on your meta comment about the shifting metadynamics of the meta comments that you have come to know and love in a meta sort of way no longer concerning themselves with the meta commentary in this meta way anymore, and instead taking on a new meta flavor that your meta psychology does not meta grok with
the solution is for an organization to weed out its corruption
simply because without that organization, the corruption would spread like wildfire in all segments of society
in other words, which is worse: an organization with some corruption, or no organization at all?
and yes, the abuses are isolated incidents. what do you believe? that the police are alien creatures of inscrutable agendas and secret allegiance and of an unwavering desire to abuse average citizens just for the hell of it? the police are human beings, like you and me. mostly doing a good, a few bad apples doing bad. you honeslty believe otherwise?
new york city achieved an extra incredibly historic drop in crime as compared against the baseline drop that the entire country experienced. now, if the broken window theory is not responsible for this extra boost in new york city, then you tell me why this happened
as for your red herring about the war on drugs: i believe in marijuana legalization. the war on drugs is an entirely different topic. you can't win an argument by changing the subject
and i grant you, that made a difference in crime too
i also grant you, even though you didn't bring it up, that the waning of the crack epidemic also had a large effect on crime reduction as well
however, like you say, crime reduction isn't that simple, and as the whole country experienced a drop in crime, new york city's drop was largest and still is an incredibly historic drop in crime. so much so that other jurisdictions want to copy new york city's broken window theory, to enjoy the extra impressive results new york city achieved
surely you don't deny that the broken window theory added much more to the baseline drops that the whole country experienced due to more mundane reasons? you don't see new york's extraordinary crime drops as especially notable? you don't attribute that extra boost to the broken window theory? really?
as for prison populations, as i said before, they are what they are. you keep saying that the high prison populations are extra punitive, and just compare that with other countries if i want a dose of reality
well, ok, i will go to other countries, and i will ask the common man about the crime on their streets, the common thuggery, and the rioting and thefts and lawlessness. i won't go to the ivory tower types walled off from the experience of the common man by economic prestige and social class and ideological indoctrination, i will aks the common man only
i think he will applaud the american model, and demand his country also get tough on crime like the usa
wet your finger and put it in the wind. the american model that you see as lamentable is thought of as ideal by the common man in the countries you applaud as the good model. and through simple democratic feedback, those countries are coming around to adapting the american model. it was the era of being fed up with lawlessness in the 1960s and 1970s that led to the broken window theory in the usa. and that is only going to spread to the bastions of lower prison populations that you champion whose citizens are fed up with lawlessness on the streets
ivroy tower types called dirty harry a fascist, but vigilantism was applauded by the common man because society's mechanisms of justice wasn't serving society as a whole, only some ivory tower type's idealized notions of superior crime tactics, formed in a vacuum, cut off from what the effects those idealized notions had on the quality of life for the common man. this whole idea of being too tough or too soft, or jails too empty or too full, or punishments too harsh or too lenient: utterly pointless hot air
the only metric that matters is: the common man on the street is comfortable and safe, or fed up with crime. how full or empty the jails mean nothing. only the opinion of the common man matters in the end, and only that opinion will be served, because his representatives will get an earful
honestly, its the only opinion that matters, not the academics. academics unfortunately get walled off in self-supporting derivative ideas that often stray from reality. ivory tower types and their opinions forged completely in isolation of the reality of life for the common man on the street
so you go on about prison populations and other countries. i am the one who has to walk down 42nd street tonight in the dark, and i am glad i feel a hell of a lot safer than i did in 1985, and i know it is because of economics, and crack fading away... and the broken window theory
how is having your dna taken a punishment? they have been taking fingerprints for years. do you consider that a punishment too? in what way?
#2: your leverage argument, the idea of someone using your dna to frame you is mostly esoteric fantasy. but lets assume for the moment you are in this exotic situation of being framed. they could do the same with your fingerprints, or any other framing evidence. not taking your fingerprints or not taking your dna provides no inherent protection from such frame jobs. furthermore, if such a frame job occurs, this is a crime. which must be policed. and it will be policed with the same fingerprints and dna evidence against your framers that you oppose. ther eis no "us" versus "them" btw. the police are not an alien species of inscrutable and impenetrable cohesion allied against you. they are human beings, like you and me, as poassionate or impassionate about the freedoms we are talking about as you and i are. and so they are just as interested, or uninterested, in fighting police abuse as you and i are. in other words: its a wash. taking fingerprints and dna does not tip your rights away from you, nor does it closer to you. its merely a tool in a toolkit, that can be used for many things, but most of all will be used for simply doing the job of policework better than before, justas criminals use technology to transgress against your rights better than before. why do you want to hobble the police in the effort to protect your rights from criminals?
when you are willing to talk about the reality of human behavior, i will listen to you and respond. but if you are only going to spout the nonsense that college sophomores who have read too many philosophy books and have no real world experience are going to spout, there's really nothing to say to you
you need police in order for civilization to function. this is a nonnegotiable fact of the reality you live in. if you don't accept or understand that, you are concerning yourself with daydreaming about utopian fantasies, not commenting intelligently and usefully on the reality you live in
let's hand you some intellectual charity to start you on your voyage back to reality: how do you fight police abuse?
answer: with more police. internal affairs
do you have a better solution?
caveat: confine your "better solution" to aspect of real human behavior. not utopian behavior dependent upon human beings behaving in ways human beings have never behaved in any culture, present or past, any where in the world
there is no escaping the notion of a police force. nor should there be, were you to properly understand that the police exist to enforce the rights and freedoms you enjoy. and that without the police, you wouldn't have any rights and freedoms, utopian daydreaming in spite of simple truths about human nature to the contrary
"You associate with other people with a similar point of view"
meaning, you join a society, and acquiesce to its rules, to appreciate the freedoms everyone in that society desires. if by "associate" you mean something less than that, then there is no real association going on
"or get a bigger stick, and beat the bastard."
