Go have a cry bud: I’m merely telling you how it appears to an outsider. I’m not American so I have no dog in this fight.
I live in East Tn and have had issues with our school system being heavy handed and authoritarian. I have a policy of not letting them push my kids or myself around. When I go into the school to get my children the only thing that needs to happen is for them to go and get them period! Mr Howe , you are not alone and it is my opinion that you conducted yourself in a manner befitting a gentleman. It seems that all you are guilty of is beating these control freaks at their own game and the only thing that was left to this joke of a LEO was to abuse his power and arrest you for not bowing down to him. I hope you sue their collective asses off and he loses his badge. As a point of info for all you parents out there… at the beginning of every school year the different schools systems send out student/ parent hand books which outline and explain the policies and rules of their little kingdoms, if you sign those then you enter into a contract with the system and waive your rights and those of your children. My lawyer told me that school systems are the worst entities to deal with because they make their own “laws” and answer to no one.
I THINK YOU MISS THE POINT. They are his kids and they do not have the right to hold his kids once he is there to retrieve them. The TCA is clear. Policy (anyone’s) does not supersede the law. Municipally funded schools are not private property even though they are ran like little fiefdoms. This jack wagon deputy threatened to arrest the girl friend for being in traffic when he just finished walking Mr Howe right through the same area and then told her she could not do whatever she wanted on school property. He is the asshole and he is a black mark on all of us who hold a badge. Did you not notice the level of smartassness this deputy had when he kept saying" but it doesn’t say when does it." He should be fired and at the very least have his weapon taken away from him.
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Maybe not, but you both just did an excellent job of pointing out how regionalism here makes us appear to outsiders. But teapot, maybe you should check the recent BB articles on New Mexico Law enforcement? We keep generally our idiots more evenly-distributed than our school kids.
US is like most other places in the world - don’t mistake the lame representations. Romanians tell the same jokes about Albanians that Arabs tell about Persians, and people here know them as Polish jokes. Same exact jokes, many times. It’s just people picking on their neighbors. Nothing new.
Let me tell you a story of a friend who was driving coast to coast. I know this is just an anecdote and as such basically worthless, but it goes a long way to explaining why I have a strong distain for the south. They drove through Texas on their way, whereupon their van was stopped and searched by cops. They were carrying a few grams of weed which was discovered after the officers had turned their van inside out. Their travelling party consisted of 4 people: two Australians and two Americans. Both my friend and one of the Americans were personally responsible for the weed (there were two stashes), but it is arguable that the American chick she was travelling with was more to blame as it was her with the daily habit and the larger quantity of weed.
After taking the group back to the station the cops isolated them all and grilled them on whose it was. After getting absolutely nowhere with a confession the cops began telling them that all they needed was someone to claim it as theirs and they would all be free to go after being issued a warning. My friend is a naive soul who has far too much trust in people (particularly in people of authority who are prone to lying to get their way) and so thought that if she took the blame they could all just put the shitty day behind them and get on with their road trip. Yeah right.
After the cops got that confession they proceeded to let her friends leave and keep her in lockup. She was there for a short while until they moved her to a detention centre for illegal immigrants waiting to be deported. This is despite her having a entirely valid and legal visitors visa and there being no grounds for deportation. She was in that prison for something like 3 or 4 weeks, enjoying communal showers and all the other pleasures of such a place. It was not until her friend (the other Australian) got through to connected people who could make things happen that she was released.
The other thing that colours my feelings of the south: their considerable and frequent use of the death penalty, even in cases where there is serious doubt of the person’s guilt. That coupled with the US’s lovely record on incarceration rate:
The incarceration rate in the United States of America is the highest in the world today. As of 2009, the incarceration rate was 743 per 100,000 of national population (0.743%).[2] In comparison, Russia had the second highest, at 577 per 100,000
Plus this graphics gives a pretty decent picture of how there is over-officiousness in southern law enforcement, unless you wanna claim that the imbalance in incarceration rate is due to a more crime-committing populace.
Well, most of those dark blue states are not Southern, and the lightest ones are blessed with particularly low population densities. Utah is filled wth millions of teetotalling LDS people, and several of the other light states have fairly large Indian reservations, where State and Federal law enforcement are typically unwelcome altogether. Otherwise, not worth arguing. We have some stupid laws, and the "War on Drugs’ is responsible for some of the worst of it. I won’t try to defend it because it’s not defensible.
Texas did have particularly harsh pot laws at one time (maybe still) - 99 years. I flipped out once when, landing in Houston, I discovered a well-meaning cousin in Louisiana had graced my purse with a full five-finger lid I didn’t know about. That’s about the last place you want to get busted for pot.
But again - that’s TX, and hardly representative of all the South or all Southerners. It’s a unique place.
I can see why you would have some bad memories, given what all happened on that trip - none of which excuses going into a foreign country and casually breaking its laws and then being mad you got caught. But you now know why that was a bad idea. You had a couple of citizens with you, and that’s on them. They should’ve known better.
I discovered a similar thing when I went on a day trip into Mexico from California with some Arab friends. They stupidly had allowed their visas to expire, and it never occurred to me to check before leaving. Gotta say, the INS officers were beyond obnoxious, thugh my friends were absolutely polite at all times. I think I scared my friends by fighting back, but as the only US citizen in the crowd, I was totally pissed at how the INS guys were repping the rest of us and let them have it verbally. There was nothing they could do about me, as I was free to cross.
