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#41 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 4,680
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The Australian Family Association's John Morrissey was aghast when he learned Jessica Watson was bidding to become the youngest person to sail round the world alone, unaided and without stopping. |
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#42 |
Sarcastic Conqueror of Notions
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 30,417
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They are people who have rights, too, including not having to fund their detractors.
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"Great innovations should not be forced [by way of] slender majorities." - Thomas Jefferson The government should nationalize it! Socialized, single-payer video game development and sales now! More, cheaper, better games, right? Right? |
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#43 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: US of A
Posts: 12,981
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I think it depends on the state and the circumstances. I doubt that a mainstream employer would have much trouble firing somebody who was known to be active in say, the Ku Klux Klan or some other hate group, no matter how well he did his job. And you don't have to "tout" yourself to be known in the community as a company employee. An employer can expect anyone who has a job dealing with the public not to do anything that the company would consider embarrassing or hurtful.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanada...get-you-fired/ http://molawyersmedia.com/2012/05/01...get-you-fired/ And of course, Donald Sterling had the whole world drop on his head because of private remarks he made to one other person. Sure, and previous employers, immigration status, license suspensions or revocations, civil suits, bankruptcies, sex offender registration etc. There are some things the employer can't ask you about (like marital status) or hold against you (like bankruptcy), but if you lied about or concealed matters that the employer is legitimately entitled to know, he can certainly boot you out. |
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#44 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: USA
Posts: 1,205
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So I skimmed the complaint, and wow. Just wow. It was filed pro se (without a lawyer), and boy does it show. What a mess. I've read pro se complaints suing the CIA for planting chips in brains that were less of a mess than this one. A violation of the Second Amendment? To quote Wolfgang Pauli, that isn't even wrong.
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William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law! Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that! More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? |
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#45 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: the wet side of the mountains
Posts: 3,568
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Funnily, they supposedly have a lawyer, probably through their union. The lawyer's told the media that the officers are "afraid for their lives".
I'm sure that's what their victims say too, at least the ones that aren't dead. |
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#46 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: The great American southeast
Posts: 8,873
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__________________
If at first you don't succeed try try again. Then if you fail to succeed to Hell with that. Try something else. |
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#47 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: USA
Posts: 1,205
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William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law! Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that! More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? |
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#48 |
Neo-Post-Retro-Revivalist
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: The Emerald City
Posts: 16,201
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Seattle PD is one of the highest-paid departments in the nation; despite constantly whinging about not having enough funding, and doing things like shutting down their gang unit due to "lack of funding and lack of necessity" at a time when gang violence is increasing. So it's clearly not the expense.
There is definitely a culture of violence, corruption, and elitism in the Seattle PD; which is fed by a similar culture in the city government. People simply expect that kind of corruption within the city and county, it's been established for so long. The PD has long had an adversarial relationship with the community; and tend to treat everyone as criminals regardless of their status. Especially minorities (there was a high-profile incident a number of years ago that involved officers assaulting a Seattle city councilman for DWB). As bad as a particular police department's culture may be, it cannot exist ina vacuum. Attempts to address and remedy this culture has met with a huge wall of denial and stonewalling; not just from the PD, but from the Seattle government as well. The city government has proven to be the biggest obstacle to reforms. Not surprising, since the PD is often their tool to control what they see as undesirables. This was best exemplified by the WTO "riots", which were nothing of the sort until the police started harassing and assaulting the protesters. The entire scene was remarkably peaceful, a handful of imported anarchists and local gangsta thugs notwithstanding, until the city decided the protesters were too inconvenient, and instructed the PD to flush them out of downtown with tear gas. The police cordons forced the gassed protesters to flee into a residential district; and then proceeded to assault the local residents, including firing tear gas grenades through windows into their homes. All with the blessing, or at least blind eyes, of the city government. There was no real fallout for the PD from the abuses committed, the city simply declared that the protesters were at fault and insulated the department from any serious repercussions. The PD is also regularly used by the city to appease local businesses by "cleaning up" unsightly and inconvenient homeless people who are "disrupting business" and presenting a less than pleasant face to tourists. Cleaning up generally consisting of rousting them all out and forcing them into a different, lower-economic-zone part of the city. It's going to take some radical reforms in the Seattle city government before serious reforms can be applied to the police department here. |
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When you say that fascists should only be defeated through debate, what you're really saying is that the marginalized and vulnerable should have to endlessly argue for their right to exist; and at no point should they ever be fully accepted, and the debate considered won. |
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#49 |
Illuminator
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 4,237
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#50 |
Banned
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Hollywood East
Posts: 10,889
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And police get upset and don't understand why civillians won't help cops when they are on the recieving end of a beating.