meaning, the solution to a difference of opinion is force, rather than principles. which is a state of being that is the exact opposite of the freedoms you seek. the whole point is to escape a might makes right situation, no? then why are championing that idea?
you are proposing vigilantism as superior to police
in one respect, you are correct that you have first responsibility at protecting your rights and freedoms. without enough people in society with this instinct, you cannot expect society to protect your freedoms for you. either we believe in our freedoms, or we don't. our society simply reflects that. but this is a last resort situation, when society is facing a major onslaught to its principles, not a day to day necessity to fight for your rights
it is far superior to outsource the protection of your rights and freedoms to the police, in a civil society. in the woods, yes, you must enforce your rights and freedoms. but this is pure thuggery. now every argument is an argument of gunpower, of might makes right, not an argument of principles. only in a civilized setting can an argument about rights and freedoms progress purely as one of ideals and concepts. if everything degenerates into one of a mexican standoff, there is no real rights and freedoms, only force
in a civilized setting, it is far superior for specialized representatives of the rules you and your society make to enforce those rules. if you yourself spend all of your time enforcing society's rules, there is no uniformity, there is no policy. meaning, there is no social pact and no social cohesion. everyone can't walk around judge, jury and executioner. if you really are a member of society, you must absorb the full implication of what it means to be a member of that society: you outsource some of the roles you would normally play as an individual. you can't say you are part of a society, and yet still walk around like you are a one man show. if you don't agree to throw the enforcement of your ideals in with those around you, you are announcing your independence from your society. which short circuits your pact with society and that you are part of it and that you deserve its protection. its a good bargain: you give up a little independence, you gain a heck of a lot more rights and freedoms. yes, i am saying that your independence exists in opposition to the amount of freedoms you enjoy. on your own in the woods, being independent, you can't concern yourself with your freedom of expression, you have to concern yourself with having enough gun powder. only in a civil setting can you explore your mind and its ideas, and thereby strengthen your society
either its 1. everyone for himself 2. we are in this boat together
when you go with #2, you have police, and you build a strong society. simple economic superiority of specialization of role. when you go with #1, you have an unworkable situation, since every encounter needs to be negotiated at gunpoint about what principles are agreed upon and what is not. tedious and am absolutely showstopper for regular social functioning
it is an inescapable necessity of civil society to acquiesce to the police representatives of that society, to at least tacitly signal your approval for that society's rules, and rights, and freedoms. and in return for doing that, you deserve and gain priveledges of freedoms and liberties that that society says it stands for
so why are other city's crime rates, many often much smaller cities, lagging so far behind new york's low crime rate? and why are they all keen to copy new york's model?
yes, the joblessness drops, the crack epidemic waning: they contributed to crime drops. but new york has extraordinarily impressive low crime rates is due to its strong policing
to complain loudly about the fact that the kidnapper was pulled over by the useless police and they didn't even bother to look in the trunk and find the duct taped hostage
damned if you do, damned if you don't
i got pulled over in harlem for a missing inspection sticker, with one of the cops staying by the patrol car with his gun cocked and raised at the back of my head. they even shouted at me when i reached for my wallet instead of keeping my hands in the air
i supposed i could be indignant and angry at that
except for the fact that i understand why the police do that, and why it is necessary for them to be cautious, prudent, and careful
in other words, i don't process the encounter like a self-absorb individual would, only concerned with easy shallow outrage. i don't wear my indignation on my sleeve, i'm not an insecure person who considers every slight and affront as a major questioning of my human dignity
since it is lawlessness that is always eroding your liberties and freedoms
civilization exists to give you liberties and freedoms. your liberties and freedoms do not exist as some natural law, but only as a pact agreed upon by members of your society
those in power who abuse their power are not symptoms of society. they are rather a manifestation of lawlessness seeping into and subverting the freedoms that a normal society exists to protect
the police are not the enemy of your freedoms. lawlessnes is
the police exist to protect your freedoms
how people have come to view them as the enemies of freedom is absurd: your freedoms don't exist without the police
assuming you can prove that someone trangressed against society and someone else's freedoms, do they not deserve a punishment?
i don't understand this concept that prison populations should be low... according to what ideal? they shouldn't be high according to some arbitrary ideal, either of course. but what prison populations should be is the natural result of society making rules and imposing punishments according to those rules. whatever prison populations gravitate to because of that, makes no difference. as long as those who are not in prison don't have their freedoms impinged upon by criminals, what's the problem?
and i'm glad you are criminologist. but i remember the new york of graffiti and muggings on every corner and needle park (bryant park, in the middle of manhattan overrrun with heroin addicts) and bernie goetz (subway vigilante) and prostitutes and drug addicts in times square. and i remember the supposedly horrible conservative notion of getting tough on crime, and now i know a new york with the lowest rates of crime and murder in decades. and i am a social liberal: i believe in marijuana legalization, gay marriage, etc.
