So is Canada. What’s your point?
So what’s Canada then? One of those many western democracies that has levels of police abuse nowhere close to the regularity of the jaw-dropping abuses in the US?
Anyway, since when is Mexico a western democracy?
Fixed that for you.
The incident in question had nothing to do with gun laws and everything to do with drug laws. Did you read the post or watch the video at all?
The cops had in their heads they were taking down a meth lab. I dare to suppose the decedent would have been gunned down if he’d been walking down the hall with a telephone held before him trying to call 911. Because “War On Drugs.”
I’ll hazard another hypothesis here. The vast majority of police abuse in the USA has, at its root, our horribly flawed drug policy.
There is an organization named Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. I donate to L.E.A.P. with some regularity. We’re making some progress, at long last.
On a more meta level, I think my mistake here was failing to recognize that the thread was derailed by that first post. I’ve been following the forums at BoingBoing (and the internet in general) long enough that I should have known better than to even respond.
Once a thread veers from authorities-did-something-awful-and-it-happened-in-the-USA to heap-scorn-upon-the-USA-because-they-aren’t-nearly-as-perfect-as-they-like-to-say-they-are, it (the thread) is pretty much a lost cause. That happened with the first post in this thread. I might as well have thrown gasoline on open flames. I screwed up and fed a trolley.
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I wouldn’t say that. I thought teapot put it pretty well:
after all it’s the right-wing nutjobs who perpetuate the idiotic gun laws you have, and the shoot-first-ask-questions-later mentality that an armed populace instills in cops.
Although
Because “War On Drugs.”
Is obviously most of it in this instance.
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Since when is Mexico not a western democracy?
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Protecting money and the people who hoard it is the only reason we have police in the US these days. Voting can’t change that unless a monumental sea change occurs. And it won’t happen because far too many Usians are scared shitless by their own cowardly shadows to vote for a candidate who isn’t an authoritarian. Why do you think the TSA and NSA still exist?
I agree, in a way, but I’m also profoundly uncomfortable with the idea. Our system is morally bankrupt, but even Joe Arpaio was elected by voters. I know he wasn’t involved in this case, but he’s a high profile example of police militarization run amok. He was elected, but he didn’t have to be, someone ran against him, right? Enough assholes agree with this style of fascism that he won. Did all the fair-minded people abstain? Did they leave Maricopa county? Were they too scared to disagree? What happened? I’m not really asking you to provide me with answers, @dacree, I just wish I knew.
They did get gerrymandered to the Bakersfield congressional district, a while back, which is bizarre, considering a lot of people drive from AV to LA for work every weekday, but the drive to Bakersfield is a gigantic hassle. I’m sure the change was good for someone, but the folks in AV share more common interests with LA than they do with Bakersfield. Of course maybe the Kern county sheriff’s department would murder fewer people, so… OK, you have a point.
(edited for typo)
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You’all have to take (as in ‘wrest’) ownership of the democratic process from the corporate-military state that the US has evidently become.
The anti-SOPA protest gave the, ahem, Representatives a good scare. Now you’all have to really make them soil their pants…
The pathetic candidates are only half the problem. I mean, say someone were to make a promise of completely ending intolerable abuses like this. Do you suppose an outraged public would readily contribute the funding and votes they need to get started?
Or would you expect the same poor support and low turn-out you always see, with nearly half the votes going the other way - either thanks to people following strict party lines, or who have invented some reason to support the police in this?
Because having seen what happens in America even when there are noticeable differences between candidates, I really expect the second. And I think politicians expect the second, too, which encourages them not to bother, not when corporate money will actually be there as soon as you sell out.
Voting in America is deeply broken. But part of that is that Americans in the aggregate have proved indifferent to it, voting languidly without much attempt to distinguish or promote better candidates, with the endless parade of pre-bought officials as both a cause and consequence. Changes through voting might or might not still be possible, but it certainly was never tried in earnest.
The ultimate reason, I think, being that not enough people understand what a healthy country looks like, for instance that it doesn’t have militarized police like this.
Your naiveté is giving me fits of giggles.
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Is it that people don’t actually care if someone else is murdered by police? Or is it that people are willing to accept murderous police on the job, if it allows them to believe that it reduces the chances of something bad happening to themselves or their children?
I don’t think most people actually like the idea of police killing innocents, but why are they willing to swallow it in the name of “this is the price we pay for safety and security”?
Most folks who support law enforcement don’t think of themselves as the “kind of people” who end up on the wrong end of a police bullet. They think they will be protected by police, and are not disabused of their delusion until/unless they are personally screwed over or someone they love is dead.
