LA County Sheriff, sworn to uphold the law, vows to violate County vaccine mandate

Sounds like an opportunity in disguise. Good luck trying to get the union to support being unvaccinated.

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We are living in a world where sarcasm is indistinguishable from Libertarian nuttiness.

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I’m not suggesting we do nothing, I just don’t understand what the proposed solution to break up the “monopoly” are and what improvements one hope that will gain over the current system.

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If you even remotely think this is a good idea, go read up on the coal wars. Read up on the Matewan Massacre and the Battle of Blair Mountain.

As bad as the pigs are, pinkies are even worse. We need massive police reform in the USA, but private security forces don’t police, they provide muscle for whoever pays for them; regardless of the law.

(For clarity, pinkies are private security forces; named after the worst of the worst, the Pinkerton Detective Agency. If you doubt that, read up on them: they are basically the Xe of the USA. Pinkerton (detective agency) - Wikipedia)

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Again, how you got here has nothing to do with what I posted.

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Because the meme you posted imagines a Libertarian fantasy “policing market” in which individual citizens choose between competing law enforcement companies that are made honest, effective and accountable by the discipline of the market – as opposed to the real-world examples of private law enforcement cited in response, namely private prisons and security companies.

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That’s a lot of mind reading & expert projection, I hope you have a license for that.

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No, I just read the meme and tried to figure out the alternative model implied by its arguments.

From your image

“If we really want change we need to end the monopoly on law enforcement”

If we end the (government) monopoly on law enforcement, this implies that we would have private, corporate cops, hired and paid for by individuals or corporations, not the government. Who do the will of those individuals and corporations. That is literally point 3 and point 2.

It is essentially legalizing corporate murder of people who disagree with them. And I gave you several, real world, historic examples of this happening on a sickening scale. Yes, the miners lost Blair Mountain, but a lot of the rules that we have today regarding unionization and the use of private armies on US soil are written in those miner’s blood. And this image advocates getting rid of those protections.

So yes, I would say it is very, very relevant; because it shows why this is a bad idea.

Now, again, the government option needs heavy duty reform and a lot more oversight. I would say “civilian oversight” but the cops are civilians. But privatizing the police functions are not a good way of fixing this problem.

It feels like in many communities, the police are no longer beholden to the governments that they serve. They no longer heed the government’s decisions, they no longer answer or accept authority from government leadership above them. Removing this oversight will only make things worse, not better. They no longer enforce the law.

Severing the tie between government and police will not make this better. It will only make this worse. We need more oversight, more consequences, and more control over the cops.

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Always happy to further the conversation. I’m a hard NO on your take your opinion but happy you got back to me.

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Easy! Someone raised the idea of private police as competition and I thought of the other end of the justice industry, private prisons as a cautionary tale to counterbalance the mere idea of having competitive bids for entire private police organizations.
This is what happens to my brain when I don’t have enough caffeine to stay focused. :grimacing:

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Good point & 100 percent understand. The current model plus lack there of an alternate model can easily turn us against one another.
The underlying current of thought here is that CHANGE is needed. Now what that change looks like needs every voting citizen to engage the GOVERNMENT to make those changes possible.

Happy Friday!

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There is a police shortage going on right now while crime has been steadily going up (it’s been quite noticeable in the west coast city I live in). I try not to think about the repeated break-ins in my neighborhood and whether or not anyone would show up if I needed to call 911 for help. For practical purposes, it really doesn’t make sense to lose 5-10% of police officers. The same thing is happening in healthcare. There are many nurse and med tech employees who will not take the covid vaccine. At the hospitals I work with in my role, none of them have any plans to lay off the unvaccinated employees because they desperately need these people. I don’t want to be a police officer or a nurse; those jobs seem difficult, thankless, and don’t pay nearly enough. Evidently a lot of other people feel the same way. Anyway, what this LA County Sheriff is doing is happening at hospitals and police departments across the country, just more quietly, and frankly it surprises me a little that people don’t understand why.

It really does make sense. The (alleged) 5-10% who would quit are the ones self-identifying as not following required procedures and don’t care about whether they spread Covid to their co-workers or the general public. We not only can do without them, we should do without them. And there is a good chance that the actual number would be less.

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No. Cops are leaving because we are asking them to treat people with dignity and respect rather than shoot them on sight. Nurses are leaving because we have decided that politics matter more than public health. Far too many are burned out and underpaid. Cops just want to have no oversight and feel like they should be able to act with impunity with no repercussions, no matter what they do. Some of us are sick of that shit. They should be protecting and serving the public, not shooting Black men for NO FUCKING REASON.

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Are you sure?

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Hiring 10% more cops doesn’t actually mean they give 10% more of a shit about us and our problems

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:roll_eyes:

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Your hospitals are run by morons. I hope the ones you know about aren’t anywhere near me. They are clearly deathtraps. What is the point of healthcare workers voluntarily spreading a deadly plague to patients.

Nor do we need LEOs who are too fucking stupid to protect themselves and the public from easily preventable harm. If they want to quit over a vaccine mandate, great. We don’t need harmful idiots.

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