good job. Take your time and have some fun," the farmer said, with a chuckle.

Kenny seemed to understand, The farmer pointed toward the hen house and Kenny took off like a shot.

WHAM! Kenny nails every hen in the hen house - three or four times, and the farmer is really shocked but actually quite pleased with his purchase.

A little while later, the farmer hears a commotion in the duck pen. Sure enough, Kenny is in there and WHAM! He nails them all!!


Shortly after that the farmer sees Kenny after a flock of geese down by the lake. Once again - WHAM! He gets all the geese.

At sunset George sees Kenny out in the fields hunting quail and pheasants and he is worried that his expensive rooster won't even last 24 hours.

Sure enough, George goes to bed and woke up the next morning to find Kenny on his back out in the middle of the yard, mouth open, tongue hanging out and both feet sticking straight up in the air.

Buzzards had already begun circling overhead.

George, saddened by the loss of such a colourful and expensive animal, shook his head and said, "Oh, Kenny, I told you to pace yourself. I tried to get you to slow down, now look what you've done to yourself."

Kenny opened one eye, nodded toward the buzzards circling in the sky and whispered,

"Go away!!! .. They’re getting closer."

What the Next Election Will Really Be About

What the Next Election Will Really Be About

A Terrified Middle Class

What follows is a simple reprint of a column by Colby Cosh

In the May 12 issue of

MACLEANS

And just like that the scene was set for the 2015 federal election. An overstatement, perhaps, but what a week: The RCMP ended its investigation of Nigel Wright, Elections Canada dropped the “robocalls” inquisition, the government retreated on changes to the Fair Elections Act, and the Supreme Court delineated conditions for alterations to the Senate. Meanwhile, amid all this slate-cleaning, the New York Times handed the Conservatives a windfall, announcing that the median after-tax income in Canada had surpassed that of the U.S.

The Supreme Court’s decision in the Senate reference is a turning point. For 30 years and change, our renovated judicial branch, armed with dreadful power to dispose of and revise laws, has been able to play the role of defender of minorities and enforcer of sacred rights. It sees itself probably as having a similsr function vis-à-vis the Senate question: protecting the interests of small provinces thsat entered Confederation on certain terms.

In practice the Court has made federally led reform or abolition of the Senate impossible for generations. And though the decision was unanimous, the Courts reasoning is less than overpowering. Like those who have opposed the Prime Minister’s approach to reform, the justices complained that term limits would improperly “ imply a finite time in office” for senators- while insisting, without much explanation that the age limit imposed in 1965 poses no similar problem. (Throwing the old people out of an assembly whose name means “house of old people”? A trivial detail.)

The Court also found that it is unconstitutional for the Prime Minister to use the results of a consultative election to choose suitable candidates. He can use an Ouija board: that’s not a change to the “method of electing senators.” Chicken entrails? No problem. Use a professional polling firm? Fine. Only “elections” as such are deprecated.

The full implications of the ruling are unclear. The court was asked to rule on federal legislation providing for Senate elections. Such elections have been held in Alberta, and winners appointed, with no federal framework. Were these votes unconstitutional? Would future ones be? If not, are elected senators already in the chamber illegitimate? What about Mike Shaikh, the “senator-in-waiting” next in line for a seat? Is he the only qualified person alive who cannot be appointed?

Almost everybody will find something to dislike in this decision and its general effect is to fortify the odious present form of the Senate. There is no further avenue of appeal. The rule of stare decisis binds future Supreme Courts in a manner in which Parliament can never bind Parliaments. These truths must now sink in with Canadians- including the NDP’s Senate abolitionists- as never before. It does not help that the Senate ruling follows close on the Justice Marc Nadon business, in which a strong lone dissent rather shamed the majority of the court. - as never before. It does not help that the Senate ruling follows close on the Justice Marc Nadon business, in which a strong lone dissent rather shamed the majority of the court. Haps a long honeymoon has ended.

The other story with long-term implications is the New York Times middle-class splash, echoed around the world. For Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, who have spent a year hammering the theme of middle-class anxiety, this must be unpleasant. The immediate countermove has been to say “Sure, we’re doin well compared to the U.S.: It’s in the toilet.” (Sorry President Obama!)

To this approach one can only say “Lots of luck.” Every adult Canadian has spent his entire life comparing his station to that of analogous Americans. And anyway the Times’ charts have the median Canadians beating the median German, Dutchman, Swede, Briton, and Finn.

