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Rise of the Warrior Cop: How America's Police Forces Became Militarized
FuzzNugget writes "An awakening piece in the Wall Street Journal paints a grim picture of how America's police departments went from community officers walking the beat to full-on, militarized SWAT operations breaking down the doors of non-violent offenders. From the article: 'In the 1970s, there were just a few hundred [raids] a year; by the early 1980s, there were some 3,000 a year. In 2005, there were approximately 50,000 raids.' It goes on to detail examples of aggressive, SWAT-style raids on non-violent offenders and how many have ended in unnecessary deaths. Last year, after a Utah man's home was raided for having 16 small marijuana plants, nearly 300 bullets in total were fired (most of them by the police) in the ensuing gunfight, the homeowner believing he was a victim of a home invasion by criminals. The U.S. military veteran later hanged himself in his jail cell while the prosecution sought the death sentence for the murder of one officer he believed to be an criminal assailant. In 2006, a man in Virginia was shot and killed after an undercover detective overheard the man discussing bets on college football games with buddies in a bar. The 38-year-old optometrist had no criminal record and no history of violence. The reports range from incredulous to outrageous; from the raid on the Gibson guitar factory for violation of conservational law, to the infiltration of a bar where underage youth were believed to be drinking, to the Tibetan monks who were apprehended by police in full SWAT gear for overstaying their visas on a peace mission. Then there's the one about the woman who was subject to a raid for failing to pay her student loan bills. It's a small wonder why few respect police anymore. SWAT-style raids aren't just for defense against similarly-armed criminals anymore; it's now a standard ops intimidation tactic. How much bloodshed will it take for America to realize such a disproportionate response is unwarranted and disastrous?"
Before things improve, they will get worse.
How long is a piece of string?
Police, and the government in general, are becoming more aggressive and oppressive at the cost of American lives and liberties.
How is this news (unless you've lived in a cave, or been a politician, for the last 20 years)?
As a Brit, the stuff I read about the cops in the USA freaks me out, maybe because of the relative lack-of-guns here.
I read articles saying even your tax collectors are doing armed raids on houses, is this right? It seems like something from a Terry Gilliam film, nightmare-ish.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Full disk encryption. & Call my attorney.
Do not talk to police without an attorney.
probably when they invade poland ...
...you have nothing to fear, right?
At least that is what the early proponents for increased surveillance and by extension armament of the police forces kept saying.
It is the lawmakers and the police that keeps escalating trivial issues to full out combat.
They did it during the occupy demonstrations as well. Kept battering peaceful demonstrations wearing riot gear, then go nuclear when someone had the audacity to tell them to stop.
It is a disgrace.
If there are no checks and balance to stop this from happening, then over the years it will creep forward slowly getting worse. Imagine being stopped for slightly speeding, you have your family in the car and the officer approaches with gun drawn, nice thought that... The police will say they do it to protect themselves, overwhelming force...perhaps sometimes it does go their way, other times it will not.
Who has the power to not pay for this?
They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. Unfortunately the seem to be stuck on that last part.
Fuck yeah.
First things first- what does this have to do with technology? Having said that, let's deal with the rest. The answer to why police have become more militaristic is because criminals have become more murderous against cops. I'll be the first to agree that overwhelming force has been used in many inappropriate situations, but cops are humans who want to go home alive at the end of shift. They are tired of being shot at and, simy put, there is safety in numbers. Lest you question my credibility, I'm a medically retired cop (http://www.heroholsters.com/about-our-company.html) who was shot in the line of duty while investigating a massive marijuana grow(I don't want to hear the pro-weed arguments... It's still illegal in ohio). I was alone. We don't have huge SWAT teams here. If we had the numbers and the airplanes (or drones- there argue about that one) the odds are I would have a whole body and still be investigating major crimes. My bottom line is this, until you've put your life on the line on a daily basis, you can't understand why cops or soldiers do what they do. I'm not saying you shouldn't question it, that is the American way, but at least try to get beyond yourself and truly think about it a second. (Posted from my phone, paragraph breaks don't seem to work)
Violent crime in the US is occurring at the lowest rate in my lifetime and still declining rapidly. There are some, I'm sure, who would say that SWAT teams are a contributing factor to that. I'm skeptical of that claim. I would argue instead that declining violent crime rates make SWAT teams irrelevant. The wasted money alone is reason enough to quit using them; the number of extra-judicial "accidental" killings is a stronger reason.
I've lived in the Boston metro area for over 15 years, and the only incident I've seen or heard about that justified use of a SWAT team was the apprehension of the marathon bombing suspects. Frankly, something that we need that rarely, we would be better off without. Let the governor call out the National Guard when the threat to public safety is enough to justify military force.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
These raids being discussed above are to get the populace to accept them as normal, and to eventually get immediate compliance and prostration on "routine" raids in the future. Then disarming people, or shooting them, "for their own good" so that "misunderstandings" don't happen in "routine" raids in the future. These early raids will weed out those who will resist, as they ramp up eventually they'll get everyone who would resist.
People think there are sheep and wolves. Truth is there are sheep, wolves, and sheep dogs. The job of the wolf is to get the sheep to fear the sheep dog - and it's working. The sheep dog is the biggest threat to the wolf, and the wolves are systematically weeding them out.
A near miss.
Nowhere near a miss.
My thoughts on that one.
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Way to put a SWATarget on yourself. I commend your bravery.
In Auburn, WA a corrections officer was seeking another person. The DOC officer and King County police shot an unarmed man (Theoharis), the officers later claiming say they thought he (Theoharis) was reaching for a gun, though no weapons were found in the room.The independent review also found evidence the sheriff's office was more interested in advocating for its officers than uncovering the facts behind the shooting.
Cheye Calvo, then mayor of Berwyn Heights, MD: His crime was bringing a package inside his home. It turned out that this was a package of pot that the police had been tracking and put on his porch, and as soon as the package was inside the SWAT team stormed his house, shooting his dogs, nearly shooting his mother-in-law (cue jokes), no knocking or announcing. It turned out that the only reason that the package had been addressed to his home was that some drug dealer had gotten his wife's name and address at random, and then have the local UPS delivery guy just take the packages to whoever was really supposed to get them. There was also an obvious entrapment issue, as Calvo would never have seen the package without the police putting it there.
Nowadays Calvo spends most of his time traveling the country giving talks about out of control SWAT teams. He also points out that there are lots of people who this happens to that nobody paid attention to because they were poor and/or not-white, rather than relatively well-to-do, white, and the local mayor.
I am officially gone from
Who has the power to not pay for this?
The billionaire 1%'ers. Their money is off-shore - tax free.
When you have 50,000 raids a year ... you will get the ones that will swing wide off the mark. I am sure they will get the address wrong, a cat will fall on the officer's face as they break in and they will gun down a whole convent. The officers are shit scared that 12 year old is holding a fully automatic weapon as per it's God given right.
>> How much bloodshed will it take for America to realize such a disproportionate response is unwarranted and disastrous?
Still trying to figure that out with all the invasions, what luck do you think the government will have with it's local policy.
If gun ownership in a society is as ubiquitous as in the United States then the police necessarily have to be at least as well armed and trained in military tactics.
Saw the near miss on fark earlier, and I must say, the thing that got me the most was Wiggins comment:
I did find the link on Fark but I hadn't read the comments. HOLY FARK - it's over 500, I'll look for Wiggins.
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Years - and people wonder why the police are militarized, why violence is prevelant, why mass shootings happen, why bombings happen. It is because our culture is one of death and destruction, because 'merica. Endless war has done this, the value of life is nonexistent in our government.
Nevermind, Wiggins was the cop, not a Farker. When I shared the link on Facebook I copy pasted it - here's what I shared there:
Goldsberry wasn't arrested or shot despite pointing a gun at a cop, so Wiggins said, “She sure shouldn't be going to the press.”
She absolutely positively should have gone to the press, and the court system and brought the press along there. Not that the the press cares about real justice anymore, just steering sheep for their kickbacks.
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The police are increasingly regarded with fear and distrust, which insulates them from the community they work in, which makes their behaviour in turn more aggressive and antagonistic. This widens the gap to the point where the police are not a part of a community, but something that oppresses it.
History has proven that a lot of people are happy to mistreat or kill or torture others, assuming they see the other as an "enemy".
The Warrior Cop seems to me to be not just a result of militarisation, but politicalisation. Cops are told again and again they are fighting wars against drugs, or terrorism, or crime, and unsurprisingly they turn into a war making institution. Not only that, but an institution that sees everyone as an enemy.
This seems to me a result of consistently electing lawmakers who are too fucking stupid for words.
But take off the gun so you can see what's up
And we'll go at it punk, I'ma fuck you up
All you needed to do was watch the coverage when they were trying to get the other Boston Marathon bomber. As far as I could tell they literally had thousands of these basically soldiers running around which was surreal to me given that they were trying to catch one guy.(Who had some homemade bombs and a pistol.) I think I saw FBI, CIA, ATF, plus Watertown, Cambridge, and Boston police soldiers. I mentioned to my brother if anything this would only encourage more terrorism since basically 2 guys for probably well under a $1000 shut down at least 3 cities and probably induced a cost in the several hundreds of millions. Oh and the worst part, they didn't even catch the guy. BTW should I mention even libertarian with conservative leaning sites like instapundit think this is horseshit?
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Not sure where to start as far as how to fix law enforcement. It's become positively mired in internal as well as external failures. Last time I went into a police station, the officers were staring blankly at their screens, doing absolutely nothing. Anytime anyone moved, that person would receive angry scowls and sneers. And whenever people are in trouble, they're 1 hour away. Our streets are so cluttered and gridlocked that it's just impossible for anyone to move effectively. It's kind of amazing just how angry the officers I meet are these days. I remember 10 years ago the complete opposite was true. Used to see police in the fun run, being useful at community events, keeping the peace... Now there's a new mentality, and it's frankly a disgrace. It's like the crippling immaturity that we see daily in our culture has somehow even changed our police. You know, the good guys. It's really sad.
