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Is America a Police state?

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freethinker44

Well-Known Member
lewisnotmiller said:
I saw a story on civil forfeiture on John Oliver, and found it so bizarre in terms of lack of oversight, etc, that I then went and read up a little.
Weird. In a country that so defends freedom of speech, it seems incongruous to have such clear loopholes in procedure.
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Yep, we're a veritable nation of contradictions. A nation where you can hear people say how they despise government yet worship government enforcers.

That's the problem with freedom... everybody has it.
 
lewisnotmiller

lewisnotmiller

Grand Hat
Staff member
Premium Member
freethinker44 said:
Yep, we're a veritable nation of contradictions. A nation where you can hear people say how they despise government yet worship government enforcers.

That's the problem with freedom... everybody has it.
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Oh, don't worry, we're just as all over the place. But this particular area was surprising to me.
 
Shadow Wolf

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
lewisnotmiller said:
I saw a story on civil forfeiture on John Oliver, and found it so bizarre in terms of lack of oversight, etc, that I then went and read up a little.
Weird. In a country that so defends freedom of speech, it seems incongruous to have such clear loopholes in procedure.
Click to expand...
At times I feel the only real protected freedom we have is to be an *******. Legal and decent citizens get harassed, and sometimes killed, by police, yet groups like WBC are able to spew their venom under the guise of freedom of speech and religion. You can be intentionally inflammatory like Limbaugh, but in many places you had best not feed the poor or else you'll have legal consequences to face.
 
Revoltingest

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
In the news....
Fatal police shootings in 2015 approaching 400 nationwide - The Washington Post
Killings by cops are more numerous than previously reported.....around 400 in this year alone.
Many are justified, many are not.
Despite what NPR tells us, most police killings are of white men.
police_01.jpg
 
F

freethinker44

Well-Known Member
Revoltingest said:
In the news....
Fatal police shootings in 2015 approaching 400 nationwide - The Washington Post
Killings by cops are more numerous than previously reported.....around 400 in this year alone.
Many are justified, many are not.
Despite what NPR tells us, most police killings are of white men.
Click to expand...
Adjusting for population proportions whites are less likely to be killed by police than minority groups, your source even says as much. Police killings and racism are two separate issues though in my opinion. Racism merely compounds the issue of killer police, and from what I've seen, racism only serves to derail the debate about use of force. We're not going to solve the problem of police accountability and militarization by talking about racism, and vice versa. It's like trying to solve a pothole problem by building better suspensions in cars.
 
Revoltingest

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
freethinker44 said:
Adjusting for population proportions whites are less likely to be killed by police than minority groups, your source even says as much. Police killings and racism are two separate issues though in my opinion. Racism merely compounds the issue of killer police, and from what I've seen, racism only serves to derail the debate about use of force. We're not going to solve the problem of police accountability and militarization by talking about racism, and vice versa. It's like trying to solve a pothole problem by building better suspensions in cars.
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You're giving me nothing to disagree with here!
Let's not bore fellow posters.
So I'll say something controversial.
There's an automatic assumption that black males are targeted because of racism by white folk.

Some problems with this presumption of racism by white cops & government:
- Some of the cops who kill black guys (eg, Freddie Gray) are also black.
- There's the possibility that black guys are more prone to crime.
- Baltimore is governed by black folk.
- We don't see discussion of the statistical difference between killing black males v females,
suggesting that this disparate gender effect (discrimination) is tacitly acceptable.

I argue that even after adjusting the killings for the racial percentages of populations, there should be an adjustment for the propensity of black males causing circumstances resulting in their being killed, eg, attacking the cop, brandishing a gun. How much should this be? I don't know. There would still be racism, but obsession with this singular problem should not be the tail which wags the dog.
 