The Times did not mean to make mincemeat out of Canadian Liberal strategy, but I predict the Grits will respond by adopting Thomas Piketty as their totem. Piketty is a French economist whose new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, is the intellectual blockbuster of the year. He believes he has discovered an iron law, whereby the rate of return on capital must exceed overall economic growth, fostering a return to the 19^th Century style social classes and quantitative inequality. Piketty advocates a global wealth tax in order to humble rising capital in the way two world wars did- with fewer exploitations, one hopes.

Piketty as his book title suggests, means to be the new Karl Marx. As an empirical analyst of inequality, Piketty has been universally celebrated. Marx was an outstanding data-digger too. Unfortunately, his entry into the racket of flogging historical laws may have been the single most catastrophic decision ever made by an individual. But Piketty’s updated line- that the middle class people everywhere are right to be anxious about scary, posh rentiers in monocles and top  hats- offers the Liberals an obvious escape from a tricky corner. Remember where you heard it first.

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I think I read this as

Tax the 1%.

Don’t you?

Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy

Rational Suicide- Part 2

"Rational Suicide(2)"

Retirement

It’s Something to Consider Seriously!

The Times They Are a’ Changing!

Part 2 of ?

The Last Six Stages to Death

Ageing= Love, independence, Pain, Dignity, DNR, Faith

The Aging Process

At the conclusion of Part 1 I left you considering the future that you are now entering and asked you to think about money so let’s start there.

If you are over or nearing the age of 60 if you haven’t already planned on applying for your early Canada Pension Plan do so. Simple monetary fact: you pay a penalty but it is money to be saved but if you manage to last to the target age of 70 you wind up money ahead of the game. Check it out: when I did it took one month of unemployment to qualify for the early pension. That can be obtained with an unpaid leave of employment that most employers will be happy to grant.

The other thing I left you with was a comment about your social circle starting to shrink and that really accelerates on your retirement. If you are the man of the house be prepared to lose most if not all your friends at work. Simple fact is you aren’t there to witness the daily business transactions and relationships and that is what you talk about with your home boys.. You’re out of the loop and contacts are lost. The other thing you must be aware of is that your daily work location is going to move into your wife’s work location and conflict of schedules is almost inevitable. On the assumption that you do have a wife:

Some tips to take seriously

Tip #1:

The first thing to do is sit down and as best you can, estimate what your combined income will be when you retire. You calculate what your fixed income is going to be from all pension plans and hopefully a cash flow from your investments. When you are done take a good hard look at your monthly income because that is what you must survive on until you reach 90. Hopefully your investments are large enough to permit cash withdrawals on an occasional basis because sooner or later you are going to need all you can get to cover your care.

Tip #2:

If it is at all feasible get yourself a debit and credit card and switch to a plastic economy. If you pay on time it costs nothing and the statements provide a complete track of your spending. You can actually create a budget hopefully with a surplus amount to save or handle crises when they arrive. Unfortunately you can count on nasty surprises and unexpected expense. Shit happens!

Tip #3:

Don’t expect your sex drive or sex life to last forever. If you are lucky menopause didn’t cancel your wife’s desire out and she still wants some lovy-dovy.

Even if your partner in bed is willing, sooner or later almost every man will watch Big Red turn into Pinky Dinky and point at the ground. Use it or lose it holds true! That is one of the more nasty surprises you will encounter.

Tip #4:

Expect your memory to start screwing up and you start mistrusting your self about little details. Your car keys and wallet are always where they are supposed to be but when you leave the house you have sudden panic attacks and slap your pockets silly to find and reassure yourself you have keys and cash. You spend half an hour looking for your glasses and discover you’ve got them on, names get hard to remember and if things are not important we’ll just forget them and not bother remembering details.

I’m going to leave you here until the next post to just think about the sequence of events and the repercussions you can foresee from just leaving work, the reduction in income and coming home to roost under one roof. Talk it over with your partner because she’s going to share the same future with you. If you both can foresee problems in your future relationship, adjustments can be made to avoid conflict and keep caring for each other. That is of primary importance.

Having reached awareness of those problems in the first five years, my next post will deal with the physical deteriorations that seem to start at age seventy of even sooner and how to approach and handle them.

Until then

To be continued as

Rational Suicide (3)

Slowly Falling Apart

As soon as I get it written.

Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy

"Rational Suicide"

"Rational Suicide"

It’s Something to Consider Seriously!

The Times They Are a’ Changing!

Part 1 of ?

The Last Six Stages to Death

Ageing= Love, independence, Pain, Dignity, DNR, Faith

May 05, 2014: CBC News published an article on a controversial topic

“John Alan Lee pushes limits of Canada's assisted suicide debate”

Why Controversial?

Because it exceeds the limits of Euthanasia advocacy!

How so?

Lee’s death was not precipitated by a terminal illness or extreme suffering. Instead, it stemmed from Lee’s belief that he’d simply had "enough." He made a well thought out rational decision.
"It’s the Goldilocks problem," Lee said. "Not too soon, but if you wait too long and you end up in care, they won’t let you make that choice anymore. If I ended up in hospital or even a nursing care home, I would be prevented from making that choice and I know people for whom that happened. And they are cautionary tales for me."

They are cautionary tales for all of us and if you are reading this pay very close attention because it is talking about a future that everyone is going to share and you’re included.

Why are you included?

Because you will probably exceed a “natural” life span”

                            

                             What the hell is that?

70!

I base that statement on one made over two thousand years ago. It is based on historical observation of life until then by some very astute men who define the course of a natural life span as follows:

Psalm 90:10 :-: King James Version (KJV)

¹⁰ The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”
This is not a religious statement but a statement of fact that held true for all of history until the turn of the last century when some major developments began to change both society and the physical world.

1.     The world population has reached the point of exhausting the resources necessary for its sustainability as Malthus predicted in the1840’s and is still ignored.

2.    This has been exacerbated by the blooming of Medical Science and its incorporation that began with urbanization at the turn of the last century. That changed the profession into a commercialized industry whose major profits are from life extension.

3.    Pollution from human activity reached a point where global Warming and climate change now threaten the future of the environment.

4.    The monetary system on which the world’s population depends to pay for their daily survival has been co-opted by the Bilderberg Billionaires to the point where 1% of the population controls 99% of the money and a dollar is worth less every year

So Where Does That Leave Us?

Shit Outta Luck

at the mercy of a future we can all see coming but try to ignore.

In the course of the next 50 years the combined negative effects of the four listed Global challenges are going to come to fruition and it’s not going to be pretty. You can foresee shortages in almost near everything needed for survival in a time of impending environmental disasters of ever increasing severity. Sometime and place in that soup of disasters we are all going to die
With the arrival of the Baby Boomer Generation to near retirement age the competition for resources is going to explode and there is no way to predict how or when you will die but one thing is certain is that you are going to keep getting older and you are going to die. The unfortunate fact is that if you last long enough you wind up in total isolation and alone in the care of strangers. Not a nice place to be.
Unfortunately if you are 60 you are not going to put up with the crap ahead for just the next ten years until you reach your natural life span. Thanks to doctors and religion you can look ahead to an additional 20 years in the disaster zone. What I want to convey to all of you is the things that are unpleasant but almost inevitable that can happen on you on your way through the Six Stages To Death.

For simplicity in presentation following is what the aging process can and will probably present to you in the next thirty years of your life- If you last that long. You simply don’t know what or when it will hit you, but you will begin to lose:

1.    Love

2.    independence

3.    Pain

4.    Dignity

5.    DNR

6.    Faith

If you’ve reached the age of sixty you already have noticed your social circle begin to shrink. People start dying: the tempo increases through the first decade or so then it fizzles when the supply starts to dry up. Live long enough, it will and loneliness sucks.
Retirement is a big adjustment and you better get ready because you need a bankroll and if you don’t have a big one, the going can get tough. .
I am going to end here because I am running too long and I want to give anyone who has managed to follow me this far time to think about what is coming ahead. I am following this with a second post devoted to what can be involved in simply going through the process of aging.
It will walk you through what you will encounter with problems mental, physical, societal and fiscal as you continue to wake up each morning and face the coming day!
To be continued as fast as I can write it
Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy

WHY THE WORLD IS DYING

GOD JUST WASHED HIS HANDS

THE BIBLE HAD IT WRONG

Another Interpretation of Genesis

By TheSmeeGoanGuy

God and Creation

All we know about Creation and God is from the memory of Adam: the first guy to rub shoulders with him. God told Adam that he had created the world as a self sustaining paradise. Adam was taught to believe God was infallible, but he had it all wrong.

