Stay on that train of thought, and eventually you end up at the same place Thomas More did in 1516 with "Utopia." More noted that the Crown created thieves be depriving people of both education and any possible livelihood, and then punished those same people with shocked outrage when they stole the food they had no other means of getting.
More went on to note that people who have been made desperate often do desperate things, and that keeping large numbers of ill-restrained, overly-armed men scattered throughout the populace did more to destroy the peace than to keep it. He then made the radical intuitive leap that if people could be kept educated and occupied with productive work while being spared from the ravages of poverty then society as a whole would greatly benefit.
The legal term you're looking for is called "shopkeeper's privilege," and it has evolved -- in some jurisdictions -- from the right to challenge shoplifters to being basically indistiguishable from police powers with immunity from lawsuits and prosecution.
If you've noticed the ridiculously increased militarization of your local mall security, this is one of the reasons why. When one of those Seth-Rogen-Wanna-Be's cracks your skull with a nightstick, this is why the lawsuits you file will be dismissed.
It's not that our country is headed in the wrong direction any more. It's that we've already arrived.
When you are a law enforcement officer, and your duty calls upon you to arrest someone, you have a procedure to follow and a set of rules to adhere to. It's not about how "soft" or "hard" you want to be. It's not personally about you. It's your job to apprehend and ensure custody of a suspect who is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
I grew up on military bases where we expected 18-year-old kids to be calm and professional and to do their jobs in the middle of battle while taking enemy fire, and sometimes while seriously wounded. I see absolutely no excuse for the 'roid rages I've personally seen our civilian police officers indulge their egos in. An officer who is apparently enraged while dealing with the public is already out of line. An officer who commits offenses while under the color of authority should be subjected to HARSHER punishments without the benefit of the doubt, since law enforcement is charged with avoiding even the appearance of impropriety.
Yes, this means you have to be "man enough" to carry the badge. It's been a long time since I've seen an officer worthy of the uniform.
Knowingly and illegally destroying evidence does not help the cops case
Never mind about helping their case. Destroying evidence and obstructing justice are felonies in their own right, whatever the outcome of the initial case.
Just off the top of my head. I'm sure a prosecutor could come up with a more comprehensive list.
1. Destruction of evidence 2. Obstruction of justice 3. Theft/Robbery, which since it's committed while carrying a gun makes it an automatic felony. 4. Corruption/Conspiracy to commit the crime of obstruction of justice. 5. Hacking/Data Theft/Unauthorized access of digital data
I'm inviting everyone to play. Let's list all the felonies a civilian would be hit with if they had stolen evidence from the police...
It is guaranteed that there will be remarks, double entendres and innuendos with huge potential of getting worse.
Hostile Work Environment: "Hostile work environment harassment occurs when unwelcome comments or conduct based on sex, race or other legally protected characteristics unreasonably interferes with an employee’s work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment. Anyone in the workplace might commit this type of harassment – a management official, co-worker, or non-employee, such as a contractor, vendor or guest. The victim can be anyone affected by the conduct, not just the individual at whom the offensive conduct is directed.
Examples of actions that may create sexual hostile environment harassment include: - Leering, i.e., staring in a sexually suggestive manner - Making offensive remarks about looks, clothing, body parts - Touching in a way that may make an employee feel uncomfortable, such as patting, pinching or intentional brushing against another’s body - Telling sexual or lewd jokes, hanging sexual posters, making sexual gestures, etc. - Sending, forwarding or soliciting sexually suggestive letters, notes, emails, or images"
Somewhere, a labor law attorney is locking and loading his briefcase...:-)
Humanity will survive. A few billion might not, but little threat is posed to humanity as a whole. If most of the world's cities flood, humanity will survive just fine, and eventually recover.
You might find people more receptive to your arguments if you didn't "hand wave" away the death of billions and the New Dark Age that would inevitably follow. I understand your point, and I've heard more than one historian credit the Black Death for clearing the way for the Renaissance, but anyone who can posit the death of billions so cavalierly scares me to death.
1. We have an army of young law school graduates in this country who have no hope of paying off their student loans and are currently working as baristas. I love the iea of peppering law degrees throughout the police force. The next time some cop yells "Your first amendment rights can be revoked," I'd love to hear his partner reflexively yell, "Oh no they can't!"
2. I'm a gadget geek who loves his toys and frequently uses them for work. Stop me at any given time and I'm probably carrying something stamped "Leatherman" or "Spyderco." The average police officer cannot even accurately tell you what the laws concerning the carrying of deadly weapons are. (There are four overlapping jurisdictions in my metropolitan area). This means the officer can arrest me at any time for "carrying a deadly weapon" for a 2 1/2" pocket knife, and then feign ignorance of the law when it goes before the judge. My life gets destroyed (such an arrest -- just the arrest -- would bar me from my industry), and the cop gets to say "oops."
Wouldn't you love to once, just once, hear an officer of the law stop to consider the fourth amendment before a search, or an officer at a protest refuse an order to disperse the crowd because of the first amendment?
Humour...People of all ages and cultures respond to humour. The majority of people are able to experience humour, i.e., to be amused, to laugh or smile at something funny, and thus they are considered to have a sense of humour. The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour induced by humour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational....
A Law Enforcement Officer cannot enforce the Law if they do not know what the Law is.
Any officer who doesn't know the law already shouldn't be in uniform.
And, yes, I'm totally cool with requiring a law degree before you can wear a uniform. Think about how awesome it would be to have police officers worthy of the badge for a change.
What would be the reaction of socialists from a socialist state if you called them not true socialists?
Well, the Swedes are too busy being tall and blonde to listen to you, the French would write you off as another clueless American, the Japanese would assume there had to be a translation error somewhere and the Canadians would make fun of you.
Meanwhile, any fellow Americans in the room with more than a middle school education would have their face buried in their hands mumbling something about how you gotta understand, there's one in every family...
