> In other jurisdictions, those protections are a result of collective bargaining and embedded in negotiated contracts.
This is the part people need to internalize. Police departments in most cities are insulated from accountability for the same reason public employees are in general--they have incredibly powerful unions that can decide elections. The recent scrutiny of police activities presents a once in a lifetime opportunity for liberals and conservatives to come together and both get something they want: Improve police accountability and take a major bite out of budget-sapping public employee benefits in one shot.
Yes, but unions are normally protecting their employees from firing for professional misconduct.
Police forces are protecting their members from being investigated for felonies. That's a little different. The only reason the police are investigated internally is because they happen to work in the same building that employs people who respond when you beat and/or murder someone.
I don't think your distinction makes sense. Police, by necessity, are empowered to do things that would otherwise be tortious or even criminal. The law insulates them from liability so long as they act within the bounds of professional responsibility. The police unions do the same thing teachers' unions or any other union do--protect members who don't act within the bounds of their professional responsibility.
Interestingly in France it's not the case (except for sequestration), but a policeman using his weapon will be scrutinized with the same laws as citizen without any special presumption (I'm talking about the law itself, because like in the US, DA don't like to charge policemen).
I think the police of the police is famous for being tough when an investigation starts, there is probably no bail if someone was killed.
For a ticket, there is a presumption of truth from the policeman (you have to prove he's wrong), anything higher he's a witness or a defendant like the others (still only talking about the law, judges tend to believe policemen).
> The police unions do the same thing teachers' unions or any other union do--protect members who don't act within the bounds of their professional responsibility.
Yeah, we should get rid of public defenders to save a few bucks too. All those lousy public defenders defending poor people who commit crimes. Bastards.
I think that rayiner's issue with the police unions is not that they represent their clients (AKA members), and act to elucidate the events surrounding alleged misconduct. His issue (which also happens to be mine,) is that the unions use methods such as strikes and political means to avoid a full hearing of the facts, or any attempt at holding individuals responsible for their actions.
But now you're asking for an entirely different political and legal system. Not to say that I disagree, but in an adversarial system you do whatever you can to defend your client (members). If the other side isn't competent enough to counter you and make sure the truth comes out then that isn't your problem.
Frankly, when the cops in NYC went on a "soft" strike a few months back nothing bad happened. That suggests that we have too many cops. But if the politicians and the people (because, by and large, the majority in many places want more cops, not less) don't have the guts to do what is right, then they get the police force they deserve.
You don't need a different legal system. Just make police unions illegal, as the federal government has done for the military. That way, police will have to rely on private counsel or public defenders, just like everyone else.
That's fine for cops (although then you've still got the problem that the legal system is heavily stacked against the poor), but I disagree that all unions are inherently bad (even for cops, the union could just be limited to salary and benefit and general work environment negotiations). If we're going to make all unions illegal, then we better start enforcing some pretty strong anti-collusion laws. Let's ban trade and industry associations for starters. It is an established fact that companies will collude against their workers, allowing workers to collude against companies does nothing but level the playing field.
This creates a problem for a lot of progressives, since attacking public sector unions is a big no no. Like, a super duper colossal no no. I see it floated around every once in a while on some mainstream American lefty blogs, and it always gets shot down.
The idea that attack police unions is a negative seems pretty bizarre to me.
In Europe, the left generally ranges from broadly accepting of (social democrats), to wholeheartedly embracing (many anarchist or other anti-authoritarian groups), the generally very strict limits on the powers granted to police unions vs. other unions, on the basis that large parts of the European left see police as a potential threat to democratic society if their power is left unchecked (whether or not said group have a positive or negative view of police in general), and not insignificant numbers have relatively regular direct run-ins with police in the context of demonstrations etc.
E.g. in the UK police has been denied the right to strike is the 1919 Police Act. In Norway police may strike, but only subject to very strict limits on when and how, and with the caveat that the government may at any time declare a continued strike illegal - only a few other groups (military, essential hospital staff and similar) are subject to similarly strict regulation of strikes.
The limited strike right is often used as an invitation to substantially limit these unions influence.
This makes a lot of sense in light of the fact that most of Europe, at some point in its past, has suffered at the hands of their own police far more than Americans ever have.
Hopefully Americans can eventually learn from others' histories before we have to go through the police state, neighbors disappearing in the night, and all that nastiness, ourselves....
to add a bit, in France, the police unions are mostly close to the far right, probably the only unions the far right could stand.
edit: I didn't go to the end of my idea. That means that the left doesn't care for the police unions. Half of the police is part of the army anyways, where there is no union.
There may be a growing awareness that police unions are not like other unions.
Historically, American cops were used to violently break up strikes, so their fraternal orders have never been seen by other unions as trusted members of the same cause. Quite the contrary. And while the resulting animosity may have diminished in recent decades, police unions are still viewed by other unions as a thing apart. Given the increasingly visible role of police unions in backstopping egregious behavior, current events are extending this view to a broader segment of the public.
Indeed, what's becoming clear is that while the standard concerns of unions are shared by police unions (working conditions, pay, etc.), they also serve a more fundamental purpose that's unique to law enforcement; shielding their members from legal accountability for acts of violence committed against the public.
Unfortunately, this is not an entirely unreasonable thing for them to demand. In essence, they're expected to do a lot of the dirty work demanded by those in power. And by "dirty" I mean fundamentally disrespectful of people's basic rights. To the extent that an establishment is supported by the general public, special protections for the heavies are unnecessary. But the moment sentiment turns against them, the cops know full well that they'll be hung out to dry - even if their abuses were an unavoidable result of following specific orders (e.g., meeting quotas for arrests, prosecuting the drug war, growing department budgets via dubious asset forfeitures, etc.)
This use 'em and abuse 'em approach to outsourcing violence is not a new phenomena. In fact, the situation that police unions exist to protect their members against was detailed by Niccolo Machiavelli in 16th century, when he provided an account of Cesare Borgia, who was unburdened by heavy scruples, and Remirro de Orco, a brutal but useful man for whom things ended very badly.
Conservatives also have a problem. It's called the law and order voter. Taking the side of a crook/thug/punk over the brave men and women of law enforcement is not good politics with that voting block.
Both your comment and the one you're replying shows the huge problem with politics and "talking points". Since people can't be bothered to truly understand an issue, they can only hold on to simple absolutes. Impossible to support the rebel, impossible to say no to unions, impossible to consider the brave people of the military or local law enforcement might be wrong.
Liberals can make concessions about Union bargaining power, but what can conservatives concede? Investigating and trying cops by the same rules as citizens for assault/battery/manslaughter/murder seems like a non-starter, but I can't think of what else to suggest.
