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Derek Chauvin Murder Trial

I dont know how you can watch a video of cops laughing and bragging about breaking an elderly women's arm (who has dementia) and your first response is "is this helpful"?
 

Cops are teh scum of the Earth
I think this goes too far.

Police definitely have a role in our society. Sadly, their role is oversized, overpowered, over worshipped, and usually completely unaccountable. We have a law enforcement system that incentivizes racial profiling. We have a system that uses standards too low for police officers while giving them too much power. We have a military industrial complex that likes to sell weapons of war to police units. We have two political parties that have historically not wanted to check the power of the police and their unions. We have prosecutors who don't want to hurt relations with people they work with. We have a judicial system that encourages mass incarceration and relies on the police to feed it (and it's usually fed with poor people of color). We have a media that has embraced this noble "warrior mentality" of police cracking down on (usually black) drug distributors and gang members. We have the police handling issues far beyond their expertise (why are police responding to an unarmed autistic boy in SLC?).

There are some scumbags in law enforcement because the system attracts those types and keeps those types empowered. There are some who are good people trying to serve their communities.

But the main issue is the system. The American law enforcement and imprisonment system is one of the worst in the industrialized world and desperately needs to be reformed.
 
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I think this goes too far.

Police definitely have a role in our society. Sadly, their role is oversized, overpowered, over worshipped, and usually completely unaccountable. We have a law enforcement system that incentivizes racial profiling. We have a system that uses standards too low for police officers while giving them too much power. We have a military industrial complex that likes to sell weapons of war to police units. We have two political parties that have historically not wanted to check the power of the police and their unions. We have prosecutors who don't want to hurt relations with people they work with. We have a judicial system that encourages mass incarceration and relies on the police to feed it (and it's usually fed with poor people of color). We have a media that has embraced this noble "warrior mentality" of police cracking down on (usually black) drug distributors and gang members. We have the police handling issues far beyond their expertise (why are police responding to an unarmed autistic boy in SLC?).

There are many scumbags in law enforcement because the system attracts those types and keeps those types empowered. There are some who are good people trying to serve their communities.

But the main issue is the system. The American law enforcement and imprisonment system is one of the worst in the industrialized world and desperately needs to be reformed.
Strangely, I support (I think) each of the items and arguments in this post, individually.

I just don''t /won't accept Thriller being either a legislator, a judge, a political activist,/cop/cop trainer/media reporter/school teacher.

All of these kinds of commuity responsibilities belong to rational citizens, not ideologues.

There will never be a day in any country/real or imagined, where you can't find plenty of instances of authority/systems gone wrong. But the only people we want trying to make things better are objective, responsible, caring local people who see the need and just want to take care of what's wrong, one incident at a time, one day at a time.

A generalists who thinks if only enough people got on his bandwagon and rolled into Washington to remake America is fundamentally misguided, and a greater threat to all humanity than even loosely ignorant unthinking sets of government officers of any kind.
 
What do you mean?
Calling cops the scum of the earth. I get that there's an emotional reaction to watching instances where they abuse their power and abuse citizens, but I don't think it's helpful to make a blanket statement about them all being the scum of the earth.
 
You're 6 for 7 there.
That's a generous assessment.

I could've left personal reference out of it.

It's human nature, it's the way our brains work, to idealize and generalize and consider the immediate things unimportant. We will never really fix that, but every day we do something to make life better right in front of us, it will be a better day.

Whatever our skills, tools, expertise or issues are, we want the big fix and tend to neglect the one we can do.

I was thinking about that teenager wielding the knife, and linking the news and the commonplace passions that can be aroused, without real wisdom. She'd be alive today if she hadn't been triggered by "the news".

Please excuse my rant, and apologies for Thriller. I don't know him. I imagine he is pretty focused on stuff he cares about. Thinking of going back and fixing it to make it less objectionable.

Well, it's Jazz Time.
 
Calling cops the scum of the earth. I get that there's an emotional reaction to watching instances where they abuse their power and abuse citizens, but I don't think it's helpful to make a blanket statement about them all being the scum of the earth.
They should stop being the scum of the Earth then. It's on them.
 
I think this goes too far.

Police definitely have a role in our society. Sadly, their role is oversized, overpowered, over worshipped, and usually completely unaccountable. We have a law enforcement system that incentivizes racial profiling. We have a system that uses standards too low for police officers while giving them too much power. We have a military industrial complex that likes to sell weapons of war to police units. We have two political parties that have historically not wanted to check the power of the police and their unions. We have prosecutors who don't want to hurt relations with people they work with. We have a judicial system that encourages mass incarceration and relies on the police to feed it (and it's usually fed with poor people of color). We have a media that has embraced this noble "warrior mentality" of police cracking down on (usually black) drug distributors and gang members. We have the police handling issues far beyond their expertise (why are police responding to an unarmed autistic boy in SLC?).

There are some scumbags in law enforcement because the system attracts those types and keeps those types empowered. There are some who are good people trying to serve their communities.

But the main issue is the system. The American law enforcement and imprisonment system is one of the worst in the industrialized world and desperately needs to be reformed.
Sure, there is a role for policing, but the kind of person who is attracted to the job as it's presented by the USA are the scummiest people on earth.

The job needs to be radically changed so it stops attracting the kind of person who is there just to live out their ****ed up fantasies.
 
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