...you sound like a confused 16-year-old kid, and the ex-teacher in me feels like giving it one more try...
The Soviet Union was officially working under Marxist-Leninist Communism, not Socialism. By the way, they stopped Hitler cold, made it to space first, fielded the MiG series of aircraft and created the world's most popular rifle. Unlike Al-Qaeda, the Russkies were enemies you could be proud of.:-)
Albania, also Communist and not Socialist, "was led by Enver Hoxha (died 1985) and the Party of Labour of Albania. During this period Albania became industrialised and saw rapid economic growth, as well as unprecedented progress in the areas of education and health. The average annual rate of increase of Albania's national income was 29% higher than the world average and 56% higher than the European average.[34]"
Cambodia descended into an orgy of blood led by Pol Pot, another dictator who was ostensibly Communist. It was your basic rerun of the French Days of Terror. The killing started with richly-deserved revenge from the peasants, slipped on the blood and slid into a horror movie to make Joseph Conrad blanch.
North Korea, again ostensibly Communist, led by incompetent dictators since the armistice of their civil war.
We still having talked about any Socialist states yet, but there are two more Communist ones worth mentioning. China is still definitely Red, at least on paper. We owe them 1.2 trillion dollars, and every major corporation of note in the US does business there.
Finally, we have God's view on Communism. If you're an Evangelical "Born Again" Christian, here's a couple of lines from Acts worth keeping in mind:
Acts 2:44 And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. Acts 4:32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.
OK, so that's the skinny on Communism. It's had a few successes, a lot of shambling horrors, and it seems to be the economic system favored in Heaven.
Below let's talk about the horrendous horrors of truly socialist countries like Sweden, France, Canada and Japan.
Well, Sweden seems to suffer from a lot of insufferably tall and blonde people who look like they belong in beer commercials. France is still filled with arrogant people who seem to have the benefit of regular health care and actual vacations. Canada is definitely further north than Chicago, and their main export seems to be comedians. Nothing interesting ever happened in Japan.
OK, time for the quiz at the end of the chapter.
1. Socialism is:
a. spelled "C-O-M-M-U-N-I-S-M" b. an economic system employed by almost every Western democracy c. a stupid sound-bite off FOX news that I parrot at every opportunity because I have no idea what I'm talking about.
Grades will be posted outside my office by Friday at 6.
should result in a stiff ass kicking from the labor board
Regulatory capture: In economics, regulatory capture occurs when a state regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or special interests that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating.
Direct experience with one, second hand experience with three other cases. Trust me, the labor board is not there to help you any more than your arbitration hearing is interested in coming to a fair decision.
Marry into a cop family and the world works VERY differently;)
There. Right. There. That's the problem. The favoritism you describe is EXACTLY the corruption we're all complaining about, and is a direct violation of the oath your law enforcement friends took.
"On my honor,
I will never betray my badge,
my integrity, my character, or the public trust.
I will always have
the courage to hold myself
and others accountable for our actions.
I will always uphold the constitution,
my community and the agency I serve."
"Professional courtesy" and the "Blue Wall" ARE the problem, and the routine instances of corruption you wink at, like letting another cop's wife slide on a speeding ticket, eventually lead to letting her slide on a DUI, and then to looking the other way when her husband beats some little girl into a coma.
I read one of those "human interest" interviews once with some 100-year-old couple that had been married for about a millenium. They asked the couple if they had ever considered divorce.
The couple replied "Divorce? Never! Murder, sure, but never divorce.":-)
In 19th Century England, "second acts" generally didn't happen. When there's a surplus of young, desperate people willing to work all hours for anything at all, no one wants to hire the "worn-out" 50-year-old. As for shipping them off to colonize Australia, think of it this way. How about we take all of our 55-year-old laid-off middle managers, give them a year's supply of their blood pressure medication, and then drop them off in Somalia so they can find work?
But let's talk about today. We have an admitted unemployment rate that hovers around 9 percent. Roughly one out of ten. I've seen other studies that take the ratio of (number of people actually employed)/(number of people available to work), and find that about HALF of our labor force are out of work.
We can retrain the displaced workers. Where do you propose they get hired? Remember, we're talking in the aggregate here, not just a lucky few. Just because people sometimes get a natural 21 in Blackjack doesn't mean we should tell them to count on that to pay their rent.
OK, let's take your suggestion. We're going to move them to Australia and have them set up a colony. Australia got somewhat on the map economically through farming and even more so through the frankly brilliant strategy of discovering gold in their back yard.
"Hi. We know you've been a skilled tradesman supporting a wife and kids here, but we're going to ship you off to a godforsaken hole on the other side of the world filled with desperate criminals. We'd recommend you strike gold as a survival strategy. OK, why aren't you smiling? You don't look happy. Look, you're gonna get two weeks of free retraining in communication skills, networking and interview presentation..."
OK, we had Horace Greeley and his "Go West, young man" moment. Let's swap the American West for Australia. Notice Horace didn't say "Hey, all you old people! Grab some corn squeezin's for your rheumatism and move toward the setting sun. You're done here! Head for San Fransisco, maybe you'll find gold."
OK, OK, we did have the Oregon Trail and the Oklahoma Land Rush. We'll discount the massive fraud and cheating by the Sooners. How about we offer our old people the same deal we gave our brave pioneer forefathers?
People went to Oklahoma and Oregon to get 160 acres of free land. Married couples got 320 acres in Oregon.
I LOVE YOUR PLAN. You got a deal. From now on, displaced workers get up to 320 acres of free farmland in Oregon for "retraining."
