Okay, I didn't read all 15 pages of shit on this thread, mostly because my attention span is too short.
My new(ish) girlfriend is a nurse. First time I've dated someone other than accountant chick, lawyer chick, stripper chick (was kidding about the lawyer chick). I turned up at her clinic a few weeks ago for the first time to deliver a nice lunch to her (the cafeteria has a health warning label of its own). A busy day for me is when I have 3 meetings. A busy day for her is when she has queues of people out the door - and most of them seem to be bleeding.
This has a point.
As a nurse, she budgets very carefully each month, she works out how many times she can buy her lunch each month, and when she can buy a new pair of shoes. She earns about the same as a cop - plus or minus. So, they don't do it for the money. There are some cops that are assholes, but I can name at least five people here on this site that I'd lend a match to if they were doused in kerosine. I've met asshole cops, Ginga being the chief asshole. But, more often than not, I've been treated with respect and professionalism in situations that I deserved less (anyone who rides with me knows I generally deserve the tickets I get on occasion).
I'd like to see the salaries increased for cops and nurses; the measure of value to society is not fairly recognised. I'd have no issue with that, put my tax cut towards that. Not towards supporting assholes living on the dole eating KFC each day.
Point is, the contribution of your average cop or nurse or firefighter or soldier or medic or even GP (which earn money less than you'd imagine on average) is high, we should respect it far higher than we do.
Its diametrically opposed to the sanitised existence of the Lemmings around me in the Dilbert Cartoon hell I live in; its life at full volume, perfect colour with high resolution and 10,000 watts of amplification.
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