police

[alasdairm]

alasdairm I don't have the patience to dig through hundreds of pages of statistics to find the good stuff.

if you're unable or unwilling to back up your claims, that speaks volumes about their veracity. thanks.

alasdair

 

[Coolio]

I already showed you a source of statistics that clearly demonstrates police around here are spending more time on drug+DUI arrests than arrests for real crimes. The traffic violation issue is something that seems obvious if you read all the soft statistics provided in articles found on Google.

You try to find a single online bit of hard statistics about the number of traffic tickets issued in the United States... I can't. Just plenty of unsourced statements from the media and from commercial websites making it clear that 1 in 6 Americans get a speeding ticket each year.

 

[AmorRoark]

I have a problem with giving ordinary people extraordinary power but, the desire to not live in a chaotic atmosphere, is reason enough for me to live with my uncomfortableness of cops.

 

[alasdairm]

I already showed you a source of statistics that clearly demonstrates police around here are spending more time on drug+DUI arrests than arrests for real crimes. The traffic violation issue is something that seems obvious if you read all the soft statistics provided in articles found on Google.

you claimed that "most cops are criminal thugs" and that "most cops spend most of their time" writing speeding tickets and enforcing drug laws. you haven't come close to substantiating either of these claims.

you may think i'm being a picky bastard but i'm challenging you because i believe this is really important. (from elsewhere) i'm just trying to encourage people to consider that their emotionally charged encounters with one or two or ten cops, does not mean that they know how millions of other cops behave.

i'm simply trying to say that overstating an issue like this is just as flawed as understating it and asking somebody to back up any claim with some solid facts should not be too much to ask. sadly, very often, it seems it is and the conclusions are pretty obvious...

a parable for you: three friends are traveling on a train in a foreign country. as they are watching the countryside go by, they pass a field in which they spot a blue cow. the first guy remarks “the cows here are blue!”. the second guy says “you can’t really say that for sure. all you can say, for sure, is that at least one cow here is blue.”. the third guy – let’s call him a naive fool – says “you can’t even be that sure. all you can say for sure is that one side of one cow here is blue!”



alasdair

 

[Amebix]

a parable for you: three friends are traveling on a train in a foreign country. as they are watching the countryside go by, they pass a field in which they spot a blue cow. the first guy remarks “the cows here are blue!”. the second guy says “you can’t really say that for sure. all you can say, for sure, is that at least one cow here is blue.”. the third guy – let’s call him a naive fool – says “you can’t even be that sure. all you can say for sure is that one side of one cow here is blue!”



alasdair

but they all could agree that it was, infact, a cow. Just like a cop is, infact, a bastard.

 

[alasdairm]

qed



alasdair

 

[Amebix]

Q.E.D. is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase "quod erat demonstrandum" (literally, "which was to be demonstrated", and figuratively, "I rest my case"). The phrase is written in its abbreviated form at the end of a mathematical proof or philosophical argument, to signify that the last statement deduced was the one to be demonstrated, so the proof is complete.

 

[delta_9]

alasdairm I don't have the patience to dig through hundreds of pages of statistics to find the good stuff.

delta_9, DUI is a victimless crime. Nobody is hurt. Any crime where you're punished because your behavior "MIGHT" lead to increased chances of harming someone, but nobody was actually harmed, is a victimless crime. If you're 0.3% BAC, yet you make it home safely then who was the victim?

They already have laws against vehicular manslaughter or assault with a deadly weapon to cover the eventuality that you hurt someone while drunk.deadly risks but don't cause any actual harm to any actual victims?

I'm saying civilians have the right to risk fucking up someone's life, just as a police officer does. Until that risk becomes a real instance of damage to someone's person or their property, then it's not a real crime and punishing people for it is inhumanly cruel and twisted.

You don't seem to understand police officers have the same laws as everybody else. If they're caught doing something(which they ofter are), they are punished by the same legal system they worked for. It just so happens they work in a position where it's mush easier to break the law. And it also happens the legal system is more lenient when they punisher them because in their eyes and the eyes of "good citizens"8) (i.e. law abiding citizens, meaning not most of the people here), they(cops) have a lot of good for the cummunity and have been there to protect and help people.
Whether you or I believes that is a different matter, but that's how the public sees it.
I hear people like you say stuff like this all the time, and then say "but if I was a cop I'd be crooked as hell" . Now THAT'S fucked up.

 

[DarthMom]

coolio, you need law enforcement. there is a structure to the government that is the best we can do now. who do you call if you have a break in, or any other issues? do you decide to play vigilante? is that your modus operandi?

do you think all law enforcement thinks drug laws are valid? from extreme personal experience i can assure you many of "they" don't. but there is a method to the madness. most of the crime committed is by gangs and drug crazed freaks. why wouldn't they focus on those two "blights" on society?

yes, this country needs a massive change in its drug legislation, but we are further than we were 20 yrs ago. you can't expect an entire country to change overnight.

you said earlier that the real patriots and martyrs were the ones who broke the injust laws. i used to be a fan of that quote by the late great MLK too, but to me, the real heroes are the ones who have a fucking brain and know that things take time, and to do them the right way, from within, not from simple rebellion. that is not the right way, it didn't work in kindergarten, and it ain't gonna work in the government.