OK, I'll pry my tongue out of my cheek. Why not retraining? Because the private sector wouldn't have any use for them. Technology has already displaced so many workers we don't have enough jobs for people in their "prime." Now, if you want to talk about hiring them in a massive government program to put them to work for the public good as teachers, social workers, mentors, infrastructure workers, etc., I can absolutely get behind that, but I can already hear the Bill O'Reilly apoplectic rage of "SOCIALISM! SOCIALISM! FRACKING TIDES! HOW DO THEY WORK?!"
I like technology. I approve of technology. I even got degree in it. Physics is my friend.:-)
My problem with the original poster is the callous disregard they show for the people whose lives were destroyed by the disruption. Being poor in 19th Century Europe inspired men like Charles Dickens, H. G. Wells and Victor Hugo to set pen to paper. Dickens and Hugo talked about what is was like to die in the streets. Wells had to pull up a race of cannibalistic monsters to describe his opinion of it.
Manual weaving is a skill that takes years of practice to properly learn. The people who apprentice to it get committed in their life's course, and changing careers in the 19th Century was not a widely available option. I've had people who tell me John Henry should have put down that hammer and went to work as a mechanical engineer. Sometimes they're just cheerfully oblivious to the fact that an illiterate black man in 1800s America didn't really have that as a choice. Sometimes they're just smug, cold-hearted bastards.
Oddly enough, most of these "Let them eat cake" types I've met were usually milk-fed and well-sheltered. I started life homeless at 17 with no family connections at all, so I know first-hand how unlikely their flippant response to the problem is.
the UK was already one of the wealthiest nations on Earth with one of the highest life expectancies.
For the people who got counted on the books, sure. For Dr. Watson and his kids, you bet. The Baker Street Irregulars didn't show up on the rolls, however.
To some degree, the displaced textile workers really didn't know how good they had it. They could have had the misfortune to be born in Angola or the Solomon Islands, for example.
Really? Benjamin Barker should be happy he didn't end up in a Josef Conrad novel? That's your answer? Just be glad you're not part of "...the Horror, the Horror"?
Look, I cheer the invention of the looms, the cotton gin, the steam engine and all the rest of it. I love technology so much I've devoted my life to it. I just think the least we can do as a civilized people is to take some of the plunder that disruptive technology floods us with and use it to pension off the people we've made obsolete.
Eventually, the price of labor will drop below the subsistence wage level and people will fail to subsist (i.e. they will die). This will reduce the supply of labor, until the system returns to equilibrium.
Ebenezer Scrooge's Suggestion, "A Christmas Carol"
``At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,'' said the gentleman, taking up a pen, ``it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.''
``Are there no prisons?'' asked Scrooge.
``Plenty of prisons,'' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
``And the Union workhouses?'' demanded Scrooge. ``Are they still in operation?''
``They are. Still,'' returned the gentleman, `` I wish I could say they were not.''
``The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?'' said Scrooge.
``Both very busy, sir.''
``Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,'' said Scrooge. ``I'm very glad to hear it.''
``Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,'' returned the gentleman, ``a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?''
``Nothing!'' Scrooge replied.
``You wish to be anonymous?''
``I wish to be left alone,'' said Scrooge. ``Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.''
``Many can't go there; and many would rather die.''
``If they would rather die,'' said Scrooge, ``they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that.''
``But you might know it,'' observed the gentleman.
``It's not my business,'' Scrooge returned. ``It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!''
You weren't supposed to take Ebenezer as a role model. I strongly suggest you repent before the third ghost finishes with you.
"The Luddites were a social movement of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested... replaced... with less-skilled, low-wage labour, leaving them without work and changing their way of life (See "Dickens, Charles" for what life without work was like in 19th Century England)
Battles between Luddites and the military occurred at Burton's Mill in Middleton, and at Westhoughton Mill, both in Lancashire. It was rumoured at the time that agents provocateurs employed by the magistrates were involved in provoking the attacks. (Sound familiar?)...and the present action had to be seen in the context of the hardships suffered by the working class during the Napoleonic Wars.
"Machine breaking" (industrial sabotage) was subsequently made a capital crime (Breaking a loom meriting a death sentence?!) by the Frame Breaking Act, 52 Geo. 3, c. 16[9] and the Malicious Damage Act of 1812, 52 Geo. 3, c. 130[10] – legislation which was opposed by Lord Byron, one of the few prominent defenders of the Luddites – and 17 men were executed after an 1813 trial in York. Many others were transported as prisoners to Australia. At one time, there were more British soldiers fighting the Luddites than Napoleon I on the Iberian Peninsula.
Hmm, a social movement protesting societal changes which left many to starve in the streets. This movement was met with ridiculously Draconian responses including executions and exile to Australia, and repressed with the use of more military troops against their own civilian population than were devoted to stopping Napoleon. The Draconian legal responses seem to have been specifically drafted to please wealthy company owners.
You know, I think you've got it exactly right. I think the Luddites have a lot to teach us about the times we live in.
Or perhaps you are fond of the Firefly theme: "...I'm still free, You can't take the sky from me."
You saw the movie "Serenity" right, not just the TV show? You remember the argument between Mal and Simon about River going on the job? Simon argues it's too dangerous, and Mal argues that with Alliance power has expanded so far that:
Come a day there won't be room for naughty men like us to slip about at all. This job goes south, there well may not be another. So here is us, on the raggedy edge. Don't push me, and I won't push you.
The whole point of that movie is that they took the sky from him, or did you miss the scene where Shepard Book died? We're halfway through act two, and Mal's only move left on the board is Reaver territory.
The Alliance shattered River's mind, took Simon's career and sister, took Mal's honor and turned him into a criminal, and left Zoe a widow and Wash dead.
And your answer to that is:
Choose your priorities at your own peril. As the saying goes, "The best things in life are free."
Can we mail you back to your parents in a box? Because my answer to you is "yes, in every way possible."
Yet, what is the loudest protest we hear? "The rich are too rich!" Such has always been, and always shall be, the case.
