Finneran: Men in Blue, I Thank You

Friday, December 20, 2019

Tom Finneran, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

PHOTO: Worcester Police

It was at the 7:00 a.m. Mass last Sunday.

I was on the altar as a Lector and as part of my duties I had to read the Prayers of the Faithful.

Those Prayers are general supplications on behalf the sick and their caregivers, on behalf of young parents just starting their families, on behalf of the lonely, the confused, and the depressed in our midst, and on behalf of the work of the Church and the need for an increase in vocations and religious life.

One such Prayer, however, stood out. It was a prayer for the families of four police officers who had been killed in the line of duty last week. Four cops. Dead. Four cops. Murdered.

Something is very wrong here.

Then, it seemed only a day or two later that some server at a Starbucks refused to wait on two uniformed police officers, treating them as some type of lesser beings, unworthy of the service they would give to every doped-up vagabond with a cup full of quarters.

Where does such blatant disrespect come from? What type of brainwashing has occurred when a Starbucks barista looks down with scorn on the two guys who would be the first ones to protect him from some punk bent on robbery or violence?

This Starbucks episode had a predecessor event. That event was at another Starbucks store where a uniformed officer purchased a cup of coffee, upon which cup the server had scrawled the word “pig”.

I find it hard to fathom the sheer stupidity of treating any customer in so insulting a manner. And I find it impossible to comprehend the hatred which must be the companion to such stupidity. Where is this hatred conceived? How is it nurtured? Are the cohering institutions of faith, family, and community so weakened, the attacks on authority now so readily applauded, that cop hatred and cop disrespect is seen as an acceptable norm? Do the barista’s peers and contemporaries pat him on the back for his “courage” in taking on the Man?

That thin blue line grows thinner every day. That’s the line that protects us from anarchy and chaos. Don’t take that thin blue line for granted. Go ahead and erase it and watch how quickly you and your family are victimized by bullies and the social bedlam which they sow. Watch a neighborhood collapse, watch a city die.

For months now I have read about Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Oakland, and San Francisco as they sink into anti-cop sentiment and surrender the streets to mobs. Do not be fooled into thinking that this is merely a West Coast phenomenon. In New York City it is now the fashion to throw buckets of water and other things on the police as they respond to a call.

This is not mere juvenile foolishness. This is a radical rebellion against established authority and it is cheered in far too many places.

I remember some months ago that Starbucks’ CEO wanted to have a national conversation on race. No thank you say I. I don’t need a conversation about race, not while your nitwit baristas are flaunting their social ignorance. Shame on Starbucks.

I have a better idea for a national conversation. It’s called four cops/ four caskets.

I await the CEO’s remarks.

Tom Finneran is the former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, served as the head the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, and was a longstanding radio voice in Boston radio.