Cities are fully in charge of their police departments
Of course they aren't. Some cities, towns, and villages are very poorly managed. Your distrust for government is pretty inexplicable if you believe that every government is fully competent and in control of their duties, isn't it?
And if the "move slowly", that's their right.
No it isn't. The people have the right to decide how their government operates, and if they're unhappy with the speed, to accelerate the process or escalate up the "chain of command".
It's only an "important issue" because some people are making it such for political and financial gain.
I'm pretty sure you would have a different outlook on the importance of the issue if someone who looked like your child was on the front pages practically each and every day over questionable police-violence incidents.
People are trying to fabricate a crisis in order to push through political agendas.
How is putting cameras on police even remotely a "political agenda"? What political interest group does it serve? What smoky back room is full of fat cats whose schemes for world domination will be advanced by subjecting police officers to something approaching the same level of workplace supervision that we demand of daycare operators?
Nobody knows what the long term consequences are or how this technology may be abused.
And unless a better, more tangible case against them can be presented than vague and airey fear, uncertainty, and doubt of speculative "unknown unknowns", we should expect to discover the consequences through experience shortly.
We don't know whether this is the right choice for every single community in the US either.
Is that the bar, now? Any law that is passed has to be "the right choice for every single community in the US", by the standards of every individual? That sounds like a recipe for a totally dysfunctional government. Even in a republican democracy, sometimes the majority gets to rule.
Just because something seems like a good idea to a lot of people doesn't mean it should become federal law.
I don't think anyone has been arguing that everything that "seems like a good idea to a lot of people" should become a federal law, so what point are you addressing here? A strawman?
Something should become federal law only if it cannot be implemented at the local or state level.
That's just your opinion, not the American tradition.
It's a pretty clear-cut case of federal overreach.
Can you define "overreach"? It sounds like a subjective opinion rather than anything verifiable or empirical.
The reality is that "power of the purse" simply refers to "holding the purse strings" - he who controls expenditures wields a lot of power, and Congress was given that power specifically and for reason. Its use of the power was never, in any way, limited to federal-to-federal interactions.
Enjoy having Interstate Highways with uniform laws? Uniform standards for drunk driving? You have Congressional bullying of the states using pursestring power to thank for it.
You need citations for Congressional use of the "power of the purse"? Really? Are you some sort of tabula rasa of American history? How basic do we need to get here? Do you understand what the Constitution is? Three branches?
If it is so solid and popular, why not leave it to the communities themselves to equip their police departments as they please?
Because communities are often not as in charge of their police departments as they should be or think they are, because some move more slowly than others, and because this is an important enough issue due to recent events that it warrants quick and decisive movement.
How about because "the injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere"?
Where's the injustice here? The system is operating as it is supposed to - Congress has the power of the purse.
I would've been (much) happier, if the feds did not have this power at all. And that's my point.
Fine, but why bring that up here, then? It's basically off-topic. It's like picketing a Cincinnatti Reds game because you don't like the color fuchsia. If you want to debate whether or not Congress should have the power of the purse, fine with me, but this isn't at all the place for that debate.
That sounds more like a passive-aggressive mafia threat than a realistic possibility. "Oh, you better not do that, or else we might have to stop being so lenient with you!" Why would wearing cameras mean that "they have to charge you with something"? Why would the public tolerate a police force that operates on a mentality like that?
This is exactly why we need cameras. Individual departments and officers are unique, but in general the American public has lost its faith in its police forces, and for damned good reasons. Police have shown themselves, in too many instances lately, to behave like a well-funded, well-organized group of thugs than exemplars of honorable behavior, law and order.
Police are there to serve and protect our communities, and they serve the way we want them to serve and at our discretion. Any deviation from that order should be met with pink slips for any commanding officers or subordinates unable or unwilling to adapt to the reasonable demands of their bosses.
Objecting in principle to this specific use of federal "purse string" power is pointless - the principle stands whether or not cameras on cops do or not. Congress has been using the power of the purse to bully states into compliance virtually since the Union began.
And objecting to the specifics of this proposal is inane - the proposal of forcing cops to wear cameras is a solid and popular one. There's no associated diminution of civil liberties, and clear and enormous benefit in the goal of advancing the cause of justice.
So then why raise the ideological issue here and now? Would you really be happier if the feds didn't use the power they have (and will have regardless of this case) to force cops to wear cameras?
