You really need to seek counselling. If you cannot afford counseling, odds are very good that the local state or county will pay for it.
I think you might wind up getting yourself hurt. You don't want that. I don't want that.
I was in the hospital with most of my ribs fractured, a nonfunctional leg, a bloody face, serious head injuries, and a damaged larynx from being strangled. He came very close to simply murdering me right in front of 20 other cops.
I don't doubt that you had a bad experience with cops. I'm skeptical about some of the rare details that you've shared. I really doubt 20 other cops were gathered around in a circle to watch you get beaten. I'm guessing there were no more than a dozen cops on location, and most of them were busy with other stuff. So, maybe 2 or 3 other cops saw what happened.
And they didn't even let me go to the hospital. They locked me in a holding cell in that condition until the next day when I made bail.
Unlikely, but possible. Most police departments are pretty wary of potential litigation. Still, claims of injury are probably a very common and very thin excuse to avoid spending the night in lockup. If the claim came from someone who sounded like he was making stuff up... eh, possible.
I knew that your answer would simply be that you don't believe my story.
Hey, Einstein, you've only now just answered the question, but you still have only told a very small fraction of the story. I can't evaluate what I haven't heard.
For instance, which cops are you blaming for your alleged attempted murder? WHERE did this occur? WHEN did this occur? WHY did this occur? No, really... the real reason WHY? What happened first? What happened second? What happened third? etc? That's only a few of the great many important details you keep leaving out.
And no, I won't believe just any random person I meet on the Internet. Why should I? You have to convince me. Be honest. Avoid hyperbole. Don't hide things that are inconvenient. Be polite. Don't assume that someone who holds different beliefs must be your enemy. Don't assume that because someone won't rush to believe you that they've rushed to disbelieve you. Don't expect a cookie and a box of tissues. This is the Internet, not your grandmother's house.
People like you are the reason I took a deal rather than risk getting people like you on the jury.
More likely it was because your lawyer thought that you'd be destroyed on cross examination. Either that, or the underpaid/overworked public defender didn't want to deal with the headache. (a crime itself, but unpleasantly common)
People who will ALWAYS believe a cop over their victim.
Not always.
Always.
They have to sound like a victim first. You've presented an incident which is possible, but in a way that is very tough to swallow.
I think you're confusing me with someone else. There are morons out there who believe that cops cannot tell a lie, and are always the good guys.
I'm not one of them.
Likewise, there are people who will always believe a cop is dirty, no matter what thin story is floated.
I'm not one of them, either.
I'd be a peach for someone abused by cops if they came across as honest and upright. I'd even be an impartial juror if they were a different race, or got angry. But once you seem to be lying, or withholding relevant details, I start to question why.
The same holds for cops. The moment they seem to be lying, or withholding important details, I question why.
I'll give you an example. That scumbag who pepper sprayed those college students? The ones sitting in peaceful protest? Yeah, him. He should have been immediately fired. That he wasn't means the whole division should be investigated and evaluated, especially the leadership. There's something wr
Okay, on the Pearl Harbor bit, that was documented, standard published congressional hearing, by the Warren Commission. You won't find it there any more: with the document reclassification act under Clinton, the FBI came into the university libraries, removed some documents, replaced others. What you will find is that some of the volumes are new, some old. And a head university librarian w who was in charge back in the Clinton years, can probably give you his opinion on the reclassification act.
Interesting, especially since that would mean that originals still exist somewhere. (private collections, and whatnot. Photocopied sources by students doing research, etc)
Although it would feel a little like a snipe hunt, Going through records at various universities in search of new-old documents to see if there's a pattern between different universities would reveal the behavior you're described.
On the inflation bit, I may be wrong about it being exactly zero. But I do remember my father commenting on it. He was big into the peak everything theories, having invited the author as a seminar speaker for "careers in physics". He was also big into I-bonds, having noticed certain quirks about them: but he also noticed that the CPI inflation rate had been carefully held steady until the early 2000 years, when they dropped the inflation like a rock, popping the (admittedly preexisting) housing bubble.
They do try to hold it steady... and positive (unethically). They've been fairly successful at that since the 80s, but it fluctuates quite a bit as they try to keep a handle on it. Still, the inflation drop did not cause the housing bubble to burst. It was the other way around. Don't use the stock "crash" date to pin the bubble bursting. It started to burst months before that. That's just the day that the market as a whole accepted that there was a major problem.
Regarding "don't attribute to malice.." I didn't think I had at ributed anything at all. I had stated what had been done, and allow you to fill in the dots. But that said, it is very easy for those who are desperate for power to fall into malice. And who is more likely to attain power than those who seek it? And who is more likely to seek it than those who are deperate for it? Thus political systems, I think, are going to tend towards malice.
Power attracts the greedy; this is true. Those who are willing to bend and break rules rise to the top politically, giving an unfair disadvantage to any politician you or I would care to elect. Those who tough it out tend towards sociopathy. It's not a good system, it's just the best that's been tried.
There is an interesting phylosophical problem that I've puzzled on over the years. How does one honest and selfless generation of government make sure that succeeding generations remain honest and selfless? I mean, getting to that point in the first place would be a pleasant problem to have. But does it have a good solution, I wonder...
When someone does eventually go overboard and load something onto one of these things, it won't be a taser. The wires will cause too much potential for trouble.
My guess is they'll go with chemicals first. It won't be used often, as they already have chem grenade launchers, but they'll be able to sneak it in places they couldn't before without getting shot.
(Again, I see police UAVs as inevitable. The trick is getting good precedents now to prevent abuse later.)
The police service exists firstly to make revenue for itself, and secondly to make revenue for its friends who provide it with useless toys.
AC troll bait. Nothing to see here.
