(February 14, 2017 at 3:49 pm)CapnAwesome Wrote: Well I am a full time nomad, so I experience police all over. I've had LE rangers (just another type of cop) straight up steal my private property. Rarely are they good experiences. Mostly they are trying to bust you for little or no reason and not stopping real crime. I'd say 8/10 experiences I have with police are negative ones and the 'positive ones' still involve police harassment, it's just polite. America is over-policed for sure. I think the most frustrating thing is when you are in a meth addled area and some dickwad cop is harassing you over nothing when he's too much of a pussy to stop real crime.
The idea that the police are stopping crime or keeping you safe is bullshit. They don't stop crime, they just investigate afterwards and most of the time don't even do that. From my experience people who support the police are white, middle class, live in the suburbs, go on vacation like tourists. Everybody else gets harassed.
I believe that, in the US, just by watching cop programmes that might be true. Not around here. Portuguese cops tend to be more... humane. They do still fine you and arrest if needed, but they do ask first "sir, you are detained, care to go with us to the station?"