I am the victim of a Police SWAT which happened in 2007. I lost my (food svc.) job at the time. When it happened I was visiting with a couple of neighbors in my apartment. The police at the time did not read a Miranda warning, and called the judge to obtain a warrant and permission to hold trial right there. After being asked a few innocuous questions, I was taken to the local hospital behavioral medicine unit. The police were frantic, and I believe this took place on a Sunday night. The Landlord had indicated I was going to be evicted, but IIRC I was well within the allotted time-frame to prepare to move. A number of years have passed since that time. Only a few years ago, a thief broke the lock on my storage unit and stole a few computers and most everything I had except my books and files. I am and was nonviolent. I am not and was not addicted to any drug, and I had not drunk nor smoked. I did not shout nor yell. The above happened in the freedom-loving community of Provo, Utah.
...support the Second Amendment.
I recently received a DVD in the mail. I did some research on it and found there are those who have over the last couple years also received such videos. Confusion happens as they did not order the DVD and mistakenly perceived it as a scam to get them to pay for it. Had they simply paid attention to the paperwork that came with the video they would know paying for it is optional, by law. They could keep it at no charge or they could return it in a prepaid envelope that the content of the video may benefit another.
The simplest view to take is that of perceiving the dvd as a direct mail advertisement containing potentially useful information that you can do with it as you please within copyright boundaries as it is with any direct mail promotion you receive.
Other than the confusion cleared by knowing the law, many of those who disapproved might also be the same who would say advertisment that contains genuinely useful information woudl be better than sales pitch BS
This video I received was branded NRA as it was the NRA mailing list used in the mail out. But the DVD itself is from http://video.personaldefensenetwork.com/ which has many free videos online. This video is titled- Advanced Personal Defense: Combat Focus (TM) Shooting and Home Defense Tips.
Given the effort of government to violate the second amendment and the buildup of cops turned unskilled (lacking the bootcamp and other psychological conditioning to make proper judgement calls) military style swat thugs ..... It is a wise thing to make use of the information the PDN videos provide, even if you are not a gun supporter, for it can help you recognize whether someone with a gun is a threat to you or not - by recognizing weather or not they are making proper use of their gun.
One other pressure is that being a cop can be pretty boring. Wrestling drunks, traffic patrol, walking/driving the beat, arguing with crazy people. Then you have the relative lack of genuine promotion opportunities most communities only need a tiny number of detectives or major crimes investigators. Plus the reality is that via tickets issued and petty crime prevention being high priorities for most local governments, they don't really want many cops to be anything but uniforms driving marked units.
So then comes along SWAT. With the occasional columbine the cops are able to convince the local politicians that they don't want to be caught with their pants down. Internally they wont meet much resistance because who doesn't want to play soldier and act all tough. You get to do cool training (pit maneuvers, kicking down doors, and lots of shooting). Basically action hero stuff; who didn't become a cop without at least a small hero fantasy in the back of their brain.
But then the last factor is that most police departments are by nature separate from the politicians. This is sort of a requirement otherwise politicians could too easily interfere with investigations "I can vouch for him personally, he would never do anything like that, I think you should drop it, Now." Plus the police need to be able to distribute their resources as they see fit. Again the politicians would distribute the policing according to political needs which would generally be very different than distributing the resources for crime prevention.
But the real question becomes one of authoritarianism vs libertarianism. This is the true divide in North America, not left wing and right wing. There are those who believe that we should be exposed to no risk and aim to impose some kind of perfect Disney society. They believe that with enough rules that this society can be achieve. The war on terror and the war on drugs are perfect examples of this. Yet the simple measure of the impossibility of this would be maximum security prisons these places are full of drugs and violence. If near 100% removal of liberty and relentless monitoring can not work in these facilities, what hope is there outside in "free" society? Bizarrely the various police agencies are slowly turning "free" society into those very failed prisons.
This sort of behavior often has many unintended consequences. This us against them mentality might first pervade the police but it then pervades the public. You end up with a public who stop cooperating with the police as a rule thinking that any cooperation will be used against them. This significantly reduces the usefulness of the police while reinforcing their mentality of us against them.
But then this feedback loop seems to get worse. The authoritarianism begins to spread to the legal system where you get angry prosecutors and hanging judges trying to prove that the system still works. The politicians are then harangued to make the penalties stiffer and stiffer as toleration of any libertarian policies would be to admit failure.
But luckily fantasy can only hold out so long against reality and as we are seeing a few jurisdictions have effectively eliminated their marijuana penalties. The world did not come to an end. Money is being save and lives aren't being ruined. But the authoritarian types are still desperate to hit people with sticks. So they are now making DUI laws where you will test positive a week or more after smoking up. Also these involve taking a blood sample. A fairly invasive and nasty privilege to give to the police.
So my suggestion is to fight fire with fire. New fundamental laws need to be put into place that will severely punish any members of the legal system who violate people's rights. There should be a people's jury that can be called that can permanently remove from office any official who is accused of abusing rights (judges, police, prosecutors). Freedom of information laws should be massively strengthened to the point where when a FOI request is issued that the officials will place it at the top of their todo list with little recourse to say no. Information is truely the lever of power and by giving information back to the people the people will regain the power that is rightfully theirs.
I have a question for the police chiefs around the country. When an officer conducting a raid "accidentally" shoots an unarmed person, why are there no consequences for that incident? It would seem to me, someone who will accidentally pull the trigger during a raid is exactly the kind of person who should not be trusted to participate in raids.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Well he was right. The US Constitution had to be amended to prohibit alcohol, as the Federal Government did not have that power. It was repealed. Nothing was added to the Constitution to give it the power to prohibit ditch weed, or anything else of the sort. The whole War on Drugs is illegal - at least if the Constitution is still in effect.
When people swear to defend it against enemies foreign and domestic, these are the domestic ones they're talking about. I'm saddened that this veteran saw death as his only way out.
Somebody in DC thinks we're better off now then we were before, when he had 16 plants in his house.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The worst part is that the GBI (State of Georgia's version of FBI) swat team went to other offices of professors unrelated to the incident and pointed these assault rifles in their face. Talk about overwhelming force.
"We can not continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We gotta have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded."
- candidate Barrack Obama, 2008
The cops are taking steroids. There's no stigma against it like in pro sports, but just as much pressure to perform. You all know there are many performance enhancing drugs, not just steroids but even something as simple as ritalin or adderal. Cops have easy access, too.
I'd like to see random drug testing of cops, and drug testing of cops following these ridiculous events where they fire hundreds of rounds for no particular reason other than that all the other trigger-happy cops are firing. You can't substitute calm, rational peace-keeping with hyped-up cops over-compensating for their tiny guns.
We need to raise awareness of cops who are pulling a Lance Armstrong.
I'm surprised the (otherwise excellent) article neglected to include the Cato Institute's map of botched paramilitary police raids.
This really is a serious problem. I teach home defense along with my concealed weapon permit classes, and the question always comes up "If someone is breaking into my house, how do I know if it's the police?" The answer, of course, is that you can't know, but if you guess wrong it could cost you your life. Good luck.
In my opinion, raids are simply too risky to be justified unless there's an imminent threat to an innocent's life. The reason for using aggressive entry tactics in the vast majority of cases is to prevent the destruction of evidence. That's simply not a good enough reason the kind of high-risk situation the aggressive tactics produce.
I think there are very rare circumstances in which SWAT really is appropriate, and we should scale SWAT capabilities appropriately. Perhaps each US state should have a single group of state troopers who form such an elite force, and are equipped with transportation that allows them to respond quickly anywhere in the state. A big, populous state like California may need two or three such units. But when every podunk PD has its own SWAT team, their mere existence is going to guaranteed that they get used for all sorts of other things. They're too expensive, and too cool (to the police), to just leave sitting around all the time.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Do I just go down to the local police station and ask them to give up all their cool body armor and to please refrain from raiding unarmed civilians in full gear with automatic weapons drawn? Do I write my congress critter and ask them to quit sending millions of dollars to local police forces (and then be called out by their colleagues for "not being tough on terrorism")? Not to be cynical - I seriously would like some recommendations for a course of action for the average man.
What is it with Americans and writing "an" instead of "a" all the time? It's not as if you can't SEE that you just typed something incorrect, nor that you can't FEEL that you typed TWO letters instead of one. And yet still, wherever there are Americans typing 'on the internet', there are these irritating 'ans' turning up all over the place.
Given free reign, most authoritarians will opt for the most egregious display of power they can muster. Their goal is to intimidate all who might question or oppose them, even within their own ranks or among their allies. Of course, such as an Edward Snowden is to be nipped in the bud. Furthering this agenda is the fact that SWAT teams burn huge amounts of money on each outing, requiring larger budgets and thereby aggregating more power to the commanders. It is a vicious circle owned and managed by those who profit from it. Unfortunately, that condition has developed in many of society's institutions, such as Wall Street or Congress.
they haven't synced with the actual military on any permanent scale. As a vet, I'd like to keep that distinction at least lest they tarnish that service. But living here as an ordinary citizen who encounters over-militarized and over-budgeted police all the time, I'd have to say that the latter is at least part of the problem.
Plus, the police use that Pla-Skool phonetic alphabet rather than that used by the rest of the planet. Sort of amplifies how stupid the whole thing is when you see a decked out SWAT team trying to spell something.
"Last year, after a Utah man's home was raided for having 16 small marijuana plants, nearly 300 bullets in total were fired (most of them by the police) in the ensuing gunfight, the homeowner believing he was a victim of a home invasion by criminals. The U.S. military veteran later hanged himself in his jail cell while the prosecution sought the death sentence for the murder of one officer he believed to be an criminal assailant."
So, a dealer or heavy pot user (16 plants...I don't think the law cares about whether they were "small") believes his home is being broken into. He used deadly force to protect his pot plants. Turns out he killed a cop.
Honestly, I'm sorry to hear he was a veteran, but that doesn't exonerate him from a few catastrophically bad decisions, something he finally figured out.
-Styopa
Interestingly, These same scumbag cops dont have the balls to do that to a Motorcycle rally or a Gun rally.
Cops only use these tactics on soft targets, they act exactly like street gangs.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Robert Peel, the founder of our police, believed in 'policing by consent'. We, in the UK, are drifting further and further from that with armoured police vans, tasered up thugs 'patrolling' and [one recent incident I witnessed] 10 police for one angry unarmed man in a incident in a bus queue. Birghtly painted cars including one I've seen recently marked 'interceptor', they've obviously been watching Mad Max. They are rude and patronising if you ask them something and violent towards any protestors. Crime is declining here too.
