https://youtu.be/m6m5f5AAByI
At first they just suspended him- which gives them time to research and discuss the situation with lawyers- before firing him. You can damn sure bet that nobody had the courage to defend him- not within his chain of command anyway.
Officer Anderson is directing his comments toward other police officers and their conduct.
At first they just suspended him- which gives them time to research and discuss the situation with lawyers- before firing him. You can damn sure bet that nobody had the courage to defend him- not within his chain of command anyway.
I also noted that Officer Anderson was from the liberal strong hold of Seattle. Probably the worst area on the west coast. The Seattle City Council has been an incubator of taxes, crappy laws, stupid ideas, over regulation, and ineffectiveness. So it appears, Officer Anderson is guilty of nothing more than upholding the Constitutional oath he took when accepting his job in liberal land. Officially, they used the old tried and true tactic of saying that he used their name, their car, and his uniform to cast a bad light of the Port of Seattle Police Department. This they called "conduct unbecoming an officer" which in the littany of police policy manuals everywhere- is the catch all offense for police officers that the hierarchy wants to get rid of. It is the police version of "disturbing the peace" which is used to lock up unruly citizens when there is no other identifiable crime. More on this later on.
The whole idea of free speech is new in America and a lot of people don't like it. They don't like a President tweeting whatever he feels like. They don't like people using terms such as "tranny", "retarded" or "faggot" to describe others. And yet these terms live on. They are not scrubbed from the world- try as the language police do- to get rid of them.
Back in the 1770's, I don't think the collective genius of the founding fathers could ever envision a world where everyone had access to their own printing press. The founders had no phones, no televisions or radios, no computers. All they had was print media in a very limited form in terms of distribution- and they held meetings. They talked. They didn't have social media or platforms.
So I think the only antagonist they could collectively agree on was government. I doubt they could envision a day when people would literally fight and argue amongst themselves over what terms and words we can and cannot use. There was no need to police that. So free speech, as widely interpreted now by the language police, only extends as far as government. Beyond that- you have no right to publicly use words that the language police deem offensive without repercussion.
I will add one other item here for you to ponder. The term is "nigger." It derives itself from the latin root word, niger, meaning black. Over time it acquired negative connotations. Then the language police stepped in. Now days the only people allowed to say the word nigger are black people. The word police have conveyed control of the word to the black community because the truth is- they are too afraid of being labeled racists to demand that blacks quit using the word. The liberals, always in charge of the word police, probably would say that the black community is entitled to use the term anyway. And so they do. Get ready for the English 101 finish...
Officer Anderson works for government. If he is not allowed to speak out about the over reach and intrusiveness of government as it seizes control of our freedoms, who is? If a man swears an oath to protect the Constitution, isn't he doing so by warning us about our own government?
Of course he is. Who gets access to free speech if the oath taking Officer Anderson can't have access?
His speech is exactly what the founders had in mind when they created the first amendment.
It is the spirit of free speech that has to be stewarded. I love the fact that Mr. Anderson took it upon himself to remind the world that we have rights. That the minions matter. Those little shit jobs like the Port of Seattle offers come and go. Speak truth to power- it pisses them off every time. Especially in Seattle.