so to me, it is not a liberal notion, this idea of being soft on crime. i don't think you want to say this either, but you do realize that equating being tough on crime with conservativism means that liberalism holds the inverse? to me this is a false association: toughness on crime with conservativism. what would you call a social liberal who is tough on crime? an aberration? well, that's who i am then. but to me, its just common sense
no, this is a gross misrepresentaion of liberal principles. liberal principles gave us emancipation, gay rights, womens rights... all liberties and freedoms enforced by the police, against criminal elements who wish to impose transgressive acts on our liberal notions of freedom
a prison exists to house those who impose on your liberal freedoms. that's the way i see it. and from my experience living in new york city, the broken window theory is nothing but the reason my life in manhattan is now safe, and why it is nothing short of a blessing
because my experience in new york city has shown me the truth. a truth that seems to be inverted in other people's minds. the trtuh is: the greatest threat to your freedoms are criminals, and the protector of your freedoms is the police
if you can enunciate to me a way to get the results new york city did with its broken windows theory in the past 20 years, i will listen to you. but if you can only attack the theory, and blithely ignore the results, and offer no superior alternative, then i seriously wonder at the intellectual foundation of your beliefs. no matter what your credentials
the freedoms you refer to only exists within a social framework. a social framework in which police are the essential component for the enforcement of your freedoms
that is, police exist to make sure you have the freedoms you enjoy, not take them away
human ideas of freedom are not natural laws. they are merely good ideas about human social interaction that are only real when they are enforced representatives of society's laws. who are called the police
your freedom of expression does not exist without police around to make sure you are protected from intimidation and threats of violence for simply expressing your ideas
in anarchy, you have no freedom of expression. i can shout "i believe in evolution" in a lawless environment and some guy can come up to me and say "take that back or i'll kill you" and i have no protection from him: i am intimidated. only within the framework of society do i have the police there to protect me from that intimidation
the freedoms you refer to as something to protect from the police are freedoms that... drum roll please... would not exist were the police not there to protect those freedoms for you. and so your argument is absurd: you wish to proect your freedoms from the guys who make sure you have those freedoms in the first place
ok. thefore the police... must be policed. do you have any other way to fight police abuse in mind?
so your argument against police abuse invariably leads to... more police. (or, specifically, internal affairs: any good sized police department has police within the organization whose job is to weed out and fight police abuse.)
in other words, your argument collapses in on itself. you don't really have a problem with the existence of the police, you have a problem with the behavior of a subset of misbehaving police
because police abuse is not some essential component of policework. rather, the opposite: police abuse is a flavor of the lawlessness that police exist to fight
lawlessness occurs at every level and in every sector of society. including the very elements of society dedicated to fighting the lawlessness
you have no problem at all registering your criticism of your mythical police state here on slashdot.
"I can't tell you if it exists yet or not. That is immaterial. If we don't actively take measures to prevent the pre-conditions, it eventually will exist."
yes. if we don't actively develop and improve our police force, the natural tendency to lawlessness will accelerate. you seem to believe that the natural tendency of things is to accelerate to police state. no. the existence of civilization is something that is constantly being eroded and must be actively maintained from various forces which would otherwise destroy it. you seem to believe that civilization is the low energy state, and high energy effort must be exerted to prevent civilization from consuming anything that isn't pure conformity. this is ludicrous. your entire starting assumption is the inverse of reality. the natural tendency is towards lawnessness, not towards stifling rules
if your complaints were 100% real, you wouldn't even have made the comment you just made, such would be your fear of reprisal and intrusion and punishment for registering your malcontent
"Don't think I don't consider that every time I write something. I'm willing to pay for my freedom. Are you?"
yes, i am willing to increase my taxes to hire more police to enforce the social framework in which i enjoy my freedoms. because i, unlike you, recognize a simple reality: lawlessness is more of a threat to my freedoms than the enforcement of my society's rules. my society's rules are ABOUT my freedom. when i am outside my society's framework, i don't have any of the freedoms my society enforces. it is only within society that the rules about your freedoms exist. with less police, with more anarchy, there is more transgression against your freedoms by random thugs and other mindless criminal behavior
do you believe the opposite? do you believe that, say your freedom of expression, is some sort of natural law granted by mere existence? ok, you go in the woods, outside of society, and you shout "i believe in evolution". and some guy comes out of the woods and says "i heard that. evolution is evil. recant your words or i'll kill you"
what's preventing him from using intimidation to squash your right to express yourself?
well, nothing, out in the woods. in society, a set of laws exist to prevent him from responding to your words with violence. and a vital, inescapable piece of the legal framework for the enforcement of your freedoms is the... drum roll please... the police
do you get it? a freedom you enjoy, say, freedom of expression, is not an aspect of natural morality. rather, something like freedom of expression, your right to say what you want without fear of capricious and violent response, is an unnatural, artificial, manmade idea. it exists only within the confines of your society, and must be actively maintained through a police force in order for your freedom to have any substance and reality about it
again, the simple truth of the matter: lawlessness is a greater threat to your freedom than your society's representatives for enforcing the freedoms, that you enjoy and your society guarantees. such representatives of YOUR society and YOUR rules are called the police
why don't people understand these simple concepts?
the lawlessness of the 1980s made the city unliveable
in the 1990s and 2000s, new york city is liveable again. crime is way down, murders are way down. how is this anything but a good thing?
you seem to believe in a world where everything is normal and fine, and then the police come in and start abusing people just because that's what police do. no, the real world is an environment that is unliveable and dangerous, and the police come in and make it safe and liveable... for you
you seem to believe police are the enemy. no, lawlessness is the enemy. what are the police? the police are yours. they are an extension of your society bent on enforcing YOUR rules, to make your life safe
and yet their is this fantastical common notion that the police are some sort of fascist stormtroopers of some evil elite, enforcing random draconian laws... just because they are cartoon characters who like doing that, apparently
police abuse IS real. and when it happens, it gets punished. for the simple reason that police abuse is a form of the lawlessness that police exist to fight. the argument that police are the enemy folds in upon itself: how do you fight police abuse anyways, except within the legal framework of the society itself? what other solution exists to fight police abuses than police functions of society?
when you look at it that way, it becomes a matter of tweaking police function, and changing the rules of society. not attacking the police themselves. you are just attacking your own safety when you do that. it's just some sort of absurd teenage mentality
all civilization need police to make society function. to somehow believe or begin with the assumption that the police themselves are the enemy is some sort of bizarre alien notion. it says you don't understand some really basic simple truths about the world you live in
so, according to your theory that hollywood stereotypes have a grain of truth in them, should i start viewing uwe boll movies as valid social critiques?
truly, this is a dystopian hell worse than the most paranoid orwellian nightmare we can imagine!