Most of the bad trends tend to drift in here from the US and this is one.
I was mugged last year. It wasn't very serious, but, in spite of 12 similar incidents they couldn't catch the guys because their main 'method' was 'look at CCTV footage', they are not 'near' the community, something that would enable them to do 'police work'. Go figure.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
TFA says NASA has its own SWAT. "Along with the formidable force of standard security at Kennedy, a highly trained and specialized group of guardians protect the Center from would-be troublemakers. They are the members of the Kennedy Space Center Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team and they mean business. " http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/main/swat_feature.html
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Spotlighting, misleading vividness, cherry-picking, appeal to fear, appeal to emotion, and misrepresenting the facts.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Why do SWAT teams wear black? It may seem like a small point, but when designing uniforms symbolism and psychological effect are certainly considered. When I see a black uniform the first thing I think of is Gestapo. I'm sure that I'm not the only one. What other uniforms are black?
Don't say it's for camouflage, as any solid color is bad camo. Even at night straight black is far from the best - that was known as least as far back as WWII. The standard, and immediately recognizable, color for (local) police uniforms in this country has always been dark blue. State police and sheriffs deputies may wear grey or khaki. Recognizability is useful - that's why certain brands of products have "trademark" colors. It says much that they want black associated with SWAT.
It will continue to increase as long as there is a chance citizens are armed with assault rifles and such guns. Notice how swat usage skyrockets within a decade of the US Army replacing the M14 with the M16, a true assault rifle. The Vietnam war was the age of the full auto assault rifle... the iconic M16 and AK-47. "SWAT-style raids aren't just for defense against similarly-armed criminals anymore" With the sheer number of raids occurring these days, there will be some cases that it was overkill or even completely unjustified. Problem is that more and more people have access to military grade weapons and an attitude of the constitutional given right to have and use those weapons, police have to assume that under higher risk situations, the chance of these criminals having an AK-47 or hell a M82 is a lot higher. When the 2nd amendment was adopted, people were carrying muskets around. They were slow to load, highly inaccurate, but devastating when on target. Todays 'arms' are highly refined killing machines that can practically fire off hundreds of rounds a minute (theoretical is 875-1000 rpm for the M16) vs the 3 a minute of a musket. A musket was a deterrent in a time when hacking and stabbing with a sword in battle was still common. A modern assault rifle is a proper killing machine. Even hand guns are much more effective than a musket of 2nd amendment vintage. The law was written 222 years ago... it did not have such modern weapons in mind, and is horribly out of date. tl;dnr - Excessive swat use stems directly from the right to possess military grade assault rifles.
In a country where nearly anybody can be armed and the media idolizes the tough guy of course Law Enforcement is going to do more heavily armed raids. As a limited peace officer (conservation) I have received threats just walking down the street on my day off by an armed (CCW) local dipshit (no more CCW for him). The easy way to avoid the cops breaking down your door is don't break the law. Nobody has ever broken down my door - but then again I don't grow dope, run a betting ring, skip paying my taxes, hack government data systems or kill endangered species for fun. The cops are armed because the population is - the cops will always have more guns otherwise they can't do their job.
"In God we trust" ... not. Power is what you should worship, whether it is cars, money or guns. Power can solve all your problems. America has granted the individual the illusion of personal sovereignty in the full knowledge they can no more exercise it than fly to the moon.
So there are lots of guns, and the cop gangs carry lots more guns just in case. But in practice there's no "just in case" and SOP is to go in with maximum suppressive cover.
It's no surprise stuff like this happens given the parameters the system has been setup with. And there's no easy way back, because of grass-roots indoctrination of the *illusion*. Stupidity and aggression are easy bedfellows.
When you have 50,000 raids a year ... you will get the ones that will swing wide off the mark. I am sure they will get the address wrong, a cat will fall on the officer's face as they break in and they will gun down a whole convent.
No excuses. They're incompetent.
The officers are shit scared that 12 year old is holding a fully automatic weapon as per it's God given right.
They can get another job.
There's plenty of grunts who want to wear a badge and gun who'll take that job.
And that's all they are - grunts. If your job is to carry a gun, you're a grunt and your job is to be in the line of fire.
I think the "shock and awe" SWAT tactics just reveal an underlying fear in the police that they could deal with the situation any other way. I guess this is what you get if you have a society where everyone may have a gun and be willing to use it on unwanted visitors, so the default setting of society is excessive violence. Reminds me of that South Park animation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDCh4-pKrrE -- America was built on scared people (running away from Europe on the Mayflower -- don't blame me, South Park folks said it), and has continued in that great scared tradition (excessive military, excessive foreign intervention, excessive fear of others in society, excessive use of guns, etc, etc). Probably better to rewind 400+ years and try again.
I thought everyone who watched a Warner Bros cartoon knew that - if you can see the big hole at the end, you are being threatened.
"If everybody is thinking alike, somebody isn't thinking" - Gen. George S. Patton
...until the degree of brutality reaches to levels that everyone can see.
Which takes us back to the final sentence of TFS:
How much bloodshed will it take for America to realize such a disproportionate response is unwarranted and disastrous?"
Trouble is, what everybody can see and what can be done about it are two different things. If you have a State that is content to say FUCK YOU, then, well, you're fucked. It really doesn't make any difference whether or not you protest, the behaviour will remain the same. There are only two things you can do about such treatment, and one of those (most likely) will make you a criminal as far as the law is concerned. The other, of course, is to do nothing. Good luck with that.
There is no point in placing asinine hope in democratic processes: we have been shown (time and again) that where these exist (!), they will be subverted by those who do not have your best interests at heart.
I wasn't aware they had done this. I know only of the arrest of the two fall guys for this latest false flag operation.
What do you expect from the WSJ? They're a well known far left radical pacifist publication. It's not like this was in the mainstream media or anything.
I remember a while back (this was in the nineties) watching a small Hispanic boy running in a supermarket in downtown L.A.and suddenly stopping to look up in stunned silence at a very large man dressed in dark clothes,. One of L.A.'s finest.
You know what that cop said to the little kid (he couldn't have been more than four years old)?
"Do I scare you?"
Right there and then I thought to myself: something very wrong with this man, something very wrong with the police in this town.
I live in Kansas City and I've noticed--in somewhat disbelief--over the last few years, the number of everyday cops rising who wear increasingly comprehensive body armor for regular patrolling and traffic stops. The armor itself almost appears to be intimidating on purpose (it makes them look like bad asses). This is not yet universally the case here, but it gets worse every year. To make the situation even more fun, the more they militarize the bigger assholes they become. Unless they are simply out collecting for their quotas on speeding tickets, they can cause a lot of trouble and their intimidation techniques make me disappointed in my country. I have a story about recently being pulled over for a tail light, that highlights all, but I don't have time to hammer it out here, so just trust me it was bad, but after an hour they finally had to let me go because they didn't have shit on me. Funny part is, after the hour long ordeal of being severely harassed and having certain rights trampled on, they had completely forgotten about the tail light by the time it was all said and done. We really do live in a police state, and I'm not sure if we can do anything about it.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
"If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" --Maslow
1. Purchase commando uniforms, weapons, armored vehicles, training, "to fight terrorism".
2. Wait for terrorists.
3. In the meantime, use the anti-terror gear for thrills and to terrorize civilians.
4. Sorry about your dog. No, we aren't going to clean that up. BTW, your kid's gonna need therapy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV7u91A3KGQ
Cops have been breaking down doors, shooting people and abusing their power ever since the dawn of civilization. I think there is something about the Sheriff of Nottingham written about that. "Fritz the Cat" came out in 1972 and cops were called "pigs" then.
Just because your adult life is more recent, or your selective memory prefers to discard negative events (as human memory does), does not mean things have changed much. They did not call it "SWAT" or "raid" then, but they did the same thing.
That's not to say any of that is a "good" thing. But the false nostalgia for the "good old days when a friendly cop stood on the corner smiling to children and waving a friendly nightstick" is just that, and it's dangerous if used as a pretext to "let's go back to those wonderful times". Those times sucked. Move forward, fix things today.
All the criminal behaviour I have experienced in last 10 years was perpetrated by policemen ... criminals
In that time I have not experienced ANY criminal behaviour from
They are the lowest form of life, brainless bullies living off public funds
And was; the introduction of the Federal level ban on alcohol was merely the completion of a process that had been carried out at state level in many places. You are however right. because the 'commerce' clause has been used to extend the competence of the Federal government in ways that the Founders did not intend. It was mainly done to outlaw racial discrimination by federal law - which 'everyone' agreed was a 'good thing' - but opened the door to the power being used to allow the Feds to do everything, including banning weed etc.
I am now an Anerican citizen, I chose to be here, but compared to England where I grew up, and where I view the poilce as the folks who I would go to if I were scared, lost or in need of help, the police in NJ are amongst the last people I would approach.
The state police look like thugs, their uniform, hair cut and attitudes are all militaristic and intimdating, if you were born here you proablably don't realise how good a relationship with the police is possible since you have never experienced it.
Hello US citizens, I'm an Egyptian engineer, seeing my country falling apart due to the too deep police/security engagement into a broad aspects of life. They control clubs, universities, magazines, TV channels, governmental careers,...and the list goes on. I wish for you to control your police playground limits, and hit hard whenever they cross it. Don't wait for too much blood, don't wait before it's too late. Salam.
Anyone can point to some cases where things went wrong. It is harder and less incendiary to point out all the numerous, majority cases where things went right. And there are certainly some (realistically a small percentage of) cops who are d**ks. But they are standing between us and the bad guys. Do you really want the police to be just people like you and me with t-shirts and fists to fight those who don't share our good natures?
No amount of violence is disproportionate... ... but help you if some tits get visible on TV...
The obvious solution is to require all citizens to carry guns, so they can shoot back and even out the killing.
If we do not like this, we could always repeal the second amendment and get the semi-automatic guns out of the general population. There would be less reason to carry out raids with such a show of force. Until then, we have the society which we have sown.
How did America's policy forces become militarized? The second amendment.
Since there are more guns than americans, this must mean that you're all law obiding and extremely polite to each other, right?
Oh, no, that's the absolute opposite of what is happening.
