Radley Balko has a good post on abuse of police power at Reason:

The power to forcibly detain a citizen is an extraordinary one. It’s taken far too lightly, and is too often abused. And that abuse certainly occurs against black people, but not only against black people. American cops seem to have increasingly little tolerance for people who talk back, even merely to inquire about their rights.
[...]
Deference to police at the expense of the policed is misplaced. Put a government worker behind a desk and give him the power to regulate, and conservatives will wax at length about public choice theory, bureaucratic pettiness, and the trappings of power. And rightly so. But put a government worker behind a badge, strap a gun to his waist, and give him the power to detain, use force, and kill, and those lessons somehow no longer apply.

Police officers deserve the same courtesy we afford anyone else we encounter in public life—basic respect and civility….Verbally disrespecting a cop may well be rude, but in a free society we can’t allow it to become a crime, any more than we can criminalize criticism of the president, a senator, or the city council. There’s no excuse for the harassment or arrest of those who merely inquire about their rights, who ask for an explanation of what laws they’re breaking, or who photograph or otherwise document police officers on the job.

As an aside, I feel a little bad for taking this long to start reading Balko’s Agitator blog.

Going even further afield, the title comes from this t-shirt I saw in China. And for the record, it should be.

More potentially-related posts:

1. Juking the stats.
2. The NRA’s James Bond: an overweight 60-yr-old.
3. Barely-informed Elena Kagan speculation.