You can only compare it with what came before or what came after.
False dichotomy. You can compare it to other things that happened (or are happening) at the same time and which work better. The point isn't to compare the Soviet's reliance on the use of force to temporarily prop up a cruel and staggeringly inefficient system to czarist Russia, the point is to compare it to other countries that flourished at the same time without having to regularly kill desperate people who were trying to escape from it in order to lead a happier life.
The USSR was communist, an extreme form of socialism
So socialism is only a real failure if you get really serious applying it? It's not a failure as long as you allow it to be propped up by underlying economic activity that skirts around collectivism? That's the thing about "socialist" economies like those in, say, Scandinavia - they don't work because of socialism, they work (less and less well as time goes by, if your'e paying attention) despite it.
Matter of fact yes, USSR was very much a success, compared to its predecessor.
So, as long as we ignore that whole "Stalin" thing, and stick with comparing it only to the same sort of misery that other previously feudal arrangements also had, it was just great? The USSR failed because the way it was spending the resources it was pillaging from others at the point of a gun was unsustainable. How can a system you have to use the threat of murder to keep people who are desperate to flee it be considered a success?
Unless the Greek government offers these people a change to live a decent life what do you think will happen?
Has it ever occurred to you that prosperity never comes from a wave of the government's magic wand? Over time, people have to actually produce value. Getting stuff from the government doesn't do that, it just taxes what someone else creates, and rearranges the money (very inefficiently, too). The Greek government is notoriously inefficient and corrupt. It's a drag on the economy, and the non-government employees aren't looking at Greece as a land of economic opportunity (and thus attracting investment and launching businesses that in turn will spend more money and hire more people) - corrupt third-world style societies always struggle with this stuff, and it's an ongoing, chronic, self-inflicted wound. Only the Greeks can fix themselves, and they have to start by showing that they have zero tolerance for their own corruption - which is completely endemic across every level of Greek society and government.
So... your problem is with the word "wing?"
Regardless, the article and the discussion is about the newly elected government of Greece. You're still the only person here saying "every" about anything. Are you really that confused about this?
Right, the Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics did. It was formally "dissolved" because it had completely come apart at the seems, was bankrupt, and had earned the hatred of all of the countries it had be ruling through force.
Ask a niw living russian what was better. The new multi billionair will say: now.
Everyone else says: then.
Which "then" were you referring to? A "then" when the Soviets were still making some of the people in the country live only a bit less miserably by raping the surrounding soviet block countries? Are you really holding up the Soviets, who killed off millions of their own people in order to reduce the number of mouths they had to feed, as a picture of success?
Yes, the current Russian middle class could be a lot happier. But they're being kept from the benefits of pan-European and other international trade because their current dictator has managed to get their economy isolated from lots of the prosperity they'd otherwise have. Blame Putin - he wants (as he's said) the USSR back the way it was, running all of eastern Europe. But those countries don't want to live through that hell again.
Oh, that is not capitalism, that is corruption! Wow... care to explain THEM the difference?
So, your personal opinion is that the Russian people are too individually stupid to understand the difference between being ripped off by corrupt officials and doing business between two parties that each want to? I'm sure the average Russian would really appreciate your condescending opinion of their intellect.
Yes, because every person that identifies with liberal policies is a radical left wing. Thanks for being part of the problem.
Who said the word "every," except you? The newly elected government in Greece is indeed radically left wing. They're proud of it. That's part of their entire sales pitch, and will still be part of what defines them as they go further down in flames.
Neither in Russia nor in China socialism is considered a failure
Well, let's see... by "Russia," of course you mean the "Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics," right? Oh, right... that union of socialist countries under a central socialist government failed miserably, and destroyed itself. Russia, on the other hand, isn't an example of failed socialism, it's just a good old fashioned miserable totalitarian state that's busy looking to invade its neighbors to make up for its crappy management of its own resources and industry. And... China? Complete failure of socialism. How can you tell? Because they're clinging to it the collectivist crap in name only, and relying on market economics to produce the prosperity they want.