I had to laugh at the hundreds of fat Boston rent-a-cops decked out in their SWATware tried to apprehend skinnly little Djokhar Tsaraev for a whole day, while the unarmed resident sheep shivered behind closed doors.. It was hilarious. Then the cops shot up the boat Djokhar was hiding in like something out of Rambo. The sad fact is most of these useless people will be on pensions at 50. Oh well. Glad I don't live there.
an ill wind that blows no good
Of course, the open promotion of this idea of "we must have our guns to shoot back at the government" only became an issue when a nigger got in charge.
Obama is no worse, and slightly better than Shrub, but HE was a whitey. Moreover, he was a rightwinger too. So the rightwingers and republicans (most of the noisy gun owners) liked him and the lefties and democrats don't go for saying "SHOOT THE FUCKER!" rhetoric.
But now a democrat is in power, the republicans and rightwingers hate the government, and they DO go for the "SHOOT THE FUCKER!" rhetoric. And he's a nigger, therefore there's the absolute fear that whitey isn't going to be top dog.
So out comes the gun rhetoric.
A tad late from you, really.
Funny enough, none of that really applied until after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Prior to that, the US was myopic to the extreme, and really appeared to only want to mind its own business, as far as excessive military, foreign intervention, etc. Fear of others in society was something that started to be brought forward in the 70s and 80s with hijackings, bombings, and hostages, mostly overseas, but didn't take hold locally until 2001, which could have been prevented IMHO with merely having followed a single piece of advice from the Israelis: secured cockpit doors.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
They do their jobs with great respect for the common people check it out youtube.com/watch?v=dhHm7Tujca4 !
Hrhrhmmm
they are state backed thugs. a "Warrior" has a code of ethics and honor. these assclowns have no such thing.
they are cowards. When columbine happened they waited for the perps to run out of bullets before going in. As in "They are killing our children, what are you going to to do"? "We are going to wait till they use up all their bullets on your children, then we will go in". Amazing that the citizens of Columbine didn't insist that each and every police officer in their force be fired.
That animation is from Bowling for Columbine, not South Park.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
Sorry, no. America was imperialistic long before the Pearl Harbor attack. Go read about the invasion of the Phillipines, the Spanish-American war, and the Banana Wars. Don't forget the Barbary Wars. America has been big into foreign intervention since the early 1800s.
Don't say batman is bad, ever.
So helping a country declare independence is imperialistic?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
When my 11 year old son was handcuffed in middle school for being autistic while following the IEP, the school was held accountable and we were made whole with respect to their actions. Our lawyer, however, told us not to pursue the officer. She was concerned that our son would be charged with assault and resisting arrest if we went to the prosecutor. She also told us about the "Blue Wall" that protects officers involved in even the most egregious misconduct.
Our son was covered in bruises, especially around the neck. The security camera footage from two angles clearly demonstrated the brutality of the officer applying positional asphyxiation and twisting his arm around far enough to see his opposite wrist visible from the other side of his back.
I arrived after 45 minutes and the cuffs were immediately removed. We left the school 15 minutes later after my son calmed down enough to travel.
The same officer had also arrested another student at school for running away from home the following day. The department refused all FOIA requests, and stonewalled at every turn. So we gave up and withdrew our son from their school for his safety. This same child is now an honor student at another district and has completed advanced placement classes several grades ahead of schedule.
If gun ownership in a society is as ubiquitous as in the United States then the police necessarily have to be at least as well armed and trained in military tactics.
which, in turn, stems from the stance of the government. The Second Amendment isn't about deer hunting or self-defense, per se, it's about being able to overthrow your government when you need to, as the guys who wrote it had just done.
It's about self-defense. Read DC v Heller: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Where are you getting this "overthrow" mess you so authoritatively cite?
Funny enough, none of that really applied until after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Prior to that, the US was myopic to the extreme, and really appeared to only want to mind its own business
Incorrect. The US had plenty of involvement in World War 1.
The US involvement in World War 2 started by supplying the allied nations with weapons and money.
Pearl Harbor happened after the US, in coordination Britain and Netherlands, cut off Japans oil supply. Japan needed the oil for their war effort in China and decided to strike against Pearl Harbor after that.
Before World War 1 there was the Spanish-American war that was started on very flimsy grounds.
That animation is from Bowling for Columbine, not South Park.
Oops, seems you're right. It comes up right at the top of the search for "south park history of america", though!
i mean, why do you people tink we were protesting against that war? we saw this coming. you fucking idiots.
Perhaps you should read up on why the Spanish American war started, and what the results were. The same could be said of the Barbary Wars. The Philippines were part of the Spanish American war, although that one probably comes closest to supporting your statement, if you move to the Philippine revolution. Note that in all cases, americans were attacked, and the US merely reacted, after trying other avenues first. That is not imperialism.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
maybe you guys should start telling them how you feel instead of cowering in fear of being tazed, bro.
They put their lives on the line for you every day, you ungrateful bastards.
Every donut they eat in defense of the community puts an AMERICAN HERO closer to the grave or a nice pension.
You should be kissing their blue asses and be thankful they haven't shot you . . . yet.
WRT the near miss, if the cops had behaved more professionally by not dropping the F bomb every other word, they might have seemed more like police and less like armed thugs pretending to be police.
So helping a country declare independence is imperialistic?
If you setup a puppet state then yes.
Besides the US has invaded plenty of countries.
Sorry, no. America was imperialistic long before the Pearl Harbor attack. Go read about the invasion of the Phillipines, the Spanish-American war, and the Banana Wars. Don't forget the Barbary Wars. America has been big into foreign intervention since the early 1800s.
The Barbary Wars were not imperialistic.
"The First Barbary War (1801–1805) ... Barbary corsairs led attacks upon American merchant shipping in an attempt to extort ransom for the lives of captured sailors, and ultimately tribute from the United States to avoid further attacks" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War
"The Second Barbary War (1815) ... brought an end to the American practice of paying tribute to the pirate states and helped mark the beginning of the end of piracy in that region" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Barbary_War
A retired woman's house was recently invaded by a group of five armed thugs in Government-issue uniform. Her crime was rescuing a songbird that had been mauled by a cat and left to die. Three members of the state's Game Commission and two local police officers showed up with a warrant for her arrest and to confiscate the bird, with authority to strip-search if necessary. After the fact the county District Attorney told the Game Commission that all of their warrants would be reviewed by his office prior to serving them. It was an egregious invasion of person and property for a trivial violation of the state's game laws.
The feds have been fighting weed using the commerce clause as an excuse since long before they gave a damn about racism.
In ten years will we be asking, "Why do SWAT teams wear skulls on their caps?" (Citation: "Are We The Baddies?" by That Mitchell and Webb Look http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU)
These early raids will weed out those who will resist, as they ramp up eventually they'll get everyone who would resist.
The tin-foil is thick with this one.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
This statement is so ignorant of American history that I have to start from its beginning.
First of all, the United States is a land of conquered nations and foreign intervention. There were only 13 states in the beginning. We committed genocide to conquer the midwest and the west, invaded Mexico and took their land (where do you think the name for New Mexico came from?) and we have been invading neighbors consistently and for the sole purpose of directing their internal affairs since the 1820s. The only thing that stopped our numerous invasions of foreign lands was the Civil War.
Here is a list:
1915 invasion of Haiti by the United States
1900 invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Alliance (including the United States)
1898 invasion of the Philippines by the United States
1898 invasion of Puerto Rico by the United States
1898 invasion of Spanish Cuba by the United States
1893 invasion of Hawaii by the United States
1846 invasion of Mexico by United States
1813 invasion of Canada by United States
1812 invasions of Canada by United States
1805 invasion of Tripoli by United States and mercenaries
Those are just the "official" wars. There is much more detail here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations
Please read just a bit on the topic before you make misleading comments like this. America learned everything from it's ancestor, Great Britain. We've been invading, conquering, taking, and killing since our inception. This whole ridiculous and infantile notion of America's Exceptionalism, even in our imagined good old days, is pure bullshit. The real difference back in those days was whether the United States should stop at our "natural" borders, which included all of North America, the Caribbean (including Cuba), and Hawaii, or if our "manifest destiny" was to continue marching west until we conquered the entire world.
I know it's difficult to see from inside of the news you're exposed to, but the truth remains: we are the empire.
For the past 12 months I have had the great honor to lead over 328,000 service members and 38,000 civilian employees along with all of their families. Our area of responsibility is diverse and complex. Stretching from California to India, the Indo-Asia-Pacific encompasses over half of the Earth's surface and well over half of its population.
This region is culturally, socially, economically, and geo-politically diverse. The nations of the Indo-Asia-Pacific include: five of our nation's seven treaty allies; three of the largest and seven of the ten smallest economies; the most populous nations in the world, including the largest Muslim-majority nation; the largest democracy; and the world's smallest republic.
The Indo-Asia-Pacific is the engine that drives the global economy. The "open and accessible" sea lanes throughout the Indo-Asia-Pacific annually enjoy over 8 trillion dollars in bilateral trade with one-third of the world's bulk cargo and two-thirds of its oil shipments sailing to or from nine of the world's ten largest economic ports.
By any meaningful measure, the Indo-Asia-Pacific is also the world's most militarized region with seven of the ten largest standing militaries, the world's largest and most sophisticated navies, and five of the world's declared nuclear armed nations.
When taken together all of these aspects represent a region with a unique strategic complexity and a wide, diverse group of challenges that can significantly stress the security environment.
Effectively engaging in the Indo-Asia-Pacific requires a committed and sustained effort, and USPACOM, as the military component of this commitment, is clearly focused in our efforts to deter aggression, assure our allies and partners, and to prevent should our national interests be threatened.
Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III
Commander
U.S. Pacific Command
House Armed Services Committee, 05 March 2013
I guess this is what you get if you have a society where everyone may have a gun and be willing to use it on unwanted visitors, so the default setting of society is excessive violence.
Spoken like someone from a life of privilege. Not all of us live in rich neighborhoods where we can sit in our panic rooms waiting for help to arrive. In my old hood, the cops and paramedics show up to bag the bodies and question bystanders. It's always up to us to protect our own lives. I'm sorry if you can't see that from your ivory tower.
They are not stupid. They know what you care about, and how to make you think they care about those things, too. But what they actually care about may be orthogonal or even antagonistic to what you care about.
The will use what you care about to advance their own agenda, which more often than not seems to be the transfer of liberty and property from you to them.