OK, so let's check some boundary conditions with you.
1. Would you approve if one man legally owned all the land available on the planet?
If the answer to that is "yes," then I give up. You and I will never find agreement.
2. How about two men, each legally owning half the planet?
Again, if that thought doesn't also send a chill down your spine, then we're not going to find agreement.
If you can answer "no" to those two questions, then we're getting somewhere. You and I can agree there should be legal limits placed on the amount of land one man should be allowed to own. Better yet, land ownership, like water rights, radio spectrum or IPv4 ownership, is exactly a "zero-sum" game. Land you have is land I don't and vice versa. Our libertarian friends love to argue that wealth is not a zero-sum game. I think the flaw in their argument is that wealth -- ultimately -- comes from mining and agriculture, both of which depend on the zero-sum equation of land ownership. "Intellectual Property and Services" are only as valuable as the actual goods they can buy. Come talk to me when you can eat a song or seek shelter under the binary digits of a software program.
OK, so if we can place limits on how much of the water or radio spectrum anyone is allowed to own, then we can take those exact arguments and apply them to land ownership. Land is a limited commodity which must be apportioned to meet the public good. This is in fact the entire reasoning behind seizure under eminent domain, so we're still within "black letter" law.
If we're comfortable saying that "No one should own all of the land in the United States," or even "No one should own all of the land within any state in the union," then let's talk acreage. What would be a reasonable limit to put on the acreage one man can own?
Well, your local realtor will tell you that a "large" lot for a single family dwelling is a quarter acre. Forty acres is the traditional size of a farm considered workable by one man. The Oklahoma land rush handed out 160 acre parcels to let the cows roam. Give a man a tractor, and he might farm a couple of hundred acres. Give that man nineteen children, each with their own tractor, and now we have twenty times two hundred acres, or four thousand acres, 6.25 square miles.
Let's triple that to 12,000 acres, or 18.75 miles. Distance to the horizon is roughly three miles, so to be "the master of all you survey," you need pi*r^2, so pi*9 or let's just call it 28 square miles, roughly 18,000 acres.
Now, one family alone can't possibly work that amount of land, and you'd be very hard pressed to even cover it all in one day on an ATV, but you can absolutely turn to your trophy wife and declaim "I am the master of all I survey," so there is that I suppose. Let's round it up. 20,000 acres. It's an absurd number, but surely we can agree that 20,000 acres would be a reasonable upper boundary on land ownership.
Let's go from the absurd to the entirely insane and multiply that number by five. 100,000 acres. That's approaching half the size of Mount Rainier National Park at 230,000 acres. Can we agree that since land is a limited, finite resource like the radio spectrum and IPv4 ownership, and is exactly a zero-sum game, can we agree that 100,000 acres in one man's hand is sufficient?
Ted Turner owns Six. Hundred. Thousand. acres of contiguous land in Colorado. 600,000 acres, almost three times the size of Mount Rainier national park. His entire holdings top . Billionaire Archie Emmerson owns 1.9 million acres.
OK, so now I hear the Libertarians snort "So what, how does that affect you?" Well, it affects me because I've been trying to find five to ten acres of arable, contiguous land to farm to feed my family.
The only reason we have such large monstrosities in some American industries, oil, and pharmaceuticals, just to name a couple, is because the burden of regulatory compliance is far too high for smaller firms wanting to compete.
Return with me to the thrilling days of yesteryear, when no evil government regulations impinged upon the energy or pharmaceutical industries. Swoon as you watch them throw naked children into coal mines to crawl through the tunnels, because small tunnels are cheaper to dig than bigger ones. Laugh as many of those kids take a pratfall and never get out of those makeshift ratholes alive. Thrill to the medicine shows churning out opium-laced hooch that was as likely to make you blind as anything else, but at least the barriers to entry were marvelously low.
Ye Gods, man. Seriously? You can stand here in the shadow of Deepwater Horizon and Fen-Phen/Yaz and argue that the problem is that they're regulated too much?! Good grief, if we had any sense, we'd install a psychotically paranoid regulator with a shotgun in a corner office on every floor of their buildings with orders to shoot to kill on mere suspicion alone...
The US is in the same boat, with Texas being the Germany and Norway (combined, as we export oil) of the US. If we don't find some way to extricate ourselves, we will go down with the ship, I fear.
That's why. People like you give Texas a bad name, and I'm tired of me and my friends getting looked at askance when we list UT or Texas A&M on our resumes.
Of course, what's really ticking me off is the double amputee veteran I met who was begging by the side of the road the other day. The man gave our country his legs, and in return we gave him a chunk of cardboard to beg with. No, don't even start, the VA is a bad joke.
It's shameful, and maybe we as an electorate might be able to do something about that if we didn't have a bunch of Fox news parrots screaming "SOCIALISM! SOCIALISM!" every time we try to talk about our country paying its debts and looking after our own...
And for the record, it is true that Lubbock and Amarillo are filled with capitalist heroes
Yes, Capitalist Heroes who survive on massive welfare subsidies from the government. Left to the vagaries of the market, they'd be gone in a heartbeat.
"Lubbock is a rock-solid, conservative kind of place, located where northwest Texas meets the southernmost part of the great American plains. Its citizens like to think of themselves as self-reliant straight talkers. It seems strange, then, to think of this region as a sprawling welfare case.
But the cotton farms that give Lubbock much of its identity thrive from huge government subsidies that drain the federal treasury and shelter the industry from the discipline of the market....."
It's like listening to people who survive on Medicare rail against the evils of "socialized medicine..."
Slashdot Mirror
Stay on that train of thought, and eventually you end up at the same place Thomas More did in 1516 with "Utopia." More noted that the Crown created thieves be depriving people of both education and any possible livelihood, and then punished those same people with shocked outrage when they stole the food they had no other means of getting.
