(May 15, 2016 at 12:54 pm)Wyrd of Gawd Wrote:

(May 15, 2016 at 4:44 am)Bella Morte Wrote: You really hate cops, don't you? Let me guess, you got rejected from the academy or something?

Cops are the 1%'ers thugs.  There might be twelve good cops on the entire planet.

That's not fair at all. Look, I doubt anyone here has as much justification to lash out at police officers as I do. But I don't, because your assessment is in no way congruent with reality. Just like with bikers (from whence you get that 1%'ers tag), there are a small number of them who are deliberate thugs, bad actors who seek to use their authority to harm others. The other 99% are just Joe Schmoes, trying to make a living and feed their families. Trying to blame the Joes for the actions of the 1% is like saying I'm a biker thug because I've been riding motorcycles all my adult life, live a motorcycling lifestyle, and call myself a biker.

The problem with the police comes in from the pressure that is put on the Joes by the people with vested interests in a corrupt system: prosecutors who "nudge" them to "say the right thing" to attain a conviction, bosses who promote those willing to bend the rules, and as a result of those promotions, a training cadre full of those promoted thugs that encourages in the Joes an ongoing culture of "us versus them" that dehumanizes the suspects being interrogated. Most cops aren't racist, but in practice their actions appear to be because of the way they've been taught to see things, and handle situations. 

The more corruption in the leadership and associated apparatus of the police department, the worse results you will get from that department. Unfortunately, the American pursuit of the Drug War and the War on Crime have turned the mindset completely around, until the people we have repressed into economic desperation are seen as The Enemy™. That's what a war is-- an us, and an enemy.

Turning the lower classes against one another and frightening the "Middle Class" (who are often just one bad paycheck away from dropping back down into the lower classes) into supporting the interests of the upper classes simply works too well, here. They have been broadcasting propaganda to suit that agenda for decades, now, and only with the advent of modern, portable videocameras and smartphones that can upload the information without going through a media outlet have we started to see the cracks in the edifice.

Maybe things will change. But blaming the cops who are, to my eyes, victims just as much as the people born into the desperation of inescapable poverty in a country where one's value is equated with their net worth, is not going to solve it. It will only harden the resolve of the people who have been told that the police are heroes, no matter what they're "required to do". Understanding the problems in the system does not require blaming the men and women who fall for it. Just my $0.02 on the matter.

(May 15, 2016 at 1:52 pm)Aroura Wrote: There are people in this thread who could use a little enlightenment, but even then, calling them animals and for them to be treated like animals won't fix those problem, will it?  It'll only piss them off and make them double down on their opinion.

It's good to keep in mind that most of the prisoners are getting out at some point. Maybe after a couple of years, maybe after a stretch of 20. What happened to them behind bars will make all the difference. Were they raped, were they treated inhumanely, were they exposed to violence running unchecked? Did they get the opportunity to educate themselves? The person that comes out will be a different person than the one that got in in any case. It's in societies best interest to not create mental cases but to try to reform them and offer them a new chance in life.

(May 15, 2016 at 3:13 pm)abaris Wrote:

(May 15, 2016 at 1:52 pm)Aroura Wrote: There are people in this thread who could use a little enlightenment, but even then, calling them animals and for them to be treated like animals won't fix those problem, will it?  It'll only piss them off and make them double down on their opinion.

It's good to keep in mind that most of the prisoners are getting out at some point. Maybe after a couple of years, maybe after a stretch of 20. What happened to them behind bars will make all the difference. Were they raped, were they treated inhumanely, were they exposed to violence running unchecked? Did they get the opportunity to educate themselves? The person that comes out will be a different person than the one that got in in any case. It's in societies best interest to not create mental cases but to try to reform them and offer them a new chance in life.

Absolutely, which is why I said our entire system is fucked up.
I do not believe in incarceration as a form of punishment. I don't even believe in punishment as a form of corrections.

Corrections should offer help. Things like rehab, education, job training, counseling and support. Not lock up a person in a place that makes them, if anything, worse off in the end.

But many people think justice means punishment, and/or revenge. It is hard to talk them out of that notion when it is a part of their fundamental belief system.

(Edited for spelling from a mobile!  lol)

@Rocket

That 1% of "bad cops" are -also- regular Joe Schmoes, trying to make a living and support their families. They've responded to hundreds, if not thousands of calls. They've helped people in need. They've been the good guys....and then.....

It's comforting, maybe, to imagine that they're horrible people with murderous hearts....but that's probably not how institutional violence or oppression works (it's hard to see how it could work at all unless you could count on the "good guys" to tow the line just as well as the "bad guys"). Personally, I had to come to terms with the fact that I was (and remain) -somone's- jackbooted thug, and -also- all of the rest that makes me, me. It's not an a or b proposition. Not saints or sinners. Perhaps we've simply set them up? We grant authority, immunity...and hand them a gun. If they respond to enough calls...it's only a matter of time.

