This is a betrayal of what we say we believe in as Americans

 I have recently been pondering on the quote penned by Lord John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton in 1887 that highlighting the moral dangers of unchecked authority, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."  I heard my Mom say that quote no less that 8.7 million times growing up.  I don’t think I ever fully understood it, until just recently when its meaning shifted from the words in my head and dropped like a rock into my gut. 

When power decides it does not have to answer questions, when it closes ranks and doors after its use of force, when it tells a tale that is in direct conflict with what we all saw with our own eyes, there is a cancer present.  It is no longer just theoretical, it is here, now and evident in the way our federal officials are behaving.   It is here now in the way communities are told to accept their narrative instead of demonstrating transparency and collaboration with local law enforcement.    

Our countries’ creed is not complicated, it’s really simply actually.  The power bestowed on our elected officials is on loan, on loan from we the people, the same people who hold these truths to be self-evident, ya know from the Declaration of Independence.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  With two dead American citizens we ain't doing very godo on that front.  

Our government was literally created to protect those rights, we declared it so in a loud and in your face fashion to King George III back on July 4^th of 1776.  A big part of what makes this experiment that is the United States work is based on trust.  When government forces, of any kind, block transparency and accountability, trust erodes.  And that particular slippery slope is one that is not good for our country. 

When I wore the uniform, the oath I swore was not to a person, a party or a department.  I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution from enemies, foreign and domestic.   Day in and day out the work required discipline, restraint, and accountability.  We learned quickly that real strength does not come from how loud ya bark orders, it comes from carefully you wielded authority.  Facts were laid out, orders explained and expectations set, those are the bedrock of military order.  When shit went sideways, and it sometimes did, we did not get to barricade doors, obfuscate the truth, or tell tales of woe, we took responsibility for our actions and we course corrected.  There was not some obscure reason for that, we were literally putting our lives in the hands of our shipmates, and they were putting theirs lives in ours.  That is not something one fucks about with.  .

 I learned that honor is not the ribbons we had to meticulously maintain for display purposes, honor is a habit.  Choosing to do the right thing, even when it is hard, even when it is seemingly impossible and even when it comes at a personal cost shows ones true character.  that character shows up in the quiet consistent choices we make, day in and day out.  Choosing transparency over convenience, humility over spin, the really hard right over the really easy wrong ain't easy and has tested me more in my life than any other thing. 

I have had sign in my office for years, “Do the right things, and do those things right”.  Hardest thing to do, regardless of what it is.  While we are free to make decisions in this county, any of them we want – that is what freedom is.  We are not however free from the consequences of those decisions.  That means accepting responsibility for our actions, doing that is true courage.

And when things do go sideways, we must have the moral courage to not only accept responsibility but also to invite scrutiny.  To let independent eyes check our work, provide an independent accounting of our actions.  Those values are not disposable when thing get uncomfortable, that is when we learn who we truly are and we can only hope we don’t come up lacking.  Those values are exactly for the moment when things get hard.  The truth is simple, it needs no spin, it needs no embellishment and it needs no permission. 

The same standards that kept all my shipmates safe should be used to keep our communities safe.  If squids, mostly kids, can log every evolution, submit to inspection after inspection and answer for their action because lives are at stake, then any officials who exercise lethal authority on our streets must do the same, we must hold them to the same standard.  That is not too much to ask, at all.  Fact-o-business, that is the fucking barest of minimums a free people should demand!!

American values are not abstract to me, for the most part they have become muscle memory.  Human dignity first.  Truth in the open.  Power on a short lease because it belong us, not those we chose to represent us.  I was taught that my words matter, that I must own my mistakes and that I was responsible for making any wrongs I made right.  The government does not get a different rulebook, no sir!  If anything it should be held to even higher bar.  Liberty is not a license to do whatever you want behind a badge.  Liberty is the rulebook that provides the authority in a way that we the people can trust is fair and just and in alignment with our values.

the bar is not terrible high on this.  Open the scenes. Honor the warrants.  Share the evidence.  Let independent hands do the work here, and let the public see what that those hands find.  If we truly believe the words we recite, equality, liberty, and justice for all,  then let us practice them even when its inconvenient.   We all know in it in our bones, and the Mandalorians say, this is the way!  If our institutions have drifted, as I feel they have, then we have a responsibility to pull them back, with the kind of stubborn integrity this country still claims as our own. 

I am angry, viscerally so.  I am heartsick.  And I am done pretending that what we are watching is anything other than what it is, a betrayal of what we say we believe in as Americans.  Power used in the dark is not public service.  It is cowardice and it is theft of the public trust.  Steals trust from the very people who granted that power in the first place.  It steals dignity from the families who deserve the truth, not some ridiculous narrative.  It steals the future from a country that can only govern itself when the truth is out in the open and acknowledged.  You cannot protect a community, as we are being told they are doing, while at the same time blocking that community form the truth – period all stop.  

To our federal government, hear this clearly.  You are NOT intitled to your own story, you earn that by opening the scene, honoring the warrant, sharing the records, and letting independent hands to their work where the public can see it.  You earn it by submitting your actions to the same scrutiny that you would demand of us.  You earn it by admitting error when error exists, not spinning stories moments after two people were killed.   To do otherwise is a sure sign that something else is happening here besides the narrative you are attempting to persuade us of.   

I did not spend 10 years in service to this great country to watch the Constitution be treated like a prop in a shitty movie.  It is a set of values that either bind us in moments like these, or it reveals us to be frauds.  If we still believe in human dignity, say so by proving it with an open process.  If we still believe in liberty, say so by refusing secrecy when force is used against us, in our name.  if we still believe in justice, say so by letting neutral eyes test the story against the evidence.  Anything less is just a demonstration of moral bankruptcy dressed up on federal letterhead.

So here is where I stand, I absolutely refuse to allow this to be normalized.  I refuse to soften my language or lower the bar.  I refuse to trade my values fro someone else’s comfort, and I will not hand the next generation of Americans a country that confuses control with accountability.  In my bones and every fiber of my being I know this is not right, and in your bones, you damn well know it too.  I am sad if your hatred of whatever it is has so clouded your judgement that you feel any bit of this is OK. 

The truth will set you free. Lets open this up to scrutiny.  Let the evidence be evaluated.  And as Mando says, this is the way.