More went on to note that people who have been made desperate often do desperate things, and that keeping large numbers of ill-restrained, overly-armed men scattered throughout the populace did more to destroy the peace than to keep it. He then made the radical intuitive leap that if people could be kept educated and occupied with productive work while being spared from the ravages of poverty then society as a whole would greatly benefit.
Naturally, they beheaded him in 1535.
The legal term you're looking for is called "shopkeeper's privilege," and it has evolved -- in some jurisdictions -- from the right to challenge shoplifters to being basically indistiguishable from police powers with immunity from lawsuits and prosecution.
If you've noticed the ridiculously increased militarization of your local mall security, this is one of the reasons why. When one of those Seth-Rogen-Wanna-Be's cracks your skull with a nightstick, this is why the lawsuits you file will be dismissed.
It's not that our country is headed in the wrong direction any more. It's that we've already arrived.
When you are a law enforcement officer, and your duty calls upon you to arrest someone, you have a procedure to follow and a set of rules to adhere to. It's not about how "soft" or "hard" you want to be. It's not personally about you. It's your job to apprehend and ensure custody of a suspect who is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
I grew up on military bases where we expected 18-year-old kids to be calm and professional and to do their jobs in the middle of battle while taking enemy fire, and sometimes while seriously wounded. I see absolutely no excuse for the 'roid rages I've personally seen our civilian police officers indulge their egos in. An officer who is apparently enraged while dealing with the public is already out of line. An officer who commits offenses while under the color of authority should be subjected to HARSHER punishments without the benefit of the doubt, since law enforcement is charged with avoiding even the appearance of impropriety.
Yes, this means you have to be "man enough" to carry the badge. It's been a long time since I've seen an officer worthy of the uniform.
Knowingly and illegally destroying evidence does not help the cops case
Never mind about helping their case. Destroying evidence and obstructing justice are felonies in their own right, whatever the outcome of the initial case.
Just off the top of my head. I'm sure a prosecutor could come up with a more comprehensive list.
1. Destruction of evidence
2. Obstruction of justice
3. Theft/Robbery, which since it's committed while carrying a gun makes it an automatic felony.
4. Corruption/Conspiracy to commit the crime of obstruction of justice.
5. Hacking/Data Theft/Unauthorized access of digital data
I'm inviting everyone to play. Let's list all the felonies a civilian would be hit with if they had stolen evidence from the police...
It is guaranteed that there will be remarks, double entendres and innuendos with huge potential of getting worse.
Hostile Work Environment:
"Hostile work environment harassment occurs when unwelcome comments or conduct based on sex, race or other legally protected characteristics unreasonably interferes with an employee’s work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment. Anyone in the workplace might commit this type of harassment – a management official, co-worker, or non-employee, such as a contractor, vendor or guest. The victim can be anyone affected by the conduct, not just the individual at whom the offensive conduct is directed.
Examples of actions that may create sexual hostile environment harassment include:
- Leering, i.e., staring in a sexually suggestive manner
- Making offensive remarks about looks, clothing, body parts
- Touching in a way that may make an employee feel uncomfortable, such as patting, pinching or intentional brushing against another’s body
- Telling sexual or lewd jokes, hanging sexual posters, making sexual gestures, etc.
- Sending, forwarding or soliciting sexually suggestive letters, notes, emails, or images"
Somewhere, a labor law attorney is locking and loading his briefcase... :-)
Humanity will survive. A few billion might not, but little threat is posed to humanity as a whole. If most of the world's cities flood, humanity will survive just fine, and eventually recover.
You might find people more receptive to your arguments if you didn't "hand wave" away the death of billions and the New Dark Age that would inevitably follow. I understand your point, and I've heard more than one historian credit the Black Death for clearing the way for the Renaissance, but anyone who can posit the death of billions so cavalierly scares me to death.
a little "pie-in-the-sky" if you ask me...
Yeah, perhaps. But consider a couple of things:
1. We have an army of young law school graduates in this country who have no hope of paying off their student loans and are currently working as baristas. I love the iea of peppering law degrees throughout the police force. The next time some cop yells "Your first amendment rights can be revoked," I'd love to hear his partner reflexively yell, "Oh no they can't!"
2. I'm a gadget geek who loves his toys and frequently uses them for work. Stop me at any given time and I'm probably carrying something stamped "Leatherman" or "Spyderco." The average police officer cannot even accurately tell you what the laws concerning the carrying of deadly weapons are. (There are four overlapping jurisdictions in my metropolitan area). This means the officer can arrest me at any time for "carrying a deadly weapon" for a 2 1/2" pocket knife, and then feign ignorance of the law when it goes before the judge. My life gets destroyed (such an arrest -- just the arrest -- would bar me from my industry), and the cop gets to say "oops."
Wouldn't you love to once, just once, hear an officer of the law stop to consider the fourth amendment before a search, or an officer at a protest refuse an order to disperse the crowd because of the first amendment?
Humour...People of all ages and cultures respond to humour. The majority of people are able to experience humour, i.e., to be amused, to laugh or smile at something funny, and thus they are considered to have a sense of humour. The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour induced by humour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational. ...
A Law Enforcement Officer cannot enforce the Law if they do not know what the Law is.
Any officer who doesn't know the law already shouldn't be in uniform.
And, yes, I'm totally cool with requiring a law degree before you can wear a uniform. Think about how awesome it would be to have police officers worthy of the badge for a change.
What would be the reaction of socialists from a socialist state if you called them not true socialists?
Well, the Swedes are too busy being tall and blonde to listen to you, the French would write you off as another clueless American, the Japanese would assume there had to be a translation error somewhere and the Canadians would make fun of you.
Meanwhile, any fellow Americans in the room with more than a middle school education would have their face buried in their hands mumbling something about how you gotta understand, there's one in every family...