"You got something wrong here, these hollywood characters are modeled after real-life people. Always were. There's stuff going on that a writer can't even make up. So don't be so sure, what you're writing here sounds like you want to make a reasonable point but it acts as diluted propaganda."
wow
in conclusion: pointing out that hollywood traffics in stereotypes on my part is propaganda. i need to accept hollywood stereotypes as representations of social truth
wow
do i laugh or cry that someone actually believes this?
i feel nothing but pity for you, to live in such fear of your world, and see the natural, valid functions of policework as horrible fascist knives pointed at your happiness
of course there are abuses of policework in our world. and these abuses are reviled, examined, reversed, and protected against. they are NOT the accepted status quo, which is what you seem to believe
i'm really sorry for you. that you have to view your world this way. but the way you view the world isn't reality, it simply isn't, unless you live in iran or china
i can prove what you say isn't reality
that isn't even reality to you
proof of this assertion?
it is thus: despite your hysterical timidity on the issue of the all intrusive police state you supposedly live in, you seem to have NO PROBLEM WRITING THE COMMENT YOU JUST WROTE
you have no problem at all registering your criticism of your mythical police state here on slashdot. if your complaints were 100% real, you wouldn't even have made the comment you just made, such would be your fear of reprisal and intrusion and punishment for registering your malcontent
simply stated, if law enforcement focuses on small, petty crimes, like turnstile jumping, graffiti, and shoplifting, they implicitly reduce serious crime, like burglarly, arson, murder
the idea works in two ways:
1. the public perception of lawlessness sends a signal that even worse lawless behavior is acceptable, so doping the reverse: focusing on the surface level impression of orderliness, actually increases real orderliness
2. you would be amazed how many rapists and murders also run red lights and shoplift. that is, routine screening of petty crimes (fingerprints in the past) has actually netted a surprising number of big fish (where big fish means any criminal who committed a very serious crime). people who commit trangressive acts against society don't really seem to be able to stop doing that
in which case, viewing the request to keep and track dna, you can simply see the evolution of police work,.where the next natural next step is to track dna, as well as fingerprints, based on the success of the broken window theory in the past
i'm not saying that dna tracking should be supported, i'm just framing the reason why law enforcement is interested in dna. as opposed to the mindless "everyone in government wants to fascistically monitor your entire life just because they are stereotypical hollywood characters" theory of government and law enforcement, that you frequently see as the basis for comments
no one should be expected to micromanage their browsing experience like this. i'm glad you do. but your behavior represents perhaps 0.001% of web browsers. you're mental effort is noble, but not ideal
no, really, your behavior is not ideal. because i should not have to consider every click i make on the web in the same way i would consider a chess move in a game of chess. i should, as a rule, click with abandon, and the browser should be intelligent enough to manage the cruft and parasites for me
you fix the problems we are talking about here, like pop ups, by improving the browser code. you don't shove the problem out to the end user such as with noscript, because, in a way, your exemplary but tedious micromanaging web browsing style is a WORSE burden than the occasional pop up and annoying flash ads
i repeat: your micromanaging web browsing style, to me, and i would confidently say according the majority of web users, is more of a burden than the javascript and flash cruft we encounter on the web
are you familiar with the idiotic windows vista practice of asking you to approve every executeable before it runs? after awhile, the average user just mindlessly clicks "approve" and doesn't even read the warning. and this is perfectly appropriate behavior: its the boy who cried wolf. an alert at every false positive leads people to completely ignore the alert
likewise, noscript is a wonderful extension... for the odd power user who likes such finetuned control over the minutiae of his browsing experience, and is keenly mindful and thoughtful about every site he visits and how he wants to profile his javascript footprint there
this describes perhaps 0.001% of web users
a real solution to the pop up problem is not to push the issue out to the end user and make them manage and fine tune their javascript footprint. in fact, as a solution, noscript represents a worse burden in terms of time and mental effort on the end user than simply closing pop ups when they open
and no, this doesn't mean the average end user is stupid simply because he doesn't want to exert the mental effort. a highly intelligent end user shouldn't have to work hard at his browsing experience, he just wants to browse with abandon, and that's a perfectly appropriate instinct. the end user, from the dumbest to the brightest, should not be expected to consider every click he makes on the web equivalent to the mental effort required to make a move in a game of chess
no, the real solution is to fine tune the browser's intelligence about how to handle pop ups. the advertising parasites are getting smarter, so the browser needs to get smarter. that's the real solution. an arms race between browser code and pop up code
but, no, i'm sorry: the end user must not be harassed even further, and that's what your noscript "solution" represents
Slashdot Mirror
under a comment about homosexuality
unless you are offering your services
on your meta comment about the shifting metadynamics of the meta comments that you have come to know and love in a meta sort of way no longer concerning themselves with the meta commentary in this meta way anymore, and instead taking on a new meta flavor that your meta psychology does not meta grok with
in short, who cares
but its not a disease
unless you also want to consider liking doritos, or going skiing, or other perfectly harmless pursuits to be diseases too
theocracy is alive and well
alcohol and marijuana are viewed as evil demonic scourges
being gay is seen as a moral disease
no, we're not in tehran
we're in utah
fucking pathetic
the solution is for an organization to weed out its corruption
simply because without that organization, the corruption would spread like wildfire in all segments of society
in other words, which is worse: an organization with some corruption, or no organization at all?