I think in both cases changing demographics and constituencies. Union membership and power is wanning. and in conservative circles I see the younger (and I count myself among them) being slightly more libertarian influenced, and with that slightly more skeptical of police power and government power in general.
I think the public employee benefits/pensions crisis will be a flashpoint for conservative millennials. The law and order tendency is going to be tempered by the fact that they're going to bear increased taxes while getting fewer services to pay for skyrocketing police pension and benefit costs.
Why would this be a problem? Have you looked at the defense budget recently? Just cut science funding, education, hell just fire all the teachers outright, get rid of social safety net entirely, sell the national parks, etc. There are thousands of major budget items that conservatives hate that can be slashed before their precious storm troopers would need to take a budget cut... In fact, the need to continue funding the cops can be used as an excuse to cut the other stuff, just like the "need" for a "strong national defense" is used as an excuse to slash the aforementioned items.
Turning an societal issue into a game of name-calling ("progressives" this, "conservatives" that) is a sure-fire way to distract from the issue at hand.
I'm wondering if the best way to do it is to use other unions to do the attacking. Other unions are uniquely positioned to be able to attack things specific to police unions that are out of whack and need to be corrected. They will also possess the nuance to know what rights enable unions to do good and protect those rights.
And it always will, because that's where the money comes from. It's a patronage machine - higher salaries --> more money for union supporters --> more union supporters in office --> higher salaries...
Not happening without a lot more public attention and scrutiny. Public sector unions are core elements of the Democratic Party coalition, and no Democrat can win a primary without their support. Republicans don't depend on them, but find they're more trouble than they're worth.
And questioning their powers and motives are all on the list of badthinks that must not be spoken.
In "The Rebel's Dilemma", Mark Lichbach outlined how if 5% or more have sustained civil disobedience, it has always led to successful downfall and complete regime change of government - not that we need that here.
In more modest proposals, you have things like the Human Rights Campaign (the largest gay-advocacy group) boasting a 1.5 million membership - about 0.4% of the country. They are making dramatic gains for being such a small percent.
In the 1960s, the most powerful civil rights group in the south, the SCLC, had around 250,000 members which was equally, about 0.5%.
What about 'privatizing' a police force, with the correct incentives (not perverse incentives, as we see in the correctional sector)? I can see the bad aspects of this, as well the good ones.
One of the main issues, in poor neighborhoods is the government of these places invest very little in them and typically the only governmental presence is the police, which is the last line of governmental assertion (via show of force), and provide little else to get the community going strong. That is to say, there is little put into resources for 'community building', yes, some people in those communities are less cooperative than people of more affluent communities --by cooperative I mean working together to improve and build on their vision.
In these cases, one can hardly fault the police for complaining that they feel the brunt of the frustration of a population while politicians politick and like Janus, speak from two mouths and their only policy to address issues is to send in the police to stabilize a place instead of engaging the community and establishing enhancement programs.
Whenever you privatize a social need, you thrust the logic of capitalism upon it. However, the incentives of capitalism aren't always well paired with achieving that social need.
Privatization can incorrectly incentivize an industry - look at the recent Corinthian college or the red light cameras where they reduced the duration of the yellow lights in order to induce more tickets (and thus create more accidents).
In both cases, these companies totally won at the game of capitalism but totally failed at addressing the social need that society expected of them.
The problem is that structuring these as capitalism encourages these types of activities. If we then ban the current offences but keep the profit incentives in place, the problems will only manifest in other ways. The problem IS the incompatibility of privatization with addressing a particular problem - not mitigating the natural obvious consequences and deluding ourselves into thinking it will still work.
It's also why open-source community linux has done better than privatized commercial unix: Keeping the incentives of software-making aligned with making good software ( as opposed to an artifact of monetary profit ) produces better solutions. You get better results without the neo-classical logic of capitalism in play - there's no incentive for closed ecosystems, planned obsolescense, forced horizontal integration, crippleware, releases timed with the market, information siloing, etc. All those problems just magically dissappear.
> Privatization can incorrectly incentivize an industry - look at the recent Corinthian college
I wouldn't say it had incorrectly incentivized the industry, considering the 19 of the top 20 US universities on the latest US News rankings are private, as are 25 of the top 30.
The problem with Corinthian is not that it was private. It was that it was for-profit. Those private colleges that dominate the top colleges list (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Princeton, yadda yadda) are all non-profit.
It is difficult to see how the funding of those colleges can teach us anything about privatisation. They have endowments in the billions of dollars, and the prestige they have accumulated over centuries attracts staff and funding opportunities that will never be available to typical players in the education industry.
Usually when people say "privatize" they mean "make it for-profit" and not "establish a separate charter and incorporate as a not-for-profit".
My only claim is that the goals of the underlying impetus of the organization can be at conflict with the premise for its existence.
The theory is that a large enough mismatch of these effort will only give rise to dysfunctionalism.
Much of the "argument" I see is where people thing that their pet generalized economic model is clearly the best one for all of societies needs. It's a bag of hammers approach. The problems are too divergent for a unified solution to be the most efficacious.
We need to stop the cheerleading and start the analysis.
> the victors are not those who best solved the problem but those who made the most profit.
I would argue that most of the time those go hand in hand. If the most people freely gave you there money for a problem, then you accomplished that problem best.
> red light cameras
Hah! This has nothing to do with capitalism! The only reason people pay tickets is because they want their license and they don't want the government to lock them up. If a truly private institution came to you and told you to pay a ticket because they claim you did something wrong, you would tell them to pound sand. This goes for "private prisons" too. Neither of these things are capitalist at all.
I'm not familiar with the Corinthian college case, but I am willing to bet they benefited from government student loans, federal education grants, and a public school system that warns children of a life of failure if they don't go to college. The higher education system in this country is propped up chiefly by government, so I hesitate to call a college failure a failure of capitalism. In fact, after reading the Wikipedia article, it looks like that college was improperly accredited. Isn't this a failure of the department of education?
On the surface you seem to agree with the parent post.
But to be clear private companies do a great job making shoes. Lots of evedence suggests they do a poor job at making fighter jets. The problem is clearly incentives. Less well known there are also issues with private companies making army boots. And again the problem seems to be capitalism only applies when lots of little choices are being made, if each private chose his own boot from say 5 companies you would expect much better outcomes vs the current approach.
IMO, you can only call it capitolism when the government buys the same products as any other person on the market. As soon as one person is making a multi million dollar deal you lose feedback that keeps the system in check and are forced to rely on regulations. IMO, this means government contractors are inherently a bad idea.
When we talk about government and big business propping each other up, I don't want to get into the chicken and egg problem of whose fault it really is (if such a thing could even be defined). I just like to address the fact that whatever the cause, government mixing with big business is not capitalism. In fact, part of the definition of capitalism the absence of government.