I kind of doubt that the Red Cross wants their brand slapped on a video that is going to be associated with feelings of rage and extreme negativity by every single viewer. No matter how it was spun, "Act now to prevent..." would come off as a thousand times worse than the very worst of those "show you pictures of starving kids in Africa before hitting you up for a donation" Sally Struthers commercials.
Basically, yes. The problem isn't some women's attitudes towards computers, its that computers are built wrong so as to make those women have the "wrong" attitudes about them. Now, lets all stand by to be lectured by these women about our entitlement and privilege.
So Chinese people are allowed to say whatever they want with their little tiny microphones that nobody hears. The government only gets involved when a message seems to reverberate through the public and actually threaten to cause the citizens to rise up.
Fark predates 4chan, but 4chan was better at those things. Probably why everyone today knows what 4chan is, and most people don't have never heard of Fark.
If those are the main things that made it good, it wasn't ever good.
A lot of people thought that it wasn't good. A lot of other people thought that it was. Who's to say who is right? And why do we need to, given that there's enough space for a place like old school Fark.com to exist alongside whatever sort of place you want to build?
The thing that freaks me out about the extremists in this movement is that their goal isn't getting their message out, it's silencing others.
If a person WANTS to be in public office, chances are good that they are a scumbag looking for bribes. It has always been this way that the scum of the earth always want to be in politics.
90% of the time, that is true. The other 10% of the time is when you get your George Washingtons, your Theodore Roosevelts, and your Pope Francises. The trick is weeding out the 90% of chaff and promoting the 10% of wheat, while fighting off the attempts of the chaff that slipped through and got power to invert the system's filters so that they exclude wheat and only allow through their chaff fellows.
This involves a few steps, but first and foremost is retaining the belief that non-corrupt leadership is possible.
English needs a word for people like her. They're definitely an increasingly prevalent "type" of individual in our society.
A unique form of parasite, they invade the host organism, an organization or a cause or whatever. Contributing nothing but their slimeball social climbing, they subtly and expertly worm themselves into positions of minor authority, then persistently use that minor authority to gain more and drive off any threats. Like most parasites, the organism itself suffers almost from the moment of infection, and is certain to die an eventual wasting, lingering death.
Totally hollow. She thinks dressing up like Rainbow Brite and watching Firefly makes her a geek, and counts on superficial charm to summon a cavalry of white knights whenever anyone calls her out on it.
A lot of things run counter to typical internet culture on Fark.
No, Fark has just started to run counter to what made Fark good and fun and famous. Boobies links, "I'd hit it" jokes, erudition, and irreverence for taboos and political correctness have been replaced with sponsored headlines, recycled 4chan memes, and the kinds of banal, insight-free commentary you'd expect to hear from lumpy blue hairs sipping coffee in rural truck stops.
I left 5 years ago because I don't need to spend my free time reading a website polluted with alts and career trolls that the mods do _nothing_ about, because, hey, ad revenue or manufactured controversy or something.
Hear, hear. They play at ridiculing the media's sensationalism and tendency towards moral panic, but they're more guilty of it than any local TV channel in Ocala.
The cynic in me imagines that this is Drew's way of preparing for the Hillary 2016 campaign.
A balanced amount of confidence is perfectly fine.
What is a "balanced" amount of confidence? That's where the delusion comes in. None of us knows nearly as much as we think we do, but confident people don't realize this.
Unfortunately, they're mostly anachronistic technology that no one uses anymore. Nowadays, people get their information primarily from television and the internet. And look at who owns that.
Giving people the freedom to light as many candles as they want isn't meaningful in the age of the LED.
In the olden days, we'd have said he's "looking a gift horse in the mouth."
In the olden days, few people who paid a company for a product and service considered the return to be some sort of favor magnanamously bestowed upon them by their corporate feudal barons. It's taken over a century of wage slavery to beat down the American worker's psyche to such a low nadir.
Slashdot Mirror
Cities are fully in charge of their police departments
Of course they aren't. Some cities, towns, and villages are very poorly managed. Your distrust for government is pretty inexplicable if you believe that every government is fully competent and in control of their duties, isn't it?
And if the "move slowly", that's their right.
No it isn't. The people have the right to decide how their government operates, and if they're unhappy with the speed, to accelerate the process or escalate up the "chain of command".