In both countries however capitalism is considered to be a failure.
No. Without market economics, Russians would be even worse off than they are now. Capitalism failing? Whatever shreds of it they're allowing to function are the only thing producing any shred of prosperity there. And failing in China? It's capitalism, and only capitalism, that is powering that country. Capitalism is working there despite the oppressive, putatively socialist tyranny that otherwise attempts to control the culture there.
Care to explain why Cuba is a failure
Ah, now I see. You don't actually consider poverty, being imprisoned for saying the wrong things, being killed or imprisoned for trying to leave and other socialist delights to be sign of failure. You have some very strange standards for success. Would you feel more successful here if we took away your internet access, threatened you with prison for criticizing politicians, made you subject to a family that has run the country at the point of a gun for decades, and which you'd feel so desperate to leave that you'd risk drowning in shark-infested waters, paddling to the US in raft, and hoping your own country won't jail you for trying? And Venezuela? Really? You must try very, very hard to avoid actually paying attention to what's going on there. If you insist on being that ignorant, please don't do anything that might risk other people - like, voting.
The problem is the general ignorance of the public.
Right. This is perpetuated by lefty progressives who think it's mean to hold students to real standards, and socially promote them out of schools that - especially in the worst areas - are often run by people who really don't care if their students learn a damn thing. And they are unfireable because of another entrenched and influential branch of the lefty-verse, the teachers unions. Ignorance is mostly due to cultural problems in kids' homes (ignorant parents, or usually, parent), but it's tolerated by schools that are just phoning in the process of pushing those kids along and into the arms of the entitlement state.
When the public starts demanding the right thing, then perhaps they will get it.
I demand that we stop tolerating and promoting ignorance and rewarding non-productive lifestyles perpetuated by an entire class of Nanny State middle-people who have a vested interest in keeping it that way. There, I demanded. Nothing, huh?
OK, this is not a very complicated concept: You are advocating for slavery. Step one, shit on the economy. Step two, force people to work. Step three, profit! So just stop, and don't bring this idea up again, unless you want to be known as pro-slavery.
Oh, I see. Just asserting nonsense makes it true and gives you the high ground, and the moral position to tell people to shut up, lest they "be known" by you as something you assert they are? OK, we can all play that game. Your embrace of "public works" is exactly the "slavery" you're pretending to dislike. Except, the slaves are the people you're forcing to spend part of their days working to come up with the cash to fund the make-work welfare that you're pretending is any different than any other form of work-based welfare.
When we get to the point at which public works are necessary, then capitalism has failed.
No, the failure is in the form of a critical mass of people feeling entitled to a certain standard of living without actually doing the things that produce the value that buys that standard. They are completely unable to grasp cause and effect. To the extent that they even stop to think about why they aren't prosperous, they listen to people who preach the notion that the only reason one person isn't better off is because another person is. That the-pie-is-of-a-fixed-size fallacy is at the heart of all of this BS, every bit of it.
ISIS leans further to the right than any other group in existence.
Then why is the left that spends so much energy downplaying the reality of what ISIS is, what it does, and what it stands for? You'll never find a bigger group of anti-women, anti-gay, anti-freedom jackasses than the jihadi wackadoos, but the political left is the last place to look for frank, un-sugar-coated calling it like it is. Strange.
So it's so gerrymandered towards Democrats a Republican got voted in....yeah seems legit.
You're (deliberately, no doubt) confusing congressional elections with gubernatorial elections. That you're even putting forth an opinion on the matter while being (or pretending to be) that clueless is pretty funny. Or would be, if it wasn't clear whether or not you vote using that same brain.
and they gerrymandered them in such a way that anyone other than a staunch right-wing Republican will never ever get elected
You mean, like the Democrats have done forever in places like Maryland? The way they've tortured the district boundaries in that state is a showcase for craven political monoculture at the state legislature level. That even Marylanders got so sick of the lefty power plays that they refused to coronate the dem governor's anointed successor and went with a relatively unknown Republican in November is pretty telling.