Philly Transit Police Chief Surprised Witnesses did not call 911 to Report Cop getting Beat up |
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#51 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 27,930
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Not according to the complaint where the point of the new policies seems to be to restrict the officers to underreact in all situations. That should allow the use of necessary deadly force, e.g. given a suspect who is an active danger to others.
That is what I have been saying! It is a valid complaint. They have the obligation at all times under the new restrictions to react at a level less than that of the suspect. So it is not until the suspect begins using deadly force that they are entitled to use deadly force. By that time it is too late - people are injured or dead. And as I said this is an extreme example. A less extreme example: A police officer comes across a suspect waving a knife around in a public area. Would the new policies constrain the officer to tackle the suspect with a baton rather than drawing heir weapon? The language I have seen suggests so. That places the officer at a higher risk than before. That in turn places the public at a higher risk. Usually police officers are allowed to use a level of force in apprehending suspects that is appropriate to the situation. Another aspect of the complaint is that the judgment of what is appropriate is taken away from the officers by edict rather then being a part of the training. |
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NASA Finds Direct Proof of Dark Matter (another observation) (and Abell 520) Electric comets still do not exist! |
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#52 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: USA
Posts: 1,205
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They still have the authority to use appropriate force, and there is still no question that it is appropriate to draw a firearm when responding to an unstable person waving a deadly weapon around. Any cop who claims that these guidelines even arguably require him to attack the knife-wielder with a baton is completely full of ****.
The problem is that too many in the police department seem to think that "appropriate" means whatever they say it means, and that they are entitled not to be second-guessed. Yes, overly vague guidelines are bad for everyone, and perhaps some clarifications are needed. But these guidelines would not have been imposed if Seattle police were already for the most part using no more force than was appropriate. |
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William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law! Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that! More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? |
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#53 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 27,930
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Not according to the new policy as described in the complaint (admittedly a biased source) - they have to use less force than they are presented with. That may or may not be appropriate.
And that may mean "it is appropriate to draw a firearm when responding to an unstable person waving a deadly weapon around" (I assume you mean a less deadly weapon than a gun) or not. The current Seattle police policy has 8.000 – Use-of-Force Core Principles Effective Date: 1/1/2014. This does look more reasonable than the complaint asserts, e.g. the last bit of the introduction:
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NASA Finds Direct Proof of Dark Matter (another observation) (and Abell 520) Electric comets still do not exist! |
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#54 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 14,519
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I took at look at the FBI's UCR database for the Seattle police department. It has stats covering the 1985-2012 time period. Below is a list of the peak rate recorded during this period, as well as the rate recorded in 2012. All rate figures are per 100,000 population. Violent crime: 1,507.0 (1990); 597.6 (2012) Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter: 12.8 (1994); 3.7 (2012) Forcible rate: 94.0 (1987); 19.0 (2012) Robbery: 598.5 (1987); 226.7 (2012) Aggravated assault: 881.5 (1990); 348.2 (2012) Property crime: 13,316.7 (1987); 5,093.8 (2012) Burglary: 3,489.7 (1987); 1,040.6 (2012) Larceny/theft: 8,815.5 (1987); 3,485.9 (2012) Motor vehicle theft: 1,651.0 (2005); 567.3 (2012) Those are some deep reductions in the rates of crimes. So where is this great danger to the public that requires this right some of the police are requesting? |
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"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our abilities and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win." |
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#55 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: USA
Posts: 1,205
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Use of appropriate force is legitimate by definition. The dispute is over what is appropriate, and over how use-of-force incidents will be judged after the fact. It does sound like the guidelines could be more clear, and if so that's a valid gripe (though not a constitutional violation).