and yes, the abuses are isolated incidents. what do you believe? that the police are alien creatures of inscrutable agendas and secret allegiance and of an unwavering desire to abuse average citizens just for the hell of it? the police are human beings, like you and me. mostly doing a good, a few bad apples doing bad. you honeslty believe otherwise?
and your entire argument is off topic
you aren't replying to my comment, you are threadjacking it to a pet peeve of your own
which is fine of course, you are free to do whatever you want, but you've destroyed my interest in the discussion by doing so
new york city achieved an extra incredibly historic drop in crime as compared against the baseline drop that the entire country experienced. now, if the broken window theory is not responsible for this extra boost in new york city, then you tell me why this happened
as for your red herring about the war on drugs: i believe in marijuana legalization. the war on drugs is an entirely different topic. you can't win an argument by changing the subject
and i grant you, that made a difference in crime too
i also grant you, even though you didn't bring it up, that the waning of the crack epidemic also had a large effect on crime reduction as well
however, like you say, crime reduction isn't that simple, and as the whole country experienced a drop in crime, new york city's drop was largest and still is an incredibly historic drop in crime. so much so that other jurisdictions want to copy new york city's broken window theory, to enjoy the extra impressive results new york city achieved
surely you don't deny that the broken window theory added much more to the baseline drops that the whole country experienced due to more mundane reasons? you don't see new york's extraordinary crime drops as especially notable? you don't attribute that extra boost to the broken window theory? really?
as for prison populations, as i said before, they are what they are. you keep saying that the high prison populations are extra punitive, and just compare that with other countries if i want a dose of reality
well, ok, i will go to other countries, and i will ask the common man about the crime on their streets, the common thuggery, and the rioting and thefts and lawlessness. i won't go to the ivory tower types walled off from the experience of the common man by economic prestige and social class and ideological indoctrination, i will aks the common man only
i think he will applaud the american model, and demand his country also get tough on crime like the usa
wet your finger and put it in the wind. the american model that you see as lamentable is thought of as ideal by the common man in the countries you applaud as the good model. and through simple democratic feedback, those countries are coming around to adapting the american model. it was the era of being fed up with lawlessness in the 1960s and 1970s that led to the broken window theory in the usa. and that is only going to spread to the bastions of lower prison populations that you champion whose citizens are fed up with lawlessness on the streets
ivroy tower types called dirty harry a fascist, but vigilantism was applauded by the common man because society's mechanisms of justice wasn't serving society as a whole, only some ivory tower type's idealized notions of superior crime tactics, formed in a vacuum, cut off from what the effects those idealized notions had on the quality of life for the common man. this whole idea of being too tough or too soft, or jails too empty or too full, or punishments too harsh or too lenient: utterly pointless hot air
the only metric that matters is: the common man on the street is comfortable and safe, or fed up with crime. how full or empty the jails mean nothing. only the opinion of the common man matters in the end, and only that opinion will be served, because his representatives will get an earful
honestly, its the only opinion that matters, not the academics. academics unfortunately get walled off in self-supporting derivative ideas that often stray from reality. ivory tower types and their opinions forged completely in isolation of the reality of life for the common man on the street
so you go on about prison populations and other countries. i am the one who has to walk down 42nd street tonight in the dark, and i am glad i feel a hell of a lot safer than i did in 1985, and i know it is because of economics, and crack fading away... and the broken window theory
how is having your dna taken a punishment? they have been taking fingerprints for years. do you consider that a punishment too? in what way?
#2:
your leverage argument, the idea of someone using your dna to frame you is mostly esoteric fantasy. but lets assume for the moment you are in this exotic situation of being framed. they could do the same with your fingerprints, or any other framing evidence. not taking your fingerprints or not taking your dna provides no inherent protection from such frame jobs. furthermore, if such a frame job occurs, this is a crime. which must be policed. and it will be policed with the same fingerprints and dna evidence against your framers that you oppose. ther eis no "us" versus "them" btw. the police are not an alien species of inscrutable and impenetrable cohesion allied against you. they are human beings, like you and me, as poassionate or impassionate about the freedoms we are talking about as you and i are. and so they are just as interested, or uninterested, in fighting police abuse as you and i are. in other words: its a wash. taking fingerprints and dna does not tip your rights away from you, nor does it closer to you. its merely a tool in a toolkit, that can be used for many things, but most of all will be used for simply doing the job of policework better than before, justas criminals use technology to transgress against your rights better than before. why do you want to hobble the police in the effort to protect your rights from criminals?
when you are willing to talk about the reality of human behavior, i will listen to you and respond. but if you are only going to spout the nonsense that college sophomores who have read too many philosophy books and have no real world experience are going to spout, there's really nothing to say to you
you need police in order for civilization to function. this is a nonnegotiable fact of the reality you live in. if you don't accept or understand that, you are concerning yourself with daydreaming about utopian fantasies, not commenting intelligently and usefully on the reality you live in
let's hand you some intellectual charity to start you on your voyage back to reality: how do you fight police abuse?
answer: with more police. internal affairs
do you have a better solution?