Does this actually prove that enough people complaining about injustice does in fact produce results with our government?
No, because this doesn't do what you think it does. It's about wireless only, and more to the point, it gets the government ever more involved in your life, and in managing how you can or must communicate.
but saying that something is three times less just makes no sense
Generally, yes. But there are times that a variation of that construction is useful. When Thing B is being described as already (for example) using less energy than Thing A, and you then bring up the even more efficient Thing C, it becomes meaningful, even useful, to say that Thing C, uses even less energy than Thing B (both being compared, even if indirectly, to Thing A).
But in almost every use that generally comes up, you're right. It's far more useful to say, "Think C consumes a third of the energy that Thing B uses." And in the three-things type scenario, it's still more elegant to say, "Thing A has always been a power hog, and Thing B has been great because it uses only 50% as much energy to do the same job. Now comes Thing C, which doubles that efficiency." (or, "Now comes Thing C, which is twice as efficient as Thing B, and uses only 25% the power.").
When you say, "Thing C uses ten times less power than Thing B," the implication is that Thing B is already understood to be using less energy than some other thing (Thing A, that presumably everybody knows uses a lot of power). Agreed, it's clumsy, but that's the only context in which "10 times less" even begins to make sense. Most (nearly all) of the time that "X times less" is used, it's lazy, poor communication.
You buy a company, bankrupt it because your idea didn't work out and then offer to help some of the people who;s job you destroyed.
Out of curiosity, what do you get out of deliberately mis-representing what happened? Why the fiction? Why lie about it? What do you hope to accomplish? Really, it's an honest question (unlike your dishonest fantasizing). Please, be specific as you answer, so people can better understand people like you.
Right, just like you're still left if some company you hire to paint your house goes bankrupt in the process of failing to keep their painting business in good shape. Might be even more annoying if that company happened to be run by your nephew, in whom you invested a few thousand dollars - so now you don't get your house painted AND you lose that money. But you're "left" afterwards... and you seem to find that evil, somehow. Another person who's never run anything tried to invest in anything, or probably DONE anything.
Sure, if you want to ignore everything else I've said. I've also spent 15 years living in a neighborhood where we were the only lily white people for blocks in every direction. My neighbors - many of whom had teenage wandering-the-streets-age sons - were from every ethnic group, color, flavor, and economic strata. Your attempt to make this about race, rather than about people's behavior, is just silly. Or, it would be, if it wasn't such a common bit of craven media laziness.
Obama has no expectation that this will ever pass.
Of course he has no expectation that it will pass. In fact, he'd be horrified if it did! He absolutely does NOT want it to pass, because it's pure theater, designed to allow lefty politicians to say in advertisements that their opponents hate education spending, etc. It's 100% empty, completely disingenuous rhetoric, and should have the bright light of day on it from the beginning.
Maybe you should use a meme generator for that one?
Or, consider the reality of it. Cops who pull people over while driving unmarked cars are completely used to not being trusted - by anyone, of any color. I have a great relationship with the cops I know, and have never had a bad moment with any I don't. My wife and I are lily white, but I'd never encourage her to pull over for an unmarked car anywhere but in a very populated spot, and ideally in front of the local police station. I do not trust unmarked cars, and there's good reason for that. Great news bit just this morning, where a cop-impersonating douche in a white Crown Vic pulled over (wait for it!) an off duty cop. Good one. He got to flash his badge, and was packing (guy drove off, but was promptly caught and arrested). What do the rest of us get to do?
Meanwhile, back in your race-card-playing department: there's a reason that cops in rougher neighborhoods don't EVER do normal traffic stops in unmarked cars. Cops in marked cruisers get attacked, run over, shot at and otherwise put in peril all the time. And those are guys rolling in plainly marked cars, wearing uniforms. I'll have to look around to see if there are any stats on basic traffic stops in marked vs. unmarked cars in high crime areas. My sense, from talking to people in that line of work, is that it's very rare. Unmarked cars in those areas aren't about traffic citations - they're usually working warrants, drug mules, trafficking, that sort of thing.