I guess I just get confused when people point out things that are failures of the state, blame capitalism, and then go on to blame profit, or owning businesses and capital. Indeed, part of the beauty of a free market is the power of choice. When you make all decisions through a central authority, you lose that power of choice.
I think Retric's point was that private companies are supposed to make fighter jets, but they often fail to produce usable results. See the now-decade-old F-35 program for the latest example.
It's not about who makes it, it's about who buys it. And nobody but the government buys fighter jets, so it is effectively not a private enterprise. It's just contracted government work. There's really no competing consumer.
In capitalism, every entity is kept in check by the need to keep employees coming to work, shareholders holding the stock, customers happy enough to come back, and the government off of their backs legally. These keep companies in line.
If you think about it, none of these forces exist for government. Government employees often have no rights (military doesn't even follow constitution). They have little choice. The "shareholders" of government don't even get to have clean elections (not since 2001, voting fraud has not gone away, it's just no longer a big news story.) You have no choice.
And of course the customers- you can't boycott he government. No matter how much you don't want to fund drones that murder teenagers for the crime of being brown and living near a desert-- you have to pay for it. IF you don't you go to jail, and if you resist, or try to escape you get shot. Can you imagine if walmart could compel people to shop there? Government doesn't even think twice about using the threat of violence for even its most insolent whims.
Thus it's extremely important that government be kept in check, otherwise it will grow beyond all proportion until it undermines everything that opposes it and there's little, short of a revolution, you can do to stop it.
I can think of examples for each of your points for government run services:
> Should there be rewards for lying?
Police want a suspect more than they want justice because, especially in high profile cases, being able to say they get to say they solved the case. There's evidence of widespread incidents of just convicting whoever they can convict of the crime without any pursuit of justice (eg: the hair forensics that the FBI was faking for decades.)
>Should there be strong encouragement to charge people for things that are effectively free?
Like the national parks? The massive amount of taxes people pay at all levels of government-- a charge-- for the pitiful results they get? For example, in Washington state the roads are less than %1 of the state budget, but they often increase the taxes charged by well more than %5 a decade, with repeated claims to use the money to fix the roads. How about he spectrum that he US Government claims to own and sells, even though it's free and everyone could use it at the same time (using spread spectrum technology).
>Should the winner be whoever cut the most corners, cheated the most people, had the greatest deceptions, and paid their employees the worst?
It is in the case of government. Poorly run services, under paid, overworked employees, entire industry of elections predicated on massive deception of the people, no real investigations when major events happen, pathological lying from the figureheads at the top, etc. etc.
>Should we really exalt those who provide the cheapest service at the most unreasonable price by defrauding people?
Have you ever been to a campaign rally? Seen how emotional and choked up people get about even really the most heinous examples of psychopathic politicians? Charisma is pretty much like magic. Meanwhile we pay unreasonable taxes compared to the benefits we get and the government defrauds on a massive scale-- from social security which returns less than %3 of net present value of the money taken to the welfare system which loses %75 of the money in overhead and only distributes %25 in benefits, etc. etc. If a retirement fund in the private sector or a charity were run like this, they'd be shut down for fraud. Yet government gets away with it- and people turn around and DEFEND IT! Talk about exalting those who are cheating you!
> Should we have a system that defines success and progress by the volume and speed of such swindlers and con-men?
You mean how politicians get re-elected by passing laws and claiming that this makes them "tough on crime" or "standing up to those moooslims in the middle east" and the like? Where success comes from backroom deals and selling access as Hillary is being alleged to have done, but as republicans and democrats have been doing since forever?
You mean like the common shake down racket of threatening heinous regulations that would put whole industries out of business, yet backing off once a nice fat campaign contribution has been made? (And after you retire, don't those campaign war chests go into the politicians back pocket?)
There are more options than trickle-downy free-market anything-goes capitalism and authoritarian centralized despotism.
The thing we currently have is enormously unstable and teeters on the brink of collapse every 8 or so years. It allocates resources grossly ineffeciently and can only keep going with a 2% global growth. This isn't going to work if we want our civilization to survive the next 100,000 years.
We need to do better than the antiquated 19th century economic models or 18th century goverment models we've been using. There are exciting systems out there, but we need to get past the cold-war era polemics first. It's time to grow up as a species.
In capitalism, every entity is kept in check by the need to keep employees coming to work, shareholders holding the stock, customers happy enough to come back, and the government off of their backs legally. These keep companies in line.
Ah, Doctor Pangloss. I thought I had killed you in Istanbul.
I never said it was perfect, or even that I was optimistic about it. I just said the forces are there.
Government doesn't have any external force keeping it in check. All of the "checks and balances" are other parts of the government or controlled by government (Eg: who counts the votes? Government. Who decides which two candidates get on the ballot? Those currently in charge.)
Companies can be naughty, for sure. It's just when they do there are consequences.
Government never seems to suffer from the consequences of their own actions-- in fact, when government screws things up they always have a scapegoat and use it as an excuse to take even more money and power.
Look at what happened after 9/11-- more money, more power, more wars.
Look what happened after snowden? No reforms, more expansion of spying. Hell, spying grew under Obama and the Patriot Act was made permanent. Which means the travesty enacted under Bush wasn't even weakened by giving the democrats control over two branches of government!
When companies are large enough, there are no consequences for their actions.
Governments often suffer from the consequences of their actions.
But I suspect you're taking such an ahistorical and afactual view not out of a rational weighing of the evidence, but because the far right has steeped the U.S. in anti-government propaganda for decades, and many people have simple fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker.
So long as you want a system of property you need to have an arbitrator and enforcer of ownership.
Private property (read "capital") must have the threat of violence behind it. So you either have a system where people have their own force (feudalism), ~ or ~ you have a designated body which enforces communal rules - a governing body if you will.
Functional capitalism requires a functional government. Otherwise it's feudalism[1]
What the anti-government proposal usually boils down to is:
"I'd like my property protected, no requirement to treat my workers or the environment well, and have my workers pay for this by contracting everything out to for-profit companies owned by people like me."
It's a sweetheart deal where everything is privatized and capitalized on by some tiny elite group (let's call them royalty) who don't have to pay any taxes and keep all the profits and are protected by large armies --- hey this sounds like feudalism again, but worse!
This leads to over-concentration of capital manifesting itself as speculative bubbles, mass indebtedness (a carryover from feudalism), currency devaluation wars, quantitative easing, labor and tax inversions...etc.
For instance, now there's a negative yield on the 1-month T-note. The Fed lowered interest rates to try to spur domestic investment, but that money has already been invested overseas or gone to speculative gambles like real-estate - just like it did 10 years ago after the last recession.