caveat: confine your "better solution" to aspect of real human behavior. not utopian behavior dependent upon human beings behaving in ways human beings have never behaved in any culture, present or past, any where in the world
there is no escaping the notion of a police force. nor should there be, were you to properly understand that the police exist to enforce the rights and freedoms you enjoy. and that without the police, you wouldn't have any rights and freedoms, utopian daydreaming in spite of simple truths about human nature to the contrary
"You associate with other people with a similar point of view"
meaning, you join a society, and acquiesce to its rules, to appreciate the freedoms everyone in that society desires. if by "associate" you mean something less than that, then there is no real association going on
"or get a bigger stick, and beat the bastard."
meaning, the solution to a difference of opinion is force, rather than principles. which is a state of being that is the exact opposite of the freedoms you seek. the whole point is to escape a might makes right situation, no? then why are championing that idea?
you are proposing vigilantism as superior to police
in one respect, you are correct that you have first responsibility at protecting your rights and freedoms. without enough people in society with this instinct, you cannot expect society to protect your freedoms for you. either we believe in our freedoms, or we don't. our society simply reflects that. but this is a last resort situation, when society is facing a major onslaught to its principles, not a day to day necessity to fight for your rights
it is far superior to outsource the protection of your rights and freedoms to the police, in a civil society. in the woods, yes, you must enforce your rights and freedoms. but this is pure thuggery. now every argument is an argument of gunpower, of might makes right, not an argument of principles. only in a civilized setting can an argument about rights and freedoms progress purely as one of ideals and concepts. if everything degenerates into one of a mexican standoff, there is no real rights and freedoms, only force
in a civilized setting, it is far superior for specialized representatives of the rules you and your society make to enforce those rules. if you yourself spend all of your time enforcing society's rules, there is no uniformity, there is no policy. meaning, there is no social pact and no social cohesion. everyone can't walk around judge, jury and executioner. if you really are a member of society, you must absorb the full implication of what it means to be a member of that society: you outsource some of the roles you would normally play as an individual. you can't say you are part of a society, and yet still walk around like you are a one man show. if you don't agree to throw the enforcement of your ideals in with those around you, you are announcing your independence from your society. which short circuits your pact with society and that you are part of it and that you deserve its protection. its a good bargain: you give up a little independence, you gain a heck of a lot more rights and freedoms. yes, i am saying that your independence exists in opposition to the amount of freedoms you enjoy. on your own in the woods, being independent, you can't concern yourself with your freedom of expression, you have to concern yourself with having enough gun powder. only in a civil setting can you explore your mind and its ideas, and thereby strengthen your society
either its
1. everyone for himself
2. we are in this boat together
when you go with #2, you have police, and you build a strong society. simple economic superiority of specialization of role. when you go with #1, you have an unworkable situation, since every encounter needs to be negotiated at gunpoint about what principles are agreed upon and what is not. tedious and am absolutely showstopper for regular social functioning
it is an inescapable necessity of civil society to acquiesce to the police representatives of that society, to at least tacitly signal your approval for that society's rules, and rights, and freedoms. and in return for doing that, you deserve and gain priveledges of freedoms and liberties that that society says it stands for
so why are other city's crime rates, many often much smaller cities, lagging so far behind new york's low crime rate? and why are they all keen to copy new york's model?
yes, the joblessness drops, the crack epidemic waning: they contributed to crime drops. but new york has extraordinarily impressive low crime rates is due to its strong policing
i don't conceive of how you are able to deny this
to complain loudly about the fact that the kidnapper was pulled over by the useless police and they didn't even bother to look in the trunk and find the duct taped hostage
damned if you do, damned if you don't
i got pulled over in harlem for a missing inspection sticker, with one of the cops staying by the patrol car with his gun cocked and raised at the back of my head. they even shouted at me when i reached for my wallet instead of keeping my hands in the air
i supposed i could be indignant and angry at that
except for the fact that i understand why the police do that, and why it is necessary for them to be cautious, prudent, and careful
in other words, i don't process the encounter like a self-absorb individual would, only concerned with easy shallow outrage. i don't wear my indignation on my sleeve, i'm not an insecure person who considers every slight and affront as a major questioning of my human dignity
because i'm not a child
are you?
since it is lawlessness that is always eroding your liberties and freedoms
civilization exists to give you liberties and freedoms. your liberties and freedoms do not exist as some natural law, but only as a pact agreed upon by members of your society
those in power who abuse their power are not symptoms of society. they are rather a manifestation of lawlessness seeping into and subverting the freedoms that a normal society exists to protect
the police are not the enemy of your freedoms. lawlessnes is
the police exist to protect your freedoms
how people have come to view them as the enemies of freedom is absurd: your freedoms don't exist without the police
what is wrong with large prison populations?
assuming you can prove that someone trangressed against society and someone else's freedoms, do they not deserve a punishment?
i don't understand this concept that prison populations should be low... according to what ideal? they shouldn't be high according to some arbitrary ideal, either of course. but what prison populations should be is the natural result of society making rules and imposing punishments according to those rules. whatever prison populations gravitate to because of that, makes no difference. as long as those who are not in prison don't have their freedoms impinged upon by criminals, what's the problem?
and i'm glad you are criminologist. but i remember the new york of graffiti and muggings on every corner and needle park (bryant park, in the middle of manhattan overrrun with heroin addicts) and bernie goetz (subway vigilante) and prostitutes and drug addicts in times square. and i remember the supposedly horrible conservative notion of getting tough on crime, and now i know a new york with the lowest rates of crime and murder in decades. and i am a social liberal: i believe in marijuana legalization, gay marriage, etc.