In the mean time, if you get the lights on you from an unmarked car, and it doesn't matter what color you are, proceed at the speed limit to the nearest station, or look for a marked car and honk to get their attention (if the unmarked is real, the officer in the marked car will already know what's going on, and will usually join in the stop to help protect the unmarked guy and to make sure anyone seeing the scene understands it's legit).
There is simply no way this is actually a good faith attempt to benefit the citizenry here. None.
Just like there is simply no way that you actually post your comments in good faith, right? Because everything that everyone does is always bad, always, right?
You know the saying. When everyone around you is an asshole, you're the asshole.
Of course the cops aren't going to complain when someone so stupid as to walk into their lobby right next to a picture of them and the warrant that's out for their arrest that's posted on the wall makes it easy for them. But the idea here is to simply shut down some scam transactions before they even occur. They don't have to DO anything - just make it clear that people who are uncomfortable with a transaction with stranger are welcome to meet up in the safest place available. Just like they tell you that you any time you think you might be being pulled over by someone who's not a real cop (say, an unmarked car), you can drive to the parking lot of a police station before pulling over. That's been the policy everywhere I've lived for decades.
Your eagerness to make a safe transaction or the serendipitous arrest of a stupid known, predatory criminal a bad thing is truly bizarre. Which of those two things is not in support of "the citizenry?" Which backwards world view are you holding that makes either of those things something nefarious on the part of the local police station? Grow up.
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You can only compare it with what came before or what came after.
False dichotomy. You can compare it to other things that happened (or are happening) at the same time and which work better. The point isn't to compare the Soviet's reliance on the use of force to temporarily prop up a cruel and staggeringly inefficient system to czarist Russia, the point is to compare it to other countries that flourished at the same time without having to regularly kill desperate people who were trying to escape from it in order to lead a happier life.
The USSR was communist, an extreme form of socialism
So socialism is only a real failure if you get really serious applying it? It's not a failure as long as you allow it to be propped up by underlying economic activity that skirts around collectivism? That's the thing about "socialist" economies like those in, say, Scandinavia - they don't work because of socialism, they work (less and less well as time goes by, if your'e paying attention) despite it.
Matter of fact yes, USSR was very much a success, compared to its predecessor.
So, as long as we ignore that whole "Stalin" thing, and stick with comparing it only to the same sort of misery that other previously feudal arrangements also had, it was just great? The USSR failed because the way it was spending the resources it was pillaging from others at the point of a gun was unsustainable. How can a system you have to use the threat of murder to keep people who are desperate to flee it be considered a success?
Unless the Greek government offers these people a change to live a decent life what do you think will happen?
Has it ever occurred to you that prosperity never comes from a wave of the government's magic wand? Over time, people have to actually produce value. Getting stuff from the government doesn't do that, it just taxes what someone else creates, and rearranges the money (very inefficiently, too). The Greek government is notoriously inefficient and corrupt. It's a drag on the economy, and the non-government employees aren't looking at Greece as a land of economic opportunity (and thus attracting investment and launching businesses that in turn will spend more money and hire more people) - corrupt third-world style societies always struggle with this stuff, and it's an ongoing, chronic, self-inflicted wound. Only the Greeks can fix themselves, and they have to start by showing that they have zero tolerance for their own corruption - which is completely endemic across every level of Greek society and government.
But don't let reality clog your little illusion.
Which illusion? That crappy schools are bad? You've just proved that point.
So... your problem is with the word "wing?" Regardless, the article and the discussion is about the newly elected government of Greece. You're still the only person here saying "every" about anything. Are you really that confused about this?
Russia did not 'destroy' itself.
Right, the Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics did. It was formally "dissolved" because it had completely come apart at the seems, was bankrupt, and had earned the hatred of all of the countries it had be ruling through force.