God knew from previous experience that one or twice, in another eternity even HE had made a couple of very minor errors but that was not going to happen this time!

God checked out the Paradise he had created and it was Perfect!

But?

He knew it was a googol to one shot but if it ever needed tending? On the spur of the moment he created Adam and Eve and the ability to have offspring. These would be the custodians and caretakers for his paradise and nothing could ever go wrong because they and their children would be there to repair it if it did!

His project completed, he had a couple of words of parting advice with Adam and Eve and told them not to screw up because

“VENGEANCE IS MINE”.

He left in a flash of Lightning with Thunder for emphasis.

He’d be back in a million years or so to check up on things.

Unfortunately in his snap creation he made three minor errors.

1.    He made them with Brains

2.    He made them with Greed

3.    He made them like Fucking

Big Mistake!

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I think God came back about 50 years ago!

HE WAS NOT PLEASED

He sat down on the moon and took a good hard look at Earth

His Perfect Paradise!

He could almost see through the haze!

He could hear the screams of victims!

He could almost smell the pollution!

He wanted VENGEANCE

He sat there a long time considering what options he had.

There really wasn’t much more punishment to inflict.

They were already heading for a Hell they created!

He decided to do nothing!

Just let them learn

Whatsoever a man soweth,

that shall he also reap.

At that point I think he just took a walk.

The Dangers of Marijuana Challenged

Rebutting Rona’s Rotten Ramblings

Another Voice Speaks Out

I am please to present the first of what I hope will be many guest contributions to this Blog. On April 30, 2014 Rona Ambrose, Minister of Health announced a new government program to create more opposition to Cannabis use. As justification she presented a fabrication of its dangers to our youth. Fortunately for us Wayne Phillips took the time to write the following revelation of the distortions in her announcement which can be seen at the link referenced below.

Re: Health Canada Highlights Dangers of Marijuana Use for Youth,

OTTAWA, April 30, 2014/CNW

http://news.gc.ca/web/articleen.do?mthd=index&crtr.page=1&nid=844329

The Wicked Bitch of the East

The Dangers of Marijuana Challenged

Wayne P. Phillips, May 4, 2014

Health Minister Rona Ambrose hosted a roundtable with representatives of the healthcare community and research experts today to discuss the scientific evidence of the risks associated with the use of marijuana by youth, especially over the long term. This meeting, of course, builds on a presentation where Minister Ambrose announced funding for A Health Promotion and Drug Prevention Strategy for Canada's Youth - a national project led by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse (CCSA). How else would Health Minister Ambrose find support for her Ministry's convoluted fabrications posing as “scientific” evidence unless there were funding involved. Minister Ambrose's roundtable speaks to the (lack of) credulity of the current government; moreover, it flies in the face of history.

The 1923 House of Commons Debates, 14th of March, 1923, pages 1136 – 2124 under the title, "Narcotic Drugs Act Amendment Bill the "Hon. H.S. Béland1 (Minister of Health) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 72 to amend the Narcotic Drugs Act. He said, "The purpose of this bill is principally to consolidate previous legislation for the suppression of the traffic in narcotic drugs. . . ." Not only did the inclusion entail an act of tergiversation - that is, falsification by means of vague or ambiguous language – on the part of the Minister of

Health, Dr. H.S. Béland, the inclusion allowed for the transition of an

unspecified commodity. “There is a new drug in the schedule.” was all that was said. Moreover, the purpose of the bill, the consolidation, in effect was tantamount (in effect) to the manufacturing of a social problem. There was no traffic of cannabis in 1923. Panic and Indifference by Giffen, Lambert and Endicott also describe how “cannabis indica or hasheesh” was added by some unknown hand later.

Recently CBC News published an article by Daniel Schwartz entitled “Marijuana was criminalized in 1923, but why?” What the article failed to mention however that what was being consolidated, cannabis indica (Indian hemp), was a Proprietary or Patented Medicines Act commodity at the time of the transition in 1923. So consequently by not specifying what was being transitioned in 1923, the whole medicinal aspects of cannabis was, in effect, denied by the very

department that is still denying it today. The agenda is a Health Canada legacy.

Minister of Health, Rona Ambrose, states, “As Health Minister, I am standing side by side with medical professionals and researchers with a clear message -- There are serious health risks for youth associated with marijuana. It is not safe. It should not be promoted or endorsed. Together, with our partners we will work to make sure youth and parents have the right information about the risks associated with smoking and using marijuana.”