This means housing goes up, interest rates stay low, but monetary velocity remains dormant, economic liquidity doesn't move, and overall GDP growth happens but only as a function of rising investment valuation, not increased production. Furthermore, capital is spent on debt-obligated interest instead of a goods & service marketplace so demand remains stagnant ... the entire system just doesn't work. If you take away the money to be spent, then there's no money to be made, and capital investment goes elsewhere.
Look at European austerity program -- reducing government spending was supposed to spur job creation and rebound economies. But as Greece did more Reaganomics, unemployment spiked upwards of 60% (http://www.tradingeconomics.com/greece/youth-unemployment-ra...). The creditors who got the money invested it outside of Greece where the returns were better. The movement of capital went from the taxpayer to exiting the Greek economy. Check NYSE:NBG to see it affected one of the in-country banks.
So small-government capitalism just doesn't work. It leads to a de-industrialization, a de-population of the marketplace, a rise of speculative finance, and an exit of investment. In this case to BRICS (next is Africa, then Zomia). Just like in the US it went from NAFTA -> CAFTA.
It's so fun listening to EconTalk or Steve Forbes because they have a correct description of the economy and the current instruments behind it, but then scratch their heads thinking "hrmm this shouldn't have happened according to our classical models! This is a mystery! All of our predictions were wrong. Hrmm! Maybe we forgot to carry the one somewhere!"
Even though they openly admit neoliberalism is wrong, they've convinced themselves so much of their bogus models that it doesn't matter. It's like watching Dora the Explorer fail to find the huge mountain drawn right next to her.
An this will continue to be a problem as long as it is treated with such unquestioning religious fervor.
----
1. Which is where proto-capitalism began and was finally able to take over in the 1840s through reforms of governance throughout Europe. It's worth noting that there are no functioning capitalist economies in places without functioning governments.
If anyone reading this is genuinely interested in a perspective on how many core government functions (law, police, defense, roads, etc) could work in a society without government, check out The Machinery of Freedom [1] by David Friedman.
Even if you don't agree with removing government 100%, it gives you a new way of thinking about these services. There are a lot of fascinating examples of societies in history where many of these systems were not primarily controlled by the state. It is also a great mind-bending thought game to try and figure out how you would structure, say, a defense organization or a road company if the government disappeared tomorrow.
I had a lot of fun reading this book, and I think it provides a lot of useful ideas for thinking about how government should function.
> One of the main issues, in poor neighborhoods is the government of these places invest very little in them and typically the only governmental presence is the police
One of the reasons they often invest very little in those places is because they have very little...local services like police and public schools are often largely funded out of local budgets, which come largely out of local taxes. I think things would be a lot better if public services were locally administered but funded entirely from the state budget, with a large fraction of the allocation determined by the number of relevant people in the district of the service.
It's true that this is an issue. But social cohesion and cooperation can mitigate some of issues that exist with respect to funding. Yes, it would be better if there were at least something like 50/50 local to state funding for gov't services. However, the transient aspect of some of the residents don't allow the community building which helps other neighborhoods with more stable residents. however, we do have the example of poor immigrant communities (even African) which because of the tight cohesion, can overcome the funding issue. It takes energy and cooperation and dedication. To be sure, this exists in poor white areas too --again, they suffer from lack of 'community' and cooperation. And I wish local government would step in and intervene instead of just having the police deal with the symptoms --it's the quick fix, the bandage. Teach people and support their efforts to build their neighborhoods, give them opportunities to advance and join in on the rest of society rather than keep them at the periphery. Instill the importance of education. Make education "cool", not something to look down upon.
I grew up in a mixed neighborhood with UMC, middle class and poor kids. Poor kids had a pernicious tendency to want to avoid learning and actually made fun and put down kids who attempted to get serious about studying. It was a kind of bullying. Fortunately, I got along with them so they did not bother me, except rib me about being the 'kid who studied and did homework.'
I'm generally opposed to funding coming from outside a local community for something like law enforcement. This makes them a de facto branch of the state police rather than servants of the local community. Many local communities do not have local law enforcement and rely on the county Sheriff's Department anyway.
But I think the GP was referring to poor neighborhoods within larger cities.
Local police are locally funded which creates huge issues even for private companies. IMO, removing all local police funding would 'solve' most of these issues much more directly.
PS: Ditto schools. Also, this is about funding nothing says control can't remain at the local level, but traffic ticket revenue for example should not end up in a small towns budget.
At the risk of sounding like I'm overgeneralizing, fines and tickets should not go into the budget at all. Things like sin taxes make me uneasy. I cant believe people arent up in arms against civil forfeiture.
This is idealistic of me, but I always think that this money should be exclusively earmarked for public education and health purposes. It's a fairly reliable way of getting something positive from the "wages of sin".
It doesn't matter exactly where you put it, but who happens to be one level above that.
Imagine I am in charge of a budget for two departments. One I really like, and want to give it as much money as possible, and the other I do not, so I want to give them the smallest budget possible that keeps them running. Imagine you do not like that, and start giving X amount money to that department. When the next budget comes along, I'll just lower their budget by X, and give it to another department. The end result is that all you did was let me give more money to the department I like. You can tell yourself your money really helped your favorite department though, but unless you gave them more money than their old budget, you didn't help them at all.
If you believe naive statistics, giving US public schools extra money makes the students perform worse.
(Obviously, what's going on is that extra money is being given to the schools with the worst students. But it's not at all obvious that spending extra money at a school makes the education any better than it was.)
> What about 'privatizing' a police force, with the correct incentives (not perverse incentives, as we see in the correctional sector)? I can see the bad aspects of this, as well the good ones.
Privatizing the prison force has led to an influx of prisoners, as well as for-profit wardens colluding with judges to increase the prisoner count (ie: profits) for their prison.
Privatizing colleges into for-profit colleges led to rampant abuse of education loans, rampant lies from recruiters, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt for hundreds of thousands of people. Until Obama cracked down on the practice and regulated the heck out of them.
I don't understand why libertarians take various institutions, slap "privatize" on them and then assume that things will work out in the end.
Can't you just establish the parameters in the legal contract between the jurisdiction and the service company? Just like it's my constitutional right to express myself as I please, my employer could decide to fire me for voicing something either they disagree with or something their customers disagree with and reflects badly upon them.
Interesting. But mobilizing any percentage of the electorate requires awareness. There is a reason the Democrats and the Left spend so much time talking about "inequality" -- the last thing they want is for black people to focus on the fact that the institutions closest to them, and most important to their daily lives, are controlled by Democrats. Baltimore and Maryland, after all, have been governed by Democrats for decades.
One of the major problems with police in the U.S. is actually that they are trained and paid too little. Most forces require about a semester of training, which consists mostly of when and how to use force. If there was more and better training and better pay, we might get better cops too.
I'd be willing to pay more as a taxpayer for that (rather than just more poorly trained and paid cops and urban assault vehicles).
