I’m on board with “None of your fucking business” and “Honor your oath”.
“Scumbag” seems uncalled for.
Assertive and even salty protection of one’s rights is great. Ad-hominem is counter-productive.
Just my 2 cents.
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I’m a fan of the Wiccan Rede: An it harm none, do as thou wilt.
Unfortunately a lot of self-described libertarians (who usually know nothing about the actual history of even arguments of libertarian philosophy), think it’s more along the lines of: Do what I want and screw everybody else.
I personally never saw the appeal of subscribing to a single philosophical school of anything. The great thing about philosophy is the dialogue that transcends schools and generations. I suppose that may make me a freethinker, but using that term can earn some serious eye-rollage.
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I pretty much agree. But as long as the chief of the precinct tells "officer unfriendly* to search every nook and cranny, how are the departments to learn that essentially accusing random civilians of being criminals is fucked up?
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To be fair, New York City English is a salty dialect, maybe 'cause it’s right on the ocean. 
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I mostly agree. If I had to pick one philosophical school I adhere to, it’s Secular Humanism.
Do as best you can for the people around you, while being mindful of what’s best for humanity at large. It isn’t just to kill an innocent person for the sake of the many, it’s much better to find an alternative. People must be allowed to say what they will, even if it’s offensive. In fact, especially if it’s offensive, even if it’s wrong, as long as it isn’t fraudulent. The truth should be a carte blanche defense against any offense, and blasphemy must never be silenced.
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As far as I can tell, the label (or at least the self-acclamation) of “free thinker” is legitimate. All of my friends would pretty much test out how “free thinking” you are, but they wouldn’t roll their eyes. They’d just be interested in exactly what “free thinker” means.
As far as I’m concerned, in order to call myself a free-thinker, that means that I’m not afraid to say exactly what I think and mean, and that I’m not constricted into the thought policing of (at the very least) religion. I allow myself to question anything that doesn’t seem to be well-evidenced or argued, and yet I also allow myself to trust the experts in their various fields as long as they’ve also demonstrated their own crititical thinking skills.
In elementary school, they made a huge deal out of telling us that they were teaching us “critical thinking” when what they were actually teaching was “critical theory” which is to say, they forced us to find fault with whatever literature we were reading and condemn it, regardless of the validity of the condemnation. In addition we were supposed to come up with our own meanings and interpretations of every author’s and artist’s work and were never supposed to consider the meaning the author or artist intended themselves.
So, not really critical thinking so much as “condemnation thinking”. I had to teach myself critical thinking in college with the help of professors who’d carefully ask why I believed something. and would demand an explanation from me, rather than telling me what the explanation itself was, or condemning my own beliefs beyond the logically absurd.
I took a grand total of two philosophy classes in college, but they were probably the most valuable experiences out of the whole deal.
You always got to question your motives, ideas, precepts, and conclusions, and if they don’t hold up, that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, but that you need to keep thinking and fearlessly examining yourself and those around you. Don’t tolerate bullshit in any form.
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I pretty much agree. Much of my personal philosophy is informed by Zen Buddhism (though I am definitely not a practicing Buddhist nor do I believe in reincarnation). Consequently, a key ingredient for me is humility (keeping my ego in check), to admit to myself and others when I’m wrong and to acknowledge the limits of my own knowledge.
A good example you brought up is socialized healthcare. I support socialized healthcare being made universally available to all citizens, and that this will in fact improve our productivity (especially if the mentally ill receive the help that can make them productive members of society), but believe it can only be sustainable if the healthcare is done more efficiently than the current hospital model, and there’s a shift in our public attitudes towards health of lifestyle that goes beyond the superficial concerns of hitting the gym, because an unhealthy population will eventually spend more, privately or publicly, than it can afford to, even if and once the pharmaceutical companies are no longer allowed to extort the system for all they can. However, I know the limits of my own knowledge and so, while I’m always striving to learn more both about the system and how it might be improved, I generally defer to experts in the matter. That’s not to say I trust them blindly, but I recognize that they know more about it than I do. In short, I want what’s best for the people around me and humanity at large (to quote Diogenes, whose statue I post earlier, I am a citizen of the world, though I would say of humanity and a steward of the Earth), but I know I don’t always know what is best.
I know it might sound facile, but I believe a lot of it starts not with changing people’s political affiliations, but with showing them why caring about the people around them will make for a more happy, healthy, productive world for them to live in, and that the social problems, though enormous, are not intractable as long as we don’t wait for others to fix them for us.
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This made me cry. Thank you.