so to me, it is not a liberal notion, this idea of being soft on crime. i don't think you want to say this either, but you do realize that equating being tough on crime with conservativism means that liberalism holds the inverse? to me this is a false association: toughness on crime with conservativism. what would you call a social liberal who is tough on crime? an aberration? well, that's who i am then. but to me, its just common sense
no, this is a gross misrepresentaion of liberal principles. liberal principles gave us emancipation, gay rights, womens rights... all liberties and freedoms enforced by the police, against criminal elements who wish to impose transgressive acts on our liberal notions of freedom
a prison exists to house those who impose on your liberal freedoms. that's the way i see it. and from my experience living in new york city, the broken window theory is nothing but the reason my life in manhattan is now safe, and why it is nothing short of a blessing
because my experience in new york city has shown me the truth. a truth that seems to be inverted in other people's minds. the trtuh is: the greatest threat to your freedoms are criminals, and the protector of your freedoms is the police
if you can enunciate to me a way to get the results new york city did with its broken windows theory in the past 20 years, i will listen to you. but if you can only attack the theory, and blithely ignore the results, and offer no superior alternative, then i seriously wonder at the intellectual foundation of your beliefs. no matter what your credentials
the freedoms you refer to only exists within a social framework. a social framework in which police are the essential component for the enforcement of your freedoms
that is, police exist to make sure you have the freedoms you enjoy, not take them away
human ideas of freedom are not natural laws. they are merely good ideas about human social interaction that are only real when they are enforced representatives of society's laws. who are called the police
your freedom of expression does not exist without police around to make sure you are protected from intimidation and threats of violence for simply expressing your ideas
in anarchy, you have no freedom of expression. i can shout "i believe in evolution" in a lawless environment and some guy can come up to me and say "take that back or i'll kill you" and i have no protection from him: i am intimidated. only within the framework of society do i have the police there to protect me from that intimidation
the freedoms you refer to as something to protect from the police are freedoms that... drum roll please... would not exist were the police not there to protect those freedoms for you. and so your argument is absurd: you wish to proect your freedoms from the guys who make sure you have those freedoms in the first place
police abuse must be fought. correct?
ok. thefore the police... must be policed. do you have any other way to fight police abuse in mind?
so your argument against police abuse invariably leads to... more police. (or, specifically, internal affairs: any good sized police department has police within the organization whose job is to weed out and fight police abuse.)
in other words, your argument collapses in on itself. you don't really have a problem with the existence of the police, you have a problem with the behavior of a subset of misbehaving police
because police abuse is not some essential component of policework. rather, the opposite: police abuse is a flavor of the lawlessness that police exist to fight
lawlessness occurs at every level and in every sector of society. including the very elements of society dedicated to fighting the lawlessness
meaning, even the police must be policed
you have no problem at all registering your criticism of your mythical police state here on slashdot.
"I can't tell you if it exists yet or not. That is immaterial. If we don't actively take measures to prevent the pre-conditions, it eventually will exist."
yes. if we don't actively develop and improve our police force, the natural tendency to lawlessness will accelerate. you seem to believe that the natural tendency of things is to accelerate to police state. no. the existence of civilization is something that is constantly being eroded and must be actively maintained from various forces which would otherwise destroy it. you seem to believe that civilization is the low energy state, and high energy effort must be exerted to prevent civilization from consuming anything that isn't pure conformity. this is ludicrous. your entire starting assumption is the inverse of reality. the natural tendency is towards lawnessness, not towards stifling rules
if your complaints were 100% real, you wouldn't even have made the comment you just made, such would be your fear of reprisal and intrusion and punishment for registering your malcontent
"Don't think I don't consider that every time I write something. I'm willing to pay for my freedom. Are you?"
yes, i am willing to increase my taxes to hire more police to enforce the social framework in which i enjoy my freedoms. because i, unlike you, recognize a simple reality: lawlessness is more of a threat to my freedoms than the enforcement of my society's rules. my society's rules are ABOUT my freedom. when i am outside my society's framework, i don't have any of the freedoms my society enforces. it is only within society that the rules about your freedoms exist. with less police, with more anarchy, there is more transgression against your freedoms by random thugs and other mindless criminal behavior
do you believe the opposite? do you believe that, say your freedom of expression, is some sort of natural law granted by mere existence? ok, you go in the woods, outside of society, and you shout "i believe in evolution". and some guy comes out of the woods and says "i heard that. evolution is evil. recant your words or i'll kill you"
what's preventing him from using intimidation to squash your right to express yourself?
well, nothing, out in the woods. in society, a set of laws exist to prevent him from responding to your words with violence. and a vital, inescapable piece of the legal framework for the enforcement of your freedoms is the... drum roll please... the police
do you get it? a freedom you enjoy, say, freedom of expression, is not an aspect of natural morality. rather, something like freedom of expression, your right to say what you want without fear of capricious and violent response, is an unnatural, artificial, manmade idea. it exists only within the confines of your society, and must be actively maintained through a police force in order for your freedom to have any substance and reality about it
again, the simple truth of the matter: lawlessness is a greater threat to your freedom than your society's representatives for enforcing the freedoms, that you enjoy and your society guarantees. such representatives of YOUR society and YOUR rules are called the police
why don't people understand these simple concepts?
the lawlessness of the 1980s made the city unliveable
in the 1990s and 2000s, new york city is liveable again. crime is way down, murders are way down. how is this anything but a good thing?