Fair enough. It should not be promoted or endorsed. How then is the inclusion of cannabis in the CDSA not, in and of itself, an endorsement? And, if Minister of Health, Ambrose, is so concerned with “health risks for youth associated with marijuana”, why then would the Minister want to see cannabis/marijuana legislated in a manner that insures the perpetuation of its availability to the very youth she claims to be concerned about? How can the Minister deem to have the right information about any supposed risks associated

with marijuana when the Minister's agenda of perpetuating a social problem is the only primary concern for either the Minister or Health Canada.

The actions, words and motives of Health Minister Ambrose are as questionable today in 2014 as Health Minister H.S. Béland's were in 1923. He sought to consolidate what she (in this instance) seeks to perpetuate. In order to do that Minister Ambrose must continue to rail in the face of both history and court rulings that in both instances recognize cannabis as medicine. As such, funding health promotion and drug prevention become red herrings to distract both media and the general public from the fact that the inclusion of cannabis

in the CDSA is precisely that which perpetuates the problem thereby increasing the probability of youth becoming vulnerable. It doesn't matter how much funding is provided because the underlying agenda is perpetuating usage not safeguarding youth.

Health Canada's new Medical Marijuana Program Regulations (MMPR) and Health Minister Ambrose's position has prompted further concerns for Canadians as the Conservative government sought to unceremoniously transition those holding Authorizations To Possess (cannabis) from the Medical Marijuana Access Regulations (MMAR) to the new program. Given the fact that the Medical Marijuana Access Regulations (MMAR) is a court ordered program that continues to be challenged as unconstitutional, for the Government to think that a new program can be just enacted as if it were business as usual more than demonstrates the degree of dysfunction this type of irrationality, for which Health Minister H.S. Béland should ultimately be held to accounts for (posthumously), is capable of.

Increasingly though those holding Authorizations To Possess (cannabis) under the Medical Marijuana Access Regulations (MMAR) are taking up the call to stand side by side with the 200+ Canadians that have already filed Statements of Claim for a two dollar Registry fee using the John Turmel Kits at

http://johnturmel.com/kits.htm  or http://johnturmel.com/mmprinst.htm

 after B.C. Lawyer John Conroy's Allard Ruling left many, who either did not fall under the time-frames specified or beyond the 150 gram limit, out. Many that did fall under the time-frames specified could also, for numerous other reasons not mentioned, count themselves among the Left-Outs as well. The Turmel Kits are provided in numerous formats and YouTube videos outline the process. The time is long overdue for Health Canada and the Minister to acknowledge the wrongheadedness of Health Canada's gambit and seriously consider the idea of reparations. Canadians know about both cannabis and its world renowned medical properties. Moreover, the idea of maintaining the pretext of health promotion and drug prevention in the face of the inclusion of cannabis in the CDSA stands as both the crime of the century and the joke of the century.

CANADIAN JUSTICE IS JUNK- PART III

TRAINING THE TROOPS

or

How The Constabulary Creates A Blue Brother

This is very long: almost three thousand words but that is because this is a very complex subject with many inputs that have to be considered. The creation of a cop takes about 5 years and during that time he is exposed to a carefully planned training program that is designed to wipe out his personality as a member of normal society and fill his mind in “Cop Think”. Read it carefully and stop along the way and wonder how you would cope with the regimen. Also think about what can be done to restore the system because the product it is producing stinks.

The first thing a Canadian citizen should understand is that the Blue Brotherhood is not the creation of our Canadian Cops but is international and applies to Constabularies everywhere. Our Canadian version has become an aberration and exceeds the norm as will be explained later. At this point we have come to the point where there is a knock on your door and there is a Cop, a member of the Blue Brotherhood, who wants to ask some questions. To continue:

You stand in your doorway and you look at this Brother in Blue wanting to talk: 

Ask yourself:

1.    Who is this guy?

2.    Where’s he coming from?

3.    What kind of a person am I dealing with?

The answer to those questions was fairly well volunteered by an older Police Officer speaking as a member of the Brotherhood when asked about the effects of a career in law enforcement on officers in general:

“One of the only things that is universal about almost all cops, is the fact that we age too quickly, see too much pain and suffering, lose our trust for almost anyone because EVERYONE lies to the police, and we lose our social grounding. It is very hard to believe that the world is basically good when you spend year after year seeing only the worst parts of it.