Our local builders’ merchant has a security person, and the job is very necessary because there is so much stuff loose in the yard. The last one, who retired a year or so back, was ex-army. Big guy, shaven head, large Triumph motorbike.
He checked me out with some stuff one day and without thinking I said “Thanks, nice morning, Sergeant.” Which is what I would have said, rank appropriate, when checked out of a miltary base. He grew about six inches taller, stifled a salute, and from then on we were on friendly terms.
It’s the public who make any customer facing job shit or not, and sometimes a word of politeness pays dividends.
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By the sound of it…
But I’d say that still took some balls. Nice one!
I suspect that a large portion of any change would need to start with the public paying for police that it needs, and banning the police from self-funding through tickets.
Many towns have departments that couldn’t function without ticket revenue - and in some places like Illinois the cops are on record as having a quota for ticket collection. The fact that cops are forced to write tickets or get bad performance reviews puts them into a frame of mind to always be looking for a reason to write a ticket, and thus make their numbers. This (over time) brings the entire force into a frame of mind where the public is always under suspicion and the public will react that way. Combine this relationship status with full and legal authority to use force, along with battery and you get an unhealthy relationship that will spiral downwards.
Firefighters, to use your example, are not paid to start fires and get paid for the month regardless of how many fires there are. In places where there isn’t much fire - they use volunteer departments to save on cost. It creates a much different view of how to interact with the public.
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And people stand for this? I’d kindly tell them to mind their own fucking business and call the police if they think I’ve stolen something. Why even tolerate the farce?
I can just imagine the reaction of your average Brit to something like that, and we’re chronically polite (in a weird and oddly selective way). But over there I imagine gunfights and lawyer involvement.
Uncalled for, perhaps, but it’s what prompted me to snort my tea through my nose.
Respect is a two way street, from what I gather of the NYPD that citizen journalist showed more respect to that officer than most of them show to the people they’re charged with protecting. I’d certainly be on board with the argument that we should rise above it, but I think it’s unfair people focussing on how this guy was rude while a policeman tried to abuse his power. Fuck that cop, he is a scumbag, so maybe it was called for?
And I thought it was really funny.
Now if the camera guy had pulled a gun on him, attacked him, followed him to his home and threatened his wife, tried to file charges against him even, then yea that’s being a dick. But just using blunt words to put someone in their place? Bravo I say! If only more people had that courage.
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This may be the real problem. Being a police officer, especially in a high crime/dangerous area, is not what most people would consider a good job. I fear the people who would apply for this job, want that power, and authority.I think the people who would make the best police officers are unlikely to apply for the job. An ideal candidate would be level headed, trained in conflict avoidance, and most of all be a person who has no desire to exert their power over other people.
I know large police forces use a Psych test, but where is the cutoff point. Are most cops in it for the power? I would think most firefighters are drawn to their job, because the like a steady job, with a physical component, and they like the fact that they provide a service to the public for which they can rightfully feel proud. I doubt many got into firefighting because they can legally use an ax to enter someones house, cool as that may be.
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Upvoted for this observation. The coming of the twitterati has obsoleted a useful word. I want them to get off my lawn.
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I think the best course of action is no action. Just ignore idiots. It’s not worth your time or the energy needed to respond.
Really? If the cop really thought there was probable cause that he had something dangerous in the bag, would he have walked away like that? If not, the cop was an asshole first, for not minding his own fucking business, and I think the appropriate response to an asshole is to be an asshole right back.
When I lived in a very rural town there was a local policeman who I knew who did an excellent job. He was on good terms with the local kids, people let him know what was going on, a lot of petty crime didn’t happen because people knew he would get to hear about it.
Anyway, one day I was talking to him - at an event he’d organised for local kids - and he mentioned that the force wanted him to put in for sergeant. I told him I thought he certainly deserved it. “But,” he said, “If I did that I’d have to go to Bristol. And I would be dealing with criminals.”
Another policeman I know, ex armed forces, complained that some of his colleagues worried him because they actually liked carrying guns. He too preferred to work in a small town where his role was as much social as enforcement.
I know this is a highly contentious subject in the US, but as you say, most people wouldn’t consider being a policeman in a high crime area to be a good job. But worse is all the concealed carry laws which means that the police may be having to deal with someone who is armed. I can’t help but feel that the overreaction of some US police is a response to the arming of the general public. Shooting first is safer than finding out whether the person who has just committed a minor offense is in fact an armed psychopath.
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Not curse the cashiers but more so the surveillance cameras.
People who don’t publicly shame the police for bullying such as this are dicks.
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