While that's part of it, the true for no accountability is no feedback mechanism usually present in the market. I can't just unsubscribe from the police department if I'm not satisfied with the quality of services I receive. I can only vote, once in n years. And this usually doesn't change anything anyway.
The only way to make police accountable is to make this a private service. Otherwise people are paying their own money for being harassed on a regular basis.
how is that supposed to work? "Sorry officer, you can't arrest me, I'm not subscribed to the police". The problem is that people largely support the police despite what it's doing, privatizing the police isn't going to change that. Heck, I'd be terrified if anyone can just decide to open up a police force and run it how they want
There are real benefits to a large, centralised police force - around things like training, oversight, kit issue, etc. The US really suffers, IMO, from having hundreds of small forces, compared to the UK.
Does it bother anyone that people who don't need to have unions (probably) have extraordinary powerful unions, and people who desperately need to have unions don't? It is kinda upside down
In terms of the traditional theory behind unions, public sector unions don't make any sense. There's no concentrated interest sitting on the other side of the table (i.e. the owners of capital). The public interests, and power, are even more diffuse than workers' interests.
On top of the structural analysis, civil service protections pre-date, and are independent of, public sector unionism.
Yet here we are in the U.S. where union membership is today disproportionately public sector works or quasi-government workers (companies that derive most of their revenue from government contracts.)
Even with better accountability BAD cops are just one part of a broken justice system that, with enough wealth can be bent to serve you, but with too little, or no wealth will abuse you.
Hahahaha, bullshit. The reason police don't have accountability is because the institution is not designed for you and me. They are created to keep people from robbing the rich.
Really? In a thread about the excessive protections given to cops, by their unions, all you can do is come up with some conspiracy theory? Please back up your statement. Explain to us how the officers bill of rights, pushed through by unions, has nothing to do with unions.
In Germany, we do not have any "Police Bill of Rights", as far as I know, but in practice, it works out quite similarly in cases of police misconduct or outright brutality.
The DA's office, which depends on the police to perform investigations for them, is quite reluctant to investigate police officers in the first place. And when they do, the police force will behave quite uncooperatively, testify only in favor of the accused police officer, evidence will get "lost" mysteriously, and so forth.
Plus, if somebody sues a police officer for brutality, the usual reaction is to counter-sue for slander or false accusation (falsely accusing somebody of a crime is itself a crime under German law). In these cases, the best one can hope for is that the police drops its charges if you drop yours.
I remember a case from a few years back that exemplifies the problem over here quite well: The police had a warrant so search the home of somebody accused of drug trafficking. They did however, by accident, drive to the wrong address and - because of alleged "imminent danger" - kick down the door. They did not find any drugs or other illegal stuff at the place (because it was the wrong place). But the person whose appartment they searched wanted the police to pay for his door. The police refused, so he sued. The judge's statement when he dismissed the case came down to "Tough luck, dude, deal with it".
I find the very idea of a "Police Bill of Rights" repulsive. The police's job - formally speaking - is to enforce the law; as such, the law should be applied to them the same as to everybody else.
If anything, the police - precisely because they are allowed, under certain circumstances, to beat and kill people - should be held to a stricter standard.
It is also interesting that the police union here in Germany rarely if ever does what a union is supposed to do, namely to work towards better working conditions - better pay, shorter hours, and so forth - for their members, instead they mainly seem to advocate for more surveillance and against police accountability.
I wonder if there's a way to decouple the role of prosecutional evidence gathering from the role of public security that the police play. Basically having two departments with an iron wall of separation between them, so they're effectively neutral toward each other, if not adversarial.
I'm not sure, though, how it even currently works in most places. Does anywhere do it like that?
That's why it shouldn't be local DA's to investigate local police. There should be another agency to do it, which has nothing to do with the police.
In the same way it shouldn't be the DoJ that investigates Congress for acts of corruption. DoJ is huge and has many agencies that depend on Congress to give them more powers and increase the budget. Therefore DoJ is reliant on Congress in a big way.
There should be a special agency with its sole purpose of investigating political corruption, like it exists in some countries in Europe. This makes their mission clear, and it encourages that agency to enforce the laws against corruption to justify their existence.
Have I been missing stuff like this throughout the time I was growing up?
This person is pretty much arguing for a legally different, privileged class of citizens to be created. The New York Times published an article by someone asking to create two classes in American society.
Have power hungry nut jobs been publishing this stuff in the most respected media outlets forever? Or is this new?
Opinion pages like this are exactly where these articles belong. The national president of the Fraternal Order of Police is a pretty important position, and I see no reason not to let him have his say in the opinion pages of an important publication.
You seem to be implying that they shouldn't have published this. Personally, I'm much happier with having powerful nutjobs like this get attention for their views than keeping them hidden away. Mr. National President of the Fraternal Order of Police is going to think that police need their own separate "bill of rights" whether or not he gets space in the New York Times. By publishing him, the NYT is merely making us aware of that fact, and I think it's good for everyone to know.
But he is not just sharing his opinion, he's using it as a propaganda vehicle and trying to further a campaign. If he gets support by doing this, it's a net loss.
If our position cannot withstand some attention being given to the opposition, then it's not worth defending in the first place.
Censorship solves nothing. If he gets support by doing this, then we need to counter that by providing a better argument, not by trying to silence the opposition.
Its more like they want to codify it explicitly because the implicit understanding wasnt benefiting them enough.
The rich and famous, the politicians, and the police/military already have elevated status and treatment within most societies even if it is not officially written, and this goes back to the earliest human establishments.
If it makes you feel any better, you can read some of his other stuff and see that he's arguing that such a class is on its way to bring created if not already here, and that he's against it.
In the US there is already a separate class of people that cannot be touched. You just need money to be part of that class. The criminal system is designed such that if you have no money you'll go to jail for the smallest of the offenses. But if you have good lawyers, it is almost impossible to be convicted, because either you can pay fines and escape jail, or the prosecutors will be too afraid to go to court against you.
I don't understand the lack of accountability issue, but perhaps it is because I live in Ontario. Sure, there are any number of abuses, but as soon as anything crosses a certain threshold, it is investigated by the provincial SIU (Special Investigations Unit). I may be very much mistaken, but fire a gun in the line, the SIU investigates. Someone dies in custody, the SIU investigates.
Perhaps it is because Canadian municipalities - and their police services - are subordinate to the provinces - and to the provincial service. (The SIU is part of the OPP, the Ontario Provincial Police.)
I'd be very curious to learn more from those more in the know.
> the SIU investigates. Someone dies in custody, the SIU investigates.
You forgot to add "and nothing ever happens"...
Remember Sammy Yatim? The teenager who was begging for the cop to shoot him that was posted to youtube in 2013?