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It think we’d be better served fixing our shitty drug laws, and stop encouraging thuggery by cops. . .
Since the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and the creation of their Constitution in 1917 they have been a federal presidential constitutional republic which is the same type of government as the U.S.
It’s not the people who are indifferent, but rather the politicians who are indifferent to the populace. Their only concern is big money and will step on the people for another buck.
It’s been tried in earnest for over 200 years and things have only gotten worse. Blaming the voters misses the mark by miles. Our politicians have had the chance to reform campaign finance for a long time and refuse to do anything about it. Couple that with giving the police the power to seize property and use it for funding their own department and you have an entrenched system that no amount of voting can fix. Until those 2 basic issues are resolved, voting is an immoral and slimy affair and most Americans know it. That’s why we don’t vote. We aren’t so foolish as to think it makes a difference.
You can argue that the wrong people get elected but no matter who wins it only gets worse for the people. We all know that so why, I ask, would we bother to legitimatize the corruption through participation?
It’s both. Politicians are indifferent to the populace, but then they can afford to be, because of how many people will support being tough on crime even when it means things like this, vote for judges who promise to execute more people even when it is known some are innocent, oppose government services for poor people and unions, agree with indiscriminant spying and even oversight-free drone strikes, and so on.
But we talked about this before, and I don’t think you were willing to acknowledge any such division in what the populace has been asking for exists, or provide any serious evidence that united voting does nothing comparable to the burden of proof you demanded from me, so I am not eager to repeat the argument with you.
Instead I’m going to put this up again, because I think it’s funny:
Ok, maybe my Australian mindset is skewing this. but there would be a full, independent, Federal, Commission of Enquiry (or whatever your version of a Royal Commission is.) into this event right? To stop public outcry, inflammatory statements in the Murdoch press, and general things burning on the street, you know. Because that’s what would happen here if this were an ISOLATED event.
I am quite frankly shocked at how your citizens don’t spend most of their time charging police lines with Bill-Hooks and Molotov’s given how little attention your government seems to pay to just about any misuse of power.
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So you are asserting that people support tough crime laws even if they end up killing innocent old men, that people support hanging judges who put the innocent to death?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to think that these people who support tough on crime politics are unaware of the abuses by police since the major media markets don’t report on it? Or that tough judge supporters are unaware of the number of known innocents put to death each year for the same reasons?
It all smacks of victim blaming to me. It’s like you see the U.S. as a scantily clad woman who when she is abused or raped you say “well, look at how she dressed. it’s as much her fault as the attacker” and then when the police raid her home on an anonymous tip you explain that she already had a history with the police.
Are you a politician?
The alternative solution is to issue DEA and state police with baggies of methamphetamine to distribute at crime scenes, so that they can still score a ‘win’ when the subject of the warrant has “managed to hide” / “never possessed” the sought-after drugs mentioned to be found in the search warrant.
Finding no physical evidence of drugs at the scene is really just showing how sophisticated the drug ring under investigation is, hiding the evidence is proof that they were tipped off to the raid.
There must be a mole in the police who informed the 80-year old in time for him to hide the evidence. So get IAS to investigate one of the do-gooder police - any cop who’s voiced concerns about the overly-militarised aspect of the police force, or perhaps a cop who has a medical marijuana licence (or has someone in his family who possesses one, or associates with other people who do) - failing that, pick a police officer whose kill-during-search score is below average for the force. Those kind of officers are likely the subversive elements who are trying to derail the war on drugs.
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Depends. When they are told about it, actually presented evidence of the harm that is happening, do they change their mind?
Because that hasn’t been what I’ve noticed in discussions on the subject. Instead, I’ve noticed even here people readily use whatever excuse to dismiss problems as isolated incidents and blame the victims. I linked an example discussion for drone strikes; have you really never seen examples for the others?
I’m not surprised; you previously were willing to use any quibbling to dismiss what I said, and caricaturing it as itself victim blaming is a good way to do that. I assume accusing ordinary people who believe in voting of propping up the system that oppresses them was victim blaming too, right? No, of course that’s totally different.
But no, I’m not a politician. I know, you think I’m wrong, and a member of the general public would never be on the wrong side of an issue. But if I were, I doubt I would be so eager to have the public own up to what they allow in their politicians and realize they shouldn’t have to accept it.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t protest because I fear the police. I have something to lose, and I am not brave enough to destroy my life by bashing it against the police state.
Keeping the populace quiet through fear? Check.
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