It's only an "important issue" because some people are making it such for political and financial gain.
I'm pretty sure you would have a different outlook on the importance of the issue if someone who looked like your child was on the front pages practically each and every day over questionable police-violence incidents.
People are trying to fabricate a crisis in order to push through political agendas.
How is putting cameras on police even remotely a "political agenda"? What political interest group does it serve? What smoky back room is full of fat cats whose schemes for world domination will be advanced by subjecting police officers to something approaching the same level of workplace supervision that we demand of daycare operators?
I like the idea of police wearing cameras, but you're jumping to conclusions by assuming that it has a "clear and enormous benefit".
I'm not jumping to conclusions, I'm relying upon empirical data like this:
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
Nobody knows what the long term consequences are or how this technology may be abused.
And unless a better, more tangible case against them can be presented than vague and airey fear, uncertainty, and doubt of speculative "unknown unknowns", we should expect to discover the consequences through experience shortly.
We don't know whether this is the right choice for every single community in the US either.
Is that the bar, now? Any law that is passed has to be "the right choice for every single community in the US", by the standards of every individual? That sounds like a recipe for a totally dysfunctional government. Even in a republican democracy, sometimes the majority gets to rule.
Just because something seems like a good idea to a lot of people doesn't mean it should become federal law.
I don't think anyone has been arguing that everything that "seems like a good idea to a lot of people" should become a federal law, so what point are you addressing here? A strawman?
Something should become federal law only if it cannot be implemented at the local or state level.
That's just your opinion, not the American tradition.
It's a pretty clear-cut case of federal overreach.
Can you define "overreach"? It sounds like a subjective opinion rather than anything verifiable or empirical.
The reality is that "power of the purse" simply refers to "holding the purse strings" - he who controls expenditures wields a lot of power, and Congress was given that power specifically and for reason. Its use of the power was never, in any way, limited to federal-to-federal interactions.
Enjoy having Interstate Highways with uniform laws? Uniform standards for drunk driving? You have Congressional bullying of the states using pursestring power to thank for it.
No citations — no argument.
You need citations for Congressional use of the "power of the purse"? Really? Are you some sort of tabula rasa of American history? How basic do we need to get here? Do you understand what the Constitution is? Three branches?
If it is so solid and popular, why not leave it to the communities themselves to equip their police departments as they please?
Because communities are often not as in charge of their police departments as they should be or think they are, because some move more slowly than others, and because this is an important enough issue due to recent events that it warrants quick and decisive movement.
How about because "the injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere"?
Where's the injustice here? The system is operating as it is supposed to - Congress has the power of the purse.
I would've been (much) happier, if the feds did not have this power at all. And that's my point.
Fine, but why bring that up here, then? It's basically off-topic. It's like picketing a Cincinnatti Reds game because you don't like the color fuchsia. If you want to debate whether or not Congress should have the power of the purse, fine with me, but this isn't at all the place for that debate.
That sounds more like a passive-aggressive mafia threat than a realistic possibility. "Oh, you better not do that, or else we might have to stop being so lenient with you!" Why would wearing cameras mean that "they have to charge you with something"? Why would the public tolerate a police force that operates on a mentality like that?
This is exactly why we need cameras. Individual departments and officers are unique, but in general the American public has lost its faith in its police forces, and for damned good reasons. Police have shown themselves, in too many instances lately, to behave like a well-funded, well-organized group of thugs than exemplars of honorable behavior, law and order.
Police are there to serve and protect our communities, and they serve the way we want them to serve and at our discretion. Any deviation from that order should be met with pink slips for any commanding officers or subordinates unable or unwilling to adapt to the reasonable demands of their bosses.
Where's the beef?
Objecting in principle to this specific use of federal "purse string" power is pointless - the principle stands whether or not cameras on cops do or not. Congress has been using the power of the purse to bully states into compliance virtually since the Union began.
And objecting to the specifics of this proposal is inane - the proposal of forcing cops to wear cameras is a solid and popular one. There's no associated diminution of civil liberties, and clear and enormous benefit in the goal of advancing the cause of justice.
So then why raise the ideological issue here and now? Would you really be happier if the feds didn't use the power they have (and will have regardless of this case) to force cops to wear cameras?
