Well, I'm sorry that everything I've said has gone completely over your head.

NOTE: THAT IS NOT A MEXICANS ARE SHORT JOKE.

I think we all entertain fantasies of superheroism, that doesn't make us children, it makes us people with a recreational imagination, despite that however, many of us don't go into law enforcement because we have other interests.

Your other point regarding cops not actually preventing crime is simply false. Who knows how many crimes were prevented simply because a perp saw a cop car and called off that mugging or store hold up? Even in Mexico, with it's inefficient and largely corrupt local police forces, when a neighborhoods crime rates get out of control, the increased presence of police usually goes a long ways to pacify it. If it works here to a degree, it must work in the US to a much higher degree, assuming US cops are superior to Mexican cops (no evidence to the contrary).

SF_Gold's ability to parse logical connections is amazing.

God, comic book fans are insufferable.



1.) Prevention and deterrence are different things.

2.) Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

3.) By "pacify it", you mean make it move somewhere else, right?

4.) Yes, they make the petty crime rate drop. So does every other gang when they claim a territory. What's your point?

And Star Wars || Star Trek || LOTR || Harry Potter || TWD || LOST || ETC fans aren't?


Deterrence is a form of crime prevention. It is not a complete solution but it is a necessary to be integrated into a solution.


An axiom.


Sometimes this is the result. Sometimes criminal bands get disrupted and fall apart. Escalation can be predicted, but also avoided. It all depends on how large and ambitious the campaign is.


In my experience, petty crime increases when a gang seizes control of a neighborhood, not the other way around. I had my car stolen last year, and caught people trying to break in to my house, or to another neighbors house on more than one occasion. Then the neighborhood commitee decided to ask the local PD to increase the presence of officers and patrols (which costs extra money because they setup police bases in trailers every few blocks, we all paid for it). Crime went down, the PD pulled out and it hasn't gone back up since.

Wow. Six years ago called, they want their || ETC

Actually the truth of the statement is not at all self-evident or assumed. There is a derivation (first or second order, I'm not sure off the top of my head) from first principles, and I'd be happy to share it with someone who has even a passing idea of what I'm talking about.

You're right. The affecting/effecting verb rules always catch me off guard.


It makes me sad to think this, but you're right, this is certainly a causal factor that must be taken into account.

That is pretty much exactly what I didn't post but perhaps my use of language was too complex so I'll try to make it easier to understand. I'm not saying you deserve to be punched in the face. Just that it won't be surprising when it happens.

I hope that clears up any misunderstanding we might have had with regards to the discussion at hand and hope you have a nice day. Oh, and please stop insulting Jesus.

Somehow I get the feeling that the message isn't going to change.



Oh! So you're not saying that you think someone should punch me in the face! You're just saying that you wouldn't be surprised if someone punched me in the face, because... well... is it because you think someone would be justified in punching me in the face? Or is it some other reason? Oh wait, I get it! You're being critical of the fact that there are morons out there who resort to physical violence over disagreements! That's it. I knew you were reasonable all along.

No, Wookie. I will not fight u irl, because I will not fight anyone irl.



CLEVER!

See, Wookie. Here's the thing about the actual intent behind a statement being clear. You're shifting the blame to the victim, as always. Mike Brown didn't deserve to get shot, but it's not surprising to you that he did. I mean, look at what HE DID! It's not like I really think he should be dead, but he BROUGHT THIS ON HIMSELF!

The same goes with your suggestion that it will be totes not surprising when I get punched in the face. You're not saying YOU would punch me in the face, but you can completely see why someone else would. It's not that I deserve it, so to speak, but I mean, I can't just go around acting like this without expecting SOMEONE to punch me in the face! I'm bringing that punch to the face by disagreeing with people in a way that is surely to make them violent when they would not have been violent before! There's no way those people could be violent to begin with!

It's like if I say I don't think your wife should divorce you, but it really won't be surprising when she does.

You're so cute. This place is pretty pacifist so I'm sure it is shocking to many here that people that act badly in society are often the victims of violence. Funny though that your response to the notion that someone that behaves such as yourself might be subjected to a punch in the face is to be an even bigger douchebag. BTW, what the hell is this stuff about fighting "irl"? WTF is wrong with you? Beyond the obvious, of course.