Well, the cop shot him to death, and then another cop ran on the ttc car to taser him (trying to cover up the fact that his buddy shot and killed him at point blank range with no provocation), and even more cops were filmed kicking away shell casings (in an attempt to make it look as though fewer bullets had been fired?? I don't know...) That's destruction of evidence.
There still isn't even a trial date set almost 2 years later now. [0] Forcillo is still working in law enforcement with Crime Stoppers. And when the trial does finally occur, the entire thing is under a publication ban, so nobody will even hear about it. It will be on page 7 of the toronto star that James Forcillo was found not guilty and is now working for another police division.
If he does get 10 years in prison I would be incredibly surprised.
Why only "he"? You are also pointing out that there were a bunch of accomplices - why shouldn't they be treated as such? If a "mundane" were to shoot someone and his friends tried to cover it up, wouldn't they also be charged?
This is disgusting, and will only lead to more incidents like this [1]. Cops have too much protection as it is - they are essentially impossible to sue. They are fortunately being charged criminally on occasion, but not nearly enough. Unfortunately the kinds of people that will take a high risk job for low pay tend to be seeking the only other "benefit" of the job: power over others, that they are likely missing in their own lives (or they wouldn't have pursued the job). Many of them take joy in others' misery, and they have guns and handcuffs. It's a bad combination.
[1] http://www.8newsnow.com/story/21557505/cover-up-alleged-in-c... - A woman was sexually assaulted by a police officer during an alleged "search for drugs," walked back into the family court she had just come from to tell the judge about it, and was arrested in front of her daughter for "making a false accusation against a police officer" (which, it turns out, isn't actually a crime in Nevada where this took place). The cop and the judge that watched her get arrested and refused to intervene while playing with the woman's daughter were both eventually fired but not criminally charged.
Here's a quote from Wisconsin's Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights[0]:
If a law enforcement officer is under investigation and is subjected to interrogation for any reason which could lead to disciplinary action, demotion, dismissal or criminal charges, the interrogation shall comply with the following requirements...
That sounds broad enough to cover "Criminal Investigations".
This might just be just Wisconsin though; the law might be different where that commenter lives.
Great article. But this a symptom of the bigger problem of government workers wanting extra rights above and beyond what a normal citizen has. This will only get worse as governments (local, state, federal) grab more power over the people.
Maybe one day we'll have technology which gets embedded and self-reports us whenever we transgress whatever laws we agree to or are born into. It's all automatic and tunable in order to produce the desired result from society. It could even be 'democratic' voted upon by everyone, so there is no bootstrapping and no second guessing.
I think some of Canterbury's comments speak to a population not waiting for an investigation to complete before it reacts to events which have not reached an official conclusion (just or unjust). Let's say the family of a rape or murder victim does not wait till a jury reaches a decision and vents its frustration against the accused, or in some cases unrelated bystanders -resorts to extrajudicial procedure.
In reality the problem is not the speed of justice but rather the reactions and impatience is a product of lack of access to the mainstream economy, some of this is due to biases and some of it is due to socio-cultural issues (same as Appalachian whites). It's not as if some police brutality and injustice does not happen in other communities, but generally those communities don't feel disenfranchised so they don't need an outlet for their frustration. When an injustice happens they have access to the justice system to address their complaints and they have political power to bring attention to issues.
It could be an opportunity to force streamlining of laws. The bigger issue in my mind is that most social change involves breaking some laws. A lot of those changes have been for the better.
If the laws are voted in democratically, then there would be little need to break laws, just vote to amend or void them. Of course, beware the curse of the tyranny of the majority.
If the laws are voted in democratically, then there would be little need to break laws, just vote to amend of void them. Of course, beware the curse of the tyranny of the majority.
Which is it? Your two sentences stand diametrically opposed to each other. The history of civil rights in the US suggests that your first sentence is absurd, and your second dead on.
It's hard to reconcile, yes, so typically one relies on 'basic laws'. In the end, however, it falls on the majority, strictly speaking. If 95% of the voting public wanted to they certainly could change the Us constitution, and there is very little the dissenting 5% could do about it.
Sure, but the way that historically the 5% has grown to 50%+ has involved a bunch of people willfully breaking laws. They can't just be static standards. Society changes, and for the laws to reflect that there has to be some wiggle room. If we just say "any time that 90% or more of society agrees on a law right now, it will be that way forever," we will stagnate.
Technology can only help us with data collection (and that is a double-edged sword as well), not with moral judgement. And that seems to be the much harder problem.
Might as well make this bill of rights complete and add the right to murder non-whites without consequences to it since that's already a given.
I will never understand how anyone can defend or support or even respect the police in the US when they are nothing more than the most powerful, most corrupt, most violent, and most murderous (we think since most figures are suppressed) gang in the country. Fear, yes. It seems to me that at least in other countries, people are less deluded about their police situation (which is generally similar, though the details may be different).
What we need are much higher standards for police conduct and independent investigation and prosecutorial forces that are strictly separated from the regular police force / prosecutors (and closely monitored for corruption) to investigate police abuses. There will be plenty of work for such full-time, permanent positions in every single jurisdiction given the amount of corruption and violence police cause. This idea that a police officer's testimony is somehow impervious to scrutiny, so much so that it will be accepted even when the judge knows the officer is lying needs to end. Basically, we have set up a huge, elitist "society" of cops, prosecutors, judges, and the rich people who support them who are beyond the law, not to mention justice. Of course we then get pissed off when these people talk about justice and even more so when they are either acquitted or not even charged with the serious crimes they commit, up to and including murder. Atrocious indeed.
Fixing this situation seems rather tricky since the layperson only has the power to vote and there are no candidates who are willing to address this problem at any level. Fixing other laws that criminalize everyday activity, while incredibly difficult, seems to be the only way to try to go about at least reducing the ability of police to insert themselves into everyday situations they have no business inserting themselves in the first place. Still, at best, it's a workaround to reduce abuse, not one to actually eliminate it or deal out justice after the fact. In the case of police, the criminals (police) always get away with it.
Nothing. In US, people have "too much" respect for military and police. This respect has turned into an almost fanatical devotion. Say anything against these professionals and you will be branded as anti-national. Even the President cannot criticize the police. Unless US citizens realize that policemen are just professionals performing their jobs and not selfless angels, the police in US will always stay above the law.
Your statement doesn't sound familiar to me. It does seem to be true for the military, which enjoys pretty much universal devotion from all. I think it's because we've finally figured out how to disentangle being pro-war from being pro-soldier, so that both warmongers and peaceniks can embrace members of the military. But I don't see anything remotely like it for the police. Respect is common, but far from universal. Where it exists, it tends to be mild.
I'd like to live where you live and have your acquaintances. I live in the midwest and the adoration of police is ever so slightly lower than that for the military.
