I am a Brit and not an American, but am a massive fan of your great nation. However, I cannot help but notice one extremely disturbing aspect of American life - wildly out of control law enforcement agencies in all their many forms. What passes for normality in American life among security, immigration, police, sheriffs, constables, DEA officials etc is just mind blowing to people outside the USA. Americans have a deep love for law enforcement, which is fine, but it seems to make them oblivious to the crazy excesses of the various agents who work within the system. They are often staggeringly rude, ill-mannered and objectionable people who feel empowered to do almost anthing they want whilst on duty. The conclusion I have come to is that their training is fundamentally flawed and they are rarely held accountable for their appalling lack of skill in dealing with difficult people situations. I have observed it so often in the countless embarrassing, and frankly shameful,
PR disasters that regularly beset US law enforcement that I can come to no other conclusion. It seems to me that this awful incident with United Airlines is yet another example of over-zealous and under-trained security staff who acted like Nazi thugs, and yet somehow believed their behavior was 'reasonable'. I cannot say this could never happen in Europe but I can say it is infinitely less likely due to the enormous constraints put on police and security staff actions compared to the US. Hopefully they will lose their jobs, but I am intrigued that Munos initially tried to justify this, thus showing an astonishing deference to law enforcement and seemingly accepting of their excesses. Somehow he felt an aggravated assault on a 69 year-old doctor was an appropriate response because he was being difficult. The guy himself will make a fortune but it does not deal with the unqualified support so often given to law enforcement by the American middle classes. It is a remarkable, yet very dangerous, phenomenon that seems peculiarly American.