I don't think Woookie said that or implied that. Mike Brown tried to take an officers weapon in a physical struggle. Now, why do you suppose he wanted to take the officers gun? Keep in mind, ten minutes ago he had robbed a store and pushed the owner around and threatened him. Maybe he was just gonna threaten the cop right? Like it would be dumb to not assume if he got the cops gun he wouldn't have shot the cop right? Or maybe he would have shot the cop and used the gun to commit other crimes. The point is, Michael Brown had commited a crime, he was stopped for said crime. Resisted arrest, got into a fight with an officer, tried to take the officers gun (and the most likely case is he intended to use the gun on the officer) and then he got shot. But Michael Brown is the victim. He was such a loving child, I'm sure he was a saint who never hurt anyone, never stole anything, never did anything wrong. Right?

I never realized this until just now, but you are a real-life Walter Sobchak. Amazing.

Well, yes. Obviously simply not enforcing laws is not an option. Unfortunately, many of the most densely populated areas of this country already look more or less exactly like they would if there were no police at all. That's because the American idea of a "stable society" is one in which we permit open and ongoing crime and violence as long as we can manage to isolate it sufficiently from wealthy white people and their capital. The kind of police work that this calls for is simply a combination of mindless bullying and intentional neglect. That's why we don't have good police officers; nothing about what we ask the police to do requires good police officers.

There, that wasn't too hard was it? A balanced opposing view that actually makes sense and sounds credible. I applaud you sir. Antony take note.

You are right. The sort of action required to improve conditions does not only end with police action, and current police action does just what you say: isolate crime from the wealthy. However, this is not a reflection on police officers, but more of a reflection on governments that do nothing to improve their cities, and let us be honest, it doesn't begin or end with only police action, social economic action is required to have change come about. Some people don't realize that those born into poor neighborhoods and families don't have an equal opportunity to develop as those born into middle class or higher evironments, forcing them to work several times harder for smaller rewards. That is not motivating in the least, especially when crime is advertised a superior way of life of less effort and essentially forced upon people. There are people who are smarter than this, and work hard to get out of it and eventually do, but most people are usually whatever they were brought up to be. Drastic action is required to isolate families from gangs, to bring their educational levels up to average job requirements, providing them with skills. Now, this will never happen. Or at the very least it won't happen in any major rapid way, mainly because people will consider it as giving too much away, and there will be plenty of people abusing the system (just like we have welfare abusers). This is a very long and complicated subject, for which I don't have the time now.

Where does scamming people on the internet fit into that spectrum of hard work/little reward vs criminal enterprise, Gold?

Awesome, if you can't beat them in their arguments, try to ruin them. Got that from your Alinsky hand book right? Is that all you can do? Deny everything and try to make the opponent look bad? Anyone with a slightly higher than average IQ knows can see through it. Come back to me when your case is more than just: HURR DURR NO YOU!

I need to look up that guy Antony referenced but I just find it amazing that I came into this thread generally avoiding Antony's posts and now I'm only reading his!

Hahahahahahaha

Yes it is. Beyond fines, look up Black Asphalt and the recent illegal seizures. Police forces have every profit incentive to focus their attention on non-violent / innocent middle class offenders and very little incentive to solve any real problems, let alone those faced by poor people and minority communities.

The police suck, dude. Face it. They're just a bunch of thugs for-profit.

This will accomplish nothing. There is a thread on the front page where I explained why.

This might be true, but I'm honestly not sure how you'd know that.

Hahahahahaha.

I watched that movie once or twice. Always thought it was overrated.

You really are ​wrong about everything.

I have a problem with people who are so obsessed with their own problems that they loose the ability to empathize with people who have it much worse. I'm on board with the idea that we have issues with our police that need to be addressed. I'm not ok with acting as if we have particularly bad, relatively speaking. Generally speaking we don't have to pay bribes and protection money, we don't have to worry about the police running us out of town to protect a relative business interest. I'm ok with demanding things be better, but it's callous and self absorbed not to keep a sense of perspective.

Let's take the example of your ticket. It sounds like you very much deserved it, and he was scared and angry because he almost hit someone. If he had been trained better, he would know that having his hand on his gun when he confronted you created an unnecessary threat of violence which created a danger to the both of you. However, characterizing him as a one dimensional bully who has no other motive than making people as miserable as possible is emotionally masturbatory and prevents you from having a perspective that would be at all useful in fixing the problem. You can't fix social problems without empathizing with people. Viewing mass groups of people as simplistic caricatures so you can judge them more easily is comforting, but ultimately foolish and destructive.

There's actually a lot that could and should be done about our police, but none of it will, because the only people who care about police misconduct are anarcho-capitalist libertarians and a few young, but-hurt liberals, none of which are even slightly interested in empathy or even solutions.

If you want change, you have to realize that police are real people, some good, some bad, who have to do a difficult dangerous job for pretty average pay. You can't use personal anecdote and news reports about individual incidents as a basis to make broad statements about all police, because that's for scientifically illiterate hicks. In the absence of data, the best we can do is try and think of realistic job stresses and social pressures that might cause police to behave inappropriately, and what we could to to start fixing those problems.

