UCLA officer had previous violent encounters

Re:All police officers have violent encounters
To answer your question: it’s too bad you, who claim to adhere to conservative values, have dropped some of them off into the garbage can in your rush to defend government and its agents, at every opportunity. I always thought conservatives had a healthy suspician of government abuse of power; I guess not when it’s your guys in power. To me, it is a matter of urgency to notice and bring attention to creeping government oppression at every opportunity, given the extraordinary efforts Bush & Cabal have made in recent years to curtail our individual liberties.

You might wish to consider what a real conservative, Paul Craig Roberts, who worked for Reagan, very recently said about this trend, which I think happens to be relevant to the UCLA taser cops:

“But, alas, ‘law and order conservatives’ have been brainwashed for decades that civil liberties are unnecessary interferences with the ability of police to protect us from criminals. Americans have forgot that we need protection from government more than we need protection from criminals. Once we cut down civil liberty so that police may better pursue criminals and terrorists, where do we stand when government turns on us?

This is the famous question asked by Sir Thomas More in the play, A Man for All Seasons. The answer is that we stand naked, unprotected by law. It is an act of the utmost ignorance and stupidity to assume that only criminals and terrorists will stand unprotected.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts11222006.html

The fact you seemingly cannot conceive of the government turning on us is a measure of how far you have sunk into what you think is “realism,” but is really unmitigated cynicism. And he is right, he is so right, when Roberts concludes in his article:

“Americans should be roused to fury that attorney general Alberto Gonzales and vice president Cheney have condemned the defense of American civil liberty as ‘a grave threat to US security.’ This blatant use of an orchestrated and propagandistic fear to create a ‘national security’ wedge against the Bill of Rights is an impeachable offense. Mark my words, the future of civil liberty in the US depends on the impeachment and conviction of Bush, Cheney, and Gonzales.”

Re:All police officers have violent encounters
Meditate deeply for a hour or 2 a day on the title of Andy Grove’s book (Andy was CEO of Intel), “Only the Paranoid Survive.” You might learn something.

And a happy Thanksgiving to you. I think it’s a great holiday, as I have so much to be thankful for, including dialoging with you! 🙂