This is what we get for electing smooth-talking sociopaths as lawmakers.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I got my black shirt on...
I got my black gloves on...
I got my ski mask on...
This shit's been too long...
I got my twelve gauge sawed off...
I got my headlights turned off...
I'm 'bout to bust some shots off...
I'm 'bout to dust some cops off!
Yes, but it is an example of foreign military intervention. I don't disagree with it; it had to be done to secure shipping, but it's not an example of a nation that stays within its own borders exclusively and is totally myopic.
So helping a country declare independence is imperialistic?
1812 - US invades Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny
"The Whole of Oregon or None!" and "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!"
So please, US was always imperialistic. They were just overshadowed by the British Empire, so maybe it doesn't look so bad if you revise it enough. There was just a very very brief period of isolationism between WW1 and WW2, but that's about it.
Which country?
Panama was declared "independent" from Colombia but the Chanel was own by the US.
Lots of countries in Central America were declared independent, provided their food companies were American, and the original countries had no control whatsoever.
Cuba was own in every economic way, from sugar plantation to the cities' commerce to brothels.
Philippines was declared independent if only US had monopoly over oil and supplies over countries like Japan.
Irak is declared independent. Hah! Who owns their oil and gas now?. Independent my a**.
Security cameras, and plenty of them, with signs you can't miss announcing their presence. Record audio and video to a secure or, better yet, offsite location. Make arrangements to have it posted online if you are arrested and unable to do so yourself.
Will we ever have the right of Habeas Corpus again?
Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.
Why not take the right to run SWAT teams out of the hands of the police? Make SWAT into a special branch of the US Army. The SWAT officers would then be in charge of the SWAT operation, not the police, and the policies of how and when to use force, would be from the Federal side, not from the local police. In the Army, soldiers are trained to not be afraid. They are used to wearing clothes that clearly mark them out in an urban situation so they coule be dressed in a special camo pattern that everyone would recognize as SWAT so that there is still the psychological intimidation to criminals. But they would be far more disciplined and controlled. The police would only be able to call on SWAT for protection, i.e. the SWAT officers would not break down doors or arrest suspects. But if the police misbehave, then the independent SWAT officers would bear witness against them.
Gee, this couldn't have anything to with all of the idiot (yes they are all idiots) Americans having guns and ammo in their houses, would it? If I was cop I'd be afraid to enter most of these places myself. How many officers have been killed just for doing their job? I'm all for the SWAT approach. Get rid of the household appliances (guns) and you'll get a more humane constabulary. And, no, you paranoids, you won't end up with a police state.
First Barbary War (1804). The attempted invasion of Canada (War of 1812). The Monroe Doctrine. The 1846 invasion of Mexico. The banana wars. U.S. imperialism is well documented. Also well documented is the use of excessive force against unarmed civilians. Good example is the Ludlow Massacre of 1914.
How long till OmniConsumer Products starts running the police departments across the country?
captcha: acquit
... to the age of being "tough-ass" on crime. With equal parts of both.
It used to be that interfering with the affairs of countries you have no shared borders, was imperialistic.
After Pearl Harbor, any country within range - which with ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads is just about any country - was suddenly a country that needed help declaring independence.
The USSR and the USA were moving the different pieces on the board without any regard to independence or imperialism since it was the cold war and all.
After the cold war ended, no one bothered scaling back the armies and reforming the federal government which was reorganised over the war to combat both inner and outer threats with extreme prejudice and without trial and jury. No one really wanted to contemplate how the war could have ended two decades earlier if government expenditure wouldn't have grown exponentially over it's course.
So, now there's the war on drugs, on crime, on radicalism, on tyranny, on piracy, on whistle blowing, on border crossing, on street violence, on automotive accidents, on world hunger, on illiteracy... For every problem, the federal government will present itself as the solution. Regardless of it's track history.
Considering the massive amount of wiretapping and various info collection, the Boston door to door searches, the cover-ups of Fast & Furious, Benghazi, the face both the presidential candidates cheated in the primaries, Obama in 08, Romney in 12, then Obama again in the actual election, torture in Gitmo and the FBI giving summary executions on US soil, and that's the tip of the iceberg. I think those of use who wear tinfoil have been recently vindicated.
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I think the "shock and awe" SWAT tactics just reveal an underlying fear in the police that they could deal with the situation any other way.
There is high gun ownership in other parts of the world; however, in this country you have a situation where police bring violence to non-violent situations. That can spiral out of control, of course, so now the police bring overwhelming force type violence, so that nobody gets hurt, except the other guys.
There is also the US attitude towards guns. In Switzerland, every young man (about 20 years) is required to keep a military assault rifle in their house -- part of being in the army. The swiss don't have the same attitude towards guns. They aren't for self-protection of no (generally) for fun. They are tools for doing their job in the army.
Many states in the USA have "stand your ground" laws which are a recipe for disaster. Shoot someone and then just claim you were afraid, or defending yourself. Gang thugs in Chicago have successfully used these laws to get out of jail time for murdering other gang members. (Yes, your honor, I was terrified, and *had* to defend myself with lethal force. Otherwise I'd be going to jail!)
Politics in the USA is broke, and gun politics is part of the problems. Militarized SWAT teams is just a symptom of paranoid authoritarianism. It will never be fixed while the media just acts as cheerleaders for special interests. (In this case, defense contractors and gun manufacturers.)
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Ivory tower? Most of the western world lives in that ivory tower. It seems you're living in a sewer rather than everyone else living in an ivory tower.
See, this is the problem; you think, "I see something bad, therefore everything bad I predict must be true." The scandals for Obama are coming quickly, but you're implying that some ominous entity is trying to kill people who resist, pre-emptively.
You might as well suggest that aliens are controlling the whole thing, it doesn't follow logically; it's non-sequitur.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Americans voted for representatives to effect these kinds of changes. With each election, they sent a clear message: more military spending, a better armed police force, more prisons, less social programs, cut backs to education and infrastructure. The America we see today is exactly what Americans want. Whether a serfdom with corporations lording over the populace, 'temp' work instead of full time jobs, labour outsourced, these are all things Americans asked for. Now enjoy what you voted for and supported.
Actually, what happens when the subjects are known to be armed is quite the opposite. Overwhelming force may be lined up outside if the encounter turns violent, but the violent no-knock raid is generally not used against an armed household.
Your assumption that every little thing that happens does so independently with threat of escalation frightens me. Mostly because so many are like you.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
as far as excessive military, foreign intervention
That just simply isn't true. From the very beginnings of the USA, the hawks had their eyes on other people's territory.
Before the turn of the 20th century, the USA founded and supported Liberia (!) in Africa. The USA was also involved in China (along with France, Britain and Russia), pushing unfair trade treaties on a very weak emperor. And then there was also the occupation several islands in the pacific, including a war with the Philippines, and subsequent occupation. And of course the Spanish-American War, where the USA said to Mexico: "all your base are belong to us."
In the early 20th century (before WWII), the USA extensively interfered with Central and South America: in Panama (political buy off), the Dominican Republic (invasion), Cuba (occupied as part of a treaty to the Spanish-America war), Nicaragua (backed coup, and then later an invasion), Mexico (invasion), Haiti (invasion) and Chili (political/military influence in civil war.)
Outside the Americas, the USA got involved in WW1 (of course), and also the Russian Civil War (1917-1922).
The USA has always being going to war for sh*ts and giggles.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
I'd argue it has been imperialistic well before that. Talk to the native American tribes (or rather, what's left of them).
War on drugs. Thanks Nixon! Thanks Reagan!
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I've been collecting links on the topics of governmental and law enforcement overreach, but /.'s anti-spam filters took umbrage at me dumping them here. So they're in a pastebin instead:
http://pastebin.com/GS90khsN
I'm afraid they're not very organized, a bit heavy on cop-shoots-dog themes, and a few which don't belong may have slipped in as well.
The attempted invasion of Canada (War of 1812).
America did not invade Canada in 1812 because Canada didn't exist in 1812. The country known as Canada wasn't formed until July 1st 1867.
So helping a country declare independence is imperialistic?
No comrade, helping the American proletariat declare independence from the yoke of capitalism is not imperialistic. It is moral.
Go read about US foreign policy from the 1800s through to 1940, and you will see the stomach imperialism at its best. Invasions. Coups. Interference in civil wars. Trade negotiations down the barrel of a gun. You name it, the USA was doing it. I wonder if you think slavery is the only black mark on American history, because it isn't.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Yep. That will probably be forced upon you when the rest of the world colludes to stamp out the threat that is American Expansionism. At least the Nazis had the good taste to keep the streets free of McDonalds wrappers. W00t!
Requiem for the American Dream
doh! Without threat of escalation
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To preface this, I live in a fairly affluent area with extremely low crime. My town has no standing police force, just a satellite sheriffs office. Next town over has about the same demographics but has a 300+ member police force. A few years ago they trained a swat team and bought a very expensive 'urban assault vehicle'. I'm not sure for what, there is zero gang related activity, almost no drug stuff aside from the usual medical marijuana, and as far as I know no dangerous criminals have ever been brought in from the community.
Of course, this comes at the expense of things like schools, where we're jamming 30+ kids in a classroom and the teachers can barely do classroom management, let alone actually teach something.
There is no point in placing asinine hope in democratic processes: we have been shown (time and again) that where these exist (!), they will be subverted by those who do not have your best interests at heart.
Well then, clearly the only hope for any sort of change is violent revolution and mass executions of the monarchists. I'll start building a guillotine, you organize a Committee of Public Safety.
Or we could, I dunno, vote someone into power that will change things. Pretty sure that a mayor and/or a police chief that wants to put and end to this shit will pretty much take care of the problem in any given city.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Which was created by Matt and Trey.
Liberia was a repatriation colony established by former black slaves. Neither the US Government nor the US Military were involved in it, it was an entirely private concern.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia
The US was involved in China, yeah, trying to compete with the long standing British stranglehold on China's products. We never had any sort of colonial cities or 99 year leases on Chinese islands (Britain, Portugal, Spain looking at you guys).
I'll even throw you a freebie that it was a military demonstration that opened up trade with Japan for the US, so what?
You fail to mention that the majority of our military use overseas was either because our trade vessels were attacked or we were openly at war with the Europeans who'd long ago colonized those areas.
