Politics XXXVIII (A Nontotient)

[Guard Dog]

9 minutes ago, Pidesco said:

Very low population density.

Crappy vehicles. Ever heard of a '77 Ford f-150 with a rusty bumper, no tailgate of muffler getting carjacked?  

Plus it would be suicidal because nearly everyone is armed. 

[Malcador]

53 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Don't know if anyone posted this or not. It was a messge from the Minneapolis PD to residents in one part of the city:

 

Would anyone like to guess why this kind of thing would never happen in Northwest Tennessee? 

Hicks having nothing worth stealing?

I assume more people are armed, but in that case just shoot first before you try to carjack them.  Glass and car bodies don't resist bullets well

Edited August 5, 2020 by Malcador

[Hurlshort]

So a cartoonist was dropped from about 120 newspapers for a BLM comic because it generated a ton of complaints. At first I'm thinking, alright, I get that the comic page is not really the place for major political statements. But then I saw the comic and I was like, that's it? That's all it takes to get a bunch of complaints? So weird. The people complaining about this comic are probably the same complaining about the cancel culture.

[Azdeus]

59 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Crappy vehicles. Ever heard of a '77 Ford f-150 with a rusty bumper, no tailgate of muffler getting carjacked?  

Plus it would be suicidal because nearly everyone is armed. 

48 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Hicks having nothing worth stealing?

I assume more people are armed, but in that case just shoot first before you try to carjack them.  Glass and car bodies don't resist bullets well

Or you could just do them a favor and shoot the car, put it out of it's misery!

[Pidesco]

48 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Crappy vehicles. Ever heard of a '77 Ford f-150 with a rusty bumper, no tailgate of muffler getting carjacked?  

Plus it would be suicidal because nearly everyone is armed. 

If the exhaust fumes don't get you first.

[Skarpen]

1 hour ago, Hurlshot said:

So a cartoonist was dropped from about 120 newspapers for a BLM comic because it generated a ton of complaints. At first I'm thinking, alright, I get that the comic page is not really the place for major political statements. But then I saw the comic and I was like, that's it? That's all it takes to get a bunch of complaints? So weird. The people complaining about this comic are probably the same complaining about the cancel culture.

My guess would be that they are the same people as cancel culture 

[Amentep]

1 hour ago, Hurlshot said:

At first I'm thinking, alright, I get that the comic page is not really the place for major political statements

Doonesbury, Lil' Abner, Prickly City, Bloom County, Pogo, Non Sequitur, et al, would argue differently.

Speaking of Non Sequitur, this is nothing like the hidden message that got Wiley Miller's comic dropped and I'm somewhat dismayed that something so innocuous would rise such ire.  Even as politicized to stupidity as everything seems to be, I didn't think it was this bad.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

23 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yes, but unfortunately, I don't have a workable plan that will kidnap Trump, Biden, and ~99% of current and past (living) Congress members and put them all on an island for the next 8 years...while also subjecting 90% of the rest of the population to some combination of public beatings and forced education in order to effect a totally different voting culture that will stop voting in the same types of politicians that keep working against our interests and getting us into the messes they do. But if you have any ideas on how to do that, I will hear them. The U.S., as a whole, is really just getting exactly the candidates it deserves.

It's not a good idea to have plans that involve kidnapping, much less high profile elected officials, unless you want a visit from the feds.

Really though, all of that doesn't address the systematic issues with the US political and social systems that result in choosing which mentally ill old white man with questionable ties to industry and robber barons who may have sexually assaulted someone you want in charge every four years. We've got to work outside of electoral politics and get back into strategies employed by labor and civil rights movements if we want to get the goods instead of hoping we can push the Democrats away from being irl versions of Bruce by coming from their left flank.

1 hour ago, Hurlshot said:

So a cartoonist was dropped from about 120 newspapers for a BLM comic because it generated a ton of complaints. At first I'm thinking, alright, I get that the comic page is not really the place for major political statements. But then I saw the comic and I was like, that's it? That's all it takes to get a bunch of complaints? So weird. The people complaining about this comic are probably the same complaining about the cancel culture.

A lot of media channels strive to appear unbiased to a comical degree, if you read MLKs Letter from Birmingham Jail the white moderates has been consistently accurate in describing such behavior. Moreover, the cancel culture panic is just media figures being mad the filthy peasants have the gall to mock them for being awful people. I can't recall any of them who have destroyed careers, most of them are actually getting a higher profile when they go on talk shows or get applauded by their peers.

