Yes -- the books I'm working on are coming along nicely -- thank you!

I think the larger issue here is that when someone is wearing a uniform it seems they are able to exercise remarkably bad judgment -- even judgment that kills people -- and get off relatively lightly compared to what would happen to you or I if we were to make the same mistake.

What if someone got loud with me and I tased him and he died? You think I'd get off with a few days suspended from a job sans pay? Or do you think there would at least be charges of involuntary manslaughter if not worse?

I understand that, to a certain degree, for agents of the state to do their jobs they have to have a degree of immunity. Sort of like the cops that pumped 40+ rounds into the unarmed black guy who didn't speak English and made a seemingly threatening move. It's important that they not be prosecuted for such things because ... well ... we don't want them to hesitate too much to pull the trigger when a REAL risk presents itself. Nevertheless, a totally innocent man lies dead with nobody held to account and that offends my sense of justice.

Still, I believe it is a serious problem when citizens are arrested for filming police stops and the like, or armed state agents aren't held to account for exercising bad judgment in the use of force that ultimately amounts to unilateral exercise of the death penalty when no actual credible risk was being presented.

There is far too much of an "us versus them" mentality fostered by such moves.

Another example is states who classify assaults against agents of the state as being more serious than those against regular citizens; or the federal government making it a greater crime to kill a federal employee than it is to kill you or me.

It creates two classes of people in this country in certain ways, and I DO think that in the long run it poses a threat to both freedom AND law and order.

Yeah, sure, I'm conservativish in some respects; but not in a fashion that grants carte blanche to state agents.