I put 1973 as capitalism's final death - when the government took full control of the money supply
Managing the money supply is actually a valid function of government under capitalism. Of course, the ideal inflation should be zero, and not a constant positive. Long term, that's just corruption of one form or another. It's odd that it's so obvious, but nobody calls them on it.
Mankind's never going to move forward again until it continues with the principle of being decent to each other rather than being out for oneself,
With you there.
something which died around the time ex-cowboy actor Reagan ascended to the throne.
And back to trolling.
(Reagan wasn't the shining light of conservatism that he's made out to be, but neither was he the cause of rampant selfishness.)
Bring back social democracy.
You know what, AC, why don't I let you respond to yourself here:
When will you buffoons accept that any selfish philosophy will inevitably end up in the government being run by businessmen, for businessmen?
Ok, let's look at this in terms of economies of scale. Unions are a great idea. They help keep employers honest, working conditions good, and pay high.
Except when they don't.
Why not? I mean, sometimes unions are fantastic. We need them. Why do they frequently make things worse and not better? There's a little known sociology principle: Regardless of what a bureaucracy was originally created for, it will eventually come to value self preservation above its design goal.
Ok, that's one reason, but it's not the complete picture. Today, we don't have unions. We have mega-unions, and they're a different animal. It is important for big companies, like Boeing, to deal with someone who can keep them in check. What about a 10 man shop, though? Should a gigantic union come in and "represent them"? Would they represent them? Could they? Most of the time when a big union comes into a very small shop (happens all the time, often entirely uninvited) wages are forced to DROP to meet the "industry standard", and then union dues are subtracted. If the employees are lucky, the union stops there.
This isn't always what happens. Some business owners need to be "reminded" what it means to be an employer. But this happens so often that it's become a meme.
----------------
So, why did I bring this up? I'm not really ranting against unions here. I'm making an analogy.
Private security contractors would not stay small, or local. They'd need office facilities, training facilities, training officers, health insurance, calibration equipment, and all manner of other things that give a lower overhead (ratio) on a larger scale. Besides, if a firm is successful in one place, they have a reputation that they can use to expand into other venues.
Just like the telcos, a few big fish will swallow up all the little fish. The technology is totally different, but most of the business philosophy is the same.
Now you'll wind up with a few really big security conglomerates... armies really. Who do you think is going to have more sway on police matters in a local municipality? What are they going to do? Fire them? And hire who? Image if your choices for police force were limited to AT&T and Comcast. That's what it would be like.
No, it wouldn't be facism. it would be far worse than today's situation.
When a concealed carry permit holder can arrest a cop "going Rodney King" on someone and drag his sorry ass to the sheriff, that's not Fascism. That's what liberty and equality before the law looks like.
Nice dream. It's totally unworkable, however. You could THEORETICALLY arrest a cop today who's in the middle of committing a felony where someone is, or may become injured. If you didn't get yourself killed, you'd wind up in prison.
Now examine the same situation with a privatized cop. There's no difference, really. You've apprehended (kidnapped) a cop who claims to have been carrying out his duty. The sheriff was responsible for hiring the firm, or recommending they be hired, and his rear is on the line to back him up and discredit you. You'd still wind up dead or in prison.
In either case, evidence would work about the same way. There's no bias there.
So, no. Not a good idea. I understand that you want the world to be a fairer place, but this isn't the way to do it.
No offence intended, but the problem with socialists is that they don't know when to privatize things, and the problem with anarchists (and lesser cousins like libertarians) is that they don't know when not to.
Really, the only difference between a private business handling an aspect of the job of law enforcement and govt. handling it is the fact that private businesses have a primary focus or goal on profit-making.
Right there. There's your problem. People wail about cops having quotas, and rightly so. Privitization will only make the situation worse. The more tickets handed out, the more arrests made, the more hazardous situations handled, the more the contractors get paid.
But as long as govt. retains control of actually making the laws and verifying they're enforced fairly/justly, it shouldn't matter if it's accomplished by "outsourcing" it to private contractors or doing it with govt. employees.
Enforcing, you mean with cops... like the ones you just privatized? Or will you keep IA public? Where will you hire your IA cops? Oh, right, out of the private sector. We already have a problem with revolving door politicians and regulators, let's do it with our cops too.
You can say that government oversight would keep this from happening, but it WOULD NOT. Just look at the housing bubble to see how blind regulators PREFER to be.
The difference between some military and police helicopters is little more than the paint job, missing military avionics and no weapons mounted.
Uh, do you mean to say then that they're armored? Seems reasonable to me. You don't want some loon shooting the pilot during a manhunt and causing a crash in the middle of the suburbs. THAT would make the news.
Aren't the drones just a higher tech lower cost alternative to helicopters and light observation aircraft? It seems they do nothing new, they may be more numerous though.
Just about. I see UAVs as inevitable. I just hope they don't become ubiquitous.
In addition to getting framed for enough crimes to put me in prison for nearly 10 years later reduced to charges that could have put me in prison for 3-5 years.
Framed? Could be... It's been known to happen. Still, something just feels off...
(#43213741)
If I could personally blow up an entire police station right now and get away with it I would do so. Put that in your pipe and smoke it you pathetic boot licking, pig lover.
And there it is.
See, you strike me as exactly the kind of person that would get busted, run - forcing cops to hold you down to get the cuffs on, and accuse the cops of planting evidence.
And you still didn't give me a good answer. Were you injured, or merely uncomfortable? How does this backup your insinuation that cops kill innocent people left and right?
Okay, I was trying to be funny with the first line, but it was wrong of me ; I'm sorry.
I still don't get how it was supposed to be funny, but that's fine. I suppose I came off harsher than I intended.
... You are aware, aren't you, that it was the Nazis who burned the Reichstag?
I don't think we'll ever know that for sure, but it's a reasonable hypothesis. It fit their character, and their agenda, and became their propaganda. I believe it.
