There are certain things you have to be realistic about. Dirty Harry would not be on a police department at my age.
– Clint Eastwood. Speaking at the Cannes Film Festival.
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Samizdata quote of the dayMay 21st, 2008 |
 14 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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A great guy.
Not necessarily a good thing.
“A great guy.”
Clint Eastwood, yes. Dirty Harry, not so much.
I wonder if Dirty Harry could get a State Department gig. Imagine what messages he might convey to Iran…
If one cares about protecting people from violent criminals then “Dirty Harry” is a great guy.
As for age…..
There is (or at least last time I heard) a police officer on active duty in the New Orleans force – IN HIS 90’s
The man stormed ashore on the Normady beaches in 1944 (when he was aleady older than most soldiers) and he still carried a gun and faught the thieves, rapists and murderers of New Orleans.
And, yes, unlike so many of the younger police officers – he did not turn tail when Katrina hit (or join the criminals – as some of the New Orleans force did).
PopeRatzo: I was referring to Eastwood. As to DH, I know what you mean, but on the other hand – what Paul said.
BTW, at the same interview, Angelina Jolie has (jokingly?) expressed an interest in the role.
Inspector Callahan is commonly called our pre-eminent philosopher. I don’t know that anybody’s completely joking when they say that. “You’re a good man, Lieutenant. A good man always knows his limitations.”
I can only imagine how long it would take to get him parked at callback at the real San Francisco PD. It seems like the kind of town that would try to get someone out of public contact after the second or third shooting in a career, even if they’re all justifed.
Paul notes:
The ones who went rogue are shitheads and should have been drowned at birth. Taking food and bottled water from a store and bringing it to a shelter and leaving a receipt for the owner to be reimbursed is at about the very edge of okay. Grabbing beer and consumer electronics…I could say something but I don’t want to start cursing when I have court in an hour.
As for the runners…some ran. Others may not have existed in the beginning. New Orleans is notorious for ghost payrolls, and a sloppily-run police department is one place for that. I mean, I thought that the city where I was born was corrupt, but wow.
For what it’s worth, back in the 1990’s some network news magazine show (20/20?) did a hit piece on Crazy Joe Arpaio, sheriff of Maricopa County, AZ. In between negative comments on the tents and the food, they made sport of Sheriff Arpaio’s “calling out the posse.” What he actually did was stand up a reserve unit, basically an unpaid twice-a-month group of volunteers. They went through a 16-week academy, met the AZ POST certification standards, and had full police powers, at least while on duty. Apparently, the notion of the public taking an interest in policing their own community is laughable in the places where network pseudo-news shows are produced.
Anyway, the central joke to the producer was that one participant was about 80 years old. I thought it was pretty cool, but I’m a dumb redneck intellectual from flyover country, so I know very little.
If he could meet the same physical standards, he’d be more than welcome on my shift. If he’s 80 and fully functional, he’s probably got the kind of life experience that would make him good to work with.
This is most likely a vague jab at Harrison Ford for playing Indiana Jones at his age, surely?
I read that ‘Dirty Harry’ was the inspiration for Judge Dredd, and the concept of quick justice. I think Clint would approve of that, as would most libertarians.
I doubt that any libertarian would want to live in Mega-City 1, quick justice or no.
All we saw were the bad parts- I’m sure Megacity 1 has plenty of good places! And (in the Comics) you could reach space! And none of the Judges were limp-wristed liberals who felt it was their job to let criminals go!
The 2000 AD comic script was a leftist satire (at least it started that way – or there is an element of that).
And there is no clear idea of how Megacity One’s manages to survive – economically (but then economics is not the strong suit of leftists – including the leftists who are academics in economics departments).
Still the film (flawed as it was) did touch on a point – how the system of Judges could be corrupted from within and how the innocent could be made the target of power (including most of the Judges Coucil themselves).
In the end Dredd (framed for a murder in fact committed by his clone brother) has to take on the system (with its corrupt Chief Judge) with the aid of a petty criminal and a rogue judge.
On Sunfish’s point about 20/20
I suppose that John Stossel was not in charge of that particular show.
ABC may be a left of centre outfit (the head of Disney is a big Clinton supporter) but it is not a knee jerk one – and there are some good people there of whom Stossel is one.
I would think that one might get a fair hearing from some people at ABC – rather than the automatic “Progressive” B.S. that one would get from NBC or CNN (or ……).
It may not have been 20/20. It may have been 60 Minutes That I’ll Never Get Back or who knows? I wasn’t paying all that much attention, in all honesty.
I know for sure that Stossel wasn’t involved. I’d have remembered him. Sometimes his work is memorable and sometimes not, but his very worst days are still not bad enough to remember for their sheer idiocy a decade later.
As far as Eisner supporting Clinton: his mission is to extend copyright forever, to keep Steamboat Willie from ever entering the public domain. He’ll support whoever will give him that.
I think you have said that before Sunfish – and I hope you are correct.
I hope we do not see Eisner going off to do the P.C. thing of supporting Senator Obama – with ABC being under (tacit) instruction to back him.
CNN has long switched from Clinton to Obama, and NBC has been in-the-tank for Obama since day one.
Oddly enough CBS (of 60 Minutes and so on) is slightly less involved in Obama mania. Perhaps Kaplan still values his links to the Clintons.
Of course the media (or 90% of it) will support whoever the Democrat candidate is (for just about anything) – but they do not have to be so blatent about it.
Someone like Chris M. with his “hearing Obama was like feeling something rubbing up my leg” was embarrasing even for the left.
Although this does not stop the MSNBC “hard talk” guy being given honourary doctorates at various universities for his “journalism”.
Still it is sometimes nice when the left turns on the left – such as when the same Chris M. declared that the only reason Hillary Clinton became a Senator was because people were sorry for her because of her husband’s sexual antics.