Law and Order in America

[Shady]

Much of the global stage, the world's attention and international agenda.

Much of the global stage? Where? The international agenda? How so? It gets the world's attention, once in a while. But so do earthquakes, Iran's nuclear program, Putin's Ukrainian endeavor and police shootings.

[eyeball]

Much of the global stage? Where?

In countries around the world. In national capitals and governments like ours who've committed millions towards military operations and legislation to counter terrorism inspired by ISIS.

The international agenda? How so?

Coordination amongst several countries and governments.

It gets the world's attention, once in a while. But so do earthquakes, Iran's nuclear program, Putin's Ukrainian endeavor and police shootings.

Sure these do but I'll bet the attention these all get together might add up to half of the attention ISIS gets.

Ŵhere's the rush to pass legislation that deals with earthquakes, Putin, Iran or police gone wild?

Edited May 1, 2015 by eyeball

[Je suis Omar]

Pretty garden variety stuff for an imperial power. So why the Nazis specifically as opposed to, say, Britain or Russia or France or any other global power from the last 200 years?

You consider vicious war crimes, unrelenting terrorism, murdering civilians, killing children and babies, stealing others wealth, genocides and holocausts, installing and supporting brutal right wing dictators, ... as "Pretty garden variety stuff".

You have some other, different, more heinous US "policies" that you regularly criticize? Please enlighten us.

[Black Dog]

You consider vicious war crimes, unrelenting terrorism, murdering civilians, killing children and babies, stealing others wealth, genocides and holocausts, installing and supporting brutal right wing dictators, ... as "Pretty garden variety stuff".

Sure. Read some history. Name a great power that has become so without doing some, any or all of the above. Pro tip: any regime with the word "Empire" somewhere in its title will qualify.

You have some other, different, more heinous US "policies" that you regularly criticize? Please enlighten us.

You mistake me sir: I criticize all those things, I just don't do it in a way that makes people roll their eyes and reach for the ignore button (for example, by using specious and shopworn Nazi analogies).

[Je suis Omar]

Cool. I figured if you just consider them like Iran, you'd give them a similar pass.

How many countries has Iran invaded over the last two centuries compared to the USA, Shady?

How many people has Iran slaughtered in that same time compared to the USA?

How many times and for how long has Iran overthrown USA governments and installed brutal dictators in the USA, Shady?

How many times and for how long has Iran overthrown any governments and installed brutal dictators in those countries, Shady? Compared, of course, to the bastion of freedom, the USA.

How many times has Iran supported other countries in waging war against the USA, Shady?

How many times has Iran supported the use of chemical weapons against the USA, Shady?

Edited May 1, 2015 by Je suis Omar

[Je suis Omar]

Sure. Read some history. Name a great power that has become so without doing some, any or all of the above. Pro tip: any regime with the word "Empire" somewhere in its title will qualify.

"Pro tip", that's pretty funny.

You might want to consider doing some reading yourself because you sound like an apologist for war crimes and war criminals, for the greatest terrorist group of, at the least, the last sixty years.

You mistake me sir: I criticize all those things, I just don't do it in a way that makes people roll their eyes and reach for the ignore button (for example, by using specious and shopworn Nazi analogies).

More diversion, which is just more apologist nonsense. Genocide is genocide. Holocausts are holocausts. These US actions haven't, don't operate in a vacuum. Those who have suffered from US war crimes and terrorism don't hurt any less than those who suffered under the Nazis.

Really, do consider some reading. The USA's policies are, have always been pointed towards maximizing the potential to steal others wealth.

Saving the oppressed is just not what the USA has ever done. Oppression, in ways that are truly the equal of Nazi brutality, has been the hallmark of the USA. And they were doing it long before the Nazis existed.

Then the USA tried the Nazis for the same brutal crimes that the USA has been committing since before its inception as a "nation".

The "other Empires" argument is fatuous. Real systems of law don't fail to prosecute current gangsters because others, even worse ones, existed before them.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Je suis Omar

[Je suis Omar]

So? Lots of countries need to be interfered with. Most of them are brutal dictatorships.

And what country is it that supports, and often installs, these brutal dictatorships, after overthrowing democratic governments, mostly for oil, but also for bananas, silver, gold, copper, ..., anything that it can steal from the indigenous population.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Je suis Omar

[Je suis Omar]

Law and order in America won't change one bit either way.

"law and order in America" is the quintessential oxymoronic phrase.

[guyser]

I do not believe that law enforcement officers kill people as a routine.

Ok.

I believe most are good people, many of whom enter that career with the intent of helping others.

I dont.

Most of them seem to enjoy the power grab they suddenly have. Those who dont soon learn how much fun it is. Ever notice all the glad handing after a chase?

Being a policeman is still a respected position in society.

It is? Where?

Dont confuse being given respect since they can and do F up ones life on a whim versus a respect that is earned for good work.

I also believe that the major problem in the USA is the ease with which one can get a gun. It is estimated that there are about 300 million guns out in the public in the USA. That translates into 1 gun for every man, woman and child.

89 per 100 citizens , Canada 30 .

Under those conditions, when the bullets fly very easily and very quickly, mistakes happen often.

Sure do, sometimes even dumbass Sheriff's allow for a 72 yr old feeble man be a play sheriff at times. Allow him to pull over people while being wholly untrained to do so.

And sometimes these old idiots mistake a stun gun for a firearm.

No problem there.

[Scotty]

Why was the first thread locked anyway?

Yesterday, a cop who jumped up on a car hood in Cleveland and fired into the windshield at the two occupants was acquitted of all charges despite them being unarmed. More than a hundred shots were fired into the car by a dozen cops following a twenty five minute chase by over fifty police cars. The male and female occuapnts were shot about twenty times each.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/24/us/michael-brelo-cleveland-police-officer-acquitted-of-manslaughter-in-2012-deaths.html?_r=0

You can take his as just another example of trigger happy cops, but why are the cops so trigger happy? I believe police in the US are desperately afraid. I think they're trained and told that they have to assume every single person they encounter is armed, and dangerous and might be a killer. So they do. And any little move that startles them draws the risk of them drawing and shooting. This video is among the best at showing that hairtrigger response, where a cop shoots a man after he reaches into his car to get his papers after the cop asked him for his licence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXmVPxQGTsE

People talk like this is a black and white issue but I think it was Kimmy in the last topic who pointed out it wasn't necessarily. It's just that the police have a lot of encounters with young black men. I wouldn't doubt, however, that they're more wary around them, given the violence in so many of those encounters.

The number of police killed has actually gone down over the past generation or two. More cops were killed in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. And of the police killed, more were killed in car crashes or when hit by a car than by gunfire. But police paranoia seems to be at an all time high. http://www.nleomf.org/facts/officer-fatalities-data/year.html

I think something needs to be done about police training, to begin with. Being aware of the possibility of being shot at is one thing, but being hyper afraid of it is another. I think the determination of police to keep themselves as safe as possible leads to incompetent policing and a military mindset that says it's 'us' against 'them'. Those RCMP clowns in Vancouver who tazered the Polish guy did so because that was what they were trained to do. After all, even with four of them, reaching and grabbing for the guy might lead to danger if he has a knife or something. The chances of any of them being seriously hurt, even if he had a knife were vanishingly small, but it looks to me like police want to stand off and do everything from a distance wherever possible, afraid of being hurt. And that makes for rotten policing.

I also think society (in the US and Canada) needs to get over its Hollywood inspired worship of cops and stop excusing them from doing absolutely bone-headedly stupid things, even if they were 'afraid for their lives'. Because it looks to me like police are taught to be afraid for their lives every single moment of the day.

[eyeball]

Everyone, especially since 9/11, has been taught that.

Our society is basically suffering a collective case of something like PTSD but of a type that's largely been spread by word of mouth and graphic media imagery.

Edited May 24, 2015 by eyeball

[Scotty]

Everyone, especially since 9/11, has been taught that.

Our society is basically suffering a collective case of something like PTSD but of a type that's largely been spread by word of mouth and graphic media imagery.

I'm not afraid. I don't think any of us are taught, are trained to regard everyone we meet as a potential terrorist. We don't go about our lives or our jobs constantly wary in case someone's hand goes under their coat or into their pocket to draw out a gun and shoot us. I can't even imagine what that sort of daily anxiety would do to you.

[eyeball]

Maybe you and I and lots of other people don't but that isn't stopping politicians, law enforcement or their sycophants from saying we should and look at what it's done to them.

I can't even imagine what that sort of daily anxiety would do to you.

You just did, in your own OP.

[bush_cheney2004]

"American" cops shoot and kill about 400 people each year, while the number of American gun homicides runs about 18,000 each year.

So tell me again about the cops being so afraid......

[Je suis Omar]

"American" cops shoot and kill about 400 people each year, while the number of American gun homicides runs about 18,000 each year.

So tell me again about the cops being so afraid......

Tell me again about American "law and order".

[bush_cheney2004]

Tell me again about American "law and order".

Already have...Canadians gobble up American crime dramas and news media. Just check the Numeris ratings.

[H10]

The answer is obvious, take away police guns, so they aren't so violent anymore and will be inclined to treat people like humans not problems they are looking for an excuse to shoot.

[Je suis Omar]

"American" cops shoot and kill about 400 people each year, while the number of American gun homicides runs about 18,000 each year.

....

Do you understand the protocols for sources?

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/04/police-killed-people-fbi-data-justifiable-homicides#img-1

Police killed more than twice as many people as reported by US government

An average of 545 people killed by local and state law enforcement officers in the US went uncounted in the countrys most authoritative crime statistics every year for almost a decade, according to a report released on Tuesday.

The first-ever attempt by US record-keepers to estimate the number of uncounted law enforcement homicides exposed previous official tallies as capturing less than half of the real picture. The new estimate an average of 928 people killed by police annually over eight recent years, compared to 383 in published FBI data amounted to a more glaring admission than ever before of the governments failure to track how many people police kill.

[Je suis Omar]

Already have...Canadians gobble up American crime dramas and news media. Just check the Numeris ratings.

I was inquiring about a reality based "law and order". Not the highly fictionalized wasteland found within the USA TV and movie industry.

[Scotty]

The answer is obvious, take away police guns, so they aren't so violent anymore and will be inclined to treat people like humans not problems they are looking for an excuse to shoot.

That's neither reasonable nor even possible given the laws and reality. So we're faced with better training and monitoring.

[Je suis Omar]

That's neither reasonable nor even possible given the laws and reality. So we're faced with better training and monitoring.

Removing the ex military element from policing would help a great deal.

[H10]

That's neither reasonable nor even possible given the laws and reality. So we're faced with better training and monitoring.

It is indeed reasonable and possible.

[Je suis Omar]

Here's a dandy example of law and order in the USA.

Over 500 treaties were made with American Indian tribes, primarily for land cessations, but 500 treaties were also broken, changed or nullified when it served the government’s interests.

- See more at: http://blog.nrcprograms.org/treaties-made-treaties-broken/#.dpuf

The only real truth that has come out of all of the years of Hollywood propaganda is that the white man really does speak with forked tongues.

[Black Dog]

Good to see law enforcement cracking down on the stuff that matters.

Warrants issued for people who cheered at high school graduation

Police at Northwest Mississippi Community College, where the high school ceremony was held, said the superintendent asked the crowd not to scream and to hold their applause until the end.

Otherwise, they would be asked to leave.

However, that wasn’t the end of it.

“A week or two later, I was served with some papers,” Miller explained.

The papers threatened to throw them in jail.

Senatobia Municipal School District Superintendent Jay Foster filed ‘disturbing the peace’ charges against the people who yelled at graduation.

Officers issued warrants for their arrests with a possible $500 bond.

[Je suis Omar]

That's not "Disturbing the peace", that's out and out terrorism.