GeorgiaDon

Somehow, that has prompted a release of serotonin that makes me feel so good I think I'll head home, light a fire in the fireplace, and pour myself a nice rum and coke. Lawyer! Me? (shudder!). Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Really interesting question! I would say that the War of 1812 is under-appreciated in terms of its long-term consequences: it largely established the US/Canada border, secured the Ohio Valley/Midwest and the Oregon coast as US territory, and ended British support of the Native tribes. From a Native American perspective the war was a disaster, leading eventually to such disasters as the Trail of Tears. On the other hand it ended British expansionist hopes in North America, and (in the eyes of the European powers) legitimized the US as a "real" country. On another hand, WWII spawned the military-industrial complex that dominates the US economy to this day, and led to the rise of the US as a global superpower. All the various entanglements that the US has become ensnared in as the "worlds police", initially against communism and later many other issues, and the subsequent attention from terrorist groups followed from that. Not to be forgotten is the US role as defender of Israel, the creation of which also has roots in WWII, which is also closely tied to the enmity of many Islamic terrorist groups. Of course, the conflict with communism and later the "War on Terrorism" greatly fueled the development of the surveillance society and Patriot Act erosion of civil liberties. In terms of impact on today's US economy and culture, I'd say I'd have to put WWII first. But, I need to think more about the Civil War; that one is still echoing around the country in certain ways. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Because if they meant to say, "particulates from coal burning plants are causitive agents of pulmonary damage in 10% pulmonary patients living within 10 miles of a plant" then they would have said it. Instead of "been linked to." So, why didn't they just say it's causative? Make a stand. "Been linked to" isn't falsifiable, is it? It's a qualified statement. Actually, if they included the reference to the study that established that "particulates from coal burning plants are causitive agents of pulmonary damage in 10% pulmonary patients living within 10 miles of a plant", that should be sufficient. If one has to include, as a phrase within each sentence, the whole abstract (or worse yet, the entire document) of every paper that relates to the statement, the document would become unintelligible. Perhaps lawyers do think like this, which may be why it seems to be impossible to generate a law that isn't 5,000 pages long. "Normal" person: "Nice day, isn't it?" Lawrocket: The sun being 5.347 degrees from the zenith, and there being only a few thin stratocirrus clouds in the sky that reduce insolation by only 0.4%, the ambient atmosphere has warmed to 82.6 degrees Fahrenheit. This clement set of environmental conditions, coupled with the unexpected favorable resolution of a case I had anticipated putting much work into, and the excellent latte I just consumed, plus the subjective notion that my wife is hotter than your wife, has resulted in a release of serotonin in my frontal cortex that has produced a feeling of well-being and satiation. Does your subjective experience correlate with this? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Please enlighten us on the rap sheet of that 12-year-old kid. Please enlighten us on the rap sheet of Akai Gurley, who was killed "by accident" by a nervous cop as he used a stairwell. Certainly, many police shootings can be justified. Unfortunately there are also many that were completely unnecessary. I find it pretty appalling that so many people are so willing to write off the lives of all the people who are killed or injured by the police with the blanket assumption that they must have been bad guys and stupid to boot. Don Google is your friend. ChuckAs it is yours. So I guess we can just put you down as being fine and dandy with kids, and people who are doing nothing wrong, who are not being arrested or even spoken to by the police, just using a stairwell, being gunned down. Nice. I suspect you treat your cattle better than you think people should be treated. I'd thought better of you somehow. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Please enlighten us on the rap sheet of that 12-year-old kid. Please enlighten us on the rap sheet of Akai Gurley, who was killed "by accident" by a nervous cop as he used a stairwell. Certainly, many police shootings can be justified. Unfortunately there are also many that were completely unnecessary. I find it pretty appalling that so many people are so willing to write off the lives of all the people who are killed or injured by the police with the blanket assumption that they must have been bad guys and stupid to boot. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Confusing someone trying to pull a pill container out of their pocket with someone trying to pull a gun out of their pocket seems fairly easy to me. Perhaps you have super-vision and are able to discern what people have in their pockets. Once you are actually wrestling with a police officer, trying to pull something (anything) out of your pocket is a really stupid move. I'm sure you are aware that I have been very critical of the police regarding some incidents. That does not mean I think they should meekly allow themselves to be shot. I would not favor a rule that allows criminals to take the first shot, so the police can be sure beyond any doubt that the person they are dealing with is armed and means to harm them. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Another case where some sort of recording device on the officer would be helpful in corroborating accounts of what happened. Personally, I'm not willing to jump to any judgement about this incident. Police do have a right to defend themselves, and they do not have x-ray eyes. Lets see what the forensics say. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Absolutely, we both agree on that. And we agree that it is not reasonable to expect people to make the correct decision (which is to say, the same decision we would come to if we had all the facts and none of the stress) all the time. I would even concede that the majority of the incidents that raise controversy are not the result of overt racism, though I do think more subtle forms of racism influence police reactions by increasing stress. I think a lot of the problems we have been seeing are due to a police culture that increasingly prizes aggressive action, and puts officers into situations where split-second decisions have to be made. The case of the 12-year-old kid is a good example. We can also look at the increasing frequency of SWAT team tactics, where SWAT teams are even being used against suspected office pools where friends place small bets on sports games, and on parties where police suspect underage drinking. Link: http://www.salon.com/2013/07/07/%E2%80%9Cwhy_did_you_shoot_me_i_was_reading_a_book_the_new_warrior_cop_is_out_of_control/ [sorry I had to paste the link like this, but when I embed it, when you click on it it just goes to a generic Salon Magazine page not the actual article for some reason]. I think we have a problem when people in general fear the police, even people who are doing nothing wrong. I think we have a problem when it frequently seems that law enforcement has come to believe that the end justifies the means and that the constitution (particularly the 4th amendment) is just an impediment to be ignored when possible. [see the Salon article I linked for many examples, such as where police forces deliberately avoid the need to get a warrant by pretending to be enforcing business license regulations as a pretext to send SWAT teams to raid barber shops and nightclubs]. I think we have a problem when dead people, whose lethal crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or a failure to react quickly enough to a command, are regarded as "justifiable" and "unfortunate collateral damage". I think we have a problem when the police are almost never held to account for anything they do, no matter how egregious. At worst a lawsuit may result in money paid to families of victims of police excesses, but that money is paid by taxpayers (=us) and never impacts the wallets of police departments or individual police officers. I think we have a problem when at least some police no longer regard themselves as part of the community, but rather as the lords and masters, the "sheep-dogs" whose role it is to keep the "sheep" in line (to reference an earlier thread). Not only does this attitude breed contempt for our basic civil rights, it encourages police departments to do things such as become a kleptocracy, using sketchy civil forfeiture laws to help themselves to the lawful property of innocent citizens. I think these things, and I'm a well educated upper middle class white guy. I can well imagine that people who are less advantaged are even more skeptical of the "good intentions" of the police. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Very excellent! Did you get to watch the launch? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I'm OK with Anvil's explanation that autocorrect improved his memory from merely photographic to photogenic. I've had autocorrect do worse things to my texts, though I generally proofread them before sending. On the other hand: Reasonable people don't swoop in the middle of unpredictable traffic. It sounds as if you are excusing swoopers (cops) spiraling and doing 360s in traffic and flying into/killing jumpers. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

See my reply to Anvil above. What do you say? Should the guy quit his job, because the police keep arresting him for trespassing while he is at work, even dismissing out of hand the store owner as he explains that the guy really is an employee? Should the store owner have to relocate to a "more suitable location" (in the eyes of the police) so he doesn't make "the community" uncomfortable by attracting black employees and customers to come into a mall in a "white neighborhood"? I suppose that's true. However, I think anyone would have to have the patience of Job to be arrested over and over for no good reason, just because the police think you "don't belong", and never once say anything. Apparently complaining about harassment is "resisting arrest" and is justification for the police killing you. Convictions have everything to do with it. Multiple arrests on fabricated charges are a great tool to harass people and force them to move, or quit their job, or relocate their store. In the Florida case the guy was arrested 62 times, with just 1 actual conviction, for misdemeanor marijuana possession. Obvious harassment. Garner was arrested 30 times, but how many of those resulted in convictions? I have been able to learn of just one, for selling cigarettes, but all the media stories only mention his arrest record and not any actual convictions. Especially in areas that practice "broken windows" policing, you can accumulate an impressive arrest record without being a criminal. If you have the audacity to be a minority living in a dominantly white neighborhood you can accumulate an arrest record, and even get shot by police, without being a criminal. Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty in court"? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Complete horse shit, you don't get arrested 30 times because you happened to be standing next to someone that got arrested and they picked you up to as a precaution. If your ass gets arrested 30 times your doing something illegal, or hanging around the wrong place while others are doing illegal things. Either way after 30 times you should have started to try to figure out why its happening and change it. Stop coming up with excuses for criminals. Here is a recent (November 2013) case of a guy who has has been arrested for trespassing 62 times, and taken to jail 56 times, while at his workplace. Even when the store owner told the police the guy was an employee the police responded "yeah right" and still arrested the guy and hauled him away. This employee is not the only one to be targeted, other employees and even customers have been arrested just for being in the store. The police have also repeatedly conducted searches of the store without a warrant, but have never found anything illegal. The harassment was so severe the owner installed surveillance cameras specifically to try to protect himself... against the police! The police justification for this? That they are trying to reduce crime by cracking down on anything they feel is "suspicious" or "out of place". In this case, a black employee working in a store (owned by a guy with a middle eastern name) in a mall in a white neighborhood. It's pretty obvious, not subtle at all in fact, that by stopping, searching, and arresting employees and customers simply for being in the store the police are trying to force the store owner out of the mall. What do you think should be done? Should the store relocate, as the police obviously wish, just to avoid bringing black employees and customers into a mall with mostly white customers and store owners? Or should the police have to respect US citizen's constitutional right to work and shop wherever they wish? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

One would think that after 30 plus times you he should have known how to play the game. Had Mr. Garner not deviated from his usual game plan, he would have lived to be locked up another day.Arrests does not equal convictions. You can get arrested for just hanging around in the wrong place. One consequence of "broken windows" policing is that people get rounded up as a "precaution". Do you (or anyone) know what Mr. Garner's actual conviction record was? All I am aware of is that at the time of his death he was on probation for selling cigarettes. Some people have said that you should acquiesce to the police and trust the courts to sort things out. However I can imagine that if I was constantly being hassled in my own neighborhood, arrested and dragged down to the police station on this or that "suspicion", I too might complain. I have read that Mr. Garner was being arrested on a "suspicion" that he "might" have sold cigarettes, but I've seen nothing about the reason for that suspicion. Since it's not illegal to have cigarettes on your person, was he actually observed selling, or was he just being hassled because shopkeepers didn't like him hanging around. I have never heard of the police being disciplined in any way for arresting people without sufficient cause, so to me saying "don't complain, and let the courts take care of it" rings a bit hollow. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Unless your gonna start making me dinner I dont need to hear your sarcasm. Im sorry I was reading it on my phone and did not see the dates... Since I have no plans to make you dinner I'll accept that you missed the part where I said March 2013. The more interesting point is, I think, that apparently in the Cleveland police force, and I would suggest this occurs elsewhere as well, poor training and supervision has allowed "poor and dangerous tactics that place officers in situations where avoidable force becomes inevitable" to become common. It's tempting to ascribe police shootings of unarmed people or the mentally ill to racism, but I think there can be non-racist reasons behind the trend. Elsewhere people have mentioned changes in police tactics post-Columbine. I could speculate about the influence of militarization of the police. Whatever the cause or causes, it seems obvious to me that tactics that consistently put officers in a situation where they have to make a snap judgement will result in a lot of unnecessary civilian deaths or serious injuries, because officers (being human) will often seek to protect themselves rather than take a chance. The result is a shooting that is "justified" (in the sense that the officer was genuinely in fear for his/her life) but totally unnecessary (in that if the officer hadn't put themselves in a situation where they had to make a snap decision