And that there is valid evidence that Pearl Harbor was known ahead of time
Possible, based on indirect evidence. It's still a bit of a leap, but possible.
--no, pushed for an. Arranged-- by the President , ahead of time, to force Americans into a war they didn't want?
This one I just don't get. Did the president write a letter to Japan and beg really nicely to get attacked? I'm not sure how you think this works.
And that most people in the world tend to believe--again, not without good evidence, that the US. Government arranged 9-11?
There's a significant percentage of people who believe that, granted. It's not most, but it is a lot.
There is a very low signal to noise ratio on this one. It's hard to find truth in either side of the argument. I think the "we were attacked" argument has more sane backers. It could, of course, be the case that the government is spreading around all the crazy 911 theories, but I've not heard anybody call them on it.
Besides, Occam's razor suggests that the same engineering theories that said the building couldn't fall down due to a plane crash (when it was designed) would be used to prove that it didn't fall down due to a plane crash (on 9/11). Regardless of what truly happened, engineers were going to say that it was demolition.
I've got a friend that believes very differently, so I haven't seen the last of this issue, I'm sure.
And that the crash that led to the looting of people worldwide was arranged by the Fed, by means of first triggering a housing bubble, and then setting the inflation rate to zero? When doing that, in light of peak everything meant that wages HAD to fall, resulting in mass defaults?
Now this one I reject wholesale.
Paraphrasing the old adage: Never rush to attribute malice where incompetence will suffice.
The FED didn't trigger the housing bubble. The banks did. Goldman Sachs, for instance, though they were late comers to the party. The long and the short of it is, some banks were selling really bad investments to other banks. If they couldn't sell them, they repackaged them again and slid them through a ratings agency and asked for a AAA rating (praying that they were too complex to be understood; they were). When there were no more, they actively started finding (and making) bad loans that they could turn around and sell. Then when it became obvious what was happening, they tried to play innocent and let other banks take the fall.
When all the terribly loans started to fail, banks started to have cash problems. They revisited all the "adjustable rate" mortgages they had issued (aka: the other liar loans), and made it so that most people with recent loans could no longer easily pay them, if at all. When banks stopped issuing loans to businesses, they tightened their belts, causing lay offs. When people could no longer afford their homes, and tried to sell them en mass, the housing market completely collapsed. This worsened all the above.
Lots of people knew something was amiss, but were benefiting from it and could not tear themselves away from the money. (A rare few did, bless their souls.) This category includes many local bankers, real estate agents, appraisers, and even a few housing contractors. Those that spoke up to say there was something wrong weren't listened to any more than Chicken Little. Everything was Great... ri
Not usually done in person. When it is, it's done while accompanied by cops.
process server (probably more likely to be punched than shot, but still, not a popular person),
Not likely to in danger of deadly force.
repo man
Granted. I think this is the first one you've found who's actually likely to get shot at from time to time.
, meter reader,
Usually they're long gone by the time the angry driver returns. This typically gives people time to calm down a bit and simmer. The only real problems for them are when the driver is just returning a few minutes too late, or when someone decides to hunt them down. Uncommon, but a legitimate worry, I'm sure.
Yes, they're in a low degree of constant danger, but it's not as bad as an average patrol officer, who does the same kind of thing... but in person.
pizza delivery driver...
Oh, come on. They'd be less likely to be shot than a postal worker. They're only there because they've been invited. Add some courtesy and a little common sense, and even in a bad neighborhood their biggest issues are going to be robbery and car jacking.
Only barely dangerous, as jobs go. And that's only in cities with real bad parts of town.
Ah, sorry. You're right. I still think the average cop is more likely to be shot (assaulted with deadly force) at than the average lineman, but the odds are probably much, much closer. I will point out that a lineman's occupation is substantially more dangerous than average, which doesn't make it a good comparison for the discussion at hand.
This thread formed around statements like:
[A] big mouth kid on a skateboard is probably the worst threat most of them deal with over their career.
and
My driving to work in the morning is "potentially" dangerous. But how likely is it to be dangerous? Not very. Which is why it would be silly of me to act as though I'm bravely risking life and limb just by leaving the house."
Linemen also have a very dangerous job, and deal with life threatening situations (just not emergencies) all the time. They deal with potential death far more often than the average citizen, and receive training to help them avoid it. I'm not sure I see your point.
I'm not saying it's the best idea, but it beats most of the alternatives.
Specifically, (1) how do you deal with the people who will shoot cops who knock politely on the door. (2) How do you prevent evidence from being destroyed (or flushed) when you're barred entry?
I'm always looking to refine or alter my position, but these seem to be key situations that need to be addressed when an alternate philosophy is proposed.
Violent crime... Murder, rape, robbery... Are all at relative 50 year lows. IN SPITE OF 10 years of recession and war which should be causung an increase.
A common misconception.
SWAT does absolutely nothing to STOP those crimes, they only show up after.
SWAT doesn't deal with these crimes, by and large. Murderer's, sometimes, but rarely rape or robbery. Usually it's some guy throwing a fit and threatening violence, or a warrant bust when the suspects is believed to be armed and dangerous. If SWAT is successful, there's no murder to be dealt with.
Yet every small city police force is armed with SWAT equipment and tactics
My small city doesn't have SWAT.
more than any other time in US history. At the height of WW2 our local police were not this armed up.
I think you're making that up. I'm sure it's fluctuated over the years, but based on technology available, I'd be very surprised if they weren't up to a relative standard.
In short, We the People are getting along pretty well in spite of the crappy circumstance.
True. Though things are not nearly as bad as some have suggested.
Yet the government and Police are becoming more and more violent AGAINST US
The government has become more intrusive, but has probably become less violent, due to evolving media potential. This is unproven, but so is your assertion.
because they aren't getting more money. So they INVENT dozens of new crimes every year and send out the dogs to round up fresh prey so they all look busy.