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Shadow Wolf

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
freethinker44 said:
Adjusting for population proportions whites are less likely to be killed by police than minority groups, your source even says as much. Police killings and racism are two separate issues though in my opinion. Racism merely compounds the issue of killer police, and from what I've seen, racism only serves to derail the debate about use of force. We're not going to solve the problem of police accountability and militarization by talking about racism, and vice versa. It's like trying to solve a pothole problem by building better suspensions in cars.
Click to expand...
I have come to realize the media really only covers the most controversial ones. This is unfortunate though, because it does result in discourse very frequently being derailed by racism, which although a problem with law enforcement, it isn't the only problem with law enforcement and no one, regardless of skin color, is exempt from police brutality, corruption, and oppression. Rather than the entire population coming together to say "no more, we aren't putting up with it anymore," we get caught up in debating it from a perspective of race, which divides over an issue that should unite, and prevents any meaningful changes from being made because we aren't united like we should be in order to demand police accountability and strict oversight and regulations regarding police interactions with civilians.
There is just too much of everybody being harassed, beaten, and killed by the police to simply dismiss it as a race issue. Black people do tend to get it worse, but even white people have been raped by the police via illegal roadside cavity searches.
 
Shadow Wolf

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
According to BBC, black people are killed disproportionately when compared to white people: unarmed black people especially clutter the police killing record. By age, young adults are killed more than any other group.
 
Shadow Wolf

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Revoltingest said:
Michiganistan is in the news for police & governmental corruption.....
How a sex toy put national spotlight on Michigan civil asset forfeiture laws targeted for reform | MLive.com

Cops can take what they want, & keep it, even if there's no crime.
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One of my friends, her experience wasn't that bad, but when the local piggies suggested she is "crack abusing whore," they searched her car, and confiscated her cigarette rolling machine and papers, but they did leave her with her bag of tobacco, just not with anything to make her cigarettes with. They even tried to say they found a marijuana pipe, but there was none, they said the found a syringe, but there was none, so instead they took two items that are perfectly legal to possess. Fortunately though papers are cheap and it was a cheap roller.
 
Shadow Wolf

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Wirey said:
Canadian tourists are cautioned not to carry too much cash in the US for exactly this reason.
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That's just sad, and pathetic. Because our police are so corrupt, you have to warn tourists to not carry too much cash because the cops might take it.
I wonder if other countries have that warning.
 
Revoltingest

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Shadow Wolf said:
One of my friends, her experience wasn't that bad, but when the local piggies suggested she is "crack abusing whore," they searched her car, and confiscated her cigarette rolling machine and papers, but they did leave her with her bag of tobacco, just not with anything to make her cigarettes with. They even tried to say they found a marijuana pipe, but there was none, they said the found a syringe, but there was none, so instead they took two items that are perfectly legal to possess. Fortunately though papers are cheap and it was a cheap roller.
Click to expand...
The cops prolly needed supplies for their weed.
 
Twilight Hue

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Revoltingest said:
Police video shows officer questioning about lemonade stand perm - KLTV.com-Tyler, Longview, Jacksonville, Texas | ETX News
Even Texas has jumped on the over-regulation bandwagon.
Permits required to set up a kid's lemonade stand or hold a garage sale.....ugh!
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I remember back in the day where even the police would stop and buy a 5 cent lemonade from our youngest entrepreneurs and ask how's business doing with a smile.

Now we handcuff little kids and demand permits.

This country has lost so much. It was never perfect, but kids were allowed to be kids and adults were adults.

I can only hope and guess that some future generation has enough of all the crap this generation has brought about, and perhaps return to a time were sense and sensibility was not in short supply as much as it is now.
 
Shadow Wolf

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Nowhere Man said:
I can only hope and guess that some future generation has enough of all the crap this generation has brought about, and perhaps return to a time were sense and sensibility was not in short supply as much as it is now.
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And just think, politicians tend to be older. The ones bringing this on where the ones being a square while everybody else was either stoned, trippin', or high off other drugs.
But, it can be asked what will all those who were being a lame straight-edge wuss while the other youth were getting stoned and pierced and tattooed do as politicians when they are older?
 
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