I definitely have to agree with AR6rider on this one. There's a lot of generalizing in this thread, albeit on both sides, but a lot from the standpoint of "I've had run-ins with a couple cops where they gave me an unfair ticket or showed some sort of corruption/inconsistencies when filing reports, so they're all huge douchbags and I hate them all." I have met a lot of mean cops, and a lot of really nice cops who were super cool. That's the way it is with any profession. There are shitty people and good people in any situation that you will get into. I've met many shitty parents that I didn't like. Does that mean that I should hate my own parents and everyone else who has kids because of it? No that would be rediculous. If anything, the police deserve a lot of our respect just for being police. It's their job to uphold the law, which is put in place to protect us. Sure some cops are overly strict about the laws they enforce, or enforce laws that you don't personally agree with, but that's no reason to hate them. There job is to protect us, and to deal with the shitty people who are fucking up society for the rest of us. If there weren't police, who would bust into the house of the people cooking meth next door? Sure you can make the argument that most police never have to get their hands dirty or use their guns, and most cops just do paperwork and write tickets all day, but the fact of the matter is, even though the majority of what the job involves is mellow paperwork/writing speeding tickets, cops still have to face the possibility that they could get shot or stabbed every day they go on the job and that itself is commendable. Of the thousands of tickets cops write to people, they never know which ones are going to result in gunfights or getting attacked, but they still do their job every day. Just taking the job of being a cop is honorable; their job is protecting society. Of course there are always the people who take the job to get to order people around and carry a gun, but again, those are the shitty ones and even the shitty ones have the possibility of getting shot at on the job, and it isn't constructive to judge a group of people looking to help you by the shitty members you don't like. /end rant.
Cheers,
-Isak