Interesting. DC area here, which might be it. I do have roots in the midwest and it seems like nobody pays much mind to the police there. Maybe it's even more specifically regional or maybe I just never noticed it.
For one thing, because many did not volunteer to participate in war. I'm sure you've heard stories about people coming home from Vietnam and being spit on. A lot of those people were drafted. In more recent history, most of the people sent to invade Afghanistan and Iraq joined a peacetime Army with no foreseeable major conflicts.
Feel free to criticize the soldiers themselves, of course. I just don't see the point, and I don't think you'll get very far. Even if you vilify utterly in the public mind, you'll accomplish nothing. The people who decide where to send those soldiers are the ones who count.
That's not the normal case. The people the military actually accepts are smarter than average and come from a family that's wealthier than average. These are guys (mostly) who are in to pick up marketable skills or they're there because that's what they want to do.
If your prospects are that dim it's likely they won't take you.
I'm pretty sure the president did criticize the police. So had the mayor of NY, among others.
The fact is, police have gotten so comfortable in their untouchable-ness that they've stepped over the line that defines the amount of corruption and abuse "we" are willing to look past. Apparently it is somewhere around cops straight up robbing (civil forfeiture) and killing us.
> Everything he said is true, now what are we going to do about it?
For those of us who are illiterate when it comes to legal matters, the best we can do about it is to first fix our ignorance.
When computers break, folks look for their local computer geek to fix it. When laws break, computer geeks should seek the counsel of their local law geek (or become one themselves).
Now, if the law geeks say their system is so broken that there's nothing they can do to reasonably fix it, that's when the wider community can take alternative steps.
I think conflict resolution is key. Police need to concentrate on de-escalating problems whenever possible, even allowing suspects to get away when the alternative is using deadly force. (Presuming, of course, that the suspect isn't an immediate threat to the public.)
Take for example the recent shooting in South Carolina, where a policeman shot a man who was running away from a traffic stop. He could have just let the guy go.
Ferguson is another example. The officer said he feared for his life and that's why he shot Michael Brown. The officer was in a running police vehicle at the time. Why did he not simply drive away? A quick stab of the accelerator and you're at a safe distance where you can take a moment to figure out what to do next.
There was a recent incident in Virginia where a 17-year-old refused to get out of a car during a traffic stop, believing he had the right to have his parents present before interacting with the police. The police tried to force him out, which he resisted, and now he's naturally being charged with assaulting the police. Why could they not simply either get his parents as requested, or wait him out?
Take Eric Garner. He pushed away attempts to handcuff him, at which point the police put him in a choke hold and pushed him to the ground, which killed him. Why not talk to him first?
It seems like almost every incident where police misconduct gets national attention could be solved if the police had been willing to simply stop and have a little patience when dealing with problems.
I'm uncomfortable with things like rubber bullets and bean bags, because they perpetuate the idea that force is a reasonable first resort for the police to use when dealing with trouble. They're also not guaranteed to be non-lethal; used on the wrong person, or just get an unlucky shot, and the target can still end up dead. We're seeing the same stuff in play right now with tasers. They were supposed to be a way for police to subdue people without killing them in situations where they would have previously had to resort to a gun. Instead, they're being used to subdue people when deadly force is not at all justified, simply because it's convenient for the police to stun people into submission. Every so often they tase somebody with a heart condition or something and kill them even though they posed no threat.
>Take for example the recent shooting in South Carolina, where a policeman shot a man who was running away from a traffic stop. He could have just let the guy go.
And he was trained to do just that. That's why he's being charged with murder.
The argument that you'll always hear from police in response to your points here is that they shouldn't have to de-escalate because if the subject would simply comply nothing bad would happen.
You don't have to guess. While unarmed blacks have been killed by police at a disproportionate rate, in absolute numbers more unarmed white people are killed by police in the US.
These are indeed largely ignored outside of local news, after perhaps one or two brief mentions nationally.
What seems to generally happen then is that they are investigated, and the killing is found to be somewhere between clearly justified and criminal, so there are no criminal charges but a good chance of a successful civil suit for wrongful death. That will often get a brief mention in the national news.
Another large group of deaths that doesn't get a lot of attention, in either the press or on the streets, are the ~20 mostly young blacks killed per day by homicide. While some of these are due to criminal gangs attacking other criminal gangs, many are innocent people killed by mistake. It's sad that they are largely overlooked.
I find it odd that there is all these hate for cops (we can't trust them, etc)..yet, allowing citizens to own guns for their own protection is frowned upon by those same people.
Why is gun ownership almost always brought up in such discussions? I'm from a country with high gun ownership and low crime - yet I really don't think the crime rate has anything to do with the guns people have at home (mostly military rifles), since the crime rate is mostly the same as in other European countries with low gun ownership. So, just to be clear, I'm pro liberal gun laws (for different reasons), I just think crime and police brutality are not going to be solved with gun laws in either direction, it's a separate issue.
Well, the thing is that guns aren't a very effective means of protection -- especially not from cops, who have more guns, more manpower, and tend to frown upon being shot at.
And considering that one of the few times I'd consider lethal force justified would be when someone actually pulls a gun on a cop, that makes them especially useless.
I mean, what scenarios do you see guns being a good solution for, compared to nonlethal self defense tools like pepper spray?
I hate to say this, as someone who is pretty incensed by police brutality yet also believes in the right to responsible gun ownership in the US, that it is often better to kill an intruder to your house than wound or "incapacitate" them, as there is a precedent of criminals who have invaded homes and been wounded by the owners suing and winning financial judgements against the owners of the property.
I find it strange how you can know ahead of time the intentions and potentials of home invaders. What I call "strong Castle Doctrine" laws, in effect in many states, allow residents to use lethal force without warning, let along divining the intent of an intruder, because it can be presupposed in the US that someone invading an occupied dwelling is willing to kill anyone he come across, which happens all too often.
The phrase "someone invading an occupied dwelling is willing to kill anyone he come across, which happens all too often," seems to be ignoring the cases when it doesn't happen, or when someone dies when they were in fact unwilling will kill anyone.
Until the police are willing to give up their guns, why should the people give up their guns? Personally, I would consider mutual disarmament, but certainly not a one-sided one that gives even more power to the already too-powerful, incredibly corrupt, and incredibly violent police.
The right to have a gun is a much more powerful force than the actual act of having a gun, assuming that people do actually take advantage of that right, which they do. It makes the police and military think twice about breaking into people homes and taking them over, committing violence against them, or killing them. Mind you, just because they think twice about it doesn't mean they'll make the sane decision and not knock down doors in the middle of the night serving warrants to the wrong house (in which situation the police are asking to be shot at so I can't really feel bad for them and their insane decisions). Yes, the police and military have much bigger and better guns so the situation is not quite balanced, but it is as balanced as it's going to get. Without the right to bear arms, it's almost impossible to enforce one's natural rights, spelled out in the constitution. The police, who don't want you enforcing those rights, are certainly not going to help you. It is the right itself and the exercising of the right to bear arms itself that keeps most of the violence away without even a single shot being fired.
