Maher: Talks about this past week: Police culture needs to change

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/07/maher-reveals-trumps-sales-pitch-to-colbert-tell-white-men-america-gives-them-a-raw-break/

“The idea that someone is going to be president and just learning things, he’s like a baby with a mobile over his head,” Maher said.

Colbert asked him to react to the tragic shootings of 11 police officers last week in Dallas, including five dead, and the killings of two unarmed black men by police just days before.

“I’m a bit of a cynic,” Maher said. “I think civilization is a mile wide and an inch deep. Without the police on the job, you know that movie ‘The Purge’?” It’d be that every day without the police.”

He said the shooting of any police officer was “abhorrent,” but he said he can relate to the anger at unjustified police violence.

“I don’t condone it, but I understand it,” Maher said. “You can only look at so many videos of shooting unarmed black people. I’m surprised it actually didn’t happen before.”

Colbert recalled a quote from John F. Kennedy, who said “those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable,” and he said that Black Lives Matter had placed the issue of police brutality in front of the public but no meaningful changes had resulted.

“This goes back to — well, certainly before, but on tape — Rodney King, and Rodney King was what, 1991?” Maher said. “We all looked at that tape and thought, ‘How can these cops get away with this?'”

Maher said violence was wrong on both sides, but he said policing has needed fundamental change for many years.

“We all need the police, I think we respect them, but there is something wrong with police culture,” he said. “I don’t think most policemen are bad at all, I don’t think most policemen would do the things we’ve seen on tape, but there is that ‘thin blue line’ mentality where they protect their own, and I think that has to change.”

Maher said the only difference now is that many of the most egregious violations of public trust have been captured on video that can be shared online.

“The police is kind of like the priesthood, they attract the wrong kind of people sometimes,” Maher said. “I think there’s a lot of people who go into police work because they were the person who, when they were young, they had no authority, they were kind of losers, and now they want to have the ability to lord it over people. The police department cannot be revenge for high school.”

He said police recruits like that should be weeded out, and he said more police officers should recognize and accept that they have volunteered to work a dangerous job.

“It’s like a proctologist getting to the office and going, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m looking at assholes all day,'” Maher said. “When you’re a cop, you’re going to be looking at assholes all day. That is the job you signed up for.”