That is where it gets really hard, because sometimes we think out friends and families are trying to 'get over' on us, just like the shitbags we deal with at work. That hurts even the strongest relationships. Our ability to see beauty and innocence gets pretty heavily trampled on, and that really hurts when you are raising kids. Thankfully, most police officers learn to live compartmentalized lives: Those who don't die from alcoholism, heart disease, or suicide at an early age.”

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This personal assessment of the damage to self by a career in law enforcement is supported and borne out by the work of Professor Jerome Skolnick, the currently accepted authority who describes the police working personality: what many people, and police themselves, often describe as the police personality. The working personality is characterized as:

1.    distrustful of outsiders

2.    cynical

3.    conservative (not necessarily politically, but resistant to change)

4.    suspicious

5.    pessimistic

6.    pragmatic

7.    prejudicial

8.    and holding other widely-shared attitudes about and beyond the mainstream view.

What the hell happened here? What: in the course of about ten years on the job, turned the top 2% of the ideal recruit crop into a collection of miserable curmudgeons? What happens in the course of this career to render such psychological damage?

What follows is a vivid portrayal of career in law enforcement that I freely plagiarized from the work of Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith of the Chicago Police Department. She is a nationally recognized authority on training and the working personality and I have simply transformed one of her papers into a wake-up call lecture that should be given to every new class of recruits before their training begins

The Road to Remorse and Regret

Good morning Recruits: 

My name is Sgt.  XXX and today I am here to give you an orientation into what the course of your life will be if you do join the Force with the intention of a life time career. The first thing I want you to understand is that your entire life will change in the course of your training and so will your personality and outlook on life. Much of that change will be due to defensive reactions to unpleasant pressures to conform to the system and avoid discipline for failure to do so. Following I am going to chronologically outline what you can expect to encounter in the course of your career and some good advice on how to react and assess each development as it occurs.

Most of us start the academy with a servant’s heart. Remember the old LAPD motto “To Serve and Protect?” That’s all of us, that is supposed to be what cops are all about, but pretty quickly into your law enforcement career, it becomes less about “them” and more about “us.” We separate ourselves from the rest of society, even from our family and friends. But it doesn’t have to be that way, if you learn why this common police pitfall occurs and how to avoid it.

Remember, less than two out of every one hundred police applicants ever become cops, so as soon as you get hired, you start to feel like you’re a member of an elite group. And you are! There are few professions where we are expected to potentially lay down our lives as part of the employment agreement. However, that elitist feeling you have in the academy can be just the beginning of your “us v. them” mentality.

Your first couple of years are consumed with learning the job. You spend a considerable amount of time around veteran officers, trainers, and supervisors trying to learn the profession and earn the trust of your peers. As Dr. Kevin Gilmartin, PhD. talks about in his book Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement, a new officer begins to rely on the friendship and support of other officers, usually to the detriment of their “non-cop” relationships. Because there is so much to do and learn, and so little time to devote to your personal life, new officers find themselves socializing only with their co-workers. Old friendships may begin to fade way, not intentionally, but after all, are any of your “old” friends willing to meet you for a beer at seven o’clock on a Tuesday morning when you get off work? Not likely.

There are no grey areas. The law enforcement officer works in a fact-based world with everything compared to written law. Right and wrong is determined by a standard. They have a set way of going about gathering the proper evidence for the law and can justify their actions because they represent the "good and right side." In the real world, clear rights and wrongs are not as likely to occur. The newspapers are an opinion-based system, the court system is an opinion-based system and, needless to say, relationship decisions and proper parenting techniques are opinion-based systems. 

Adjusting from right and wrong, a black-and-white system, to opinion-based systems is very difficult and requires a complete change in mental attitude.
“The average cop will see more human tragedy in the first three years than most people will see in a lifetime” according to Dr. Ellen Kirschman, author of I Love a Cop. As we become a competent veteran officer, we develop a macabre sense of humour and are forced to control our emotions at all times. We view the world as a violent place full of idiots, con artists, and liars. We become sceptical, paranoid, and hyper vigilant, and we look down on those who do not share our cynical and alarmist view of the society. Not only do we cease most of our “pre-cop” friendships, but our family relationships may begin to deteriorate as well. We become distant and dark-spirited, even when we’re at home. We complain that “my family doesn’t understand,” and we may become overly strict with our kids, not wanting them to be exposed to the outside world that we know is violent, dangerous and unpredictable. Eventually, your family may grow weary of your “us v. them” attitude and decide they’d rather be with “them” rather than being a part of “us.”