"Well, the thing is that guns aren't a very effective means of protection -- especially not from cops"
It's not about protecting yourself from cops. It's protecting yourself from criminals..but it seems with all of the latest news stories, criminals are protected, adored, and idolized.
It's also not even about the actual effectiveness of the gun. When it's well-known that you have a weapon, crime decreases.
"I mean, what scenarios do you see guns being a good solution for, compared to nonlethal self defense tools like pepper spray?"
Pepper spray is also heavily regulated in nearly every state and isn't really that effective. The way I see it, if I can't legally own a gun and a criminal hurts myself or my family, the people that passed the laws prohibiting me from protecting my family (and those that supported these laws) should go to jail as well.
I even see it in bank robberies in my local area. Bank tellers are instructed to just give the robber whatever they want, which usually ends up being roughly $3000-$5000 in cash.
So, the result is an increase in bank robberies. Because the criminals don't really care about the laws and know they will always be given cash, it puts more people in danger when they get the money and run. People potentially (and do) get hurt, etc.
what good is owning a gun going to do you in the face of police brutality. What, you're going to shoot the policeman? I'm sure that will work out great
Seriously, as someone who's had "hard, rigorous, proper training", I am continuously amazed by all the people without it who responsibly defend themselves. Over two million times a year in the US (in the vast majority of these cases no shot is ever fired).
And your latter point seldom holds true, when it's gun vs. gun, the armed citizen is generally smart enough to draw his gun when he believes his assailant won't have enough time to respond. One of the reasons the canard about criminals taking guns away from women never seems to actually happen.
> He was a thug ... ten minutes before he was shot you see him on cam roughing up a store clerk who tried to stop him from stealing.
> Im here in Baltimore and the guy who the cops supposedly roughed up so bad that he died had a rap sheet crazy long. He was a thug.
Thugs also have the same rights as the other people. Like getting alive to the court room, where to be judged by a jury of your peers. Police have manpower, training and hardware. They just prefer to put their lives above that of civilians.
So a death sentence by Judge Dredd is acceptable for being a "thug"? And how one becomes a "thug"? With all the work put into taking away opportunities from people it surprisingly easy.
>As won't in a capitalistic society there will always be a poor people?
But you know, maybe "capitalistic society" should stop working so hard to ensure there are poor people? Or if that can't be done, at least stop hunting them for sport or something?
What is the underlying issue that these violent/destructive riots are breaking out?
Again, I'm just looking at the videos and the evidence. As noted WTF .. why did that cop shoot that suspect in South Carolina in the back as the suspect fled. Horrible .. video shows that .. cop needs to learn his lesson/let justice prevail. The other instances the video evidence shows a different story .. a kid going into a convenience store stealing something and then roughing up the store clerk. Ten minutes later he's shot by the cop who apprehended him for his unlawful behavior. So that cop wanted to shoot him .. wanted to meet Michael Brown and shoot him because of his skin color or was there a fight between them and who do you think started the fight? I learned you respect the police and no trouble will be come to you, as little trouble has come to me with any police minus tons of speeding tickets.
Further why aren't these rioters acting in a civil manner to get their point across vs. destroying our city? Maybe because they were not taught or had parents that gave a damn. That's the issue... growing up in the ghetto without a strong family unit, as well growing up in area that is surrounded by crime. Such unfortunately just perpetuates the cycle.
It's a huge social issue and Im interested in hearing how you think it can be fixed. I'm all for a solution!
Also, don't put words in my mouth .. I said this is a class war... not a race war. I"m mulatto and grew up in the suburbs!!!
I'm a total mongrel - pick a continent and I've ancestry there...
My point is big picture. Read up on the origin of the word "thugs", then try to understand Thugee history from a their viewpoint, rather than that of the British who exterminated them - and that alone hopefully illuminates where I'm coming from.
I agree that class is an element of this, but it is secondary to the broader issue of divergent cultural narrative, which is being driven by unending segregation and increasing isolation of social castes from each other. As America still has class divides along strongly racial lines, this conflates into a race issue which dates back to the triangle trade.
I suppose the basement issue here is dehumanisation. Power imbalances perpetuate it.
Just don't call them thugs. Rioters, sure. Pissed off, disillusioned people with no future to lose, sure. But don't call them thugs. You're buying into the destructive narrative by doing so.
Huh? What do you call someone who disrespects the law that the majority follows(any skin color)? Poor babies they've had it rough they know fighting a cop/resisting arrest/stealing, etc is wrong .. it's ok they are just hopelessly disillusioned?
There is right and wrong in life. It is your choice to follow the law or completely disrespect/ignore it. Unfortunately, some residents of the ghetto choose to spit on the laws everyone else (asian, black, white, mulatto, etc) respects. No such issues are happening outside the ghetto.
>Huh? What do you call someone who disrespects the law that the majority follows(any skin colour)?
A banker? A politician? How many people were killed for repeatedly destroying economy? None? They destroyed much more property than Baltimore rioters but somehow no one calls them "thugs"? You are only thug when you are poor or/and black. How can it be?
> There is right and wrong in life. It is your choice to follow the law or completely disrespect/ignore it.
In capitalism you are right when you have money and wrong when have none. To the point, that you are allowed to "completely disrespect/ignore it(law)". Law is not enforced to the same extent/in the same way on all people.
I agree with you there ... Bernie Madoff is thug numero uno! As well as all those mafiaso ... either the rioters to Madoff to Al Capone all are thugs! THe definition of thug per Merriam is "A violent criminal."
There is right and wrong. It's your choice how you want to behave .... lawfully or unlawfully. Unlawfully you need to face the consequences and oh no you get label as a thug. What should they be called.. they chose wrong over right. They can choose to change and turn their lives around! Contribute to society positively.
There's good and evil and always will be. I don't understand why people want to spin those doing bad as it's not there fault and not label them the bad guy. Seems like those downvoting me want to coddle those who choose wrong over right. Love to understand why I am being downvoted.. for not wanting to take the side of the criminals???
Crazy world we live in ... where we are taking the sides of those who act unlawfully and criminally?
This is the part people need to internalize. Police departments in most cities are insulated from accountability for the same reason public employees are in general--they have incredibly powerful unions that can decide elections. The recent scrutiny of police activities presents a once in a lifetime opportunity for liberals and conservatives to come together and both get something they want: Improve police accountability and take a major bite out of budget-sapping public employee benefits in one shot.