In the forms of tickets, fines and fees, I agree with you. The courts have also started to figure this out, and get in on the action. That doesn't seem to be the case with arrests, however, and certainly not with SWAT.
Don't you get it? Somebody social engineered the system to use SWAT to attempt MURDER of a stranger.
Yeah. attempt being the operative word there. It didn't work. This SWAT unit was more professional than the hackers had hoped.
It's time to put our attack dogs down.
That sounds like advocating murder of law enforcement officers. I highly disprove. If you meant it to be empty rhetoric, I still strongly disprove, but for different reasons.
Close SWAT teams, and revoke CCWs for everybody involved.
Seriously? Conceal carries? Whatever in the world does this have to do with conceal carry permits? Did the SWAT team walk up, all innocent looking, and pull out concealed rifles and body armor?
They were used to commit a crime
USED. USED. Gee, get that through your head. Just because a serious crime was committed doesn't taint everyone involved.
... THEY MUST BE PUNISHED or being so gullible and held INDIVIDUALLY RESPONSIBLE as Free Men for what they did.
Oh, I gotcha. I thought "i heard a cop here" meant Slashdot, and I thought "latvia" was the username. I'm sorry to hear that.
I have absolutely no idea how the average police in Latvia behave. I hope that jerk gets fired. One of the reasons people don't travel is fear of local law enforcement. Some of them have quite a reputation.
Have you ever once stopped and considered how to deal with an angry, armed, barricaded person? How SHOULD they do it?
I certainly don't think that what SWAT does is nice... but at the end of the day they usually bring everybody, including the suspects, to safely.
I'm not even going to say that what SWAT does is right. But I think it is ethically wrong to decry them when you have no idea how to do it better. You may think you do, but you certainly haven't shared.
And don't tell me that offering suspects lollipops, campfire songs, and hugs is going to work. SWAT doesn't exist to be people's friends. Social workers, maybe, but not SWAT. Don't suggest legalizing pot (et al), because that is nowhere near the jurisdiction of the local cops. There's nothing they can do on that score (that's a legislative issue). They've got violent armed drug dealers that somebody needs to deal with, and society has chosen them.
How many people die without knowing anybody? Almost everybody killed in an encounter with the police was known by somebody before they passed.
I've known people who have died of old age, and I knew someone who committed suicide. I don't know anybody killed by police.
"0111 1110" was making inflammatory remarks, and I've asked him to back it up with something. Anything!?! He doesn't seem to want to say anything besides: "[Cops bad. I know cops bad.]"
Aah, you're one of those "freedom means free beer" nuts.
If that's what you really think of me, you're an idiot.
Now see my point:
Freedom > safety.
Which is why tyrants engage a war on safety, to eliminate others' freedom.
And you mean to tell me that tyrants haven't used the siren song of freedom to instill bondage? We're in a thread titled "Patriot Act is unconstitutional" for crying out loud.
The kind of freedom that we want and the kind of safety that we want are very similar. The kind of safety that we don't want and the kind of freedom that is ephemeral are very similar.
Sorry if you don't see it. I'm just exploring the HSV color space that you don't seem to grasp.
Swat tactics are designed to make people experience panic and "fight or flight". They are designed (military, police, psychologists...) to cause certain personalities (like average black people) to kick into violent defense mode so "suspects" can be arrested for fighting the swat team.
SWAT tactics are designed to permit cops to deal with harsh situation without coming away injured. The safety of everyone else is important to them, but secondary. As long as no cops or children were injured the day wasn't all that bad. They either come in hard and fast to avoid giving armed suspects time to react (and usually avoid firing their weapons at all when they do this). Or they lay siege to a residence for hours at a time, and try to talk them out (or wait for them to shoot themselves). Rather than trying to instill "fight or flight" these tactics seem to be built to encourage feelings of powerlessness.
This sounds like an interesting story, but you left out WAY too many details. What city were you in? (What country, even?) What were you accused of? Did they actually ban you from public transit, or merely threaten to do so? Do cops in that area carry tasers? Were they looking for someone? Did they frisk you? Did they confiscate anything? Did you miss your transit? Was it a bus or train or subway? Why do you think they stopped you? Why did they say they stopped you? Were you in a high crime area? What were you wearing?
Oh, and the reason they keep their hands on their guns so often is so that people they don't yet know are criminals don't try to make a play for their side arm. Cops have been killed that way. They stop someone who's agitated (either a legit stop, or not) and they don' t know the person is wanted. They grab the cop's gun... The other aspect to this is how they're trained. Training officers will regularly pull guns out of cadet's holsters, and then chew them out for permitting it. This is something they intentionally ingrain in them. Any well trained cop will have his hand on or near his holster anytime a stranger is close enough to try to grab it. They don't mean to be threatening, and most of them don't realize the action feels threatening to others.
And how do you purpose citizens can make a dent in crime without police? Once upon a time, there were people in the various states who wanted protection from criminals. They appointed sheriffs, and formed local militias to protect the people from criminals. Those gradually became modern law enforcement. So... If police departments disbanded and citizens organized to fight crime... how would the end result end up any different? For a while, you'd end up with untrained enforcers of peace, instead of the trained enforcers you currently don't like.
Slashdot Mirror
As are the AC trolls, apparently.
You really need to seek counselling. If you cannot afford counseling, odds are very good that the local state or county will pay for it.
I think you might wind up getting yourself hurt. You don't want that. I don't want that.
I was in the hospital with most of my ribs fractured, a nonfunctional leg, a bloody face, serious head injuries, and a damaged larynx from being strangled. He came very close to simply murdering me right in front of 20 other cops.
I don't doubt that you had a bad experience with cops. I'm skeptical about some of the rare details that you've shared. I really doubt 20 other cops were gathered around in a circle to watch you get beaten. I'm guessing there were no more than a dozen cops on location, and most of them were busy with other stuff. So, maybe 2 or 3 other cops saw what happened.