The US has done some shady things over the course of it's time, but don't act like we're somehow morally bankrupt next to Europe who may be all "Human rights are awesome!" now but have more blood on their hands collectively than the Mongol Hordes. Who were also worse than us, btw. Go back to school and stop taking History courses filtered through Twitter.
One of the above comments raises a great point: the police look, talk, and act like thugs. That's our community police we all get chided so often to hold so dear; but they consider themselves as gangsters "above the law". So how do you think they will choose their actions to portray their image? Police are likely to do the thuggest bullshit to a person just to present a tough-guy, no-holds-barred, untouchable image. It's not necessary, it's not strategically sound, it's not even sociable. It's just thuggery, and the only people interested in police work now-a-days are thugs. People who aren't thugs look into the courses, I'm sure, and if they aren't turned off by their classmates' presentation and attitude, then they get swiftly turned-about by their instructors for not "fitting in". The day isn't too far off when police accountability will be completely nil and police corruption won't be a flash in the pan but will be the daily mire for every community in America. If you don't think so, go ask some affluent, peaceful gardening town what they think of their village police force's latest SWAT team and urban assault vehicle. It's not even an urban area, why the fuck would they need an urban assault vehicle? It's a bunch of townhouses and Victorian cottages. But there you have it -- nobody's policing the police. When your nine year old boy asks for a rocket launcher for his birthday what do you tell him? "Sure, we'll put it in the budget"?
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Come and see the cops in India and then you will only say thank you to the men in blue.
What's worst about all this is that the oldest generations don't give a fuck. Anybody over forty right now could care less about what the police are doing. If you tell them what's going on with innocent people being killed, maimed, hurt, sexually assaulted, etc. they'll just say --
"Good! I like to hear my taxes are working!"
"Good! They're keeping us safe!"
That's why I love it every time I hear about some retiree getting the shit scared out of them and having their head smacked in by a gung-ho, drug-addicted SWAT team. I love hearing about these old worthless shit-eaters who are now sitting there, nursing their concussions, going --
"Oh my god, I was so wrong!"
"They're not police! They're m-m-monsters!"
"Look at this cut on my pretty financial-echelon face! Get my lawyer, I'm withdrawing my yearly donation to the FOP! Not my criminal lawyer you dipshit, my financial attorney! OOF! THE PIGS PUNCHED MY BALLS! Quick get the criminal, tooooo!"
ALL of these old, dried-out sacks of shit should have THEIR shit raided and THEIR asses kicked up and down their neighborhood streets, stripped nude, and then come back around and see if they still vote that way and still donate that money.
Drive the new police force tank up to most of those old fogey's houses and they just go "oh wow cool it's finally here!"
But I bet if they had to lay on the ground with a boot on their head for twenty minutes because they asked why they should be expected to wear handcuffs during a search of their house, and they'll think differently.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
That's ok, your inability to engage in rational discussion frightens me. Do you understand that you did not respond to a single point in my post? You used a rhetorical technique to avoid it entirely. I'll bet you do that a lot, which is why you are so easily seduced by conspiracy theories.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You couldn't be more wrong. The excessive violence by police stems from the enforcement of draconian drug laws and then spilling over into normal police work.
Somebody has never read any Nathaniel Hawthorne...
.: Semper Absurda
You realize that the Philippine war was an extension of the Spanish-American war right? And by the time the Spanish Empire was on the road to self-destruction the Filipino's were pretty much willing to team up with anyone to get rid of Spain lording over them for the last 300 years. And the Barbary pirate wars was of course caused by muslims raiding american shipping and taking anything they wanted, and capturing people to sell them.
Om, nomnomnom...
How much bloodshed will it take for America to realize such a disproportionate response is unwarranted and disastrous?
Given your general attitude to guns, I'd guess quite a lot. Life in America is cheap.
There must be may deaths as a result of this overreaction & the general population must becoming frightened of this happening to them.
More innocent people are killed as a result of this than any terrorist attack.
So the police are now effectively terrorists?
This is all happening BECAUSE crime is down. The lower crime has lowered the threshold before cops use all this equipment and tactics. So, instead of using this sort of thing just against very violent offenders, they're using it on a much broader segment of society. In part because they have it, and so might as well use it, and in part because it justifies their existence. The solution, then, is to rapidly increase the level of extreme violent offenders, so SWAT teams would focus on them and leave the rest of us alone. We need to increase crime to prevent cops from acting like criminals. How bizarre.
FUCK DA POLICE!
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
That's not a South Park animation. It was something Michael Moore did after Trey Parker and Matt Stone told him that they wouldn't not make an animation for his movie.
This cartoon was written by Moore and produced by Harold Moss. Not by Trey Parker / Matt Stone. There was a whole stink about it from them because Moore made it appear as though it is by the South Park creators. It was not done by them.
Funny enough, none of that really applied until after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The irony of that statement is palpable. Has it occurred to you to wonder what a US military base was doing at Pearl Harbor in the first place? This would be Pearl Harbor, on the island of Oahu, in the US territory of Hawaii. The US territory of Hawaii that was formerly the US puppet "Republic of Hawaii" and the Hawaiin Kingdom before that.
Well... I am a ninja turtle.
Yeah, but in the 1900's is was extremely unpopular among citizens to get involved in foreign wars. Even after the Lusitania was sunk it was a year or so before the population could be drug along into WWI. The Lusitania incident is often cited as the catalyst, but it wasn't like the US jumped into the war as soon as it happened--there was a strong political tide against it--as well as a great distrust of government, even in a time where there were actual good people serving as statesmen in service to the people. Fast forward to today where there every politician is a pure-bred snake and the people hoot and holler while jumping around spilling their beers as they watch innocent people obliterated in a campaign called "shock and awe."
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
With that comment I see someone dousing your straw-man with gasoline as you stand there with a coy smirk lighting a cigarette.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Yes, they do. Or worse use doctors to spy and break their hard earned trust
That wasn't imperialism, that was evolution.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
No, really, go read about the Spanish-American war.
The Cuban rebels were about to kick out the Spanish, we showed up "FOR FREEDOM!" (Also, "Remember the Maine!" even though we didn't know what exactly blew it up) and then installed a puppet government and our corporations showed up to claim their mineral resources, timber, and sugar fields.
And the Philippines was just a straight-up bloody, conquering mess. Call it a prequel to Vietnam.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Small arms manufacturers have virtually no political power, probably less than nurses. The ones who do have power are the ammunition manufacturers which are directly tied to large defense contracts and who make all of the munitions for tanks and other large guns.
As an aside:
One day I was researching Speer to see who owned them and what they were tied to (I was reloading ammunition at the time using Speer bullets). I found them installed in major facilities manufacturing depleted uranium munitions for tanks. After stumbling upon this and seeing one of the facilities they were in, I noticed a posting on one of their websites for a facility they were sub-leasing. The ad touted the ability for someone to obtain funding from the USDA to establish a munition/arms manufacturing plant in that location (it was already approved for that activity). I found it odd that the USDA handles funding for defense contractors.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
The united states has a long history of undeclared wars. Vietnam and Iraq being the most recent obvious examples, but the list goes on. The public was unaware of much of what was going on. Just look at Panama.
zosxavius photography
You want a more direct reply to what you've said? Fine, look up U.S. Army Regulation 210-35 and FM 3.39.40, these support my statement.
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There is also the US attitude towards guns. In Switzerland, every young man (about 20 years) is required to keep a military assault rifle in their house -- part of being in the army. The swiss don't have the same attitude towards guns. They aren't for self-protection of no (generally) for fun. They are tools for doing their job in the army.
Keep in mind that while in the Swiss army you get to take your rifle home with you, the ammo you would use in that rifle is much more tightly regulated. You can't just go down to the local sporting goods store to get some ammo and then go out to a public shooting range.
Many states in the USA have "stand your ground" laws which are a recipe for disaster. Shoot someone and then just claim you were afraid, or defending yourself. Gang thugs in Chicago have successfully used these laws to get out of jail time for murdering other gang members. (Yes, your honor, I was terrified, and *had* to defend myself with lethal force. Otherwise I'd be going to jail!)
[citation needed]
"Many states in the USA have 'stand your ground' laws which are a recipe for disaster. Shoot someone and then just claim you were afraid, or defending yourself."
I don't literally want to see this, but as a mental exercise (the poor defender would probably end up overwhelmed and not make it to a trial), I'd like to know what would happen if someone used this defense with a menacing cop.
"To stop the terrorists."
Those prove that some ominous group is trying to enslave Americans? You're an idiot.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
out of that SWAT equipment. It's not going to use itself.
Considering both of those documents are available from the U.S. Army website (or were, the FM doc had it's security fixed) you're an idiot for not being worried about it. The FM document is the real tell all. Are you perfectly okay with the DHS gaining power and increased fire power?
Define enslaved. If 100% of your labor is taken by "the master" not many will argue you're enslaved. What about 90%? 60%? 50%? 30%? At what point is it not slavery? What if it's 100%, but you're provided with "freedom", a car, an apartment, a plentiful food ration, Internet access, health care and cable? What if it's only 50%?
I don't know - there at the beginning of our discussion I gave you about an 80% credibility rating on calling me an idiot. Now I'm calling you an idiot and it's looking about 70/30 in my favor.
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Nothing will happen until one of these celeb SWAT calls ends up with a dead well known celebrity.
Uh huh, so who is it, the UFOs? The Illuminati? The Club of Rome? Who is your boogeyman?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Since the US policy of generating foreign born terrorists to justify its military industrial complex has worked so well, why not try the same thing at home and justify the dismantling of the constitution in the homeland. Very soon you'll start hearing about how all this action against citizens is protecting you from home-grown crazies.
Does it have to be that organized? A few judges (check), politicians (check), at multiple levels (check) with similar views that they think everyone else should share (check) and it happens "legally". You don't have to have one particular force driving tyranny, just a few people with similar goals in rule making positions. When those people all agree that it's in everyone's interest some rights be repealed (already been done effectively) and certain people removed from the flock (see above references) then by golly it's gonna happen and you don't have to put an already existing name on it!
(BTW 80/20 now)
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Warriors go to battle against armed opponents. They're not over-armed thugs who kick in the doors of the innocent or peaceful to shoot them and their pets.
