lacking all sense of irony

[realthog]

I've just read the latest tickertape headline on the BBC website:

EGYPT UNREST:
US State Department condemns 'excessive force' used by Egyptian police against protesters

Comments

[realthog.livejournal.com]

The US cops may already be there: the pregnant girl who was peppersprayed and kicked the other day has since miscarried. Obviously the cause-and-effect is impossible to prove for certain, but the savage mistreatment to which she was subjected can hardly have helped.

Of course, US cops are killing people in other circumstances all the time, and most often the US populace decides to be in denial about it. Every now and then there's a moment of public outrage over some particularly egregious case, but that lasts just long enough until the next episode of Survivors . . . and not even that long if the victim is black, which he usually is.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for a weapon like pepper spray to be in the armory of US cops. It's an artifact whose description on the label tells you it's designed for the infliction of intense pain -- in other words, it's a torture device. Why the hell anyone had a mind so depraved as to invent the stuff in the first place, who knows; but putting into the hands of supposed law-enforcement officers was an act of complete lunacy, because there is absolutely no valid occasion for them to be using it.