Ask a niw living russian what was better. The new multi billionair will say: now. Everyone else says: then.
Which "then" were you referring to? A "then" when the Soviets were still making some of the people in the country live only a bit less miserably by raping the surrounding soviet block countries? Are you really holding up the Soviets, who killed off millions of their own people in order to reduce the number of mouths they had to feed, as a picture of success?
Yes, the current Russian middle class could be a lot happier. But they're being kept from the benefits of pan-European and other international trade because their current dictator has managed to get their economy isolated from lots of the prosperity they'd otherwise have. Blame Putin - he wants (as he's said) the USSR back the way it was, running all of eastern Europe. But those countries don't want to live through that hell again.
Oh, that is not capitalism, that is corruption! Wow ... care to explain THEM the difference?
So, your personal opinion is that the Russian people are too individually stupid to understand the difference between being ripped off by corrupt officials and doing business between two parties that each want to? I'm sure the average Russian would really appreciate your condescending opinion of their intellect.
Yes, because every person that identifies with liberal policies is a radical left wing. Thanks for being part of the problem.
Who said the word "every," except you? The newly elected government in Greece is indeed radically left wing. They're proud of it. That's part of their entire sales pitch, and will still be part of what defines them as they go further down in flames.
Neither in Russia nor in China socialism is considered a failure
Well, let's see ... by "Russia," of course you mean the "Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics," right? Oh, right ... that union of socialist countries under a central socialist government failed miserably, and destroyed itself. Russia, on the other hand, isn't an example of failed socialism, it's just a good old fashioned miserable totalitarian state that's busy looking to invade its neighbors to make up for its crappy management of its own resources and industry. And ... China? Complete failure of socialism. How can you tell? Because they're clinging to it the collectivist crap in name only, and relying on market economics to produce the prosperity they want.
In both countries however capitalism is considered to be a failure.
No. Without market economics, Russians would be even worse off than they are now. Capitalism failing? Whatever shreds of it they're allowing to function are the only thing producing any shred of prosperity there. And failing in China? It's capitalism, and only capitalism, that is powering that country. Capitalism is working there despite the oppressive, putatively socialist tyranny that otherwise attempts to control the culture there.
Care to explain why Cuba is a failure
Ah, now I see. You don't actually consider poverty, being imprisoned for saying the wrong things, being killed or imprisoned for trying to leave and other socialist delights to be sign of failure. You have some very strange standards for success. Would you feel more successful here if we took away your internet access, threatened you with prison for criticizing politicians, made you subject to a family that has run the country at the point of a gun for decades, and which you'd feel so desperate to leave that you'd risk drowning in shark-infested waters, paddling to the US in raft, and hoping your own country won't jail you for trying? And Venezuela? Really? You must try very, very hard to avoid actually paying attention to what's going on there. If you insist on being that ignorant, please don't do anything that might risk other people - like, voting.
Stop it.
Why? Because it's annoying to hear things properly identified?
The problem is the general ignorance of the public.
Right. This is perpetuated by lefty progressives who think it's mean to hold students to real standards, and socially promote them out of schools that - especially in the worst areas - are often run by people who really don't care if their students learn a damn thing. And they are unfireable because of another entrenched and influential branch of the lefty-verse, the teachers unions. Ignorance is mostly due to cultural problems in kids' homes (ignorant parents, or usually, parent), but it's tolerated by schools that are just phoning in the process of pushing those kids along and into the arms of the entitlement state.
When the public starts demanding the right thing, then perhaps they will get it.
I demand that we stop tolerating and promoting ignorance and rewarding non-productive lifestyles perpetuated by an entire class of Nanny State middle-people who have a vested interest in keeping it that way. There, I demanded. Nothing, huh?
OK, this is not a very complicated concept: You are advocating for slavery. Step one, shit on the economy. Step two, force people to work. Step three, profit! So just stop, and don't bring this idea up again, unless you want to be known as pro-slavery.