Calling these jackboots "warriors" is an insult to everyone who has ever served in the armed forces.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Nothing to see here. This is just right wing propaganda to pave they way for their long term goal of privatized law enforcement. When you hear Cato think Koch brothers. Public sector workers have some of the last well paying jobs through had fought union protection. A lot of the horror stories are due to lack of follow through by the victims. Just because you succeed in getting a bad cop fired, you must show-up for every appeal by the bad cop forever, otherwise the cop will be returned to their job. If the victims weren't lazy, a lot of bad cops wouldn't have a job today.
Nai Modnar
How much bloodshed will it take for America to realize such a disproportionate response is unwarranted and disastrous?
Politicians at the top of the "chain of command" don't trust those not part of the "chain of command." Laws get passed to protect them from everyone not part of the "chain of command." America realizes a lot that you don't give Americans credit for. Its those smug smiles at the top of the "chain of command" that are harder to take with every new news piece where good Americans have been victimized by the "chain of command." Just to suppose for a second that the top of the "chain of command" were usurped, privately, that doesn't change the "chain of command."
It's weird how often it seems government officials watch movies like Robocop or read books like 1984 and say to themselves "now there's a good idea!"
America's Largest Street Gang
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qEr_mZf06Y
Ask a Hittite, if you can find one. Native American tribes got off easy for a very long period of world history. Well, except for the other native American tribes and civilizations. It wasn't exactly unicorns and rainbows before European contact (or Asian contact).
It wasn't unicorns and rainbows, but that doesn't change the truth of the matter even a little bit.
The Barbary Wars - that unlike the Europeans we were unwilling to pay tribute to prevent piracy and instead destroyed enough pirates to make future ones think long and hard before deciding we made great prey?
But it does change the context within which we understand it.
Where do you think Japanese globalization came from? Prior to that they were only concerned with their immediate neighbors with whom they'd had ongoing conflicts for centuries.
Yes, basically. However, it still doesn't fit the description of a country that only minds its own business. A "myopic" country that stays internally focused and doesn't look outward, such as Japan back in the 1700-1800s, doesn't worry about pirate attacks on the opposite side of the world (the Mediterranean was well outside the US's "neighborhood" back in the early 1800s). Such a country doesn't care as long as the pirates don't affect anything going on on the mainland, and it certainly doesn't worry about the trouble its citizens get into when they go far away abroad. The Barbary Wars had only one purpose: to improve the US's ability to trade with foreign countries.
I'm not saying the Barbary Wars were a bad idea: trade was important to the US's economy at the time (and always has been), and the piracy attacks and demands for "tribute" were a big impediment to that. They also caused a lot of other problems; the stupid European countries used the pirates against each other, paying off the pirates to attack their foes. The pirates also kidnapped a lot of southern European citizens from port towns and held them as slaves. It was rather shameful how the European rulers preferred to let the problem fester so they could fight proxy wars with each other than to nip it in the bud.
However, calling pre-Pearl Harbor America "myopic to the extreme" makes it sound like Edo-era Japan or China at some points in its history, countries that had no trade or diplomatic dealings with other nations whatsoever, and that's not at all the way the US was, ever.
Actually the "Prutian Sepratists" were kicked out of europe for advocating regicide (trying to get someone to kill the king). They were granted title to what is now Verginia but decided to stay where they made landfall instead (not very good sailors). And they didn't come for freedom of religion, they wanted to set up their very own Jonestown (Guyana). It's right there in their name "puritan sepratists".
We don't necessarily have a thing for fear. We have a thing for authoritarianism.
So dear Europe, the next time you decided to export all your religious wacos, don't sent them all to the same place... it weakens the gene-pool.
There just happens to be a high correlation between fear and republicanism, so they run on the more police, more prisons, and to do so the conservative media bias is deliberately miss-sold as a liberal one. It's a self-perpetuating cycle.
On top of that, criminals all want to be cops, but only the petty criminals can make it though the background check. The cirminals want a taste of the power that previously held them down. So you end up with a lot of well armed, otherwise petty criminals ganged up in one profession exercising their egos.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Why all this? Because it's fun and cool to knock down doors. It reminds the officers of their basic training, which has occasionally been quite far from the reality of the police work. Why it's fun and cool? There is a child playing indians and cowboys (or other culturally appropriate play) in everyone of us. Then the adults come in with their boring regulations and laws.
I know this will be modded out of sight (or just ignored as an AC) but I was right with you until I got to what you see as "the true divide".
Libertarians are not opposed to authoritarianism, in fact they tacitly encourage it. Plenty of libertarians support authoritarianism, holding the false belief "I haven't done anything wrong, so I have nothing to fear." Many libertarians are themselves merely closeted authoritarians.
On the other side of the coin, many authoritarians are also libertarians.
So what you are saying is...if you intersperse brutality amongst a bunch of routine boring shit you do all day, then it balances out?
NOOOOOO! STFU and fuck yourself! STOP RESISTING IT!
I see, you have a DDOS on freedom.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Not more of the sheep dog bullshit. It sounds like the narcissistic rantings of the General Ripper from Dr. Strangelove. It's time for the sheepdogs to strike at the wolves, Mandrake....
It just means imperialism has a long tradition.
Indeed. In fact, one might say it has been the norm throughout recorded times. No matter what civilization you're talking about.
Military become police!!
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
When they swear to defend the constitution, I think they just mean they will help carry sand and water if the National Archives ever catches on fire.
But if we terminate them, wouldn't jail time be redundant? Like beating a dead horse?
So helping a country declare independence is imperialistic?
Was that the way the Phillipines or Cuba were 'helped' that you're referring to? One of the characteristics of any successful imperial state is that its own propaganda is more effective that others, especially on its own citizens.
Why not start and arms race at home!!!
Eg. read "Little Brother".
In practice, yes.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
Having had the experience in working with and for a local police department for 4 years, which also had its own SRT (Strategic Response Team), I can tell you the animosity and disrespect the public gave these local cops was atrocious. These cops were long-time members of that same community. The fact of the matter is, the police response to various situations is proportionate to the increased risk; as the public has more access to resources for home made weapons (e.g. IED) and full-out arsenals... the police have to keep up with this threat to protect themselves as well as the community at large. A quick Google search provides a cornucopia of options for explosives, and this wasn't available 20-30 years ago. I for one, am proud to have such a strong police force to protect my family and property.
Human society is still founded on coercion, same as it was thousands of years ago -- same as the animal kingdom! The real change will come when human society finally abandons coercion, and that certainly won't happen within our lifetimes (or at all, if war destroys us first).
The idea that human beings today are more "advanced" than human beings 2000 years ago is absurd. The only thing which has advanced is logistics: industry, technology, efficiency. Human nature itself -- specifically the mode of interaction between human beings -- has not advanced in the slightest.
I guess that's a reasonable analogy. It's like prohibition - there wasn't exactly a single driving force behind pushing it, it was an attitude that spread and several charismatic people picked up the torch and pushed the hell out of it until the democracied it down the throats of everyone on-board or not.
BTW - I love that Who's your boogieman?! question. I'm trying to turn it into a catch phrase on another network I'm on.
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Actually - the US did not have a lot of involvement in WW1 until roughly the last year. WW2, the US mostly served as convoy protection, although they were more prone to engage Axis ships. Providing food and money is not directly engaging the enemy. No one says you have to sell oil to anyone. Roosevelt decided to stop supplying Japan with oil to get them to come to a diplomatic solution to Japanese aggression in Indo-China. The Spanish American war officially started with Spain declaring war.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
That would be about the only one that really applies, I'll give you that one. 1 invasion does not an imperialist make, however.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Unfortunately teh US has become a bigger is better mentality driven society. And when they want to make an example out of people, which now is all the time, they will do it big or go home. But who is to blame, the ones that promote this through their daily rituals that all want to supersize their fries, the ones that flock to the latest blockbuster movie, that has the biggest car chase or fight scene since the last blockbuster, or maybe the fact that we always want bigger guns, because the last was just not big enough.
This mentality is what is wrong, so you get a cop that wants to get ahead, how will he be seen or noticed for that "BIG" promotion, by doing something "BIG". Enter Vic Macky wanna bes...the ones that think the whole world rides on their shoulders until they are benched and given a small desk job in some corner and realize the world didnt change after all from all their "BIG" antics.
In Canada we have many flaws, but guns is not one o them, and when cops come to your house, they have almost no fear that you will be armed to the teeth with the latest semi auto available at Walmart or Online shops, and have to deal with laying down gunfire. Put yourself in that situation for a second, we also see in the news, cops getting killed just by going into someone's house to issue a warrant search. So who is right or wrong, I think we all are...they are just as fallible as we are, and the downward spiral continues.... :(
So it goes both ways.
BTW - I love that Who's your boogieman?! [photobucket.com] question. I'm trying to turn it into a catch phrase on another network I'm on.
lol thanks
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"The Gun Is Civilization"
By Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.
The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat - it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed.
People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.
Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.
People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.
The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation... And that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret.)
So the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally armed and can only be persuaded, never forced.
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
The only difference between doorkickers in Fallujah and doorkickers here in the states is that here in the states, they wear different patches on their uniforms.
I think the constitution is fatally flawed in one major way: the founders did not anticipate the idea of full-time law enforcement agencies as we know them today. Quoting Wikipedia's history of law enforcement, "In the United States, the first organized police service was established in Boston in 1838, New York in 1844, and Philadelphia in 1854." The idea that somehow the citizens would willingly allow today's highly militarized police to exist is something I believe would never have crossed the founders' minds.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
1 invasion does not an imperialist make, however.
One annexation of a sovereign nation after deposing its government does not an imperialist make? I'm curious how many it takes then? How many robberies makes a robber? How many murders makes a murderer? If the answer is that it just has to be more than once, then does most of the land area of the US that was taken from the Native American nations count? How about Guam, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines? American Samoa? The US Virgin Islands? The Panama canal zone?
In any case, I wasn't arguing about US imperialism. I was responding to your statement about the bombing of Pearl Harbor (which I will note again was ironically located in a conquered US territory) and that:
Prior to that, the US was myopic to the extreme, and really appeared to only want to mind its own business, as far as excessive military, foreign intervention, etc.
Now, you've qualified that with the term "excessive", but that's fairly vague. The simple fact is that's not really true. The US didn't suddenly wake up in December of 1941 and say: "Hey, there's a whole world out there I haven't noticed before!"
