Thank you. From you, that's a compliment. It says you're incapable of responding to posts, you're particularly hostile toward women posters, you've got nothing else but empty flames, and you're trying to fill in for Soma, The Flashlight, et al. Keep up the good work!
Did you see how those violent thugs bullied that poor white boy while he was expressing himself at that evil glass window? They made him walk away in shame. They treated that white kid like the nazis treated the jews. Oh sorry, I was channeling @Marso .
I heard he totally murder that note. That is a thug and they all need to be arrested for abusing that song! Jeeezus christ I need some drugs to stop me from channeling @Marso.
Government overreach creates dependency on government, at least in the social welfare area. If you're dependent on a government check to survive, and that check gets taken away should you get a job, even if that job provides you with less than the government check did, then you have no incentive to get a job or do anything other than collect the check and vote for whoever promises to make it bigger. You demand ever more services, leading to ever more overreach, leading to ever higher taxes (or ever higher deficits, take your pick). More services also means more administration, meaning more bureaucracy. The burden on the citizens grows ever larger in terms of taxes extracted, economic activity suppressed due to capital being unavailable because it's tied up in servicing government debt, and regulations to support all of the above. This is every bit as true for corporations as it is for individuals. Corporations, many of them, depend on government to a greater or lesser degree. They lobby for more government support. That support gets paid for the same way government pays for everything else, thru taxes. There are legitimate government functions. They're spelled out pretty clearly in the Constitution. However, since the Constitution is a compromise document, it is not perfect and contains "wiggle room," such as the interstate commerce clause, which has been used repeatedly to justify the federal government extending itself into areas where it has no Constitutional legitimacy. To give just a small example, the FCC. This agency's only real legitimate purpose is apportioning the RF spectrum for all the various uses we put it to - television, radio, radar, garage door openers, wifi, etc. Basically, you need a central authority to make sure two radio stations aren't operating on the same frequency with the same modulation at the same time in the same area. BUT, the FCC also regulates content and licenses broadcasters, neither of which functions have a Constitutional basis. Indeed, a federal government body regulating broadcast content is a direct violation of the First Amendment, amounting to prior restraint. Imagine if they were regulating the content of newspapers and books . . . the screaming would be off the charts. Go back and read both the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers. They're highly instructive. The anti-federalists were actually right in a lot of cases, even tho Hamilton and friends mostly debunked them at the time. Given human nature, you have to have government of some kind to keep the monkeys from flinging too much poo at each other. And if you're going to have government, it needs to be funded, which means taxes. But since I believe in personal liberty (which also means personal responsibility, for those of you who need this explained) then government must be restrained and be kept as small and "weak" as is practical. Because governments left unchecked always, always arrogate to themselves ever greater power and control over the governed. Always. This, incidentally, is why the Bill of Rights does not grant rights to us. It recognizes rights that are inherent to being human and restrains the government from infringing upon them. What we're witnessing now under President Shithead is what happens when a government that has too much power is given into the hands of fools and criminals. Too many of our citizens have wanted to grant government ever-increasing power and authority under a short-sighted desire to have it "fix" things that they think need fixing. Neither side, left or right, ever seems to consider that the powers it gives to government to fix things can also be used to wreck things. Certain people are worse at this than others, going further and assuming that their "side" will always be the one making the decisions and that they personally will always be aligned with the "correct" side. Or in other words, the "right people" will be in charge. Well, now we have the most definitely wrong people in charge. And all those yummy, satisfying powers and authorities so eagerly handed over are being used incorrectly. So that's the core of my argument. Boiled down to absolute basics, it can be stated that government cannot be trusted and must be restrained. Every time you expand it for what you think is a good reason, you're giving it powers that will inevitably be turned against you. Or as somebody smarter than me once said, power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I am starting to realize police Unions are really protecting the racists and bad apples from properly being disposed of. There is certainly a reason to protect police, but we also have to be able to remove the bad ones.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/poli...igation-helicopters-floyd-protests/index.html so about this incident: not a fan. From an aviation safety standpoint it was FUBAR. It was the very definition of high risk, low reward. Put the fact aside that they used a medical bird for this maneuver - it may have been the only bird readily available. But using any helicopter to hover over a large crowd of civilians with tall buildings and trees around is an accident waiting to happen. It endangers the pilots and flight crew as well as the folks on the ground. And in this case it did not put the fear of god into the crowd, it just annoyed and endangered them. Using a helicopter to seriously intimidate people works great if you are, for example, flying an armed Apache twenty feet above the highway to keep civilian vehicles away from your military vehicle convoy in Iraq - compliance is pretty much assured. But this was just.... Granted there could be an explanation for why this bird was hovering so low and for such an extended period of time - but I would be very interested in hearing it.
Cool, but your original claim was: In Libertopia how would cops be less aggressive? In Libertopia how would there be less entrenched racism? If your answer is that there would be less cops/less militarized cops then I would ask why that requires less government? There are plenty of countries with "larger" government than the US that don't have such a militarised society, and plenty with smaller governments that do, so there doesn't seem to be evidence of correlation.
USA : Has mass protests, prompted by centuries of inequality and ongoing racist treatment by authorities and society at large, a lack of social mobility distressingly low by Western standards resulting in generations of families seeing themselves missing out on the benefits of progress. The response from authorities weighted by the militarization of society where vast amounts of money and lives are funnelled into the most powerful military industrial complex the world has ever seen, with so much spare capacity for killing that excess hardware is basically thrown at barely trained law enforcement who train knowing that random civilians themselves could be carrying around military grade weapons. : ThIs Is BeCaUsE tHeRe'S tOo MuCh WeLfArE!
I take it back Lanz, you were right. This is being made worse by people thinking their government will help them:
First time I've watched one of these in a while. "Get me a Diet Coke, a bucket of chicken, five Big Macs, and a pound of fries!"
They have to be careful with this. Qualified immunity can be reformed, but I don't think it needs to be eliminated completely. Eliminate it completely and you're going to see good cops walk off the job. Trying to make good calls in legally nebulous situations is what every patrol officer does every day in every incident. Qualified immunity was never intended to protect those who violate constitutional rights or break established law. Thus, I do think it can be reformed. It was intended to protect officers who made good faith efforts to enforce the law in uncertain circumstances. The example that just popped into my head is thus: I've said before that the local PD's policy, which is in line with State law, is that domestic violence situations (without obvious injury) typically won't result in an arrest unless the victim is willing to be driven to City Hall in a police unit and put before a Magistrate to swear out a warrant against the attacker. The reason behind that is that 90% of the cases were being dropped because the victim wanted the police to make the attacker "stop" (whatever that means), but the victim didn't want the attacker arrested. Now, with qualified immunity, the police can still arrest the attacker if it's warranted (obvious injuries, etc). But, take away qualified immunity and the arresting officer can personally be sued (to the point of losing their house and job) if the victim recants their story or worse, perjures themselves. Both of which I've seen happen. Good cops are good cops, but they're not going to put their family's well-being at risk on the job.
My prediction is that, without qualified immunity, misdemeanor arrests (which include a lot of violent crimes), will drop to near zero. I wouldn't arrest anyone without having the victim meet with a Magistrate and have an order issued first. Police have discretion on whether or not to arrest barring a written order from any court with jurisdiction or a verbal order from a Judge (not a Magistrate). Truth be told, I would probably just find another line of work. That's the likely outcome at the end of the day. I'm not going to risk the food in my son's belly and the roof over my son's head on a good faith misdemeanor arrest gone sideways. So, crimes go unpunished and a good cop walks off the job. Now multiply that by a few tens of thousands.