And they didn't even let me go to the hospital. They locked me in a holding cell in that condition until the next day when I made bail.
Unlikely, but possible. Most police departments are pretty wary of potential litigation. Still, claims of injury are probably a very common and very thin excuse to avoid spending the night in lockup. If the claim came from someone who sounded like he was making stuff up... eh, possible.
I knew that your answer would simply be that you don't believe my story.
Hey, Einstein, you've only now just answered the question, but you still have only told a very small fraction of the story. I can't evaluate what I haven't heard.
For instance, which cops are you blaming for your alleged attempted murder? WHERE did this occur? WHEN did this occur? WHY did this occur? No, really... the real reason WHY? What happened first? What happened second? What happened third? etc? That's only a few of the great many important details you keep leaving out.
And no, I won't believe just any random person I meet on the Internet. Why should I? You have to convince me. Be honest. Avoid hyperbole. Don't hide things that are inconvenient. Be polite. Don't assume that someone who holds different beliefs must be your enemy. Don't assume that because someone won't rush to believe you that they've rushed to disbelieve you. Don't expect a cookie and a box of tissues. This is the Internet, not your grandmother's house.
People like you are the reason I took a deal rather than risk getting people like you on the jury.
More likely it was because your lawyer thought that you'd be destroyed on cross examination. Either that, or the underpaid/overworked public defender didn't want to deal with the headache. (a crime itself, but unpleasantly common)
People who will ALWAYS believe a cop over their victim.
Not always.
Always.
They have to sound like a victim first. You've presented an incident which is possible, but in a way that is very tough to swallow.
I think you're confusing me with someone else. There are morons out there who believe that cops cannot tell a lie, and are always the good guys.
I'm not one of them.
Likewise, there are people who will always believe a cop is dirty, no matter what thin story is floated.
I'm not one of them, either.
I'd be a peach for someone abused by cops if they came across as honest and upright. I'd even be an impartial juror if they were a different race, or got angry. But once you seem to be lying, or withholding relevant details, I start to question why.
The same holds for cops. The moment they seem to be lying, or withholding important details, I question why.
I'll give you an example. That scumbag who pepper sprayed those college students? The ones sitting in peaceful protest? Yeah, him. He should have been immediately fired. That he wasn't means the whole division should be investigated and evaluated, especially the leadership. There's something wr
Okay, on the Pearl Harbor bit, that was documented, standard published congressional hearing, by the Warren Commission. You won't find it there any more: with the document reclassification act under Clinton, the FBI came into the university libraries, removed some documents, replaced others. What you will find is that some of the volumes are new, some old. And a head university librarian w who was in charge back in the Clinton years, can probably give you his opinion on the reclassification act.
Interesting, especially since that would mean that originals still exist somewhere. (private collections, and whatnot. Photocopied sources by students doing research, etc)
Although it would feel a little like a snipe hunt, Going through records at various universities in search of new-old documents to see if there's a pattern between different universities would reveal the behavior you're described.
On the inflation bit, I may be wrong about it being exactly zero. But I do remember my father commenting on it. He was big into the peak everything theories, having invited the author as a seminar speaker for "careers in physics". He was also big into I-bonds, having noticed certain quirks about them: but he also noticed that the CPI inflation rate had been carefully held steady until the early 2000 years, when they dropped the inflation like a rock, popping the (admittedly preexisting) housing bubble.
They do try to hold it steady... and positive (unethically). They've been fairly successful at that since the 80s, but it fluctuates quite a bit as they try to keep a handle on it. Still, the inflation drop did not cause the housing bubble to burst. It was the other way around. Don't use the stock "crash" date to pin the bubble bursting. It started to burst months before that. That's just the day that the market as a whole accepted that there was a major problem.
Regarding "don't attribute to malice.." I didn't think I had at ributed anything at all. I had stated what had been done, and allow you to fill in the dots. But that said, it is very easy for those who are desperate for power to fall into malice. And who is more likely to attain power than those who seek it? And who is more likely to seek it than those who are deperate for it? Thus political systems, I think, are going to tend towards malice.
Power attracts the greedy; this is true. Those who are willing to bend and break rules rise to the top politically, giving an unfair disadvantage to any politician you or I would care to elect. Those who tough it out tend towards sociopathy. It's not a good system, it's just the best that's been tried.
There is an interesting phylosophical problem that I've puzzled on over the years. How does one honest and selfless generation of government make sure that succeeding generations remain honest and selfless? I mean, getting to that point in the first place would be a pleasant problem to have. But does it have a good solution, I wonder...
When someone does eventually go overboard and load something onto one of these things, it won't be a taser. The wires will cause too much potential for trouble.
My guess is they'll go with chemicals first. It won't be used often, as they already have chem grenade launchers, but they'll be able to sneak it in places they couldn't before without getting shot.
(Again, I see police UAVs as inevitable. The trick is getting good precedents now to prevent abuse later.)
Responding to AC, before someone else does...
The police service exists firstly to make revenue for itself, and secondly to make revenue for its friends who provide it with useless toys.
AC troll bait. Nothing to see here.
I put 1973 as capitalism's final death - when the government took full control of the money supply
Managing the money supply is actually a valid function of government under capitalism. Of course, the ideal inflation should be zero, and not a constant positive. Long term, that's just corruption of one form or another. It's odd that it's so obvious, but nobody calls them on it.
Mankind's never going to move forward again until it continues with the principle of being decent to each other rather than being out for oneself,
With you there.
something which died around the time ex-cowboy actor Reagan ascended to the throne.
And back to trolling.
(Reagan wasn't the shining light of conservatism that he's made out to be, but neither was he the cause of rampant selfishness.)
Bring back social democracy.