 

[SKL]

I like & respect police for the work they do. Most cops are not ardent drug warriors ... we have our game, they have theirs, is honestly how a lot of them think about it. There is, of course, the occasional bad apple, as well as cops of various descriptions for whom drug enforcement is their primary job description. Personally I find it hard to appreciate a mindset which is about enforcing laws re victimless crimes but hey I guess some really appreciate it. I think that they honestly believe that they are doing good, most of them, just as I think I'm doing good working in harm reduction ... same menace (drug-related harm), radically different interpretations of how to go about it dealing with it. Do I think it's a fucking SIN every time someone is arrested for drugs? Absolutely. But do I hate cops? No. And I've been fucked with by cops with before ... searched, arrested, touched up for nothing, really ... but at the end of the day in most of my L.E. encounters they have been extremely respectful.

 

[Coolio]

I'm not complaining about corrupt cops. I think when cops DO THEIR JOBS, that's immoral. Their jobs are evil. To participate in the system they're a part of, especially being the part that uses force or threatens people with force for noncompliance, is not excusable as far as I'm concerned. When they follow the law, they're criminals, because the law is unjust.

 

[Coolio]

DarthMom, how many burglaries are ever solved? Nationally only 12%, and that's not counting all the innocent people who are imprisoned because of bad evidence or perjury.

I have nothing against law enforcement, when the laws make sense. If all police did was investigate violent crime and property crime (and the punishments for various property crimes were less harsh) then hell I'd support raising all their salaries and increasing police forces everywhere. But that's not what they do with their time and money, they spend their time and money turning our society into a horribly sadistic place to live. And they're starting to spend more time suppressing dissent.

 

[SA]

I think when cops DO THEIR JOBS, that's immoral. Their jobs are evil. When they follow the law, they're criminals, because the law is unjust.

Coolio, saying someone is immoral because they are doing their job and calling cops criminals because laws are unjust in your view is not a valid argument. Either start presenting fact, or your posts will be edited from here on in. This spewing of nonsense for the sake of being argumentative stops here.

 

[Amebix]

coolio, you need law enforcement. there is a structure to the government that is the best we can do now. who do you call if you have a break in, or any other issues? do you decide to play vigilante? is that your modus operandi?

do you think all law enforcement thinks drug laws are valid? from extreme personal experience i can assure you many of "they" don't. but there is a method to the madness. most of the crime committed is by gangs and drug crazed freaks. why wouldn't they focus on those two "blights" on society?

blights caused by society. If we were to get rid of government/police/all systems of control the world would be a much better place.

The glorification of cops and the seeming impossibility of denying a need for them are both a result of a fetishism of order. This fetishism I believe consists partly in a denial of the possibility of vastly different societies than what we have now. The denial of this possibility is again exercised by the cops who are the servants of the Elite who would not like to see realized a world where they are denied their privileges.

The idea of vigilance is scary, but is it necessarily any worse than what the cops are doing today?

To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place[d] under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality. (P.-J. Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, translated by John Beverly Robinson (London: Freedom Press, 1923), pp. 293-294.)

 

[Amebix]

you said earlier that the real patriots and martyrs were the ones who broke the injust laws. i used to be a fan of that quote by the late great MLK too, but to me, the real heroes are the ones who have a fucking brain and know that things take time, and to do them the right way, from within, not from simple rebellion. that is not the right way, it didn't work in kindergarten, and it ain't gonna work in the government.

Do you understand that some people dont want government, that some people believe that government is inherently destructive (which is actually a demonstratably fact if we take a look at the direction the world has been heading since europeans first came to america, or before then with the british empire, rome, etc.,).

And the right way? You mean the way given to us by those in power? 8)

 

[center]

Ah...

Well, I take it your friend is an adolescent. Sounds like classical authoritative problems.

How could the police have no role besides drug violations? Picture bank robbers, looters, murderers, tax evasion specialists, Ryan Seacrest all running around doing what ever the hell they please?

I hope your friend was busting your balls...or you're busting balls.

BTW...does your friend refer to the Government as "The System" or "The Man"? Just a question. 8)

 

[SA]

Amebix, let's keep this on the topic of the thread title - police.



.

 

[MattPD]

interesting arguments...

What I'm wondering is what the pro-police and anti-police camps stance on substance use is.

Are you current users? Past users?

Just wondering.

 

[Amebix]

people can do whatever they want as long as it doesnt hurt anyone.

 

[DarthMom]

blights caused by society. If we were to get rid of government/police/all systems of control the world would be a much better place.

lol, right, sure.

yes, anarchy and mass chaos would be better than constitutional rights for all criminals. it would be much better. not to mention reacting to the requests of citizens who are being harmed and need help.

sure.

srsly, what world are you living in? do you get all your information of your worlds politics and law enforcement from only your media? bc then, i might feel your pain. but if you thrown in a little real world knowledge, i have to do nothing more than mock it.