they would have realized was a kid goofing around with a toy, or some schmuck using the stairs instead of the elevator). I also suspect that individual departments take on a culture, be it Rambo-like or safety minded, driven by the "management" and by dominant personalities on the force. If you have a culture that overlooks or excuses "mistakes" and develops a taste for adrenalin (no-knock warrants, lots of physicality in dealing with "perps", mocking officers who "play it safe") then lots of "mistakes" will be made. On the other hand a culture of safety, with review of "incidents" and weeding out of people who are in policing for the adrenalin or other inappropriate reasons, or have a history of poor decision making, will result in fewer "mistakes" being made. Not all that different from DZs, really. Useful comparisons can be made to aviation/skydiving accidents too. Most incidents result from a chain of poor decisions, each one perhaps not too egregious, but added together result in catastrophe. The catastrophe would likely have been avoided if the chain of poor decisions had been broken at any point, but once you find yourself in the corner without any outs and too low you're screwed. If you think of these "excessive force" incidents there is also a chain of decisions (except sometimes 2 people are each making decisions) and a point of no return (when the officer has just a second to make a decision). If better training and discipline results in officers finding themselves in the corner and out of altitude less often we'll all be better off. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I agree with the sheriff, and thought he was very well spoken. It's interesting that the media picked up on the "hands in pockets" thing (and it's unfortunate that the police officer even mentioned it) when the relevant part is that the man walked back and forth six or seven times while staring into the store. Evidently the man had an innocent reason to do so, but I can't blame someone who has already been robbed at gunpoint seven times from being concerned #8 is imminent. It seems to me the shopkeeper had a valid reason to be nervous, and after some initial awkwardness the police officer and the "suspect" had a civil discussion and the matter was resolved. Everything went just as it should have. On the other hand it is interesting how such a non-event can be "spun" to generate "controversy", all in the interest of generating "looks" (or "clicks") and market share. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

From my post you responded to: Let me make it very simple for you: March 2013 until now is just over 1 year and 8 months. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

From Andy's post: "The cause of Garner's death was "compression of neck (choke hold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police," the medical examiner's office has said. Speaking involves exhaling. It is entirely conceivable that someone lying on their belly, with the weight of one or several police officers on their back, would be able to exhale even with pressure applied to their throat (and so be able to speak a few words), but not inhale. I'm sure you realize that not inhaling = asphyxiation. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Feds blast Cleveland police practices! From the article (underlining added by me for emphasis): "The investigation found that the department employs "poor and dangerous tactics that place officers in situations where avoidable force becomes inevitable." The Justice Department concluded that Cleveland's officers are not provided "adequate training, policy guidance, support, and supervision. Additionally, systems of review that would identify problems and correct institutional weaknesses and provide individual accountability are seriously deficient." " This fits perfectly with the incident this thread is about. The kid is dead because of a sequence of bad decisions, some certainly by the kid/kid's family [removing orange cap from air gun; using air gun as a toy in a public area] and some by the police [overly aggressive tactics that put officer in a position without any "outs"; startling the kid and then allowing him less than a second to hear and obey a command apparently yelled at him 3 times in under a second from just a couple of feet away (I defy anyone to hear, understand, and react correctly if I was to scream "get your hands up" 3 times in 1 second right in their ear); issuing a firearm to an officer with such a poor training record (see Ryoder's post above)]. Note that the federal review of the Cleveland police started in March 2013 in response to "a number of high profile use of force incidents and requests from the community and local government to investigate the division." Mayor Frank Jackson requested the investigation after a controversial police chase and shooting that killed two people in December 2012. (from the linked article)." This report was not a knee-jerk response to the shooting of the kid, rather it's clear that the incident with the kid is just part and parcel of a long-standing pattern of excessively aggressive police behavior in Cleveland. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Just be sure to never ever make a joke about anything, because you know those NSA folks are not known for their sense of humor. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Would that be the North Pole, the South Pole, or a stripper's pole? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