You know what, AC, why don't I let you respond to yourself here:
When will you buffoons accept that any selfish philosophy will inevitably end up in the government being run by businessmen, for businessmen?
Thanks. That was very helpful.
Hmmm.
Ok, let's look at this in terms of economies of scale. Unions are a great idea. They help keep employers honest, working conditions good, and pay high.
Except when they don't.
Why not? I mean, sometimes unions are fantastic. We need them. Why do they frequently make things worse and not better? There's a little known sociology principle: Regardless of what a bureaucracy was originally created for, it will eventually come to value self preservation above its design goal.
Ok, that's one reason, but it's not the complete picture. Today, we don't have unions. We have mega-unions, and they're a different animal. It is important for big companies, like Boeing, to deal with someone who can keep them in check. What about a 10 man shop, though? Should a gigantic union come in and "represent them"? Would they represent them? Could they? Most of the time when a big union comes into a very small shop (happens all the time, often entirely uninvited) wages are forced to DROP to meet the "industry standard", and then union dues are subtracted. If the employees are lucky, the union stops there.
This isn't always what happens. Some business owners need to be "reminded" what it means to be an employer. But this happens so often that it's become a meme.
----------------
So, why did I bring this up? I'm not really ranting against unions here. I'm making an analogy.
Private security contractors would not stay small, or local. They'd need office facilities, training facilities, training officers, health insurance, calibration equipment, and all manner of other things that give a lower overhead (ratio) on a larger scale. Besides, if a firm is successful in one place, they have a reputation that they can use to expand into other venues.
Just like the telcos, a few big fish will swallow up all the little fish. The technology is totally different, but most of the business philosophy is the same.
Now you'll wind up with a few really big security conglomerates... armies really. Who do you think is going to have more sway on police matters in a local municipality? What are they going to do? Fire them? And hire who? Image if your choices for police force were limited to AT&T and Comcast. That's what it would be like.
Remember, it was AC who brought up fascism.
No, it wouldn't be facism. it would be far worse than today's situation.
When a concealed carry permit holder can arrest a cop "going Rodney King" on someone and drag his sorry ass to the sheriff, that's not Fascism. That's what liberty and equality before the law looks like.
Nice dream. It's totally unworkable, however. You could THEORETICALLY arrest a cop today who's in the middle of committing a felony where someone is, or may become injured. If you didn't get yourself killed, you'd wind up in prison.
Now examine the same situation with a privatized cop. There's no difference, really. You've apprehended (kidnapped) a cop who claims to have been carrying out his duty. The sheriff was responsible for hiring the firm, or recommending they be hired, and his rear is on the line to back him up and discredit you. You'd still wind up dead or in prison.
In either case, evidence would work about the same way. There's no bias there.
So, no. Not a good idea. I understand that you want the world to be a fairer place, but this isn't the way to do it.
No offence intended, but the problem with socialists is that they don't know when to privatize things, and the problem with anarchists (and lesser cousins like libertarians) is that they don't know when not to.
Please tell me you're just trolling.
Really, the only difference between a private business handling an aspect of the job of law enforcement and govt. handling it is the fact that private businesses have a primary focus or goal on profit-making.
Right there. There's your problem. People wail about cops having quotas, and rightly so. Privitization will only make the situation worse. The more tickets handed out, the more arrests made, the more hazardous situations handled, the more the contractors get paid.
But as long as govt. retains control of actually making the laws and verifying they're enforced fairly/justly, it shouldn't matter if it's accomplished by "outsourcing" it to private contractors or doing it with govt. employees.
Enforcing, you mean with cops... like the ones you just privatized? Or will you keep IA public? Where will you hire your IA cops? Oh, right, out of the private sector. We already have a problem with revolving door politicians and regulators, let's do it with our cops too.
You can say that government oversight would keep this from happening, but it WOULD NOT. Just look at the housing bubble to see how blind regulators PREFER to be.
The difference between some military and police helicopters is little more than the paint job, missing military avionics and no weapons mounted.
Uh, do you mean to say then that they're armored? Seems reasonable to me. You don't want some loon shooting the pilot during a manhunt and causing a crash in the middle of the suburbs. THAT would make the news.
Aren't the drones just a higher tech lower cost alternative to helicopters and light observation aircraft? It seems they do nothing new, they may be more numerous though.
Just about. I see UAVs as inevitable. I just hope they don't become ubiquitous.
In addition to getting framed for enough crimes to put me in prison for nearly 10 years later reduced to charges that could have put me in prison for 3-5 years.
Framed? Could be... It's been known to happen. Still, something just feels off...
(#43213741)
If I could personally blow up an entire police station right now and get away with it I would do so. Put that in your pipe and smoke it you pathetic boot licking, pig lover.
And there it is.
See, you strike me as exactly the kind of person that would get busted, run - forcing cops to hold you down to get the cuffs on, and accuse the cops of planting evidence.
And you still didn't give me a good answer. Were you injured, or merely uncomfortable? How does this backup your insinuation that cops kill innocent people left and right?
Okay, I was trying to be funny with the first line, but it was wrong of me ; I'm sorry.
I still don't get how it was supposed to be funny, but that's fine. I suppose I came off harsher than I intended.
... You are aware, aren't you, that it was the Nazis who burned the Reichstag?
I don't think we'll ever know that for sure, but it's a reasonable hypothesis. It fit their character, and their agenda, and became their propaganda. I believe it.
And that there is valid evidence that Pearl Harbor was known ahead of time
Possible, based on indirect evidence. It's still a bit of a leap, but possible.
--no, pushed for an. Arranged-- by the President , ahead of time, to force Americans into a war they didn't want?
This one I just don't get. Did the president write a letter to Japan and beg really nicely to get attacked? I'm not sure how you think this works.
And that most people in the world tend to believe--again, not without good evidence, that the US. Government arranged 9-11?