The only thing that saved the day (after about 3 hours, since I had managed to annoy them twice as much) was the fact that the Arab friends all had diplomatic immunity and there wasn’t anything they could do. Which was actually the root of the problem - rich and entitled in their own country, brought the tude with them here. Another anecdote - hardly makes for a decent condemnation of all INS or the southwest and everyone in it. (For that, you need many more of the existing stories, lol.)
What definition are you using for “south”?
I’m not getting what population density has to do with anthing, since that chart is prisoners per 100k population. Following your logic New York and Cali should be dark blue (considering they have high population densities). Instead of making excuses why the light states are light, why not come up with some reasons why the southern states are dark?
It wasn’t me. I have enough sense to avoid the shithole.
@joshuabardwell adorable that you think I care how you misuse the English language and then expect people who don’t misuse it to accept your terminology as the definition of the word. “South” and particularly “Southern” are widely accepted adjectives to describe geographical location within a country or region. Just because you want to group your states in a particular way doesn’t mean I have to and you sure as hell don’t get to write the rules for how I use my language.
I thought it was Americans who stereotypically visit a place for a few weeks and then act as if we know all about it.
Dude… I spent 2 hours in the DFW airport on a stopover and that was enough. We have newspapers and the internet, you know. Do you think you’d have to travel to Thailand to find out you’d be in a lot of trouble for talking shit about the king?
The South in America is defined largely by cultural lines that were drawn during the Civil War.
Florida was also in the Confederacy and it’s hardly Southern
Sweet rule of thumb you’ve got there. How was I ever confused?
You have not experienced the true south. If you do some demographic research many of you questions will be answered. Dont over look the the blatantly obvious.
Because, the traditional usage of ‘South’ here is not purely a compass direction at all. It refers specifically to States which seceded and joined the Confederate States of America in the early 1860’s. Insults victoriously hurled by the USA at the people of the CSA have become a grand tradition. Because ‘otherness’. After all, Free Speech. And besides, it wasn’t your home/grandfather/dignity. Argue equality, but trash others geographically. Parallels exist all over the world - Kurds, Poles, Aborigines, Irish, South Koreans, etc.
Arizona is Southwest. Oklahoma is Mid-West. Florida is Debatable.
Population density correlates strongly to map colors, regardless of what creator intended. Go figure.
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This school safety officer should obviously not be working where children are present. When do PUBLIC schools have total control over the rights of parents to pick up their children from school? This is a PUBLIC school and parents have rights too. Obviously the parent is frustrated with the school as they felt the need to record the event (thankfully) however, the parent was NOT being disorderly. He has the right to pic up his children and questions school policies that are NOT in the best interest of the children. I would hope that an attorney in the area will take this case pro bono or at a redued fee to put these kind of police officials in their place and teach them they work for US not the other way around.
Sort of like how many Americans view “Europe” as a country right?
Not me. But hey, if some Americans do it, I guess that makes it okay for everyone, right? That’s your point here, yes?
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Actually my point was that it’s a common mistake. But please, feel free to link more definitions of points I’m not making.
But… Texas isn’t even a part of the South. The South in America is defined largely by cultural lines that were drawn during the Civil War. This is why Florida isn’t really part of the South, even though it’s geographically more southern than Georgia. Texas is … well, if you listen to Texans, Texas is its own distinct cultural area, but if you had to lump it in somewhere, it is far, far closer to the Southwest, with its Mexican influences, than the South. This is as if I had said, “Let me tell you why I don’t like the English,” and then proceeded to tell a story about being abused in Ireland.
Likewise, on the map, you check off Arizona as being Southern. Nothing could be farther from the truth. You clearly have no idea what “Southern” means to an American. Also, Oklahoma is a Plains or Midwest state. Not Southern at all.
The higher incarceration rate in the Southern states has a simple explanation. The United States incarcerates blacks at a much higher rate than whites, and Southern states have much higher black populations. It’s an absolute travesty, but it doesn’t support your argument about Southern cops at all.
I thought it was Americans who stereotypically visit a place for a few weeks and then act as if we know all about it.
And Texas was one of the original members of the Confederacy.
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My point is just that Southern isn’t solely geographic, not that all Confederate States are now considered Southern. Florida was also in the Confederacy and it’s hardly Southern. Probably all the New York retirees.
WARNING: The odds are very very good that I screwed something up, so …
ALSO: Different scales for the white and black incarceration rate maps.
Data from 2005 (does not include Wyoming and New Mexico): http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/rd_stateratesofincbyraceandethnicity.pdf
I plotted white incarceration rates per 100,000 population using the same scale as above (national average is 412):
And black incarceration rates (Note the very different scale! It was necessary since the lowest black incarceration rate is higher than the highest white incarceration rate) (national average is 2290):
Using different colors:
Again, note the very different scale for the black incarceration rate.
FYI, Hawaii has the lowest black incarceration rate at 851 per 100,000 population, while Oklahoma has the highest white incarceration rate 740 per 100,000 population.
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Fascinating. I’m absolutely speechless to find that blacks are incarcerated at a lower per-capita rate in the Southeast than in the Midwest.
Note the very different rates for the two graphs.
I think you could say, however, that the places with the highest black incarceration rates do not appear to be the same as the places with the highest white incarceration rates (although the black-to-white ratio is greater than one for every state).
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