Another Four Star Poser

Four Star General Troy Nehls - more often referred to as "Sheriff" - is in the news for how he posted on facebook a threat to arrest a woman for expressing a political opinion that the General found offensive.

In making this threat to kidnap and hold a random citizen against her will, the General lied and pretended that the District Attorney had backed his desire to do this. Fortunately for the 1st amendment, and that nameless citizen, the DA denied having backed General Nehls.

Unfortunately for her, she had a warrant for something else, and so he picked her up on that.

This makes sense, if each star represents one inch.

But as always in these matters, my issue is not so much the idiocy and tyranny of America's Sheriffs, which is already so well documented by so many others, but with the aspect of police militarization that gets the least attention.

Yes, we all know about how the police think they are soldiers, because of their idiotic habit of referring to their fellow citizens as "civilians". Yes, we all know about how the Department of Defense sells these wannabe soldiers a variety of military vehicles, weapons and gear so that they can play that they're soldiers and use tanks against student protesting with a sit in. Yes, we all know how police love to wear camouflage or black so that they can look like they're invading Germany, or being invaders from Germany.

But my focus is on the practice of a Sheriff or Police Chief compensating for whatever inadequacies he has by self-awarding himself the fantastical rank of "General". And not just General, but invariably "Four Star General".

For those who have not served, which sadly is many of those self-promoted "Generals", it only takes one star to be a General. Technically, that is a "Brigadier General", but they are addressed as "General". After that, two stars is "Major General", three stars is "Lieutenant General" and finally, four stars is simply "General". All are addressed as "General", though.

It is true that there are ranks above even four stars. But let's focus on the "four star" rank, which is for most all matters the highest rank you'll ever see or hear of. It is a very, very high rank. So high, in fact, that many famous Generals in history never even made it to that rank.

Like three star General Lee, who fought against the United States. Or three star General Grant who defeated him. General Grant was General of the entirety of the Armies of the United States at the time, and managed to do so without that fourth star.

You know who else never lived to get to that fourth star? Some three star General named "Washington". But he never had the awesome responsibility of keeping the peace in Fort Bend County. Or making sure that naughty women didn't write sassy comments about those in power. No, three star General George Washington only founded our entire nation!

Here's a fun fact. By law, the number of Generals that may exist in the military is limited to 80 for the Marines, and a bit over 200 a piece for the Army and Air Force. And of those Generals, only 25% of the of them can be higher than two stars.

But as to Counties and Cities? Oh, my. Literally thousands of "Generals" abound, and not a ONE of them has anything less than FOUR STARS and some of them have even gone "Full Five", which is so absurd that I do not even have the means of adequately describing it. I mean, they could declare themselves Sith Lord of Podunk County and it would be no more or less ridiculous.

Not that four stars isn't as ridiculous as a Sith Lord. I mean, when you self-award yourself more stars than the guy who founded the nation that your toy county is in, yeah, it's gone too far.

I've said this before, but let us all attend carefully here. In the old days, when men were men, and had physical endowments that did not require fancy compensatory titles, a Colonel was the top rank a civilian could self-award. And only under very strict conditions. Not easy to fulfill conditions.

You had to be able to recruit 500 citizens and provide for each of them. Horse, rifle, uniform, the works. If one could do that, then one could be regarded as a Colonel of an irregular Militia. And in those less formal days, that could be glided over to an actual rank of Colonel in the regular Militia - the Army. Though not any more.

Sheriffs are NOT Colonels, not even of an "irregular Militia", as they most assuredly do not provide for the men under them, nor do they usually have as many as 500, nor can they even support themselves. They are supported by taxpayers, who pay for their salaries and the salaries of the men under them. All of them, from the Sheriff to the Deputy to the third assistant paper pusher are CIVILIANS and any semblance of military rank is a courtesy only, and not to be took to meant they are soldiers.

Soldiers are men trained for combat to defend against enemies of the State. Police are civilians tasked with arresting people for misdemeanors and issuing traffic citations. Because - surprise - ALL citizens of the United States over 18 have the right to arrest for felonies. Yeah, really. The only extra thing cops have that you don't is the ability to lawfully detain a person for a misdemeanor or ordinance violation.

There is NOTHING about that job that in any way equates to military service. Ranks like "Sergeant" and "Lieutenant" and "Commander" are fine as far as they go, as these are lower down ranks for those who are performing jobs that bear a vague similarity to the military tasks of small unit leadership and coordination between various sub-groups.

Thus a "Sergeant" may be leading a group of "Police Officers" or "Deputies" that would roughly compare to a Squad of Privates and/or Corporals in the Military. A "Lieutenant" would oversee several such Squads, though in some cases, it may mean only that the man is now a Detective, with direct command of none.

"Commanders" derive far more from the "Watch Commanders" of old, literally men who coordinated the guards of the city gates and city walls of walled cities of the Middle Ages and ancient times! They commanded the guys who make sure Visigoths don't storm the gates and sack and burn the town! Or nowadays, they supervise those who patrol to make sure that no one is driving with mean words on the back of a pick up truck in Texas, where - sensitive Conservative Snowflakes that Texans are - words really, REALLY hurt!

Especially words on a pick up truck drove by a liberal woman. That's darn scary. Bet she wears shoes and votes, too.

And THAT is what FOUR STAR GENERAL Troy Nehls is doing with his time that he laughably imagines to earn him a rank GREATER than that of our Founding Father!

My point is that if you want to start de-militarizing the police, start not with tough things like breaking up a sweetheart deal between defense contractors, the DoD and the police departments/Sheriff departments of 3,500 counties and tens of thousands of cities.

No, start instead on stripping these overgrown boys of their falsely assumed rank that they amazingly figure they've somehow "earned". Because no matter how much some reading this may LOVE law enforcement and "LEOs", there is NO cop or deputy in all of history that has out earned GEORGE WASHINGTON!

I doubt that we can get any laws passed on this - yet - but if we can all at least be aware of this then maybe with laughter and contempt we can shame all these "four star Generals" out of this nonsense!

Worth a try!