...you sound like a confused 16-year-old kid, and the ex-teacher in me feels like giving it one more try...
The Soviet Union was officially working under Marxist-Leninist Communism, not Socialism. By the way, they stopped Hitler cold, made it to space first, fielded the MiG series of aircraft and created the world's most popular rifle. Unlike Al-Qaeda, the Russkies were enemies you could be proud of. :-)
Albania, also Communist and not Socialist, "was led by Enver Hoxha (died 1985) and the Party of Labour of Albania. During this period Albania became industrialised and saw rapid economic growth, as well as unprecedented progress in the areas of education and health. The average annual rate of increase of Albania's national income was 29% higher than the world average and 56% higher than the European average.[34]"
Cambodia descended into an orgy of blood led by Pol Pot, another dictator who was ostensibly Communist. It was your basic rerun of the French Days of Terror. The killing started with richly-deserved revenge from the peasants, slipped on the blood and slid into a horror movie to make Joseph Conrad blanch.
North Korea, again ostensibly Communist, led by incompetent dictators since the armistice of their civil war.
We still having talked about any Socialist states yet, but there are two more Communist ones worth mentioning. China is still definitely Red, at least on paper. We owe them 1.2 trillion dollars, and every major corporation of note in the US does business there.
Finally, we have God's view on Communism. If you're an Evangelical "Born Again" Christian, here's a couple of lines from Acts worth keeping in mind:
Acts 2:44 And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had.
Acts 4:32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.
OK, so that's the skinny on Communism. It's had a few successes, a lot of shambling horrors, and it seems to be the economic system favored in Heaven.
Below let's talk about the horrendous horrors of truly socialist countries like Sweden, France, Canada and Japan.
Well, Sweden seems to suffer from a lot of insufferably tall and blonde people who look like they belong in beer commercials. France is still filled with arrogant people who seem to have the benefit of regular health care and actual vacations. Canada is definitely further north than Chicago, and their main export seems to be comedians. Nothing interesting ever happened in Japan.
OK, time for the quiz at the end of the chapter.
1. Socialism is:
a. spelled "C-O-M-M-U-N-I-S-M"
b. an economic system employed by almost every Western democracy
c. a stupid sound-bite off FOX news that I parrot at every opportunity because I have no idea what I'm talking about.
Grades will be posted outside my office by Friday at 6.
should result in a stiff ass kicking from the labor board
Regulatory capture: In economics, regulatory capture occurs when a state regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or special interests that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating.
Direct experience with one, second hand experience with three other cases. Trust me, the labor board is not there to help you any more than your arbitration hearing is interested in coming to a fair decision.
Marry into a cop family and the world works VERY differently ;)
There. Right. There. That's the problem. The favoritism you describe is EXACTLY the corruption we're all complaining about, and is a direct violation of the oath your law enforcement friends took.
"On my honor,
I will never betray my badge,
my integrity, my character,
or the public trust.
I will always have
the courage to hold myself
and others accountable for our actions.
I will always uphold the constitution,
my community and the agency I serve."
"Professional courtesy" and the "Blue Wall" ARE the problem, and the routine instances of corruption you wink at, like letting another cop's wife slide on a speeding ticket, eventually lead to letting her slide on a DUI, and then to looking the other way when her husband beats some little girl into a coma.
I read one of those "human interest" interviews once with some 100-year-old couple that had been married for about a millenium. They asked the couple if they had ever considered divorce.
The couple replied "Divorce? Never! Murder, sure, but never divorce." :-)
Why not retrain?
In 19th Century England, "second acts" generally didn't happen. When there's a surplus of young, desperate people willing to work all hours for anything at all, no one wants to hire the "worn-out" 50-year-old. As for shipping them off to colonize Australia, think of it this way. How about we take all of our 55-year-old laid-off middle managers, give them a year's supply of their blood pressure medication, and then drop them off in Somalia so they can find work?
But let's talk about today. We have an admitted unemployment rate that hovers around 9 percent. Roughly one out of ten. I've seen other studies that take the ratio of (number of people actually employed)/(number of people available to work), and find that about HALF of our labor force are out of work.
We can retrain the displaced workers. Where do you propose they get hired? Remember, we're talking in the aggregate here, not just a lucky few. Just because people sometimes get a natural 21 in Blackjack doesn't mean we should tell them to count on that to pay their rent.
OK, let's take your suggestion. We're going to move them to Australia and have them set up a colony. Australia got somewhat on the map economically through farming and even more so through the frankly brilliant strategy of discovering gold in their back yard.
"Hi. We know you've been a skilled tradesman supporting a wife and kids here, but we're going to ship you off to a godforsaken hole on the other side of the world filled with desperate criminals. We'd recommend you strike gold as a survival strategy. OK, why aren't you smiling? You don't look happy. Look, you're gonna get two weeks of free retraining in communication skills, networking and interview presentation..."
OK, we had Horace Greeley and his "Go West, young man" moment. Let's swap the American West for Australia. Notice Horace didn't say "Hey, all you old people! Grab some corn squeezin's for your rheumatism and move toward the setting sun. You're done here! Head for San Fransisco, maybe you'll find gold."
OK, OK, we did have the Oregon Trail and the Oklahoma Land Rush. We'll discount the massive fraud and cheating by the Sooners. How about we offer our old people the same deal we gave our brave pioneer forefathers?
People went to Oklahoma and Oregon to get 160 acres of free land. Married couples got 320 acres in Oregon.
I LOVE YOUR PLAN. You got a deal. From now on, displaced workers get up to 320 acres of free farmland in Oregon for "retraining."
OK, I'll pry my tongue out of my cheek. Why not retraining? Because the private sector wouldn't have any use for them. Technology has already displaced so many workers we don't have enough jobs for people in their "prime." Now, if you want to talk about hiring them in a massive government program to put them to work for the public good as teachers, social workers, mentors, infrastructure workers, etc., I can absolutely get behind that, but I can already hear the Bill O'Reilly apoplectic rage of "SOCIALISM! SOCIALISM! FRACKING TIDES! HOW DO THEY WORK?!"