There's a significant percentage of people who believe that, granted. It's not most, but it is a lot.
There is a very low signal to noise ratio on this one. It's hard to find truth in either side of the argument. I think the "we were attacked" argument has more sane backers. It could, of course, be the case that the government is spreading around all the crazy 911 theories, but I've not heard anybody call them on it.
Besides, Occam's razor suggests that the same engineering theories that said the building couldn't fall down due to a plane crash (when it was designed) would be used to prove that it didn't fall down due to a plane crash (on 9/11). Regardless of what truly happened, engineers were going to say that it was demolition.
I've got a friend that believes very differently, so I haven't seen the last of this issue, I'm sure.
And that the crash that led to the looting of people worldwide was arranged by the Fed, by means of first triggering a housing bubble, and then setting the inflation rate to zero? When doing that, in light of peak everything meant that wages HAD to fall, resulting in mass defaults?
Now this one I reject wholesale.
Paraphrasing the old adage: Never rush to attribute malice where incompetence will suffice.
The FED didn't trigger the housing bubble. The banks did. Goldman Sachs, for instance, though they were late comers to the party. The long and the short of it is, some banks were selling really bad investments to other banks. If they couldn't sell them, they repackaged them again and slid them through a ratings agency and asked for a AAA rating (praying that they were too complex to be understood; they were). When there were no more, they actively started finding (and making) bad loans that they could turn around and sell. Then when it became obvious what was happening, they tried to play innocent and let other banks take the fall.
When all the terribly loans started to fail, banks started to have cash problems. They revisited all the "adjustable rate" mortgages they had issued (aka: the other liar loans), and made it so that most people with recent loans could no longer easily pay them, if at all. When banks stopped issuing loans to businesses, they tightened their belts, causing lay offs. When people could no longer afford their homes, and tried to sell them en mass, the housing market completely collapsed. This worsened all the above.
Lots of people knew something was amiss, but were benefiting from it and could not tear themselves away from the money. (A rare few did, bless their souls.) This category includes many local bankers, real estate agents, appraisers, and even a few housing contractors. Those that spoke up to say there was something wrong weren't listened to any more than Chicken Little. Everything was Great... ri
Throw in a few others like tax collector,
Not usually done in person. When it is, it's done while accompanied by cops.
process server (probably more likely to be punched than shot, but still, not a popular person),
Not likely to in danger of deadly force.
repo man
Granted. I think this is the first one you've found who's actually likely to get shot at from time to time.
, meter reader,
Usually they're long gone by the time the angry driver returns. This typically gives people time to calm down a bit and simmer. The only real problems for them are when the driver is just returning a few minutes too late, or when someone decides to hunt them down. Uncommon, but a legitimate worry, I'm sure.
Yes, they're in a low degree of constant danger, but it's not as bad as an average patrol officer, who does the same kind of thing... but in person.
pizza delivery driver...
Oh, come on. They'd be less likely to be shot than a postal worker. They're only there because they've been invited. Add some courtesy and a little common sense, and even in a bad neighborhood their biggest issues are going to be robbery and car jacking.
Only barely dangerous, as jobs go. And that's only in cities with real bad parts of town.
Ah, sorry. You're right. I still think the average cop is more likely to be shot (assaulted with deadly force) at than the average lineman, but the odds are probably much, much closer. I will point out that a lineman's occupation is substantially more dangerous than average, which doesn't make it a good comparison for the discussion at hand.
This thread formed around statements like:
[A] big mouth kid on a skateboard is probably the worst threat most of them deal with over their career.
and
My driving to work in the morning is "potentially" dangerous. But how likely is it to be dangerous? Not very. Which is why it would be silly of me to act as though I'm bravely risking life and limb just by leaving the house."
I can't tell if this is idiocy, or brain washing.
I don't doubt that linemen get shot at. I do doubt that they get shot at nearly as often as SWAT. It's a very different order of magnitude.
Otherwise, yes, I really expect that we would see lineman working in full body armor. (not to mention armed backup)
Linemen also have a very dangerous job, and deal with life threatening situations (just not emergencies) all the time. They deal with potential death far more often than the average citizen, and receive training to help them avoid it. I'm not sure I see your point.
How would you suggest they alter their behavior?
I'm not saying it's the best idea, but it beats most of the alternatives.
Specifically, (1) how do you deal with the people who will shoot cops who knock politely on the door. (2) How do you prevent evidence from being destroyed (or flushed) when you're barred entry?
I'm always looking to refine or alter my position, but these seem to be key situations that need to be addressed when an alternate philosophy is proposed.
Lets put this another way.
Violent crime... Murder, rape, robbery... Are all at relative 50 year lows. IN SPITE OF 10 years of recession and war which should be causung an increase.
A common misconception.
SWAT does absolutely nothing to STOP those crimes, they only show up after.
SWAT doesn't deal with these crimes, by and large. Murderer's, sometimes, but rarely rape or robbery. Usually it's some guy throwing a fit and threatening violence, or a warrant bust when the suspects is believed to be armed and dangerous. If SWAT is successful, there's no murder to be dealt with.
Yet every small city police force is armed with SWAT equipment and tactics
My small city doesn't have SWAT.
more than any other time in US history. At the height of WW2 our local police were not this armed up.
I think you're making that up. I'm sure it's fluctuated over the years, but based on technology available, I'd be very surprised if they weren't up to a relative standard.
In short, We the People are getting along pretty well in spite of the crappy circumstance.
True. Though things are not nearly as bad as some have suggested.
Yet the government and Police are becoming more and more violent AGAINST US
The government has become more intrusive, but has probably become less violent, due to evolving media potential. This is unproven, but so is your assertion.
because they aren't getting more money. So they INVENT dozens of new crimes every year and send out the dogs to round up fresh prey so they all look busy.
