[quote=Joegreenbeen]
They risk being shot daily. I think that that earns someone respect. If you Google Police Officer shot and killed, I know that you will find a bunch of stories about people who worked hard to get into there position, often a parent also, who were killed just for doing their job.
[/quote]

We all risk getting shot, daily. We are all too frequently the targeted prey of criminals. The same criminal that kills a police officer, has in most cases, victimized and threatened the lives of non-officers, or killed before. In fact, on average, for every 100,000 police officers, there are 19 on-the job related fatalities per year. Which works out to an average of 133 Officers who pass away ever year.

Which is such a small fraction of the regular, everyday people who walk out their door one day, and never come home due to means of foul play, in just terms of rating.

I love your emotional tie-in about officers with family left behind. What was the point? To use emotions to convince me that I'm wrong, and all officers should be given great respect?

Sorry. Your emotional plea is falling on deaf ears. Because just the same, how many non-LEO civilians perish each and every year, leaving behind their family, due to violent crime? People who did no wrong, who were not aware of their pending mortality, and utterly unprepared for it, in the way an officer's family would be? How many children are killed through homicide every year?

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not saying that I disrespect Police either. I treat them with the same modicum of polite respectfulness I afford to everyone until their actions influence my opinion of them. If an officer pulls me over, and treats me with similar respect and courtesy by knowing the legal boundaries of what they can ask for, etc, I will respect them. If however, they try to intimidate me, or ignore my questions, I will not respect them.

I simply believe that Respect is not binary. It is trinary. There is neutral ground where I neither disrespect someone, nor respect them. And in that neutral zone, is every single human being on the face of this planet that I have not yet met, with the sole exception of the WW2 veterans who gave their lives in defense of the freedom of Religious belief, and Ethnic tolerance. And to be clear, even those men and women who still survive today, gave their lives to that cause.