I like technology. I approve of technology. I even got degree in it. Physics is my friend. :-)
My problem with the original poster is the callous disregard they show for the people whose lives were destroyed by the disruption. Being poor in 19th Century Europe inspired men like Charles Dickens, H. G. Wells and Victor Hugo to set pen to paper. Dickens and Hugo talked about what is was like to die in the streets. Wells had to pull up a race of cannibalistic monsters to describe his opinion of it.
Manual weaving is a skill that takes years of practice to properly learn. The people who apprentice to it get committed in their life's course, and changing careers in the 19th Century was not a widely available option. I've had people who tell me John Henry should have put down that hammer and went to work as a mechanical engineer. Sometimes they're just cheerfully oblivious to the fact that an illiterate black man in 1800s America didn't really have that as a choice. Sometimes they're just smug, cold-hearted bastards.
Oddly enough, most of these "Let them eat cake" types I've met were usually milk-fed and well-sheltered. I started life homeless at 17 with no family connections at all, so I know first-hand how unlikely their flippant response to the problem is.
the UK was already one of the wealthiest nations on Earth with one of the highest life expectancies.
For the people who got counted on the books, sure. For Dr. Watson and his kids, you bet. The Baker Street Irregulars didn't show up on the rolls, however.
To some degree, the displaced textile workers really didn't know how good they had it. They could have had the misfortune to be born in Angola or the Solomon Islands, for example.
Really? Benjamin Barker should be happy he didn't end up in a Josef Conrad novel? That's your answer? Just be glad you're not part of "...the Horror, the Horror"?
Look, I cheer the invention of the looms, the cotton gin, the steam engine and all the rest of it. I love technology so much I've devoted my life to it. I just think the least we can do as a civilized people is to take some of the plunder that disruptive technology floods us with and use it to pension off the people we've made obsolete.
Your Suggestion:
Eventually, the price of labor will drop below the subsistence wage level and people will fail to subsist (i.e. they will die). This will reduce the supply of labor, until the system returns to equilibrium.
Ebenezer Scrooge's Suggestion, "A Christmas Carol"
``At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,'' said the gentleman, taking up a pen, ``it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.''
``Are there no prisons?'' asked Scrooge.
``Plenty of prisons,'' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
``And the Union workhouses?'' demanded Scrooge. ``Are they still in operation?''
``They are. Still,'' returned the gentleman, `` I wish I could say they were not.''
``The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?'' said Scrooge.
``Both very busy, sir.''
``Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,'' said Scrooge. ``I'm very glad to hear it.''
``Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,'' returned the gentleman, ``a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?''
``Nothing!'' Scrooge replied.
``You wish to be anonymous?''
``I wish to be left alone,'' said Scrooge. ``Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.''
``Many can't go there; and many would rather die.''
``If they would rather die,'' said Scrooge, ``they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that.''
``But you might know it,'' observed the gentleman.
``It's not my business,'' Scrooge returned. ``It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!''
You weren't supposed to take Ebenezer as a role model. I strongly suggest you repent before the third ghost finishes with you.
Oh, Gottabeme, your politics are entirely brain-dead, and you made the rookie rhetorical mistake of quoting works you haven't completed...
From the Wikipedia article you linked to:
"The Luddites were a social movement of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested ... replaced ... with less-skilled, low-wage labour, leaving them without work and changing their way of life (See "Dickens, Charles" for what life without work was like in 19th Century England)
Battles between Luddites and the military occurred at Burton's Mill in Middleton, and at Westhoughton Mill, both in Lancashire. It was rumoured at the time that agents provocateurs employed by the magistrates were involved in provoking the attacks. (Sound familiar?) ...and the present action had to be seen in the context of the hardships suffered by the working class during the Napoleonic Wars.
"Machine breaking" (industrial sabotage) was subsequently made a capital crime (Breaking a loom meriting a death sentence?!) by the Frame Breaking Act, 52 Geo. 3, c. 16[9] and the Malicious Damage Act of 1812, 52 Geo. 3, c. 130[10] – legislation which was opposed by Lord Byron, one of the few prominent defenders of the Luddites – and 17 men were executed after an 1813 trial in York. Many others were transported as prisoners to Australia. At one time, there were more British soldiers fighting the Luddites than Napoleon I on the Iberian Peninsula.
Hmm, a social movement protesting societal changes which left many to starve in the streets. This movement was met with ridiculously Draconian responses including executions and exile to Australia, and repressed with the use of more military troops against their own civilian population than were devoted to stopping Napoleon. The Draconian legal responses seem to have been specifically drafted to please wealthy company owners.
You know, I think you've got it exactly right. I think the Luddites have a lot to teach us about the times we live in.
Or perhaps you are fond of the Firefly theme: "...I'm still free, You can't take the sky from me."
You saw the movie "Serenity" right, not just the TV show? You remember the argument between Mal and Simon about River going on the job? Simon argues it's too dangerous, and Mal argues that with Alliance power has expanded so far that:
Come a day there won't be room for naughty men like us to slip about at all. This job goes south, there well may not be another. So here is us, on the raggedy edge. Don't push me, and I won't push you.
The whole point of that movie is that they took the sky from him, or did you miss the scene where Shepard Book died? We're halfway through act two, and Mal's only move left on the board is Reaver territory.
The Alliance shattered River's mind, took Simon's career and sister, took Mal's honor and turned him into a criminal, and left Zoe a widow and Wash dead.
And your answer to that is:
Choose your priorities at your own peril. As the saying goes, "The best things in life are free."
Can we mail you back to your parents in a box? Because my answer to you is "yes, in every way possible."