[Bartimaeus]

 

[Guard Dog]

8 hours ago, Malcador said:

Hicks having nothing worth stealing?

 

There is that

[Guard Dog]

Great piece from Vox on policing: We train police to be warriors — and then send them out to be social workers

They hit an number of points Gromnir has made and one of my big ones: turn down the pressure on the cops. Take some of this petty BS off their plate. Traffic enforcement is a big one. They all seem to agree how dangerous it is. Random tag checks while in public. I'd put an end to that too. They are busy enough they don't need to go looking for trouble.

Interactions between the police and the public are dangerous. We need fewer of them. Welfare checks could easily be done by "social workers". Ditto noise complaints, etc. Traffic enforcement can be done by camera or not at all.

But you know municipalities will never give traffic enforcement up. Because the fines are free money to them. And there is nothing the government values more than it's goddamned money. Far more than the lives of it's police and it's citizens. 

[Volourn]

Yup, good article.

 

"dead animals, ungovernable children who refused to go to school, people who hadn’t gotten their welfare checks, adults who hadn’t heard from their elderly relatives, families who needed to be informed of a death, broken-down cars,"

This, is just some stuff, that the police should not be dealing with.

[Bartimaeus]

Spoiler

this interview was worth it just for the memes

 

[Hurlshort]

I'm ok with traffic enforcement. I mean that is really the primary job of the highway patrol. I don't know if it is like this everywhere, but city police and sheriffs will rarely pull you over unless it is something blatant where I live. CHP, on the other hand, are looking to give out tickets.

But yeah, we should invest in a more robust social worker program. 

[Malcador]

At the very least diminishing the warrior BS would help.

[Gorth]

3 hours ago, Hurlshot said:

But yeah, we should invest in a more robust social worker program. 

These social workers seems quite robust to me

 

[Raithe]

Trump really can't seem to help himself..

The Guardian - Trump causes alarm making off-the-cuff comments that Beirut blast was an 'attack'

[Gorth]

2 hours ago, Raithe said:

Trump really can't seem to help himself..

The Guardian - Trump causes alarm making off-the-cuff comments that Beirut blast was an 'attack'

Speaking of which, not sure if any politics is involved in the explosion (more likely to be corruption and inefficiency), but the explosion has killed at least 137 people and wounded more than 5000 so far. That in a country that is already suffering from years of war and internal struggle between various factions, from Iran backed militias to Christian militias (the latter being behind some of the worst massacres in that country the last 50 years)

 

Not sure if viewable outside Australia, but some strong scenes from the blast while it happned
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-05/the-explosion-was-captured-from-multiple-angles/12525422?nw=0

 

[Volourn]

Yeah, at this point, it is clear this likely wasn't an actual attack. Someone would have taken 'credit' for this awful garbage. The gov't there (this includes the powers behind the power) should be ashamed.

Edited August 6, 2020 by Volourn

[Malcador]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/new-york-attorney-general-letitia-james-files-lawsuit-dissolve-nra-n1236009

 

 

James said the organization engaged in illegal conduct by diverting "millions of dollars away from the charitable mission of the organization for personal use by senior leadership, awarding contracts to the financial gain of close associates and family, and appearing to dole out lucrative no-show contracts to former employees in order to buy their silence and continued loyalty."

 

"The NRA is fraught with fraud and abuse, which is why, today, we seek to dissolve the NRA, because no organization is above the law," she said.

 

 

[Hurlshort]

Speaking of the NRA, there was a local case they were fighting in my home town. I guess the city council wanted to make it so you had to report stolen firearms within 48 hours instead of the state's rule of 5 days. The NRA fought it. Which I just don't get. I mean, I'm not entirely sure why our city needs to have a different requirement than the state, but I don't get what the NRA gains from fighting this. In my perfect world, the NRA should be the ones pushing responsible gun ownership. When your guns get stolen, it would seem to be the responsible thing to do to report that immediately. Who is the NRA defending by fighting this? 

https://morganhilltimes.com/judge-rules-in-favor-of-morgan-hill-gun-law/

Edited August 6, 2020 by Hurlshot

[Malcador]

I guess all gun regulation are evil. 

[ComradeYellow]

10 hours ago, Raithe said:

Trump really can't seem to help himself..

The Guardian - Trump causes alarm making off-the-cuff comments that Beirut blast was an 'attack'

Whelp he is right, this was another sloppy Israeli hit job. 

