Out of Pod Experience

No wonder you see so few cops around: "You wanna see my license? ... Yeah, lemme show you my license".

Had that been the US the girl would've been tazed or maced and the guy would be in a body bag.

I don't buy that. I think the number of people who are killed by police in the US a year is something like 400-500 or like one for every half million people.

If every guy who went crazy on a traffic cop got shot they'd be diggin mass graves along the highways.

More likely one of them would come from behind and grab the guys swingin arm then the rest would dog pile him. Maybe a little mace involved.

I find it ironic that in a country that martial arts is such a big part of the history and culture, this guy could not keep his grip on his short sword

Well it is an environmental stress that causes adaptive behavior and natural selection.

Unfortunately it selects for the most ruthlessly violent (who can compete with the uniformed mafia) and the most gutless (who will do whatever authority says) which doesn't really bode well for the future of the species.

Well certainly socialism is anathema to personal responsibility, but I don't think I called that into question.

My only point was to suggest that a police force with little or no accountability, as we have, is just as much a retardant to encouraging individual responsibility as all the other things you mentioned.

I supposes you could occupy the nihilistic position that it's all fubar and why sweat any of it, but that sort of nullifies any point of mentioning said issue in the first place. So the mere fact you brought it up suggest you do find the observation prescient.

That doesn't really have any bearing on the argument except to explain your bias, which is entirely fair. Most people do readily associate a badge with respectability and I am sure there are some uniformed men and women who don't act like thugs, despite the system giving them the leeway and incentive to do so.



I don't find a lot of merit in this argument. The job that "nobody wants," is vacant, because nobody takes the job. If one is economically desperate then they take whatever comes their way, sure, but to imply that getting into a reasonably well-paying government job with a whole lot of benefits is an act of desperation I think stretched reality.

I certainly wouldn't suggest the job isn't dangerous, but if you consider the on-the-job fatality/injury rate for police is lower than that of fishermen, farmers, loggers, power linemen, and a host of other physically dangerous professions, you begin to understand that the axiomatic assumption that it should pay more because -danger- doesn't really fly. I don't suggest anyone is over payed because the market makes that decision, but since a state employee is not subject to the market there is no way to tell.

In terms of keeping people safe, the track-record is pretty grim. Check out the track record of the private security companies who have set up shop in the now-defunct and un-policed districts of Detroit. Their streets are far safer and the number of times they discharge their weapons is much much lower. Since they are subject to the demands of their customers, they are able to respond to that by providing the best protection, rather than whatever fits into the current state budget. They've done well enough that they even patrol the poor neighborhoods for free. By the numbers they appear to be doing the job better by any metric and they have no extrajudicial power to abuse. If they shoot someone down in the street, they'll be on the hook for murder, not some misdemeanor conduct charge.



I assume it's as much a regional problem as anything else, but it is well established that the criminal justice system does not regularly prosecute officers who violate the law, in letter or spirit, on the job. Whether it is excused by fiat or because of some extraordinary circumstance doesn't really matter. Just last week a case closed where a 9 year old girl was killed when a SWAT team broke into her home to apprehend one of her parents. The team corroborated the fact that there was no struggle and the shooter had simply popped the kid. He got off without a day in the pen. Fast forward a few days when another child accidentally kills his younger neighbor wile wrestling and he goes right away, charged as an adult.

I think we have a serious problem with young children are being punished more harshly than fully grown and trained adults.



I've never had that problem, personally, and if something was stolen from me I would contact my insurance agent. My understanding of reporting something missing is that it won't be found and if it is found, you will not likely find it in one piece. Not to mention any cash or material of significant value will probably be claimed as a lawful seizure.

The solution, as I indicated earlier, is private security and self-defense. The firms in Detroit are just confirming what our long American history or armed private citizens has taught us. Criminals think twice when they know that the proprietor of the establishment they marked is going to do something other than "call the cops," which is exactly what they want.

Having a class of uniforms that operates above the law in order to safe-guard that law, doesn't seem to be working. That's more or less how I view the situation anyway. Hope that clears things up and kudos to your police friends if they are some of the few that do good from within a bad system.

Capitalize security leaving the rich secure and the poor to fend for themselves, allowing for individual rule sets to be created and companies like Blackwater to uphold them while completely ignoring to look into the issues that lead to crime such as low social or economic standing and poor education. Sounds great, where do I sign up.

That's awesome, all those little nazi Cartman gnomes, hahahaha

I wouldn't mind the farm animal with the grin myself. Put him right at the entrance of my driveway.