“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book” • Hacker News Board

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#51

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 07, 2013, 4:05 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #36

alexvr wrote: post #17

In order to stay safe from the government, 1. Don't buy sparkling water if you're a college student 2. Don't bet with friends because an arbitrary threshold of about $2k warrants your execution 3. Don't tell American citizens that their government abuses its power, or you'll be charged with espionage 4. It's probably a bad idea to bear arms these days, because saying "Officer, I have a weapon in the trunk of my car"…

3. Don't tell American citizens that their government abuses its power, or you'll be charged with espionage Point 3 is patently false. All of my Facebook friends, and I, regularly say that the United States government abuses its power, some from the right, some from the left, and many from a general freedom-loving perspective, and we all go on posting as we please. All of these statements are exaggerations. Many of t…

[deleted]

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#52

Post by greedo » Sun, Jul 07, 2013, 4:05 PM UTC

sgaither wrote: post #9

We have to ask ourselves: where is the money? Our rights aren't being lost to a sprawling military-police state just because there's a Big-Brother wannabe conspiring to destroy the constitution. Police departments grow the same way our project departments grow in engineering companies: by managers arguing for bigger budgets and spending more, sometimes wastefully, to justify bigger budgets come next fiscal year. Thes…

A lot of the funding comes from seizures of cars, houses, cash, anything that can be grabbed. Then it's up to the citizen to "prove" it isn't ill-gotten goods.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#53

Post by ryguytilidie » Sun, Jul 07, 2013, 4:07 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #36

alexvr wrote: post #17

In order to stay safe from the government, 1. Don't buy sparkling water if you're a college student 2. Don't bet with friends because an arbitrary threshold of about $2k warrants your execution 3. Don't tell American citizens that their government abuses its power, or you'll be charged with espionage 4. It's probably a bad idea to bear arms these days, because saying "Officer, I have a weapon in the trunk of my car"…

3. Don't tell American citizens that their government abuses its power, or you'll be charged with espionage Point 3 is patently false. All of my Facebook friends, and I, regularly say that the United States government abuses its power, some from the right, some from the left, and many from a general freedom-loving perspective, and we all go on posting as we please. All of these statements are exaggerations. Many of t…

Ahhh yes, the "these problems are worse in other places" Okay, you're right, so lets never try to fix them. Because Russian police are abusive we should count ourselves lucky that our own police force isn't AT LEAST that bad. Sure, they go out of their way to murder people for no reason, but we can't be man about that, we should simply be thankful that there are worse police agencies that exist.

And yeah, your point that the govt won't abuse the shit out of its power if you are a whistleblower makes me wonder if you've been living under a rock recently. I imagine you don't think it was any big deal that the US coerced other countries into not allowing the Bolivian President use their airspace because the US was upset with Bolivia offering Snowden asylum? But yeah, you're right man, no abuses whatsoever will occur if you are a whistleblower...

The type of self awareness one would have to lack to get to the point where they are making the point you just made is staggering.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#54

Post by allannienhuis » Sun, Jul 07, 2013, 4:08 PM UTC

Lusake wrote: post #21

So Shaq, Matt Damon and Steven Seagal participated in SWAT raids. Is this for celebrities only or anyone can sign up? Not that I would like to participate though.

You have to convince a sheriff to deputize you first. For some reason this is easier for celebrities. Go figure. What does that say about the judgement of the sheriff that approve that sort of thing? Not sure what a sheriff's responsibilities are in the US system, but if that's the same person responsible for deciding that a SWAT team is necessary to investigate a poker game going on in someone's house, it's not surprising to see poor decisions being made in that area too.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#55

Post by akiselev » Sun, Jul 07, 2013, 4:08 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #36

alexvr wrote: post #17

In order to stay safe from the government, 1. Don't buy sparkling water if you're a college student 2. Don't bet with friends because an arbitrary threshold of about $2k warrants your execution 3. Don't tell American citizens that their government abuses its power, or you'll be charged with espionage 4. It's probably a bad idea to bear arms these days, because saying "Officer, I have a weapon in the trunk of my car"…

3. Don't tell American citizens that their government abuses its power, or you'll be charged with espionage Point 3 is patently false. All of my Facebook friends, and I, regularly say that the United States government abuses its power, some from the right, some from the left, and many from a general freedom-loving perspective, and we all go on posting as we please. All of these statements are exaggerations. Many of t…

Oh yeah it's all much worse in other places. We're still "better" than all the dictatorships and authoritarian governments in the world, and that makes it all just fine and dandy. The only people losing sight of reality are the ones deluded into thinking that America/ns is/are immune to what appears to be a fundamental feature of power: corruption.

By point 3 he meant actions by USG whistle blowers with access to classified information, not a civilian's facebook account.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#56

Post by lawnchair_larry » Sun, Jul 07, 2013, 4:09 PM UTC

alexvr wrote: post #17

In order to stay safe from the government, 1. Don't buy sparkling water if you're a college student 2. Don't bet with friends because an arbitrary threshold of about $2k warrants your execution 3. Don't tell American citizens that their government abuses its power, or you'll be charged with espionage 4. It's probably a bad idea to bear arms these days, because saying "Officer, I have a weapon in the trunk of my car"…

6. Don't have $20 buy-in poker games

and Steven Seagal driving a tank into that guys living room for fighting chickens...wow.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#57

Post by kabdib » Sun, Jul 07, 2013, 4:09 PM UTC

greedo wrote: post #52

sgaither wrote: post #9

We have to ask ourselves: where is the money? Our rights aren't being lost to a sprawling military-police state just because there's a Big-Brother wannabe conspiring to destroy the constitution. Police departments grow the same way our project departments grow in engineering companies: by managers arguing for bigger budgets and spending more, sometimes wastefully, to justify bigger budgets come next fiscal year. Thes…

A lot of the funding comes from seizures of cars, houses, cash, anything that can be grabbed. Then it's up to the citizen to "prove" it isn't ill-gotten goods.

Some of the money, in some areas, certainly. Any idea how much?

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#58

Post by akiselev » Sun, Jul 07, 2013, 4:10 PM UTC

Ovid wrote: post #23

Is this really the America that America wants? The article mentions one case where a judge refused to issue a search warrant for a narcotics investigation and instead the police brought representatives from the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and raided the place with a swat team to conduct an alcohol inspection. What did they find? Two sample bottles of beer that weren't labeled as samples and a bo…

Americans vote for those who are tough on crime. I think CATO estimated (on the high end) about 40,000 SWAT/paramilitary raids a year and the public perception is that the targets are all criminals. To them this is just "acceptable collateral damage."

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#59

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 07, 2013, 4:10 PM UTC

llamataboot wrote: post #15

Reposting this from the killed-dog-thread. It certainly won't help when the SWAT team is already in your home, but for the creeping sense of out of control cops everywhere: "Most of us carry video cameras in our pockets now. Filming police needs to become ubiquitous. There should be no police officer in the United States that doesn't know that at any time they could be being filmed and held accountable for their acti…

[deleted]

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#60

Post by parennoob » Sun, Jul 07, 2013, 4:10 PM UTC

Slightly tangential, but Ted Dziuba makes a good case for gun control for these over-armed local police forces in this post http://teddziuba.com/post/37961127287/i-am-a-gun-owner-lets-...

Police forces seem to be totally exempt from, say, the ban on assault weapons or such in some of the States. Possibly a law that limits the weaponry that police forces can carry along with a reduction in civilian-owned guns might help curb some of these incidents involving trigger-happy cops.