Thin Blue Line of corruption

If you happen to combine driving your car with paying attention, you may have noticed the proliferation of cars with "Blue Line" bumper stickers. They are small, they are simple, they don't say what they are at all. Except, everybody knows blue means police.

There are claims like that of Sgt.John Delaney of the Springfield Police Department, who was quoted as saying:

"This thin blue line basically represents the fraternal order of police officers throughout the country, the thin blue line represents the brotherhood of police being connected through the thin blue line."

Of course, you can find these quite easily for purchase online. In fact, many people have put them on their cars in the simple hope of avoiding a ticket. The police claim this will not get you out of a ticket, but the original site (www.thin-blue-line.com according to some articles) appears to be offline now, and apparently originally required a person to prove employment as a police officer to get the sticker.

So we have an attempt to create a marker which can allow an off duty police officer to identify himself (or his family) to other police. Are we actually excpeted to believe this was simply an attempt to "show support for the police", if only police were intended to buy it?

This, my friends, may not hold up in court, but is evidence prima facie of an attempt at corruption. There is really no reason for a police officer who is off duty, or his family, to be treated any differently than anyone else on the road. The citizens who have followed suit have it dead on: The original point WAS to avoid tickets. There is simply no other conclusion that makes any sense.

This sticker is no less than corruption. It is no different than the old practice that police in Boston used to have of leaving an M&Ms packet on their dashboard as a signal to the meter maids that they were police and shouldn't be ticketed. This is corruption, pure and simple.

So much for the police as role models or paragons of virtue.

At least the citizens have the right idea, put those stickers up so they can't tell who is who. The way it is supposed to be.