US Presidential Elections thread - the fate of the world to be decided (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter Zlatan
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The people you get to meet on the job are either fucked up, assholes, or people who got entangled with said people. Nobody calls to get the police involved when they're having a spot of tea and wanted to check out how the greenhouse was shaping up.
Imagine doing customer support for Dell computer... in hell, where many of your customers are on drugs and/or have weapons.
Imagine doing customer support for Dell computer... in hell, where many of your customers are on drugs and/or have weapons.
The people you get to meet on the job are either fucked up, assholes, or people who got entangled with said people. Nobody calls to get the police involved when they're having a spot of tea and wanted to check out how the greenhouse was shaping up.
Imagine doing customer support for Dell computer... in hell, where many of your customers are on drugs and/or have weapons.
Imagine doing customer support for Dell computer... in hell, where many of your customers are on drugs and/or have weapons.
Furthermore, many of the examples quoted in that compilation have to do with far far less ambiguous circumstances, like doing a drug bust and breaking into the wrong house, shooing the owner dead. Or for a less dramatic example; harassing kids in the city for skateboarding. Or how about leaving valuables in the subway and pouncing on people who pick them up and don't immediately return them. Or pulling people over on the road and beating them up. These aren't cases where the cops where called in to defuse a situation, they just showed up on their own with an agenda. And if it happened to one of us here I'm pretty sure we'd be pretty outraged.
In case you haven't noticed I'm not posting stories like "cops beat up violent bank robber". Yes that would be wrong, but there are far worse things happening.
Yes, and you can see them every day in Cops by the way. Ever noticed how they beat up black people, even if the cause for doing so is .. not clear to say the least. Last time I saw three coppers beating up a black guy, because he had stolen 10 dollar in some gas station. And I didn't really see him resisting..
No question. The same problem happens when you have military in a place like Iraq, for example. Talk about a police state.
But the media are always going to seek out the horror stories of abuses. And to think that abuses are 100% preventable is a bit unrealistic, don't you think? I mean, we'd be holding police officers to far higher standards than the priesthood -- and they're off kiddie diddling six-year-olds for crying out loud.
Not to exonerate it in any way. Not to say some checks and balances shouldn't be put in place. I think internal affair organizations, while not entirely effective, a good step towards external regulation of what can be a fraternal affair. (Afterall, we're dealing with a president who thinks he doesn't have to abide to his country's own constitution.)
But my point is that I cannot think of any single job or profession where there isn't incompetence, abuse, misuse, bad behavior, illegal behavior, etc., in some derelict percentage of its employees. Granted, with the police someone can get hurt if not killed. But I also believe that there are damages at least as harmful, although not physical per se, because of the bad or incompetent people employed as teachers, judges, lawyers, government officers, meat inspectors, engineers, etc. -- people society is heavily dependent upon for health and well-being and even safety. The physical abuses are a lot more visible, sensationalist, and obvious. But things like white collar crime, cronyism, protectionism, and corruption just don't make good television and YouTube clips.
To think otherwise, IMO, is to be as guilty as the parent who sends their kid to college and then gets "shocked" that crimes are committed on campus -- as if criminal behavior universally disappears in humanity if you give the potential assailant a university library card.
But the media are always going to seek out the horror stories of abuses. And to think that abuses are 100% preventable is a bit unrealistic, don't you think? I mean, we'd be holding police officers to far higher standards than the priesthood -- and they're off kiddie diddling six-year-olds for crying out loud.
Not to exonerate it in any way. Not to say some checks and balances shouldn't be put in place. I think internal affair organizations, while not entirely effective, a good step towards external regulation of what can be a fraternal affair. (Afterall, we're dealing with a president who thinks he doesn't have to abide to his country's own constitution.)
But my point is that I cannot think of any single job or profession where there isn't incompetence, abuse, misuse, bad behavior, illegal behavior, etc., in some derelict percentage of its employees. Granted, with the police someone can get hurt if not killed. But I also believe that there are damages at least as harmful, although not physical per se, because of the bad or incompetent people employed as teachers, judges, lawyers, government officers, meat inspectors, engineers, etc. -- people society is heavily dependent upon for health and well-being and even safety. The physical abuses are a lot more visible, sensationalist, and obvious. But things like white collar crime, cronyism, protectionism, and corruption just don't make good television and YouTube clips.
To think otherwise, IMO, is to be as guilty as the parent who sends their kid to college and then gets "shocked" that crimes are committed on campus -- as if criminal behavior universally disappears in humanity if you give the potential assailant a university library card.
Well, I wouldn't say that if you criticize one thing then that obligates you to bring up everything else that is wrong. It's perfectly okay to take it one thing at a time. And just because there are many other transgressions happening that doesn't make these abuses any less serious.
But to answer your challenge, I have expressed my fairly nonambiguous opinions on some of the things that you mention, most of the time that got no response from anyone. So it's not just me selecting this topic to talk about, people are making the choice too when they get involved in it.
But to answer your challenge, I have expressed my fairly nonambiguous opinions on some of the things that you mention, most of the time that got no response from anyone. So it's not just me selecting this topic to talk about, people are making the choice too when they get involved in it.
I hear you. And I don't think offenders should ever be let off the hook -- particularly by the public when its the community they are supposed to serve, afterall.
And it's never an excuse to say, "Well, this can't be that bad because those guys are worse!" But I know a lot of people who have it out for police in general, a few good cops aside, but without even recognizing their double standard for them versus other important positions in society -- and being blind to how those other positions are screwing them over at least as much with their complicit, albeit passive, approval.
And I also know a lot of people who are adamant supporters of three strikes laws to put away "those evildoers" for life while they happily go along cheating on their taxes or slapping around their spouse, thinking nothing of it, and making no connection to their own capacity for criminal behavior.
Perhaps we should have a program that allows every citizen to be a cop for a day -- and particularly many of the bitchers and whiners. But something tells me that would be much more of a social evil than a social good in the long run.
And it's never an excuse to say, "Well, this can't be that bad because those guys are worse!" But I know a lot of people who have it out for police in general, a few good cops aside, but without even recognizing their double standard for them versus other important positions in society -- and being blind to how those other positions are screwing them over at least as much with their complicit, albeit passive, approval.
And I also know a lot of people who are adamant supporters of three strikes laws to put away "those evildoers" for life while they happily go along cheating on their taxes or slapping around their spouse, thinking nothing of it, and making no connection to their own capacity for criminal behavior.
Perhaps we should have a program that allows every citizen to be a cop for a day -- and particularly many of the bitchers and whiners. But something tells me that would be much more of a social evil than a social good in the long run.
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