Oh, I see. Just asserting nonsense makes it true and gives you the high ground, and the moral position to tell people to shut up, lest they "be known" by you as something you assert they are? OK, we can all play that game. Your embrace of "public works" is exactly the "slavery" you're pretending to dislike. Except, the slaves are the people you're forcing to spend part of their days working to come up with the cash to fund the make-work welfare that you're pretending is any different than any other form of work-based welfare.
When we get to the point at which public works are necessary, then capitalism has failed.
No, the failure is in the form of a critical mass of people feeling entitled to a certain standard of living without actually doing the things that produce the value that buys that standard. They are completely unable to grasp cause and effect. To the extent that they even stop to think about why they aren't prosperous, they listen to people who preach the notion that the only reason one person isn't better off is because another person is. That the-pie-is-of-a-fixed-size fallacy is at the heart of all of this BS, every bit of it.
ISIS leans further to the right than any other group in existence.
Then why is the left that spends so much energy downplaying the reality of what ISIS is, what it does, and what it stands for? You'll never find a bigger group of anti-women, anti-gay, anti-freedom jackasses than the jihadi wackadoos, but the political left is the last place to look for frank, un-sugar-coated calling it like it is. Strange.
So it's so gerrymandered towards Democrats a Republican got voted in....yeah seems legit.
You're (deliberately, no doubt) confusing congressional elections with gubernatorial elections. That you're even putting forth an opinion on the matter while being (or pretending to be) that clueless is pretty funny. Or would be, if it wasn't clear whether or not you vote using that same brain.
and they gerrymandered them in such a way that anyone other than a staunch right-wing Republican will never ever get elected
You mean, like the Democrats have done forever in places like Maryland? The way they've tortured the district boundaries in that state is a showcase for craven political monoculture at the state legislature level. That even Marylanders got so sick of the lefty power plays that they refused to coronate the dem governor's anointed successor and went with a relatively unknown Republican in November is pretty telling.
"Legitimate" sites like NBC and the New York Times
Well there's your problem.
Does this actually prove that enough people complaining about injustice does in fact produce results with our government?
No, because this doesn't do what you think it does. It's about wireless only, and more to the point, it gets the government ever more involved in your life, and in managing how you can or must communicate.
but saying that something is three times less just makes no sense
Generally, yes. But there are times that a variation of that construction is useful. When Thing B is being described as already (for example) using less energy than Thing A, and you then bring up the even more efficient Thing C, it becomes meaningful, even useful, to say that Thing C, uses even less energy than Thing B (both being compared, even if indirectly, to Thing A).
But in almost every use that generally comes up, you're right. It's far more useful to say, "Think C consumes a third of the energy that Thing B uses." And in the three-things type scenario, it's still more elegant to say, "Thing A has always been a power hog, and Thing B has been great because it uses only 50% as much energy to do the same job. Now comes Thing C, which doubles that efficiency." (or, "Now comes Thing C, which is twice as efficient as Thing B, and uses only 25% the power.").
When you say, "Thing C uses ten times less power than Thing B," the implication is that Thing B is already understood to be using less energy than some other thing (Thing A, that presumably everybody knows uses a lot of power). Agreed, it's clumsy, but that's the only context in which "10 times less" even begins to make sense. Most (nearly all) of the time that "X times less" is used, it's lazy, poor communication.
You buy a company, bankrupt it because your idea didn't work out and then offer to help some of the people who;s job you destroyed.
Out of curiosity, what do you get out of deliberately mis-representing what happened? Why the fiction? Why lie about it? What do you hope to accomplish? Really, it's an honest question (unlike your dishonest fantasizing). Please, be specific as you answer, so people can better understand people like you.
Yes, Apple is the company that is left
Right, just like you're still left if some company you hire to paint your house goes bankrupt in the process of failing to keep their painting business in good shape. Might be even more annoying if that company happened to be run by your nephew, in whom you invested a few thousand dollars - so now you don't get your house painted AND you lose that money. But you're "left" afterwards ... and you seem to find that evil, somehow. Another person who's never run anything tried to invest in anything, or probably DONE anything.
