By Mark David Blum, Esq.

The world every day is supposed to be better than the day before. At least, that is what we humans hope. We dream of enlightenment and chase it in all our collective efforts. While maybe a Republican or certain religious extremists deliberately stick their heads in the sand, jam fingers in their ears, and try and pretend that the rest of humanity has remained stoic. You cannot stop human beings, however, on our obvious destiny of constantly reinventing ourselves into a new and improved version

At the New York State Fair, you get to see it all. Our good, our bad, our very ugly is out there dangling before the agape mouth breathers who fill the grounds during the run of the Fair.

But I found, perhaps the ugliest of Fairgoers. We all accept there are arrogant, redneck, dumbass, jackasses out there. What we should never tolerate is when they wear the uniform of police officer and are paid generously with our salaries.

What do you say to a police officer who not only gives you and me, as members of the general public “the finger”. How would you like to drive behind a car that had a big ass bumper sticker that says, “I am a police officer and you are a Retard”. It happens every day and people and government agencies tolerate it.

I fully respect a police officer’s right to tool around in a car that had a big ass bumper sticker that says, “I am a police officer and you are a Retard”. The First Amendment protects them; end of discussion.

At the same time, a police officer, paid by taxpayers to protect and investigate crime, who then has an open container of venom against his own community such that he or she thinks it’s really funny to drive around with bumper stickers that say, “I am a cop and you are a Retard”; that police officer should be disarmed and fired. It is a dangerous situation where police can drive around freely calling citizens retards because it elevates the arrogance of the cop to think they are somehow more better (fuck you, Sheldon Cooper) than those in the community they serve.

New York’s Mental Hygene Law §9.41 provides that any police officer, “may take into custody any person who appears to be mentally ill and is conducting himself or herself in a manner which is likely to result in serious harm to the person or others. Such officer may direct the removal of such person or remove him or her to any hospital … or any comprehensive psychiatric emergency program ….”

This section of the law has morph’d police jargon to include a term “NINER”, taken from the Mental Hygene Law, to refer to a citizen in a situation as being ‘crazy’, ‘retarded’, ‘nuts’, and is a highly offensive and derogatory put-down. Police officers amongst themselves, consider use of the word NINER both funny and as a means to label a citizen and their behavior signaling to others in uniform how the citizen is to be seen and treated.

Somewhere on the grounds of the New York State Fair is a parking area where police of all stripes park their personal vehicles to they can either work the Fair or just use their badges and connections to get into the Fair.

Here, and what follows, are proof positive that there are police out there that hold us all in complete disgust and disrespect and think they are being funny in doing so.

I don’t fault the ignorant officer. I fault the chiefs and chief executives of the municipalities for allowing police officers this emotionally retarded to carry weapons and prowl our streets.

If you want a family friendly Fair, then keep us safe from these retards -- before they hurt themselves or others.