Hehehe, to quote D'angelo, "aint no justice, just us".

(May 15, 2016 at 3:44 pm)Aroura Wrote: I do not believe in incarceration as a form of punishment. I don't even believe in punishment as a form of corrections.

Oh, I do believe that certain people have to be removed from society. For how long is up for debate. I do believe however that the ultimate goal of any incarceration has to be correction. Let them get some degree, let them train at some job, offer them medical help if they're hooked on some drug. Try to make them fit for society. Most crimes are commited because the perps haven't got any perspective in life, because they need money for drugs.

(May 15, 2016 at 4:40 pm)abaris Wrote:

(May 15, 2016 at 3:44 pm)Aroura Wrote: I do not believe in incarceration as a form of punishment. I don't even believe in punishment as a form of corrections.

Oh, I do believe that certain people have to be removed from society. For how long is up for debate. I do believe however that the ultimate goal of any incarceration has to be correction. Let them get some degree, let them train at some job, offer them medical help if they're hooked on some drug. Try to make them fit for society. Most crimes are commited because the perps haven't got any perspective in life, because they need money for drugs.

You can remove people form society, but PUNISHMENT should not be the reason.  It should be to keep society safe, given no better options.

I only disagree with it as a form of punishment, I don't disagree with it entirely.

(May 15, 2016 at 2:53 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote:

(May 15, 2016 at 12:54 pm)Wyrd of Gawd Wrote: Cops are the 1%'ers thugs.  There might be twelve good cops on the entire planet.

That's not fair at all. Look, I doubt anyone here has as much justification to lash out at police officers as I do. But I don't, because your assessment is in no way congruent with reality. Just like with bikers (from whence you get that 1%'ers tag), there are a small number of them who are deliberate thugs, bad actors who seek to use their authority to harm others. The other 99% are just Joe Schmoes, trying to make a living and feed their families. Trying to blame the Joes for the actions of the 1% is like saying I'm a biker thug because I've been riding motorcycles all my adult life, live a motorcycling lifestyle, and call myself a biker.

The problem with the police comes in from the pressure that is put on the Joes by the people with vested interests in a corrupt system: prosecutors who "nudge" them to "say the right thing" to attain a conviction, bosses who promote those willing to bend the rules, and as a result of those promotions, a training cadre full of those promoted thugs that encourages in the Joes an ongoing culture of "us versus them" that dehumanizes the suspects being interrogated. Most cops aren't racist, but in practice their actions appear to be because of the way they've been taught to see things, and handle situations. 

The more corruption in the leadership and associated apparatus of the police department, the worse results you will get from that department. Unfortunately, the American pursuit of the Drug War and the War on Crime have turned the mindset completely around, until the people we have repressed into economic desperation are seen as The Enemy™. That's what a war is-- an us, and an enemy.

Turning the lower classes against one another and frightening the "Middle Class" (who are often just one bad paycheck away from dropping back down into the lower classes) into supporting the interests of the upper classes simply works too well, here. They have been broadcasting propaganda to suit that agenda for decades, now, and only with the advent of modern, portable videocameras and smartphones that can upload the information without going through a media outlet have we started to see the cracks in the edifice.

Maybe things will change. But blaming the cops who are, to my eyes, victims just as much as the people born into the desperation of inescapable poverty in a country where one's value is equated with their net worth, is not going to solve it. It will only harden the resolve of the people who have been told that the police are heroes, no matter what they're "required to do". Understanding the problems in the system does not require blaming the men and women who fall for it. Just my $0.02 on the matter.

I did say that there might be twelve good cops on the entire planet.  The rest are just legal thugs who are easily bribed with a badge, gun, fancy uniform, power to beat people up and even kill them with little or no repercussion, and a steady paycheck and a pension.  It's been that way since the first guy paid his buddies to beat up his competition.  Even the most corrupt cop might do a good deed once in his life but he's still a corrupt thug.  They are the same around the world.  Just thugs with badges.

No one knows better than a former resident of a Max Security prison that there are some people who simply cannot be permitted to roam free in society. There are people who are brought up to believe that if you are able to take it, you have a right to take it, whatever "it" is. In prison, the term for a rape is to, quote, "take the pussy"... it is not a term of endearment, to rapists, who are universally loathed in there, including child molesters. But the reason it's a derisive term is because most prisoners are, given the right circumstances, capable of operating normally in society; because of their background, or because of an addiction, or because of unfortunate situations that emerged, they broke the laws. Yet the latter are treated by the system as being exactly the same as the former.