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William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law! Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that! More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? |
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#56 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 27,930
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Not quite how I read the complaint - the dispute is over whether the new policies endanger officers, suspects or the public and so contravene their constitutional rights.
Whether the policies are clear or not is a factor in the conditional part of that dispute. The "how use-of-force incidents will be judged after the fact" seems quite clearly stated in 8.300-Use-of-Force Reporting & Investigation |
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NASA Finds Direct Proof of Dark Matter (another observation) (and Abell 520) Electric comets still do not exist! |
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#57 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 27,930
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Actually someone (not me!) could argue that the overuse of force by the Seattle force was the cause of those "deep reductions"
![]() There is as far as I can see no "great danger" to the public mentioned in the complaint about the rights of officers, suspects and the public. There is a mention of increased danger to them due to the new policies. |
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NASA Finds Direct Proof of Dark Matter (another observation) (and Abell 520) Electric comets still do not exist! |
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#58 |
Non credunt, semper verificare
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Sigil, the city of doors
Posts: 14,581
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#59 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 14,519
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__________________
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our abilities and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win." |
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#60 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: the wet side of the mountains
Posts: 3,568
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Because they have to justify all the fancy toys they're buying with Homeland Security money?
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#61 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 27,930
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Could you cite your source for the "rates of crime have dropped considerably" under the new policies?
Seeing as the rates of crime have dropped considerably from the peak in the1990's to 2012, this would seem to indicate many factors such as fewer criminals, changes in the economy, better security, better policing, etc. The complaint is that police, suspects and the public (according to the opinion of ~10% of the police department) are under greater threat under the new policies. |
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NASA Finds Direct Proof of Dark Matter (another observation) (and Abell 520) Electric comets still do not exist! |
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#62 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 14,519
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Are you suggesting that it was the Seattle police's old use of force policies that were responsible for the drop in the crime rate there? If so, then you would have to explain what the causes were in all the other many, many locales where crime fell just like it did in Seattle. The drop in crime as recorded in the FBI UCR for Seattle was replicated all across the United States in the same basic time period. |
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"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our abilities and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win." |
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#63 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Fayetteville, NC
Posts: 7,019
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It may (or may not, I don't know) seem strange to a non-American, but the US Constitution generally protects the citizen from the government, not the citizen from other citizens.
Of course, we do have laws that are not specifically enumerated in the constitution, and depending on who you talk to you may get the opinion that these laws do not confer "rights". Some of those laws provide protections to employees. I have formed the impression that we have fewer legal protections for our employees than is common in most other western nations. I'm fine with that, generally. IMO, a private business should have very wide latitude in selection and retention of employees, so long as the selection/retention decision does not depend on ahndful of prohibited practices. We might be a little unballanced in favor of the employer (who is also a citizen, and the only one with anything at risk), but that circumstance is significantly better than the one in, say, France......where it is unnecessarily difficult to terminate an employee. As for the subject of the thread: Police are potentially dangerous to the public, always. Police officers do dangerous, difficult work, always. Striking a balance between protecting the police and protecting the rights of the public is achievable. It is not an either/or equation, but if it were, then protecting the individual rights of the public is more important than protecting the safety of the police. Abuse of the public by a member of law enforcement should carry a very heavy penalty. The potential for abuse is great....and abuse happens every day. I am more likely to get into a confrontation with a cop that throws his weight around than with virtually any other citizen. Police Departments have bullies, and that is a terrible thing. That Police Departments are also full of good people doing a difficult job well doesn't really make the situation any better. |
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My previous signature risked (unknowingly) violating the Hatch Act! |
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#64 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 27,930
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Read what I wrote:
(emphasis added) What I am stating is that you made a vague, unsupported assertion, Corsair 115. That means that you need to clarify it and/or provide support, thus: Of course the new policies had no effect on the rates of crime before they existed (pre-2014) ![]() |
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NASA Finds Direct Proof of Dark Matter (another observation) (and Abell 520) Electric comets still do not exist! |
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