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SWAT teams should not be breaking down people's doors at 4AM to arrest one person over a drug charge. And then discovering that they've broken into the wrong house and threatened to kill an innocent family. And sometimes they even kill members of that innocent family.
Police shouldn't be attacking American citizens' homes like it was Osama Bin Ladin's compound.
Making another silly personal attack on me
I don't second guess the need for well-armed police in large population centers like New York City, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, etc. But what raises eyebrows is when in a county that has, for example, 11-13,000 people the police have a armored personnel carrier, automatic weapons w/ military upgrades and other military quality gear. That trend is happening all across the United States in small towns & cities. And while SWAT teams have an invaluable role, their meteoric rise in usage is troubling. It is as though every situation with nails gets a sledgehammer.
I don't second guess the need for well-armed police in large population centers like New York City, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, etc. But what raises eyebrows is when in a county that has, for example, 11-13,000 people the police have a armored personnel carrier, automatic weapons w/ military upgrades and other military quality gear. That trend is happening all across the United States in small towns & cities. And while SWAT teams have an invaluable role, their meteoric rise in usage is troubling. It is as though every situation with nails gets a sledgehammer.
Yes Maggie - back in the Sixties - some forty to fifty years ago, the left was the anti-law enforcement wing. So what made it switch over the last forty to fifty years?
Not desiring to play into the whole RIGHT V LEFT bull****.
But individuals on both sides have distrust for law enforcement in their own way, for their own reasons.
Its not a RIGHT v LEFT issue.
We were just as heavily armed with smaller and less heavily armed police for over a century and few problems.
Obviously you view point is wrong
Obviously you are living in a distant past when the times were "much more simple". In this day and age you can be shot with an uzi if you go to a car to give them a speeding ticket you can be sprayed with countless of bullets from an AK47 when you go to house because of a noise complaint.Gangs, huge spread of heavy weaponry, people with whole stock piles of weapons, extremist groups with no respect for authorities whatsoever, etc. etc. etc.
The time when a lawman was respected and feared by criminals (except with outlaws) is long gone, gangs in American cities have more weapons and troops than the police officers can troop together.
What seems to be left out here is the job "law enforcement." That's traffic control, drunk drivers, accident investigation, vandalism, security at public events, catching speeders, catching reckless drivers, handling nuisance calls, and Community baby sitting in general. Most rural Police forces do a fine job in these areas, but now the Gov't programs want to arm these groups to the max. What gives? What is the gov't expecting? Who did the POLICE support during Occupy Wall Street?
Yet somehow violent crime is still on the decline...
Yet somehow violent crime is still on the decline...
One could anecdotally say that it is BECAUSE of these special weapons and tactics the local law enforcement uses that violent crime is on the decline.
Maybe that has to do with the continuing militarization of the police force?
And yet murder statistic is still worryingly high. The same goes for other violent crime IMHO.
All I'm hearing from you regarding the worst aspects and trends in government is: "EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!!!"
Then you are not reading what I write.
Cops are civilians- you can call them para-quasi-neo military all you want but they are still civilians- what part of civilian do you not understand?
Not desiring to play into the whole RIGHT V LEFT bull****.
But individuals on both sides have distrust for law enforcement in their own way, for their own reasons.
Its not a RIGHT v LEFT issue.
I was attempting to get people to see that this entire police build up of weaponry is as a direct result of a cutback in police officers in forces around the country. And that development was spurred by the right wing desire to limit taxes and cut back on government spending. So now the far right condemns this so called militarization of local police when it was their very own policies which brought it on in the first place.
That was the point.
They can, but they have no basis for it given that the decline long preceded the militarization of the police. There are no statistics to support this, there are far more attributing it to lead.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc is also a fallacy.
Says you, and you're perfectly free to think that despite how much you hate freedom; And I will defend your freedom of thought, even from you. Tory.
It's the government's fault that they CHOOSE to cut back on such things like funding to those types of services instead of cutting back on their OWN wasteful spending. THAT is what people want. For them to stop wasting all of our money, which is exactly what they do. Perhaps if they were better at managing money, they would be able to cut out the waste and leave the important things alone, or even make them more efficient, but instead they'd rather play political blame games, just like you are doing here.
I said one could say anecdotally......
However, its still my position that violent crime is on the decline because police administrators have become more like politicians.......
The COMPSTAT model of crime statistics gathering has created a situation where one can change a crime report to a lower classification to make the appearance that crime has been reduced, this didn't used to happen, but since a higher ranking police administrator's career is dependent upon the appearance that his leadership has had the effect of reducing crime, as well as his political aspirations, it is alot more common than you would think now.
I've seen this happen first hand in my law enforcement days.
They can, but they have no basis for it given that the decline long preceded the militarization of the police. There are no statistics to support this, there are far more attributing it to lead.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc is also a fallacy.
I was attempting to get people to see that this entire police build up of weaponry is as a direct result of a cutback in police officers in forces around the country. And that development was spurred by the right wing desire to limit taxes and cut back on government spending. So now the far right condemns this so called militarization of local police when it was their very own policies which brought it on in the first place.
That was the point.
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