I kind of doubt that the Red Cross wants their brand slapped on a video that is going to be associated with feelings of rage and extreme negativity by every single viewer. No matter how it was spun, "Act now to prevent..." would come off as a thousand times worse than the very worst of those "show you pictures of starving kids in Africa before hitting you up for a donation" Sally Struthers commercials.
Basically, yes. The problem isn't some women's attitudes towards computers, its that computers are built wrong so as to make those women have the "wrong" attitudes about them. Now, lets all stand by to be lectured by these women about our entitlement and privilege.
So Chinese people are allowed to say whatever they want with their little tiny microphones that nobody hears. The government only gets involved when a message seems to reverberate through the public and actually threaten to cause the citizens to rise up.
That totally doesn't sound familiar *at all*.
Fark predates 4chan, but 4chan was better at those things. Probably why everyone today knows what 4chan is, and most people don't have never heard of Fark.
Which part requires clarification?
If those are the main things that made it good, it wasn't ever good.
A lot of people thought that it wasn't good. A lot of other people thought that it was. Who's to say who is right? And why do we need to, given that there's enough space for a place like old school Fark.com to exist alongside whatever sort of place you want to build?
The thing that freaks me out about the extremists in this movement is that their goal isn't getting their message out, it's silencing others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeri_Ellsworth
Nah. That would be confusing, because that word is already used to describe people like this.
If a person WANTS to be in public office, chances are good that they are a scumbag looking for bribes. It has always been this way that the scum of the earth always want to be in politics.
90% of the time, that is true. The other 10% of the time is when you get your George Washingtons, your Theodore Roosevelts, and your Pope Francises. The trick is weeding out the 90% of chaff and promoting the 10% of wheat, while fighting off the attempts of the chaff that slipped through and got power to invert the system's filters so that they exclude wheat and only allow through their chaff fellows.
This involves a few steps, but first and foremost is retaining the belief that non-corrupt leadership is possible.
English needs a word for people like her. They're definitely an increasingly prevalent "type" of individual in our society.
A unique form of parasite, they invade the host organism, an organization or a cause or whatever. Contributing nothing but their slimeball social climbing, they subtly and expertly worm themselves into positions of minor authority, then persistently use that minor authority to gain more and drive off any threats. Like most parasites, the organism itself suffers almost from the moment of infection, and is certain to die an eventual wasting, lingering death.
Totally hollow. She thinks dressing up like Rainbow Brite and watching Firefly makes her a geek, and counts on superficial charm to summon a cavalry of white knights whenever anyone calls her out on it.
You might want to check Fark's own headline before criticizing.
A lot of things run counter to typical internet culture on Fark.
No, Fark has just started to run counter to what made Fark good and fun and famous. Boobies links, "I'd hit it" jokes, erudition, and irreverence for taboos and political correctness have been replaced with sponsored headlines, recycled 4chan memes, and the kinds of banal, insight-free commentary you'd expect to hear from lumpy blue hairs sipping coffee in rural truck stops.
aka KittiePie070 when she's feeling trollish...
I left 5 years ago because I don't need to spend my free time reading a website polluted with alts and career trolls that the mods do _nothing_ about, because, hey, ad revenue or manufactured controversy or something.
Hear, hear. They play at ridiculing the media's sensationalism and tendency towards moral panic, but they're more guilty of it than any local TV channel in Ocala.
The cynic in me imagines that this is Drew's way of preparing for the Hillary 2016 campaign.
Confidence combined with deference and recognition of that which you don't know
If you truly recognize how little you know about the world, you aren't going to be very confident.
A balanced amount of confidence is perfectly fine.
What is a "balanced" amount of confidence? That's where the delusion comes in. None of us knows nearly as much as we think we do, but confident people don't realize this.
Self-confidence is a mark of delusion.
We have many presses.
Unfortunately, they're mostly anachronistic technology that no one uses anymore. Nowadays, people get their information primarily from television and the internet. And look at who owns that.
Giving people the freedom to light as many candles as they want isn't meaningful in the age of the LED.
In the olden days, we'd have said he's "looking a gift horse in the mouth."
In the olden days, few people who paid a company for a product and service considered the return to be some sort of favor magnanamously bestowed upon them by their corporate feudal barons. It's taken over a century of wage slavery to beat down the American worker's psyche to such a low nadir.
Wow, NYPD runs ELINT vehicles capable of triangulating radio signals?