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Law Enforcement

I’ve been really into watching law enforcement reality television. Cops, Beach Patrol, 48 Hours, Dog the Bounty Hunter, The Academy (one of my favorites). I’m still trying to figure out what is so intriguing about them though. I’ve even had dreams of firing shots on the pistol range and fighting dummies while racing through obstacle courses.

I’m totally not kidding. There is a part of me that has a real desire to join the police academy and test my limits. There is something about boot camp that has always sorta appealed to me, and I think there’s something to learning police codes and getting shot with pepper spray that I just can’t put my finger on. Maybe it’s what Tim Boucher meant by “Self Mastery”. Honestly, I’d like to know how I’d handle those situations in a “Fight Club” kind of way.

oh, but this creeps me out:

Cops Ordered To Pull Over People Doing Nothing Wrong

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 1:57 pm and is filed under Open Discussion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

No Responses to “Law Enforcement”

1. tim boucher says:

   December 18, 2007 at 2:06 pm

   I totally feel you on this. Been having sort of parallel inner experiences wrapped in different clothing. I think one part of it is definitely self-mastery, which overflows eventually into wanting to help put other things in order as well – correcting problems your environment, helping other people.

   I’m actually meaning to write about this from another angle: was reading about the origins of chivalric orders in the Middle Ages, and the connections between martial orders and religious orders.

   I also think as far as an interest in “The Law” goes, think of it like this: the Law is the Torah. It has to do with a desire to manifest God’s Law on Earth, or something like that.
2. tim boucher says:

   January 3, 2008 at 8:10 pm

   I talked at length with a friend of mine from high school over New Years who just got into the NYPD police academy. His reasons for becoming a cop were interesting and confusing – though I think I knew what he meant. He basically said that he wanted to “see the shit”, things other people don’t see, and that he just wants to become a “hard-boiled detective” which is interesting. I kept picturing him as a detective in an 80’s style crime drama tv show…
3. tim boucher says:

   January 7, 2008 at 9:06 pm

   Chivalry: Religious Aspects

   In the ceremonial of conferring knighthood the Church shared, through the blessing of the sword, and by the virtue of this blessing chivalry assumed a religious character. In early Christianity, although Tertullian’s teaching that Christianity and the profession of arms were incompatible was condemned as heretical, the military career was regarded with little favour. In chivalry, religion and the profession of arms were reconciled. This change in attitude on the part of the Church dates, according to some, from the Crusades, when Christian armies were for the first time devoted to a sacred purpose. Even prior to the Crusades, however, an anticipation of this attitude is found in the custom called the “Truce of God”. It was then that the clergy seized upon the opportunity offered by these truces to exact from the rough warriors of feudal times a religious vow to use their weapons chiefly for the protection of the weak and defenseless, especially women and orphans, and of churches. Chivalry, in the new sense, rested on a vow; it was this vow which dignified the soldier, elevated him in his own esteem, and raised him almost to the level of the monk in medieval society. As if in return for this vow, the Church ordained a special blessing for the knight in the ceremony called in the Pontificale Romanum, “Benedictio novi militis.” At first very simple in its form, this ritual gradually developed into an elaborate ceremony. Before the blessing of the sword on the altar, many preliminaries were required of the aspirant, such as confession, a vigil of prayer, fasting, a symbolical bath, and investiture with a white robe, for the purpose of impressing on the candidate the purity of soul with which he was to enter upon such a noble career. Kneeling, in the presence of the clergy, he pronounced the solemn vow of chivalry, at the same time often renewing the baptismal vow; the one chosen as godfather then struck him lightly on the neck with a sword (the dubbing) in the name of God and St. George, the patron of chivalry.