As is yours on the right. Doesn't it wear you out to take everything so literally? When you go to a movie, do you realize what you are watching is just storytelling? All that Star Wars flying around in spaceships, you do realize that was just fantasy right? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Seriously? Are you really that humor deprived? It's an obvious joke, a play on "vote early and vote often". It sometimes seems to me that conservatives only see humor when it involves inflicting pain on "takers" or small animals. Perhaps after they get done disenfranchising everyone who doesn't think or look like them they'll get around to reviving burning people at the stake. Now that was good old-fashioned family fun! Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Assuming the video is in real time, there was about 1 second (literally) between when the police car stopped and when the kid was shot. I very much doubt the kid had the slightest idea of what was happening. It was hard to watch that video, seeing this bored kid wandering around pretending to shoot at things, and knowing he was going to end up dead. I'll stand by my earlier comments about playing with realist-looking toy guns in a public place, but I really have to question police protocols here. The way they approached the situation, it seems the outcome was all but guaranteed. Once again we see a situation sprung by surprise on someone, and they are given less than a second to understand what is going on and respond exactly the right way, or they are dead. Not much different from the old guy with a cane who was shot in his own driveway because he couldn't get out of his car fast enough for the cop. I can think of many ways this situation could have been handled differently and the kid would be alive today. If they wanted to provoke a police shooting they could hardly have contrived a better setup, pulling up right beside the kid and then opening the door so the cop has no cover and has no choice but to make a split second decision. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

However, most parliamentary-style democracies are also multi-party systems, sometimes to a fault. Sometimes a single party wins an outright majority, but more often no one party holds a majority and they can rule only by forming a coalition with other parties. The price for such a coalition is that the smaller parties also get to bring some of their legislative priorities to the table. In Canada, universal health insurance and other social programs made it into law largely because the NDP (New Democratic Party) held the balance of power and so was able to leverage the Liberal Party to enact NDP policies. The combination of a parliamentary system with multiple political parties allows a diversity of political perspectives to be voiced. Of course, when a party holds an outright majority then they can enact legislation without considering other points of view, that is true. I also like the idea of "question period", when the leader of the government has to take questions/criticism from the opposition, and must respond. I often wondered how Bush Jr. would have fared if he had to regularly appear for "question period", though I'm sure his father would have done well with it. The US is about the only democracy I can think of that is rigidly locked into a two party system. One problem with that is that everybody mainly triangulates on winning, which means 50% plus one vote; everybody has a locked-in base they can depend on, and ends up fighting over the small fraction of voters in the middle. Neither party can risk bringing anything really new or different to the policy table. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

How many times do we have to learn the lesson that guns are not toys? Is there any valid reason why toy guns, or BB guns, have to be made visually indistinguishable from real guns? An orange bit that can scratch or break off doesn't cut it. Why can't there be a requirement that toys be made of yellow/red/green material, anything but black. Something immediately visible, and that can't wear off or easily be altered, apart from intentionally painting the thing black. This whole situation just sucks, for the kid (obviously) and for the cop. Even if the cop was told everything that was told to the 911 operator, how would that have changed things? There is someone pointing a gun at people; the "someone" might or might not be a juvenile, and the gun might or might not be real. If the cop assumes the gun is not real, and is wrong, the result could be that a bystander or the cop ends up dead. Heck of a way to find out the gun was real. 12-year-olds can look like little kids, and they can look 20, it all depends on if they hit that adolescent growth spurt a bit early or a bit late and how they are dressed. It's easy to see how a kid, or anybody, might jump the wrong way when someone screams "hand's up"; if their instinct is to throw the source of the problem (the toy gun) away or take it out to show it's just a toy then it's game over. Sign of the times maybe, but playing with a realistic looking gun in a public place is a great recipe for disaster. Every parent must know this. Better than giving your kid a toy gun, get them an appropriate real one and teach them how to use it responsibly. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)