That's the biggest part of the problem. You break a law, for whatever reason, and you're introduced to a system that has only one answer, and which Does Not Care. You're dropped in among the ones who actually belong there, and forced to live in what amounts to animalistic conditions. When you emerge, you're tagged as a felon and barred from safe housing, from good jobs (there are a few exceptions, if you happen to know or learn a useful trade, such as welding), and you are forever stripped of many your human and civil rights, even though the system claims this is not so. (If you don't believe me, next time you see a person being beaten for no apparent reason by officers on camera, you can bet the story will highlight the fact that the person being assaulted is an ex-convict, hinting that he must, somehow, have "had it coming".) Not only are our prisons so barbaric and cruel that doing time here in the USA is only a fraction above the conditions in some Third World countries, but we lock people up for far longer than is necessary to deter crime.

"Why is that?" You might ask. We launched the "wars" on drugs and crime during the Nixon administration, at a time when groups were agitating for changes to what was happening in our society (e.g. the hippies) and in our ghettoes (e.g. the Black Panthers), which Nixon took as a Major Threat To Western Civilization™, as he saw it. Just give everyone you see with certain mind-enhancing chemicals 30 years, and next thing you know, all the leaders of the movements you loathe are silenced, along with many of their followers and potential recruits. The authorities use the mass incarceration system to systematically suppress groups which don't make our WASP society comfortable... that's why you see even good cops turning into members of the Badged Thugs Gang, when they go into poor neighborhoods, or deal with people who aren't WASP-approved groups. In order to promote the Drug Wars, they have systematically dismantled most of the protections afforded to you by the Constitution, such as the safeguards against illegal search and seizure, in a way that means the wealthy with good lawyers can still count on the Constitutional protections but the rest of us are screwed.

This is why the USA has such a large prison population. We have left entire parts of our citizenry without real hope, in rotten-out areas of our cities and heartland, and then locked up anyone who veers from The One True Path™ for far, far longer than any reasonable person (or any other country other than somewhere like Russia) would deem necessary to "pay back society" for the crime. We treat nonviolent lawbreakers and violent regenerates the same way, resulting in scarred humans coming out of the prison by the hundreds of thousands each year, resulting in what amounts to a permanent underclass (especially since the children of convicts have a 70% likelihood of becoming felons, themselves), due to generational/inherited wealth and privilege gaps. We try to "carpet bomb" the problem with violent police tactics to repress the "troubled" areas, making the distrust of the system and of the police even worse-- this puts the cops in danger (even the good ones) and causes the corrupting factors to skyrocket for even the best officers.

The simple fact is that probably one in four people in prison REALLY NEED TO BE THERE, but the other 3/4ths really don't, or they could pay for their crimes in about a dozen other ways. But that sort of solution does not serve those in power. Until there are enough of us who have friends, family, etc, who get to see the hidden side of the justice system (or more accurately, who see enough to realize that shows like Law & Order are propaganda and outright lies), and demand REAL change, we're going to keep being an embarrassment on the global stage, and in violation of international law on the treatment of prisoners. And the cancer that is eating our urban cores will keep growing and metastasizing with each generation that is born into that trap.

But on the bright side, if you invest in the Corrections Corporation of America (NYSE symbol: CXW) or in prison service companies like Aramark (NYSE symbol: ARMK), to name a couple of examples, you too can profit from the suffering of your fellow human beings.

(May 15, 2016 at 6:10 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: "Why is that?" You might ask. We launched the "wars" on drugs and crime during the Nixon administration, at a time when groups were agitating for changes to what was happening in our society (e.g. the hippies) and in our ghettoes (e.g. the Black Panthers), which Nixon took as a Major Threat To Western Civilization™, as he saw it.

You know, I always asked myself why everything in the USA is turned into a war. Let me give some personal history here. My grand uncle built up the first republican army, formed a socialist militia in the first republic, was one of the leading figures of socialism between the wars, accordingly commanded and fought in the civil war of 1934, fled to Czechoslovakia and when the Spanish civil war broke out, became a republican general there. Yet he emmigrated to the USA, a lifelong socialist, not to the Soviet Union. He felt more at home there.

Something went very much in the wrong direction during the Cold War. Somewhere along the way, the US has developed an Orwellian culture of militarizing society. And this culture is frightening me too to a certain degree, since it very much reminds me of our own past.

(May 15, 2016 at 12:54 pm)Wyrd of Gawd Wrote:

(May 15, 2016 at 4:44 am)Bella Morte Wrote: You really hate cops, don't you? Let me guess, you got rejected from the academy or something?

Cops are the 1%'ers thugs.  There might be twelve good cops on the entire planet.

That's simply not true. Look, I don't usually side with cops on a lot of issues either for a number of reasons, but to call the majority of them thugs is just utterly ridiculous.