Bumps, bruises, getting teased, and learning to deal with losing/competition are life lessons.
But those lessons are at odds with The Nanny State vision for the world, and that's the one backed by teachers' unions. What else would happen?
I think you've made my point.
Sure, if you want to ignore everything else I've said. I've also spent 15 years living in a neighborhood where we were the only lily white people for blocks in every direction. My neighbors - many of whom had teenage wandering-the-streets-age sons - were from every ethnic group, color, flavor, and economic strata. Your attempt to make this about race, rather than about people's behavior, is just silly. Or, it would be, if it wasn't such a common bit of craven media laziness.
Obama has no expectation that this will ever pass.
Of course he has no expectation that it will pass. In fact, he'd be horrified if it did! He absolutely does NOT want it to pass, because it's pure theater, designed to allow lefty politicians to say in advertisements that their opponents hate education spending, etc. It's 100% empty, completely disingenuous rhetoric, and should have the bright light of day on it from the beginning.
Disclaimer: That only works if you are white.
Maybe you should use a meme generator for that one?
Or, consider the reality of it. Cops who pull people over while driving unmarked cars are completely used to not being trusted - by anyone, of any color. I have a great relationship with the cops I know, and have never had a bad moment with any I don't. My wife and I are lily white, but I'd never encourage her to pull over for an unmarked car anywhere but in a very populated spot, and ideally in front of the local police station. I do not trust unmarked cars, and there's good reason for that. Great news bit just this morning, where a cop-impersonating douche in a white Crown Vic pulled over (wait for it!) an off duty cop. Good one. He got to flash his badge, and was packing (guy drove off, but was promptly caught and arrested). What do the rest of us get to do?
Meanwhile, back in your race-card-playing department: there's a reason that cops in rougher neighborhoods don't EVER do normal traffic stops in unmarked cars. Cops in marked cruisers get attacked, run over, shot at and otherwise put in peril all the time. And those are guys rolling in plainly marked cars, wearing uniforms. I'll have to look around to see if there are any stats on basic traffic stops in marked vs. unmarked cars in high crime areas. My sense, from talking to people in that line of work, is that it's very rare. Unmarked cars in those areas aren't about traffic citations - they're usually working warrants, drug mules, trafficking, that sort of thing.
In the mean time, if you get the lights on you from an unmarked car, and it doesn't matter what color you are, proceed at the speed limit to the nearest station, or look for a marked car and honk to get their attention (if the unmarked is real, the officer in the marked car will already know what's going on, and will usually join in the stop to help protect the unmarked guy and to make sure anyone seeing the scene understands it's legit).
You know, and I know, exactly what sort of person decides to come to the GP's conclusion and make that sort of assertion.
There is simply no way this is actually a good faith attempt to benefit the citizenry here. None.
Just like there is simply no way that you actually post your comments in good faith, right? Because everything that everyone does is always bad, always, right?
You know the saying. When everyone around you is an asshole, you're the asshole.
Of course the cops aren't going to complain when someone so stupid as to walk into their lobby right next to a picture of them and the warrant that's out for their arrest that's posted on the wall makes it easy for them. But the idea here is to simply shut down some scam transactions before they even occur. They don't have to DO anything - just make it clear that people who are uncomfortable with a transaction with stranger are welcome to meet up in the safest place available. Just like they tell you that you any time you think you might be being pulled over by someone who's not a real cop (say, an unmarked car), you can drive to the parking lot of a police station before pulling over. That's been the policy everywhere I've lived for decades.
Your eagerness to make a safe transaction or the serendipitous arrest of a stupid known, predatory criminal a bad thing is truly bizarre. Which of those two things is not in support of "the citizenry?" Which backwards world view are you holding that makes either of those things something nefarious on the part of the local police station? Grow up.