I guess this is what you get if you have a society where everyone may have a gun and be willing to use it on unwanted visitors, so the default setting of society is excessive violence.
Thing is, US has had lax gun laws and overall attitude towards them for pretty much most of its history, and yet cops managed just fine with a single .38 revolver on their hip, which they mostly resorted to using after trying the baton. This whole modus operandi where you have door kicked in by a SWAT team in full assault gear, with ballistic vests and assault rifles with fingers on the trigger, is a very recent development, and seems to correspond mostly to rising criminal violence stemming from the War of Drugs (i.e. the problem that the government has itself created).
Actually Michael Moore had that clip made and put it right after a clip of Matt Stone talking about growing up near Littleton Co. for "Bowling For Columbine". Parker and Stone were so pissed over how Moore made that clip seem as if they produced it (placing it after Stone's interview, adopting their style) they have mercilessly mocked him since. See Team America:World Police for the best example. They also disagreed with a lot of what Moore stated in that cartoon.
As for the SWAT teams being afraid of everyone possibly having a gun, that doesn't justify excessive force. An armed person is more likely to respond out of fear such as armed intruders kicking in their door as opposed to police properly identifying themselves while knocking. Unless you're out of your mind you do not want to engage in a firefight with the police. There's no reason to send a full SWAT team after anyone other than a cold blooded killer or gangs except to elicit fear in the populace and that is unacceptable behavior for law enforcement in a free nation.
So which song should we cue for the backgound music? "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath or "No Quarter" by Led Zeppelin?
I'll even throw you a freebie that it was a military demonstration that opened up trade with Japan for the US, so what?
We may not have leased land or started colonies, but we did engage in unequal treaties forced on other nations such as Japan with military power that treated them like economic colonies. Japan was one of the different ones that although seeing the writing on the wall agreed to such treaties began almost immediately with both diplomatic tours in an effort to build up political power and allies to get better treaties and a course of modernization to make sure they had a military power to resist the nations forcing these treaties on them and other nations such as China.
Shhh. You'll ruin his fantasy world, where wars and defense aren't justification for military actions.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Our news is heavily censored...some not necessarily by withholding information,
but by allowing fluff (sports, entertainment, gossip, opinion, etc.) to take priority over
actually REPORTING news and relevant information. However much information is made
virtually worthless by inaccuracy, watered-down content, or attempts to "protect" the
public from reality.
"In God We Trust. All Others Pay Cash"
Shh. you'll ruin his fantasy world where self defense is "imperialism", as is "coming to someones aid when they request it".
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
In all honesty, there are many things people need to consider when looking at statistics and such. First, population has increased over the years...shockingly obvious I know...but this means there's an increased likelihood of police making mistakes and believing that there's more going on than their actually is.
There's also been demands to get tougher on crime, what with violent youth crime on the rise by leaps and bounds, gun related crime, and several mass killings in the last couple decades...plus other contributing factors.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not defending the increased brutality towards relatively minor crimes...because in the end, you can't tell the difference between the slip-ups caused by the above mentioned factors, and when it's corruption in the departments trying to intimidate and subjugate. It's unfortunate, but the large scale incidents have to be condemned as a whole until they're brought to task and corrected.
For individual officers, my advice is to judge them on a case by case basis. Not all cops are bad, I've personally known a few over the years...but if we start labeling them all as bad, we risk alienating and losing the ones who are decent people...and that WOULD make things worse than they already are.
DHS is militarizing local police in a "use it or lose it" typical way.
smalltown USA now has a local office of homeland security that helps gives police tanks, drones, tactical weapons and other military gear.
how soon before we start turning in our neighbors for reading 'bad' books?
-badford
Or listening to the intelligence that predicted it.
"Shortly after THE ARREST in the Boston bombing, I was talking with some co-workers and made a comment about the shutdown of an entire city being overkill"
Shortly after THE BOMBING in Boston, I got a text from one sister in Santa Monica, California, asking if my wife and I were alright. I text back two things:
1. "We are okay as we were not near to the finish line"
2. "Martial law will be coming to America in the next few months"
Although staying indoors was 'a request' in most of Boston-- the streets from what I saw were mostly deserted.
Also, maybe having a warrant, so, you know they would be acting legally instead of forcing their way armed into a innocent residence without any reason.
So at the very least, be sure the threat is real. Where the threat is concocted, the police and militarily are instruments of an attack.
Freedom of speech has increased? Really? How about my right against self incrimination? Forced blood draws for refusing a breathalyzer now. Right to secure in my person and effects? I'm being scanned with a nude ray at the airport or being felt up, not really secure now am I. Again, if I exercise my right to free speach, outside of a free speach zone, I'm jailed at the Republican and Democrat conventions. Right to free speach? If I stand on the public sidewalk adjacet to the Federal Reserve and "speak out", I'm asked to produce ID and jailed if I refuse. Right to free speach? DOJ is targeting the press to intimidate and shut them down, whistleblowers are being jailed or having their passports taken away from speaking up about illegal activities.
I'm sorry, the only freedom I see growing is the free hand outs at the expense of my life for people I don't know or care about, because someone somewhere, who was elected by some have-nots, says its moral that I should be a slave for the benefit of others.
Yeah, lots of freedom.
If Wikipedia says it then it must be true.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
U.S. cops watch too much U.S. TV dramas on cops and imitate them. I doubt it is the other way around.
militarized swat teams is a big part of the problem.
gun politics is a side show, and a distraction.
cops shoot far more innocent people than all the mass murders combined.
All police activities must be recorded for future prosecution/analysis.
Casteism
The time has come to shoot the bastards. Effective or not, there just comes a day when a man with self-respect can do nothing else.
The only way it stops is when the police are dead or disbanded.
From a country that regularly kills it's school pupils in production-line numbers ... that would be hilarious if it didn't have an element of tragedy about it.
Admit it, Americans, you like having lots of blood and gore on your streets.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
This post is going to get buried, but it seems applicable to put here.
I was "escorted" off of a bus by a SWAT team, at least three of them pointing automatic weapons at my head while the six or so people on the bus were removed.
Fortunately for me, the SWAT team that was doing the "evacuating" had enough trigger discipline to not end up shooting me in the face.
Learn something new.
Sorry - been a little busy. Short and quick - Hawaii requested to be annexed. You can argue about the ruler changes etc, or the "marines landing" that were nothing more than there and admittedly should not have been, or the firing of the Minister to Hawaii, or the Wilcox Rebellion, etc.
All the Spanish American war pieces can be lumped under "Spain declared war" and also potentially engaged in the initial acts of war (sinking of US ship in Havana). That leaves Panama, which was done by treaty. You can call it dirty politics, or be on the side of the "losers", but the fact is we offered to not do the treaty and step away. Note that the treaty allowed for US troops in the Canal Zone.
I qualified nothing with "excessive", since you pasted that from a different thread, if you'll go up one or two, you'll see it was a direct quote from the person I was responding to. That aside - there was a completely different world view after 1941.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Bill of Rights written for nation of Quaker, Puritans and other god fearing WASPs in context were 'shunning' was a real threat.
US Govt was never planned for "social engineering" of the dregs of humanity at taxpayer expense.
There are valid reasons why Catholic and other nations use "guilty when charged by police unless PROVEN innocent"(not just 'not guilty')
Sorry - been a little busy. Short and quick - Hawaii requested to be annexed. You can argue about the ruler changes etc, or the "marines landing" that were nothing more than there and admittedly should not have been, or the firing of the Minister to Hawaii, or the Wilcox Rebellion, etc.
Hah! Yeah, that's funny. The perfectly legitimate, and completely representative of its constituents, four-year old puppet Republic of Hawaii requested to be annexed. Good one. I mean seriously, are you so steeped in the US exceptionalist attitude that you can't even fess up to that one. You can argue that the people of Hawaii were better off for it in the long run and you could make some very good arguments for that if you tried. You can't even find that many Hawaiians of native descent today who strongly believe that things haven't pretty much worked out in the long run. Pretty much none of them will agree with you that Hawaii wasn't simply taken by the US and US interests, however. It's frankly shameful to pretend that it wasn't.
All the Spanish American war pieces can be lumped under "Spain declared war" and also potentially engaged in the initial acts of war (sinking of US ship in Havana).
Or the ship just sank, or it was a false flag operation by some other government (possibly even the US). When some CIA analysts floated a proposal back in the day to start a war with Cuba, and listed murdering US citizens and blaming Cuba as one the options, they referenced that sinking as an example (whether or not the CIA agents in question would actually know if the US was involved or not is certainly questionable and they probably didn't). In any case, I never denied that Spain and the US went to war. The fact that the US seized its land and people after the fact is an imperialist act. In a historical context, it's not particularly unusual for the times. All the kids were doing it. It still is what it is, however. Trying so say that it wasn't is unreasonable.
That leaves Panama, which was done by treaty. You can call it dirty politics, or be on the side of the "losers", but the fact is we offered to not do the treaty and step away. Note that the treaty allowed for US troops in the Canal Zone.
Funny, I thought I mentioned more than just the Spanish-American war assets and Panama, but whatever. Yes, there was a treaty. Perfectly fair and reasonable and agreed to 100% on all sides. The Panamanians were naturally grateful to the US which had just created its country by invading Columbia, after all. Oh, and, just like pretty much every treaty, the countries in question could drop out at any time... Or maybe just the US. Treaties with the US for things they want to keep tend to swing that way. Can't say the US doesn't keep it's side of the bargain in those sorts of treaties, no sir. For example, they pay their $340 per month for the 45 square miles of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to this day (on a side note, I wish I could find 100 acres or so of good land for $14.17 a year in rent. Know anyone?).
I qualified nothing with "excessive", since you pasted that from a different thread, if you'll go up one or two, you'll see it was a direct quote from the person I was responding to.
Actually, it was from this post, which is the great-great-great grandparent of the current post, and definitely in this thread. You wrote:
Prior to that, the US was myopic to the extreme, and really appeared to only want to mind its own business, as far as excessive military, foreign intervention, etc.
The direct parent to that post wrote:
America was built on scared people (running away from Europe on the Mayflower -- don't blame me, South Park folks said it), and has continued in that great scared tradition (excessive military, excessive foreign intervention, excessive fear of others i