[ComradeYellow]

34 minutes ago, Malcador said:

I guess all gun regulation are evil. 

For small arms yes.  Once you start getting into weapons that can destroy large chunks of the environment than no.

If the American left is going destroy the MIC, Israel Lobby, the CIA and the ridiculously bloated Intel community, Big Pharma, the US Gulag, the corporate media, Oil, etc. than they need to stock up on weapons.

Somebody once said that the American Left is the only left wing group in the world that tries to disarm itself.

[Gromnir]

21 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Great piece from Vox on policing: We train police to be warriors — and then send them out to be social workers

They hit an number of points Gromnir has made and one of my big ones: turn down the pressure on the cops. Take some of this petty BS off their plate. Traffic enforcement is a big one. They all seem to agree how dangerous it is. Random tag checks while in public. I'd put an end to that too. They are busy enough they don't need to go looking for trouble.

Interactions between the police and the public are dangerous. We need fewer of them. Welfare checks could easily be done by "social workers". Ditto noise complaints, etc. Traffic enforcement can be done by camera or not at all.

But you know municipalities will never give traffic enforcement up. Because the fines are free money to them. And there is nothing the government values more than it's goddamned money. Far more than the lives of it's police and it's citizens. 

two quick points:

1)vox

am kinda ambivalent 'bout vox,  so am conflicted as 'course we applaud their conclusions (at least where they mirror ours) but is a somewhat akin to finding our self in agreement with anderson cooper. is not as if we put anderson cooper in same trash bin as hannity, but...

2) ok, so now what?

the part vox skips over, and the issue Gromnir keeps beating to death, (edit: that were not some kinda intentional bad pun. were, given the current topic, an equal bad unintentional pun) is the  overwhelming obstacles to fixing the problems vox and Gromnir identifies. the cops is not some kinda uniform/uniformed group o' anger junkies indulging in personal power fantasies, but there are near endemic training issues and self defeating policy goals. 

example:

pull a guy over for drunk driving, and what is goals? all too often the anticipated outcome is to arrest anybody who fails breathalyzer or sobriety tests when we should be most concerned 'bout how best to protect the driver and others. we got segments o' population which is justifiable terrified o' cops, see police as the enemy, so when cops forceful slap cuffs on a presumed drunk individual as they is trained to do (but is more likely and forceful to do if you are a minority) chances o' situation escalating is remote or predictable? nevertheless, we train cops to be uncompromising and at the first sign o' any threat, they is authorized to use force. once force is applied in a situation with drunk and frightened suspect and an almost as frightened cop. what is chances for further escalation?

now what? we identify a problem with training and policy, and will for the  nonce ignore how prevalence o' handguns in the US population makes all cop encounters inherent more dangerous than almost anyplace else in the western world. let's assume for sake of argument, training and policy changes is demanded. now what?

is thousands o' law enforcement agencies in the US. many such law enforcement departments owe only token fealty to their State governments and none to fed. has taken us more than 100 years to see current degree o' homogenization o' training and policy 'mongst law enforcement agencies and it happened utter organic as there were no directive from on high to bring 'bout such uniformity. 

we also got police unions. police unions frequent reject change for no reason other than principle. "if we give up/in on training what will be next?  a month from now, or a year, they will try and take away our guns." change is not an easy sell to a guy who perhaps already spent a decade as police.  cops see the news and they recognize how at the moment they is cast as villains. who is the next cop who is gonna be sacrificed on the pyre o' public opinion when an arrest goes bad?  who wants to be that next cop? resist change.

there is thousands o' US law enforcement departments including municipalities and sheriffs departments, and the sheriffs department, in particular, may be near autonomous from even State interference under current models. heck, we can't even get all county and municipalities to enforce mask requirements where states has legal legislated and implemented such. 

now what?

we got no solutions save obvious bit o' overused pith: think globally, act locally. solutions is not gonna come from washington dc or even nashville. get enough localities to change and eventual you will see the same kinda homogenization which occurred to bring 'bout our current difficulties with policy and training fails 'mongst police. horrible solution... complete unsatisfactory and is assuming a temporal remote timeline for widespread change.

fundamental problem is US police is different, as is so much in the US. we look like much o' the western world from the pov o' a casual outside observer, but our Constitution and values is different. requires unique solutions.

'course you could change the Constitution and make federal police possible.

 

Edited August 6, 2020 by Gromnir
highlighting our own blunders for posterity