you seem to believe in a world where everything is normal and fine, and then the police come in and start abusing people just because that's what police do. no, the real world is an environment that is unliveable and dangerous, and the police come in and make it safe and liveable... for you
you seem to believe police are the enemy. no, lawlessness is the enemy. what are the police? the police are yours. they are an extension of your society bent on enforcing YOUR rules, to make your life safe
and yet their is this fantastical common notion that the police are some sort of fascist stormtroopers of some evil elite, enforcing random draconian laws... just because they are cartoon characters who like doing that, apparently
police abuse IS real. and when it happens, it gets punished. for the simple reason that police abuse is a form of the lawlessness that police exist to fight. the argument that police are the enemy folds in upon itself: how do you fight police abuse anyways, except within the legal framework of the society itself? what other solution exists to fight police abuses than police functions of society?
when you look at it that way, it becomes a matter of tweaking police function, and changing the rules of society. not attacking the police themselves. you are just attacking your own safety when you do that. it's just some sort of absurd teenage mentality
all civilization need police to make society function. to somehow believe or begin with the assumption that the police themselves are the enemy is some sort of bizarre alien notion. it says you don't understand some really basic simple truths about the world you live in
so, according to your theory that hollywood stereotypes have a grain of truth in them, should i start viewing uwe boll movies as valid social critiques?
truly, this is a dystopian hell worse than the most paranoid orwellian nightmare we can imagine!
"You got something wrong here, these hollywood characters are modeled after real-life people. Always were. There's stuff going on that a writer can't even make up. So don't be so sure, what you're writing here sounds like you want to make a reasonable point but it acts as diluted propaganda."
wow
in conclusion: pointing out that hollywood traffics in stereotypes on my part is propaganda. i need to accept hollywood stereotypes as representations of social truth
wow
do i laugh or cry that someone actually believes this?
i feel nothing but pity for you, to live in such fear of your world, and see the natural, valid functions of policework as horrible fascist knives pointed at your happiness
of course there are abuses of policework in our world. and these abuses are reviled, examined, reversed, and protected against. they are NOT the accepted status quo, which is what you seem to believe
i'm really sorry for you. that you have to view your world this way. but the way you view the world isn't reality, it simply isn't, unless you live in iran or china
i can prove what you say isn't reality
that isn't even reality to you
proof of this assertion?
it is thus: despite your hysterical timidity on the issue of the all intrusive police state you supposedly live in, you seem to have NO PROBLEM WRITING THE COMMENT YOU JUST WROTE
you have no problem at all registering your criticism of your mythical police state here on slashdot. if your complaints were 100% real, you wouldn't even have made the comment you just made, such would be your fear of reprisal and intrusion and punishment for registering your malcontent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows
simply stated, if law enforcement focuses on small, petty crimes, like turnstile jumping, graffiti, and shoplifting, they implicitly reduce serious crime, like burglarly, arson, murder
the idea works in two ways:
1. the public perception of lawlessness sends a signal that even worse lawless behavior is acceptable, so doping the reverse: focusing on the surface level impression of orderliness, actually increases real orderliness
2. you would be amazed how many rapists and murders also run red lights and shoplift. that is, routine screening of petty crimes (fingerprints in the past) has actually netted a surprising number of big fish (where big fish means any criminal who committed a very serious crime). people who commit trangressive acts against society don't really seem to be able to stop doing that
in which case, viewing the request to keep and track dna, you can simply see the evolution of police work,.where the next natural next step is to track dna, as well as fingerprints, based on the success of the broken window theory in the past
i'm not saying that dna tracking should be supported, i'm just framing the reason why law enforcement is interested in dna. as opposed to the mindless "everyone in government wants to fascistically monitor your entire life just because they are stereotypical hollywood characters" theory of government and law enforcement, that you frequently see as the basis for comments
no one should be expected to micromanage their browsing experience like this. i'm glad you do. but your behavior represents perhaps 0.001% of web browsers. you're mental effort is noble, but not ideal
no, really, your behavior is not ideal. because i should not have to consider every click i make on the web in the same way i would consider a chess move in a game of chess. i should, as a rule, click with abandon, and the browser should be intelligent enough to manage the cruft and parasites for me
you fix the problems we are talking about here, like pop ups, by improving the browser code. you don't shove the problem out to the end user such as with noscript, because, in a way, your exemplary but tedious micromanaging web browsing style is a WORSE burden than the occasional pop up and annoying flash ads
i repeat: your micromanaging web browsing style, to me, and i would confidently say according the majority of web users, is more of a burden than the javascript and flash cruft we encounter on the web
are you familiar with the idiotic windows vista practice of asking you to approve every executeable before it runs? after awhile, the average user just mindlessly clicks "approve" and doesn't even read the warning. and this is perfectly appropriate behavior: its the boy who cried wolf. an alert at every false positive leads people to completely ignore the alert
likewise, noscript is a wonderful extension... for the odd power user who likes such finetuned control over the minutiae of his browsing experience, and is keenly mindful and thoughtful about every site he visits and how he wants to profile his javascript footprint there
this describes perhaps 0.001% of web users
a real solution to the pop up problem is not to push the issue out to the end user and make them manage and fine tune their javascript footprint. in fact, as a solution, noscript represents a worse burden in terms of time and mental effort on the end user than simply closing pop ups when they open
and no, this doesn't mean the average end user is stupid simply because he doesn't want to exert the mental effort. a highly intelligent end user shouldn't have to work hard at his browsing experience, he just wants to browse with abandon, and that's a perfectly appropriate instinct. the end user, from the dumbest to the brightest, should not be expected to consider every click he makes on the web equivalent to the mental effort required to make a move in a game of chess
no, the real solution is to fine tune the browser's intelligence about how to handle pop ups. the advertising parasites are getting smarter, so the browser needs to get smarter. that's the real solution. an arms race between browser code and pop up code
but, no, i'm sorry: the end user must not be harassed even further, and that's what your noscript "solution" represents