Ooh, finally I'll get to find out whether you're an obese janitor, obese Mexican, or something else entirely!

Civil forfeiture.

You are well on your way to earning a gold medal in the Missing-The-Point-Olympics.

I'm willing to entertain this.

citation needed

citation needed

an idea which directly contradicts the previous

Right.

For example, we can't use the stories of Actual Hero police officers like Pedro Serrano, Adrian Schoolcraft and Adhyl Polcano who have been harassed by their coworkers because they blew the whistle on the illegal, racist stop-and-frisk searches. Assuming that their 50,000 fellow NYPD officers are all horrible monsters just because they tacitly endorse racism and work every day in secret to undermine the US constitution protection against unreasonable search would be unfair.

Oh wait, no it wouldn't.

Also, speaking of scientific illiteracy, have you actually not heard of a case study?

well in the absence of data, I would have expected our historically low crime rate to have removed most of the realistic job stresses that cause police to be horrible, but I guess that hasn't happened. So maybe possibly perhaps they were just awful people to begin with???

FWIW, my friend at school who is originally from NY says he gets stopped every time he visits NYC. I'm not sure that using anything regarding that city is a good example of routine for the rest of the country, though.

Wookie, you didn't specify whether or not this friend of yours is African-American. Without this information , it's kind of hard to see which point you're making.

I could be overthinking this, though.

But I did specify that. He gets stopped every time. Duh.

You're overthinking it. He doesn't make points. He just trolls.

That's correct. Here's how I do it.

1) Join or start a conversation by posting a rational comment.

2) Patiently wait for trolls to appear.

This technique only seems to work on this website, though, but it works every single time.

I cannot believe. That after all these ****ing years. The same users, come back over and over just to bicker at each other. I'm looking at all you ****ers. Do you guys really not have ****ing anything better to do? ****in' A this thread just gave me a ****ing ulcer.

I cannot believe. That after all these ****ing years. The same users, come back over and over just to bicker at each other. I'm looking at all you ****ers. Do you guys really not have ****ing anything better to do? ****in' A this thread just gave me a ****ing ulcer. And Antony has to be the worst troll ever.

Well, at least I'm sober.

The goal isn't to convince someone that their position is wrong; you can't reason someone out of a position they were never reasoned into. Instead, what you need to do is convince them to waste disproportional amounts of time and emotional energy on you, because that's time and energy they can't use to spread their hateful, destructive ideas to a more receptive audience.

For context: I type at 140 WPM and skim their posts at around 700. Even the longest response I make in these threads don't take a tenth as long as you think they do.

And, for comparison, it took me three days to read that last post and 12 hours to compose this post.

You got me there. I thought I posted that comment in a dream.

How did you arrive at a 700 words per minute number in the "context" of skimming text? Do you have a retention number along with that? I know like the vast majority of Massassian posts don't have material worth retaining, but still I'm curious.

What Jon'C really means:
Instead of trying to prove that anything he says holds up, he spends all his time writing elaborate flamebait and thinking up of new ways to insult or tarnish people.

Anyhow, I don't know why you're surprised, we all stand up for what we believe in, otherwise we don't believe it firmly enough.

In this particular thread the problem lies in that Jon holds a view that grossly discriminates against the entire police force of the nation, using criteria such as a person's paygrade and educational level to devalue them as human beings, widely accusing them of being sociopaths, crimminals, racists and other vile things. He justifies his views by using incidents such as the ferguson issue, possibly personal experiences, his personal bias against people who carry firearms, and his personal bias against people with illusions of helping improve their community. I could go on, but I think at this point it is evident that Jon has some sort of personal problem with police forces, cares not of the benefits that society obtains from them. On the other hand, I do not sustain that the police force is void of problems, but I do not sustain the notion that it is plagued across the board with them, and that it is ok to automatically assume that a police officer is a pathetic human being that we would be better off without. I won't run out and tell people to "honor your heroes" or some dumb crap like that, but I respect a person who holds a job that is stressful, dangerous and underpaid but ultimately necessary for the continuing functioning of society and civilization. I think that todays police problems can be solved by a combination of improving police training and investing into a wide spectrum social economic projects that aim to prevent crime. I believe my view to be balanced because it neither denies problems nor exagerates their proportions and it is willing to accept significant actions to reduce current problems, while not attempting to devalue human beings who are not the cause or root of the problem.

Waits for predictable comeback that further proves my point.

Or maybe don't grip it so hard.