When You’ve Lost Them…

Last Saturday, Chekhov and I were spreading gravel over the bathhouse area, and just as we had come to the conclusion that we had pulled everything we could out of a pile left over from the French drain project, one of our neighbors showed up with a dump truck full (we had called him the day before but weren’t sure he had received the message) and gave it to me for free because I let him store his extra hay in my barn.  He’s a white man in his sixties of the type common in rural areas across the US:  a big, jovial, clever-but-uneducated, good-natured farmer.  So we chatted for a while, and naturally the protests came up; since very few older, rural white men have ever had a bad interaction with cops, I assumed there was no point in doing anything other than listen politely because arguing with him about it would be useless (possibly even counterproductive).  As I expected, he could not comprehend why people are talking about abolishing cops entirely; he has not had the life-experience and/or made a study of the topic, and therefore believes that cops exist to “protect and serve”.  But then he said something I didn’t expect: “They oughta lock them killer cops up!”  Despite believing the propaganda we’ve all been fed about the goodness of cops, he made no excuses for wanton murder and clearly stated his support for criminal penalties for criminal cops.  The cries and protests are being heard by the general public at last, and people are unhappy about the way cops can literally get away with murder.  And when you’ve lost ordinary older white rural men like my neighbor, you might as well give up.