Yet, what is the loudest protest we hear? "The rich are too rich!" Such has always been, and always shall be, the case.
OK, so let's check some boundary conditions with you.
1. Would you approve if one man legally owned all the land available on the planet?
If the answer to that is "yes," then I give up. You and I will never find agreement.
2. How about two men, each legally owning half the planet?
Again, if that thought doesn't also send a chill down your spine, then we're not going to find agreement.
If you can answer "no" to those two questions, then we're getting somewhere. You and I can agree there should be legal limits placed on the amount of land one man should be allowed to own. Better yet, land ownership, like water rights, radio spectrum or IPv4 ownership, is exactly a "zero-sum" game. Land you have is land I don't and vice versa. Our libertarian friends love to argue that wealth is not a zero-sum game. I think the flaw in their argument is that wealth -- ultimately -- comes from mining and agriculture, both of which depend on the zero-sum equation of land ownership. "Intellectual Property and Services" are only as valuable as the actual goods they can buy. Come talk to me when you can eat a song or seek shelter under the binary digits of a software program.
OK, so if we can place limits on how much of the water or radio spectrum anyone is allowed to own, then we can take those exact arguments and apply them to land ownership. Land is a limited commodity which must be apportioned to meet the public good. This is in fact the entire reasoning behind seizure under eminent domain, so we're still within "black letter" law.
If we're comfortable saying that "No one should own all of the land in the United States," or even "No one should own all of the land within any state in the union," then let's talk acreage. What would be a reasonable limit to put on the acreage one man can own?
Well, your local realtor will tell you that a "large" lot for a single family dwelling is a quarter acre. Forty acres is the traditional size of a farm considered workable by one man. The Oklahoma land rush handed out 160 acre parcels to let the cows roam. Give a man a tractor, and he might farm a couple of hundred acres. Give that man nineteen children, each with their own tractor, and now we have twenty times two hundred acres, or four thousand acres, 6.25 square miles.
Let's triple that to 12,000 acres, or 18.75 miles. Distance to the horizon is roughly three miles, so to be "the master of all you survey," you need pi*r^2, so pi*9 or let's just call it 28 square miles, roughly 18,000 acres.
Now, one family alone can't possibly work that amount of land, and you'd be very hard pressed to even cover it all in one day on an ATV, but you can absolutely turn to your trophy wife and declaim "I am the master of all I survey," so there is that I suppose. Let's round it up. 20,000 acres. It's an absurd number, but surely we can agree that 20,000 acres would be a reasonable upper boundary on land ownership.
Let's go from the absurd to the entirely insane and multiply that number by five. 100,000 acres. That's approaching half the size of Mount Rainier National Park at 230,000 acres. Can we agree that since land is a limited, finite resource like the radio spectrum and IPv4 ownership, and is exactly a zero-sum game, can we agree that 100,000 acres in one man's hand is sufficient?
Ted Turner owns Six. Hundred. Thousand. acres of contiguous land in Colorado. 600,000 acres, almost three times the size of Mount Rainier national park. His entire holdings top . Billionaire Archie Emmerson owns 1.9 million acres.
OK, so now I hear the Libertarians snort "So what, how does that affect you?" Well, it affects me because I've been trying to find five to ten acres of arable, contiguous land to farm to feed my family.
The only reason we have such large monstrosities in some American industries, oil, and pharmaceuticals, just to name a couple, is because the burden of regulatory compliance is far too high for smaller firms wanting to compete.
Return with me to the thrilling days of yesteryear, when no evil government regulations impinged upon the energy or pharmaceutical industries. Swoon as you watch them throw naked children into coal mines to crawl through the tunnels, because small tunnels are cheaper to dig than bigger ones. Laugh as many of those kids take a pratfall and never get out of those makeshift ratholes alive. Thrill to the medicine shows churning out opium-laced hooch that was as likely to make you blind as anything else, but at least the barriers to entry were marvelously low.
Ye Gods, man. Seriously? You can stand here in the shadow of Deepwater Horizon and Fen-Phen/Yaz and argue that the problem is that they're regulated too much?! Good grief, if we had any sense, we'd install a psychotically paranoid regulator with a shotgun in a corner office on every floor of their buildings with orders to shoot to kill on mere suspicion alone...
The US is in the same boat, with Texas being the Germany and Norway (combined, as we export oil) of the US. If we don't find some way to extricate ourselves, we will go down with the ship, I fear.
That's why. People like you give Texas a bad name, and I'm tired of me and my friends getting looked at askance when we list UT or Texas A&M on our resumes.
Of course, what's really ticking me off is the double amputee veteran I met who was begging by the side of the road the other day. The man gave our country his legs, and in return we gave him a chunk of cardboard to beg with. No, don't even start, the VA is a bad joke.
It's shameful, and maybe we as an electorate might be able to do something about that if we didn't have a bunch of Fox news parrots screaming "SOCIALISM! SOCIALISM!" every time we try to talk about our country paying its debts and looking after our own...
And for the record, it is true that Lubbock and Amarillo are filled with capitalist heroes
Yes, Capitalist Heroes who survive on massive welfare subsidies from the government. Left to the vagaries of the market, they'd be gone in a heartbeat.
The New York Times: "HARVESTING POVERTY; The Fabric of Lubbock's Life"
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/19/opinion/harvesting-poverty-the-fabric-of-lubbock-s-life.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
"Lubbock is a rock-solid, conservative kind of place, located where northwest Texas meets the southernmost part of the great American plains. Its citizens like to think of themselves as self-reliant straight talkers. It seems strange, then, to think of this region as a sprawling welfare case.
But the cotton farms that give Lubbock much of its identity thrive from huge government subsidies that drain the federal treasury and shelter the industry from the discipline of the market. ...."
It's like listening to people who survive on Medicare rail against the evils of "socialized medicine..."