Posted on 08/19/2010 7:38:15 AM PDT by Palter
I don't mean to pick nits, but drawing fine distinctions is one of the burdens we must bear if we are to reason with one another. So, I don't think that's an accurate statement, in and of itself. Conservatives are wary of excessive government, of government doing things that are better left to the people to do themselves, of the notion that innovation and novel social ideas, rather than tradition and experience can lead to prosperity and liberty. Conservatives are often accused of being fuddy-duddies because we insist on individual responsibility, restraint and public decorum as a necessary consequence of the liberty that we seek to restore. I could go on, but my point is this: Libertarians have long been reflexively skeptical of government, in and of itself, as distinguised from the conventional conservative position that asks "what government? doing what, how and where?" I will readily agree with the Libertarian position that we have far, far too much government today, but that is not the same as saying that I want no government at all. Hamilton and Madison's famous quote comes to mind, here.
...the cops ARE the government.
No, the police are employed by the town or county government, and are accountable to it. I will stipulate that the local level, like the state and federal has become too extensive, but it remains the most accessible, and most readily accountable to the people. It's far from a perfect system, but this (very old and traditional) practice we have in this country of pushing law enforcement down to the most local possible layer of government is the right idea. It's a part of the "old America" that the current administration hates, but it's well worth preserving, and remembering that if there is a sense among the law-abiding, tax-paying solid citizens that their cops are too aggressive, the city council and mayor are ulitmately responsible, and can be forced to take action, or be replaced.
I don't know where all of the boot licking conservatives have come from.
Is that really necessary? Or conducive to a reasoned discussion? I ask because it occurs on every single one of these threads, and reminds me of the nonsense during the 2006 border threads. What's the purpose? Cleary you're not trying to persuade me of anything with this, so what am I missing?
I'm not convince that it would be a good thing for every one to put on blinders and ignore possible wrong doing.
I'm sure that would not be a good thing, but there are ways that do that that don't a) interfere with the legitimate business of an officer or b) expose you to arrest yourself. Remember George Holliday? He started the whole ball rolling, and managed to do so without a bunch of useless drama, at least on the evening in question.
“Better we should, upon seeing an officer making a such a demand where there is no obvious suspicion of bad action, raise our voice in alarm just as if it was a man in plainclothes”
If we did, the first one to do so, judging from the recent news reports in Denver and elsewhere, would be beaten and arrested. That tends to put a damper on others stepping in.
I don’t know what the solution is, but if things keep going down this road, I think we might see things develop into a situation akin to what we see in Black communities, where distrust of police is nearly universal. There, people assume the worst and won’t cooperate with police even when it’s in their own best interest. Reciprocating, some police start viewing all the members of the general public in those communities as the “enemy” and treating them as such.
If things keep going down this road, I think we might see things develop into a situation akin to what we see in Black communities, where distrust of police is nearly universal. There, people assume the worst and won’t cooperate with police even when it’s in their own best interest. Reciprocating, some police start viewing all the members of the general public in those communities as the “enemy” and treating them as such.That's another aspect of HOW Cops Cause Crime.
"Cops" meaning those uniformed officers on patrol. Plainclothes officers not the same, people react to the person and not the uniform then. By plainclothes I mean clothes that are the regular wear in that environment.
I'll accept that.
No, the police are employed by the town or county government, and are accountable to it.
I stand by my assertion.
I will stipulate that the local level, like the state and federal has become too extensive, but it remains the most accessible, and most readily accountable to the people.
That may very well be, but they are also the ones that can most readily deprive us of our rights…all the way up to that “life” thing. They need a very short leash (rather than putting citizens on one)
Is that really necessary? Or conducive to a reasoned discussion?
Obviously it is not with you. I fear that I am out of my league (no sarcasm). Still, it is de facto level of discourse on most of these threads. I’m not usually one to go there…
I'm sure that would not be a good thing, but there are ways that do that that don't a) interfere with the legitimate business of an officer or
That seems easy enough
b) expose you to arrest yourself.
That is proving to be difficult. If the cops had seen George Holliday videotaping them, he may have ended up face down next to Rodney King.
I think that you have hit on a very important point here. This is serious business, in my view mostly because considering the present regime in Washington (and their counterparts in my home state of California) this Republic is in dire danger of descending into what could rightly be called a tyranny. So I want to keep my powder dry, so to speak, and reserve that language for the dark day that seems to be looming.
That said, our rights are being violated, materially, every day by government apparatchiks: outrageous transgressions on property rights (google CEQA some time), confiscatory taxation, and on and on. But enforcement of criminal statutes and traffic laws isn't one of those areas, by and large. I just don't see it, and I think you've misidentified the enemy, confounded the still legitimate functioning of the government with the less visible, but more invasive intrustions into what should be the private sphere.
That's not to say that there are not problems with modern law enforcement, there are. Kevin Gaines, Rafael Perez et. al. are examples of what can happen when PC goals interfere with (some say lower) standards of integrity for hiring and promotion. But that's a completely different kettle of fish than addressed in these recent posts.
‘I’m sure it’s an outgrowth of the increasingly dangerous environment they work in”
Increasingly? Being a cop is safer than many jobs and is getting even more safe.
Well, I’m no expert on it but I’m sure it’s more dangerous than my job!
I’m not an expert either:
http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2009/09/04/americas-most-dangerous-jobs/
Not even in the top 10 as percentage of workforce
Not as percentage, but in number of fatalies (from your link):
4. Law enforcement workers
Number of victims: 144
Most common manner of death: 38 were highway-related and 33 were homicides
Yep in numbers of total law enforcement. Doesn’t change the accuracy of my statement that being a cop is safer than many other jobs.
Number 4 on the raw number list and nowhere on the fatality rate (deaths/100,000) list. That means there are a butt-load of cops--yet another problem.
This isn’t an escalation of police brutality by any means. Every city that I’ve lived in for the past 60 years has had its “A”hole cop that would handcuff some kid to a tree or something like it and beat them into submission. I saw it in Olean, NY, Houston, Texas, Myrtle Beach, SC, and Charlotte, NC to name a few. In the late 1970s, I had a gun club in Myrtle Beach that was frequented by a few city firemen. At the time there had been three young male tourists hang themselves in the city jail next to the firehouse in the course of two weeks. One of the firemen told me that you could hear the kids screaming as they were being beaten in their cells.
It is all about the power of life and death being given by the government instead of by the people.
What is LoDo?
Got it, LoDo is a district in Denver...”Lower Downtown”....
This link has today’s LE comments of the two videos. It is all about the ‘brothers’
http://www.policeone.com/police-products/investigation/video-surveillance/articles/2475634-Official-resigns-amid-Denver-PD-video-anger/
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