"Putting Up Signs Isn't My Job"

I've been meaning to tell this story for a while now, but I guess it's better late than never. My wife and I were driving home after watching a pretty crappy Fourth of July fireworks display last month when we had a rather unfortunate (though I'd say fairly typical these days) encounter with one of Calvert County's finest.

If you recall, the Fourth fell on a Wednesday this year, so I wasn't really in the mood to party since I had to work the next day. However, my buddy and I split a sixer during the fireworks, and by the time we left and sat through all the traffic on the way home I had to take a pretty serious leak. So you can imagine how excited I was to finally make it to the street that leads directly to our house.

Not so fast. When we pulled up to the stop sign, I noticed the street was blocked off by a row of orange cones (talk about a buzz kill). Given that the primary job of our police officers should be to keep the peace, I understand that road safety is of utmost importance when traffic volume is at its peak. So I politely asked one of Maryland's State Highway Administration workers if he'd kindly move a couple cones so we could get home.

Well, he refused. After I shook off the disbelief and asked if he was kidding me, I asked again. He shook his head. I'm pretty sure at this point I told him to stop acting like a [redacted] retard and bend his fat ass over and pick up a couple cones. He simply pointed across the street and told me I had to take it up with "the sheriff."

Suffice it to say, "the sheriff" doesn't pull traffic duty, but one of his deputies began walking our way from the middle of the road after he realized we weren't following his orders to continue on past the stop sign. As he approached the driver's side window, my wife explained that we lived right down the street that was blocked and asked if we could simply turn right at the stop sign.

Let the record show that at this point, these government employees could have moved the cones several different times in the time it took to argue with us. Considering that this road is sparsely populated (which is probably the reason they chose to block it off in the first place), I can't believe it would have been too much trouble to make an exception and move a couple cones. But deputy man would have none of it. He told us we'd have to go straight, make a U-turn wherever we could, then come back down the road right past where we were sitting, go about another half-mile or so, then make a left onto a side road that would take us to an alternate access point of the road we were originally hoping to turn onto.

My wife and I had used this side road plenty of times before, but it would have been nice if we'd known this was the route we were expected to take before we realized the main road was blocked off. When my wife asked why there wasn't a sign to this effect, deputy man proclaimed rather haughtily, "Putting up signs isn't my job."

Excuse me, Mr. Deputy Sheriff Guy, but putting up road signs is exactly your job. Protecting and serving the public, by whom and for whom you are employed, is precisely your job. If you reserve the right to restrict access to and movement on roads that I pay for, I have the right to expect to know which ones I'm "allowed" to use so as to not have to engage in pissing contests with huffy government big shots on my way home.

Mr. Deputy Sheriff Guy was somewhat of a prick to be sure, but his attitude was very telling when it comes to explaining the true role of our police forces today. Today's cops are indeed not expected to "protect and serve," but rather they are primarily expected to generate revenue for the State under the guise of "safety" and "security," endlessly harassing non-violent motorists by setting up speed traps and sobriety checkpoints, and enforcing seat belt use. Politicians claim they intend to reduce traffic accidents and fatalities by engaging in such enforcement, but roadblocks, for example, are much less efficient at actually catching drunk drivers than they are at generating money for other, oftentimes lesser, infractions (like driving without possession of a license or car registration).

Welcome to the new Police State of America, where cops are just as likely to brutalize teenage skateboarders and arrest peaceful citizens for having the temerity to criticize an unjust war or their vice-president as they are to get you home safely from a Fourth of July celebration. It sure is a good thing we're sending our soldiers to die to protect these indispensable freedoms.

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