In the forms of tickets, fines and fees, I agree with you. The courts have also started to figure this out, and get in on the action. That doesn't seem to be the case with arrests, however, and certainly not with SWAT.
Don't you get it? Somebody social engineered the system to use SWAT to attempt MURDER of a stranger.
Yeah. attempt being the operative word there. It didn't work. This SWAT unit was more professional than the hackers had hoped.
It's time to put our attack dogs down.
That sounds like advocating murder of law enforcement officers. I highly disprove. If you meant it to be empty rhetoric, I still strongly disprove, but for different reasons.
Close SWAT teams, and revoke CCWs for everybody involved.
Seriously? Conceal carries? Whatever in the world does this have to do with conceal carry permits? Did the SWAT team walk up, all innocent looking, and pull out concealed rifles and body armor?
They were used to commit a crime
USED. USED. Gee, get that through your head. Just because a serious crime was committed doesn't taint everyone involved.
... THEY MUST BE PUNISHED or being so gullible and held INDIVIDUALLY RESPONSIBLE as Free Men for what they did.
I think you may need therapy.
Oh, I gotcha. I thought "i heard a cop here" meant Slashdot, and I thought "latvia" was the username. I'm sorry to hear that.
I have absolutely no idea how the average police in Latvia behave. I hope that jerk gets fired. One of the reasons people don't travel is fear of local law enforcement. Some of them have quite a reputation.
Have you ever once stopped and considered how to deal with an angry, armed, barricaded person? How SHOULD they do it?
I certainly don't think that what SWAT does is nice... but at the end of the day they usually bring everybody, including the suspects, to safely.
I'm not even going to say that what SWAT does is right. But I think it is ethically wrong to decry them when you have no idea how to do it better. You may think you do, but you certainly haven't shared.
And don't tell me that offering suspects lollipops, campfire songs, and hugs is going to work. SWAT doesn't exist to be people's friends. Social workers, maybe, but not SWAT. Don't suggest legalizing pot (et al), because that is nowhere near the jurisdiction of the local cops. There's nothing they can do on that score (that's a legislative issue). They've got violent armed drug dealers that somebody needs to deal with, and society has chosen them.
by mabhatter654 (561290)
by Mabhatter (126906)
Now seriously? Cheating to get karma are we?
har. har.
How many people die without knowing anybody? Almost everybody killed in an encounter with the police was known by somebody before they passed.
I've known people who have died of old age, and I knew someone who committed suicide. I don't know anybody killed by police.
"0111 1110" was making inflammatory remarks, and I've asked him to back it up with something. Anything!?! He doesn't seem to want to say anything besides: "[Cops bad. I know cops bad.]"
And you really think he was a cop, and not just telling a story? Really?
I didn't even read this post of his, and I can tell he's not a cop and is pushing an agenda.
Have you never heard the quip: "The Internet: where men are men, women are men, and little girls are FBI agents"? The same applies here.
Cops online claiming to be abusive are most likely convicted felons. This is very simple math.
So, you mentioned getting killed twice in four sentences, and you don't know anybody killed by the cops?
Do you know anybody who's been physically roughed up by the cops? Anybody who required the least bit of hospitalization? Stitches?
Aah, you're one of those "freedom means free beer" nuts.
If that's what you really think of me, you're an idiot.
Now see my point:
Freedom > safety.
Which is why tyrants engage a war on safety, to eliminate others' freedom.
And you mean to tell me that tyrants haven't used the siren song of freedom to instill bondage? We're in a thread titled "Patriot Act is unconstitutional" for crying out loud.
The kind of freedom that we want and the kind of safety that we want are very similar. The kind of safety that we don't want and the kind of freedom that is ephemeral are very similar.
Sorry if you don't see it. I'm just exploring the HSV color space that you don't seem to grasp.
Swat tactics are designed to make people experience panic and "fight or flight". They are designed (military, police, psychologists...) to cause certain personalities (like average black people) to kick into violent defense mode so "suspects" can be arrested for fighting the swat team.
SWAT tactics are designed to permit cops to deal with harsh situation without coming away injured. The safety of everyone else is important to them, but secondary. As long as no cops or children were injured the day wasn't all that bad. They either come in hard and fast to avoid giving armed suspects time to react (and usually avoid firing their weapons at all when they do this). Or they lay siege to a residence for hours at a time, and try to talk them out (or wait for them to shoot themselves). Rather than trying to instill "fight or flight" these tactics seem to be built to encourage feelings of powerlessness.
This sounds like an interesting story, but you left out WAY too many details. What city were you in? (What country, even?) What were you accused of? Did they actually ban you from public transit, or merely threaten to do so? Do cops in that area carry tasers? Were they looking for someone? Did they frisk you? Did they confiscate anything? Did you miss your transit? Was it a bus or train or subway? Why do you think they stopped you? Why did they say they stopped you? Were you in a high crime area? What were you wearing?
Oh, and the reason they keep their hands on their guns so often is so that people they don't yet know are criminals don't try to make a play for their side arm. Cops have been killed that way. They stop someone who's agitated (either a legit stop, or not) and they don' t know the person is wanted. They grab the cop's gun... The other aspect to this is how they're trained. Training officers will regularly pull guns out of cadet's holsters, and then chew them out for permitting it. This is something they intentionally ingrain in them. Any well trained cop will have his hand on or near his holster anytime a stranger is close enough to try to grab it. They don't mean to be threatening, and most of them don't realize the action feels threatening to others.
And how do you purpose citizens can make a dent in crime without police? Once upon a time, there were people in the various states who wanted protection from criminals. They appointed sheriffs, and formed local militias to protect the people from criminals. Those gradually became modern law enforcement. So... If police departments disbanded and citizens organized to fight crime... how would the end result end up any different? For a while, you'd end up with untrained enforcers of peace, instead of the trained enforcers you currently don't like.