The young do not know that they have lost their country, because they are born into a time when the country is lost. To them that is normalcy.

Besides, the young are too busy texting and describing themselves, often intimately, on social media to be aware of the fate that awaits them, lost as they are in their insouciance.

When I was young, the police were the public's friends. We could count on them to help us, not abuse us. False arrest was rare. Abuse of citizens even rarer. Today both are routine.

Over the years I have written about the transformation of the police from protectors of the public into abusers of the public.

Over these years I have received many letters from former policemen who write that they gave up their profession out of disgust of the corruption and unaccountable brutality, or as a result of fear that they would be forced to participate in the corruption or become a victim of it.