You need to be in constant emotional control. Law enforcement officers have a job that requires extreme restraint under highly emotional circumstances. They are told when they are extremely excited, they have to act calm. They are told when they are nervous; they have to be in charge. They are taught to be stoic when emotional. They are to interact with the world in a role. The emotional constraint of the role takes tremendous mental energy, much more energy than expressing true emotions. When the energy drain is very strong, it may make the officer more prone to exhaustion outside of work, such as not wanting to participate in social or family life. This energy drain can also create a sense of job and social burnout. 

It’s no secret that cops have a 75% divorce rate, a high rate of alcoholism, and we die twice as often by our own hand as we do by felonious assaults. After all, if you go from a fun-loving, idealistic, service-oriented rookie to a dark-hearted, cynical veteran, you’re not going to be much fun to be around, and eventually you won’t like yourself anymore than anyone else does. So don’t let it happen!

Your FTO may know everything there is to know about impaired drivers, but why has he been married and divorced) three times? Your favourite sergeant is a wonderfully supportive mentor to you, but why does she end every shift sitting at the bar of the local gin joint? Sometimes the most qualified cops on your agency are also the least successful when it comes to their personal lives. As delicately as you can, try to find out why. Ask them if they could do anything different, what would it be? And then listen to what they have to say.

This can be tough to do. Your “normal” friends are either going to be “weirded out” by your new profession or they may become distant, intimidated, even hostile about you becoming a cop. However, don’t give up on all of them. Your true friends are going to accept you, for who you are, just make sure to touch base with them and occasionally get together; and when you do socialize with them, don’t spend all your time together telling cop “war stories.” Ask about their job, their life, their problems, concerns, and successes, and then really listen. Don’t make it all about you, even if they try to. In other words, don’t get mired in your own self-importance.

Be proactive about your emotional well being. Make sure that physical activity is part of your regular routine. There are two kinds of stress, “distress” and “eustress”. Develop positive addictions, like running, basketball, hunting, and photography, anything that makes you feel good and is good for you. Also make sure you spend time around good, positive people. Go to church, do volunteer work, coach a kids soccer team, do charity work. Get involved in activities that remind you that not everyone is a drug dealing, child molesting criminal, and that in general, life is pretty good. Remember, you took this job to help the community, not isolate yourself from them. One of the great things about policing in a free society is the tradition of being “of the people,” not “over the people.”

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We’re Back Where We Started

Unfortunately Canadians are not living in a free society and the Constabulary successfully biased the Access to Information Act of 1985 with a series of exemptions regarding Investigations. The majority of officers have adopted a tradition of being “over the people” and responsible to no one for anything they do, on or off the Job

So here we are with you, in your doorway, facing a cop who wants entry and to talk to you about something. 

You stood in your doorway and you looked at this Brother in Blue and asked yourself:

·        Who is this guy?

·        Where’s he coming from?

·        What kind of a person am I dealing with?

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At this point you have answered the first two of your questions:

Who is this guy?

He’s a kid who has been ripped out of normal society and forced into another by the Constabulary. He will robotically obey orders, not question his superiors’ judgement, and he will most certainly report his obedience to those orders in meticulous detail. He will never depart from those details regardless of consequence.

Where does he come from?

He comes from on the job training in how to relate to the public: all civilians are suspect criminals in his mind. He’s been trained to lie and is a skilled interrogator in command of any interview with a civilian suspect. He can present himself as a member of any class or occupation to elicit an admission of some fault and is skilled in the use of leading questions to confuse his victim. Any request for information by a cop is prompted by a desire to establish guilt. He doesn’t care whose and he is fishing for information that can move the subject of his questioning into the suspect category if he even admits a connection to another individual suspected or caught in a criminal activity.

Knowing just this about the officer should be enough to deter any cooperation from a witness but the biggest deterrence of all is his belief that he can violate the law and your rights in his attempts to establish your guilt and he is immune from prosecution by doing so.

 That belief combined with the support of his brotherhood is validated by the exemptions of criminal investigation from the normal channels per the Access to Information Act, The Brotherhood has the power to control the whole Justice system, and that will be the subject of my next post 

CANADIAN JUSTICE IS JUNK- PART IV – THE BROTHERHOOD

Until then

Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy