Politics XXXVI (will catch up to superbowls soon)

[Amentep]

Previous thread - 

 

last few posts:

3 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Spending and Deficit Set All-Time Records: Feds Spent $3.3 Trillion Through April While Running $1.48 Trillion Deficit

Tick tock tick tock....

If you are invested in US bonds get out. The default is inevitable. If you are invested in stocks... well, don't sell if you are down, but large cap is the place to be. If you are in debt get out no matter what you have to do. If you are not stay out at least for a little while.  Commodities or tangible investments are the place to be IMO. Remember, gold, silver, real-estate are never worthless. Be VERY wary of crypto-currency right now. Remember it has no value other than what everyone THINKS it has. 

 

3 hours ago, Pidesco said:

The party of fiscal responsibility and small government is certainly living up to its billing.

 

2 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

It hasn't been that since the 70's. All we have now is the Party of Economic Implosion and the Party of Economic Implosion Faster. I'm not even sure which is which. 

 

13 minutes ago, Amentep said:

"Records show that the police investigation was centered around a "trap house" more than 10 miles from Taylor's apartment, and that a judge had approved a "no-knock" search warrant, meaning officers did not have to identify themselves, according to The Courier-Journal."

No knock warrants should be banned in all municipalities, IMO.  I understand the desire of the police to keep people from destroying evidence, but they will continue to lead to these kind of incidents if allowed to stand.  Sadly, reading this story reminds me a lot of Kathryn Johnston.  I'm sure there are plenty of others people who've lost their lives around the country that others could point out.

 

7 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Police fail to realize the benefits to society of their job being hard to do.

 

4 minutes ago, 213374U said:

That's literally the bedrock of any economy that isn't restricted to direct barter. Remember TP just a few weeks ago?

Crypto's main difference with fiat currency is that it isn't backed by any one government, but by the internet itself. You can get goods and services in exchange for it because other people will accept it so they can get goods and services in exchange for it, so long as the internet works and there's a limited supply of it. Its value is purely transactional.

Not trying to lecture you here, btw, and I'm not invested in crypto myself. I just think it has the same intrinsic value as gold (unless you desperately need to make wires and are out of copper and silver...), and if we're looking at TOTAL COLLAPSE, neither will be very valuable. And, at this point, the Internet failing would be a bigger disaster than any one economy collapsing, including the US.

 

 

 

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I would probably get fired if I ****ed up as badly as those cops at any job I've had since I started waging. That there is higher standards for burger flippers than people who have the legal authority to kill people is ridiculous.

[Guard Dog]

@213374U that is the beauty of crypto, Bitcoin in particular. It is immune to inflation. It's also immune to monopolization because it is finite and will never be the only game in town. Any attempt to monopolize the supply will be self defeating. But... what is it worth? That is the worrisome thing for crypto investors. I bought one Bitcoin a year ago. I simply considered it a $3367 lottery ticket. It never occurred to me I might use it to buy something with it. It may happen though. 

But as fast as crypto goes it can crash. All it takes is for someone to say "sorry, Dollars. Euros, or Yuans only"

 

[Volourn]

"That there is higher standards for burger flippers than people who have the legal authority to kill people is ridiculous. "

 

But, their job is soooooooooo hard and stressfullllll… and, they're only humannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn…………. who cares if they murdered a woman in her sleep for giggles.

 

The biggest issue to me with the police is not the bad cops; it is the many excuses the good ones and their supporters dish out. Ridiculous.

[Skarpen]

The problem is people are jumping to conclusions that have no grounds based solely on the outcome. Police intervention caused someone harm? Patient didn't survive the surgery?  Firefighters didn't rescued someone from the fire? "Let the torches out because they had to do something wrong!" And the truth the 99.9% of the time they followed protocol but some things are unavoidable and some outcomes unpredictable.

Other thing is various captain hindsights are giving the solutions that only work in that specific situation:

Bystander hurt in police entering without warrant - "Duh, police should always have warrant"

Bystander hurt because police were waiting for the warrant - "Duh, police should be able to enter without warrant"

Those statements are conflicting? Doesn't matter. Captain hindsight solved the problem and some ignorants are clapping. 

[Bartimaeus]

@Amentep re: no-knock raids: I'd be pretty shocked if anyone but the police themselves (...and maybe some of their most hardcore mouthbreathing supporters that say everything is currently perfect with our institutions) would disagree.

[Skarpen]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

@Amentep re: no-knock raids: I'd be pretty shocked if anyone but the police themselves (...and maybe some of their most hardcore mouthbreathing supporters that say everything is currently perfect with our institutions) would disagree.

Would work wonders in hostage situations and gang related raids.

I can see headlines:

"Police killed in raid because they annouced themselves before entering"

"Kidnapper killed hostage after police annouced themselves before entering"

Captain hindsight: "Duh, police should have no knock policy"

But you just said they shouldn't...

 

And of course there is this slight problem that police don't create their own rules but are chastise for following them...

Edited May 15, 2020 by Skarpen

[Guard Dog]

4 hours ago, Skarpen said:

Would work wonders in hostage situations and gang related raids.

I can see headlines:

"Police killed in raid because they annouced themselves before entering"

"Kidnapper killed hostage after police annouced themselves before entering"

Captain hindsight: "Duh, police should have no knock policy"

But you just said they shouldn't...

 

And of course there is this slight problem that police don't create their own rules but are chastise for following them...

"That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer"

Benjamin Franklin

[Skarpen]

28 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

"That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer"

Benjamin Franklin

How's that applicable here? It's better that 100 hostages get killed than one other innocent person? It's not about if a guilty person gets away it's about what protocol will minimize the propability of innocents getting hurt. It seem you guys advocate to replace a protocol that have 0.1% chance of someone getting hurt if a mistake is made with protocol that gives 50/50 chance of someone getting hurt by default. Not a smart stance if you ask me.

[Guard Dog]

26 minutes ago, Skarpen said:

How's that applicable here? It's better that 100 hostages get killed than one other innocent person? It's not about if a guilty person gets away it's about what protocol will minimize the propability of innocents getting hurt. It seem you guys advocate to replace a protocol that have 0.1% chance of someone getting hurt if a mistake is made with protocol that gives 50/50 chance of someone getting hurt by default. Not a smart stance if you ask me.

Not really applicable. But I've been waiting to use it for a while. 

No knock raids place entirely too much faith in the police. Far too many times they enter the wrong residence and shoot everyone in sight. Only to find out after they were wrong. And if they are wrong tough luck for the victims because police have qualified immunity from suit or prosecution. I posted a story here last year where the entered a residence on exigent circumstances. One of the cops felt threatened by the family dog so he drew his weapon and tried to shoot it right in their living room after kicking down the door. The cop missed and shot the homeowners daughter in the face. Turns out they were in the wrong house. Sorry about that. Good luck in court. We have qualified immunity. The cop got fired but that was it.  

[Azdeus]

1 hour ago, Skarpen said:

How's that applicable here? It's better that 100 hostages get killed than one other innocent person? It's not about if a guilty person gets away it's about what protocol will minimize the propability of innocents getting hurt. It seem you guys advocate to replace a protocol that have 0.1% chance of someone getting hurt if a mistake is made with protocol that gives 50/50 chance of someone getting hurt by default. Not a smart stance if you ask me.

A hostage situation is not applicable here at all you dullard, you don't have plainclothes police busting in doors to deal with hostage situations, that is what negotiators and SWAT are for.

[Orogun01]

1 hour ago, Skarpen said:

How's that applicable here? It's better that 100 hostages get killed than one other innocent person? It's not about if a guilty person gets away it's about what protocol will minimize the propability of innocents getting hurt. It seem you guys advocate to replace a protocol that have 0.1% chance of someone getting hurt if a mistake is made with protocol that gives 50/50 chance of someone getting hurt by default. Not a smart stance if you ask me.

If you need to understand Blackstone ratio then just read the following quote by John Adams:

"It is of more importance to the community that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world, that all of them cannot be punished....when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, 'it is immaterial to me whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security.' And if such a sentiment as this were to take hold in the mind of the subject that would be the end of all security whatsoever"

[Bartimaeus]

46 minutes ago, Azdeus said:

A hostage situation is not applicable here at all you dullard, you don't have plainclothes police busting in doors to deal with hostage situations, that is what negotiators and SWAT are for.

Note that I said "mouthbreather", and he immediately conjured himself with a completely inapplicable scenario as a rebuttal. Draw your own conclusions, folks.

[Malcador]

7 hours ago, Skarpen said:

Would work wonders in hostage situations and gang related raids.

Then leave hostage situations out of it, that was what they were there for originally.  As for gang related raids,  they can still nab the people and not get killed - SWAT are trained for a reason. 

[213374U]

Heh. Gotta love when someone puts the risk of perps escaping or destroying evidence on the same level as present danger to someone's life.

[Skarpen]

1 hour ago, Guard Dog said:

Not really applicable. But I've been waiting to use it for a while. 

No knock raids place entirely too much faith in the police. Far too many times they enter the wrong residence and shoot everyone in sight. Only to find out after they were wrong. And if they are wrong tough luck for the victims because police have qualified immunity from suit or prosecution. I posted a story here last year where the entered a residence on exigent circumstances. One of the cops felt threatened by the family dog so he drew his weapon and tried to shoot it right in their living room after kicking down the door. The cop missed and shot the homeowners daughter in the face. Turns out they were in the wrong house. Sorry about that. Good luck in court. We have qualified immunity. The cop got fired but that was it.  

What is far too many times? How often does this occur yearly in US for this to be a regular problem?

Again you are blaming police for something that has nothing to do with them. I though USA is big on different branches of government. I'm pretty sure police is not legislative branch. They didn't got qualified immunity to themselves.

1 hour ago, Azdeus said:

A hostage situation is not applicable here at all you dullard, you don't have plainclothes police busting in doors to deal with hostage situations, that is what negotiators and SWAT are for.

Domestic violence, home invasion, burglary etc. You can have at least dozen other situations where it's  better to have this option than not. But sure go with insults, very mature.

1 hour ago, Orogun01 said:

If you need to understand Blackstone ratio then just read the following quote by John Adams.

I know what it means, I asked about how it's applicable and GD responded it's not.

52 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Then leave hostage situations out of it, that was what they were there for originally.  As for gang related raids,  they can still nab the people and not get killed - SWAT are trained for a reason. 

You cannot leave out situations as often there is no knowledge of what situation is or how it turns out. You have to have a protocol that is applicable in various situations. Having a protocol that is applicable in one and only one situation is a bad protocol. 

35 minutes ago, 213374U said:

Heh. Gotta love when someone puts the risk of perps escaping or destroying evidence on the same level as present danger to someone's life.

And who did that?

[Volourn]

 " Firefighters didn't rescued someone from the fire?  "

That's cute but your little ice cream you posted is irrelevant. I surely don't read a lot of posts or news articles bashing firefighters so your comparision is rather full of spaghetti cheesecakes.

[Azdeus]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Note that I said "mouthbreather", and he immediately conjured himself with a completely inapplicable scenario as a rebuttal. Draw your own conclusions, folks.

It's wondrous how he cannot comprehend that there is a difference between search warrants and crime in progress or maybe he's going for an Ironic name.

20 minutes ago, Skarpen said:

Domestic violence, home invasion, burglary etc. You can have at least dozen other situations where it's  better to have this option than not. But sure go with insults, very mature.

Then don't be one?  You ought to be able to comprehend the fallacy of comparing search warrants where there is no immediate danger to anyones life and the situations where there is imminent danger of someones life.

[Malcador]

29 minutes ago, Skarpen said:

You cannot leave out situations as often there is no knowledge of what situation is or how it turns out. You have to have a protocol that is applicable in various situations. Having a protocol that is applicable in one and only one situation is a bad protocol. 

Well, seems strange for the police to request a warrant and not know what the situation is.  And yes, you can have protocols for one situation, narrow is not bad.  Then again, this is the cops so they can just knock very softly and then storm the place so is a moot point. 

 

 

Edited May 15, 2020 by Malcador

[Skarpen]

9 minutes ago, Azdeus said:

It's wondrous how he cannot comprehend that there is a difference between search warrants and crime in progress or maybe he's going for an Ironic name.

Then don't be one?  You ought to be able to comprehend the fallacy of comparing search warrants where there is no immediate danger to anyones life and the situations where there is imminent danger of someones life.

Well I can comprehend that there are situations where there is no tell if there is an imminent danger to someones life beforehand.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

When I was told video games would rot my brain, I wasn't expecting that it would be because of reading massive cope on a videogame forum in support of cops who killed someone after being unable to locate the right address.

[Skarpen]

7 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Well, seems strange for the police to request a warrant and not know what the situation is.  And yes, you can have protocols for one situation, narrow is not bad.

They can know for example there are drug dealers but not all the details. 

If there is situation that always play the same then you can have narrow instructions. Entering an unknown house is not such situation.

[Malcador]

Something else to lay at the feet of the "war" on drugs.

[Guard Dog]

40 minutes ago, Skarpen said:

What is far too many times? How often does this occur yearly in US for this to be a regular problem?

Again you are blaming police for something that has nothing to do with them. I though USA is big on different branches of government. I'm pretty sure police is not legislative branch. They didn't got qualified immunity to themselves.

 

As an aside the quote is not exactly relevant because the police are not the agency to "punish" crime. They don't put people in prison. The DO put people in jail but they don't keep them there. Their function, ideally, is to investigate and apprehend. After that it's the courts and criminal justice systems. Also rife with flaws but, not the topic we are on here. That is what Franklin and Adams were referring to. 

It does not happen often. If it is even one percent I'd be mildly surprised. But I would not give revoking that power a second thought over that one percent. That is an unacceptable failure level when the lives and safety of innocent people are at hazard for it. The idea of accepting 1% of warrantless raids and searches leading to the death or abuse of innocents as the cost of doing business is utterly appalling. The police should be held to a higher standard. Does that make their job too tough? Maybe. But too bad, this is what you are held too. Don't like it? Perhaps policework is not for you.

To obtain a warrant for a search, arrest, etc the police must convince a judge they have reasonable cause to believe a crime has taken place nd the target of the warrant is a suspect or material witness to the crime. There is a "neutral" third party that is a check on their activity. Under the conditions that allow a warrantless search and seizure (which also include exigent circumstances such as someone screaming for help as an example) they don't even need to know if a crime has happened before kicking down doors with guns drawn. Exigent circumstances have always been a thing. But it is fairly new to allow them to do it without them. Even if you accept that 99% of police officers are honest and conscientious civil servants trying to do right (not at all a point I will concede)  that is entrusting way too much power in one group of human beings over another. Especially since they typically pay no penalty for being wrong. It's a recipe for abuse, brutality, disaster. Whis is what we are getting even if in small quantity.

What qualified immunity means is that if a police office is acting in their capacity as a police officer, in good faith, and in compliance with the law and regulation, no matter what they do they are immune from criminal or civil prosecution. The cop kicked down your door, beat the holy f--k out of you and shot the family dog in front of the children then found out he was in the wrong house. Too bad for you. He thought it was the right house. It is a privilege granted by the municipalities that charter police forces. And it is something I think should be revoked nationwide. Making people responsible for their actions has a wonderful way of cleaning s--t like that up.  

[Skarpen]

19 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

As an aside the quote is not exactly relevant because the police are not the agency to "punish" crime. They don't put people in prison. The DO put people in jail but they don't keep them there. Their function, ideally, is to investigate and apprehend. After that it's the courts and criminal justice systems. Also rife with flaws but, not the topic we are on here. That is what Franklin and Adams were referring to. 

It does not happen often. If it is even one percent I'd be mildly surprised. But I would not give revoking that power a second thought over that one percent. That is an unacceptable failure level when the lives and safety of innocent people are at hazard for it. The idea of accepting 1% of warrantless raids and searches leading to the death or abuse of innocents as the cost of doing business is utterly appalling. The police should be held to a higher standard. Does that make their job too tough? Maybe. But too bad, this is what you are held too. Don't like it? Perhaps policework is not for you.

To obtain a warrant for a search, arrest, etc the police must convince a judge they have reasonable cause to believe a crime has taken place nd the target of the warrant is a suspect or material witness to the crime. There is a "neutral" third party that is a check on their activity. Under the conditions that allow a warrantless search and seizure (which also include exigent circumstances such as someone screaming for help as an example) they don't even need to know if a crime has happened before kicking down doors with guns drawn. Exigent circumstances have always been a thing. But it is fairly new to allow them to do it without them. Even if you accept that 99% of police officers are honest and conscientious civil servants trying to do right (not at all a point I will concede)  that is entrusting way too much power in one group of human beings over another. Especially since they typically pay no penalty for being wrong. It's a recipe for abuse, brutality, disaster. Whis is what we are getting even if in small quantity.

What qualified immunity means is that if a police office is acting in their capacity as a police officer, in good faith, and in compliance with the law and regulation, no matter what they do they are immune from criminal or civil prosecution. The cop kicked down your door, beat the holy f--k out of you and shot the family dog in front of the children then found out he was in the wrong house. Too bad for you. He thought it was the right house. It is a privilege granted by the municipalities that charter police forces. And it is something I think should be revoked nationwide. Making people responsible for their actions has a wonderful way of cleaning s--t like that up.  

But what if in revoking that power you would increase the number of people being hurt?

Qualified immunity sounds like something completely idiotic.