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

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

#121

Post by wavefunction »

hammerzeit wrote: post #114
danbruc wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any reliable statistics quantifying this? I found some numbers for Germany on Wikipedia [1] but not for the US. The article states that per year for the period of 2007 to 2011 the German police fired between 36 and 57 bullets at humans killing between 6 and 12 of them. Older numbers are less reliable but similar regarding the number of people killed (peak since 1970 24 in 1983) but with a larger number of b…

I'm astonished by the total lack of conversation around the actual data here. Both the article itself and the discussion below are predicated on the assumption that this is a rampant problem in the USA, but not a single subthread on the actual incidence of this. I'd expect better from Hacker News. For what it's worth, Wikipedia has a complete list of people killed by US Police Officers and the police reports from the…

We (US residents) haven't posted annotated lists because this is in our face via newspapers and TV news and viral videos passed around on the Internet.

http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/29-black-p...

Here's one take, which is focused on black folks shot and killed over the past year. Note how many were armed.

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

#122

Post by gaius »

mikeash wrote: post #87
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…

Sadly, yes, it is the America that America wants, as far as I can tell. I think this is where efforts to fight these problems fall down. They're almost all based on the assumption that the populace doesn't want this stuff to happen, but that the government pushes it through by abusing power, subverting democracy, etc. But from what I see, this is not the case. Most Americans want this. Whether it's gun-wielding mania…

What fascinates me about this is that the SWAT team and the spies are people too. Which sounds obvious but it isn't. Take a guy off the street and he believes about himself, and the government believes about him, that he needs to be surveilled constantly and if he acts suspiciously, violently confronted. But what if that guy is a bureaucrat or a policeman himself? What happens in the recruitment/training process to turn a person from one of the watched into one of the watchers? Does he flip back whenever he clocks out for the day? Are the cops happy to know that they or their families could find a SWAT team on their doorsteps one day for no apparent reason? Are the spooks happy to know that another spook is reading their families emails and judging them? The whole situation is so surreal as to defy easy comprehension.

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

#123

Post by alan_cx »

danmaz74 wrote: post #42

Watching Hollywood movies, I often wondered if they weren't exaggerating the diffusion of SWAT teams in the US. Looks like they are not.

Not to mention the heroic worship of characters who break every law and human right going to get the bad guy. Well, I say get, I mean kill.

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

#124

Post by epo »

wavefunction wrote: post #104
_yields wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thank you for saying this.

Why, you couldn't say it yourself?

'cos the other guy got there first and it would have been pointless repetition, Though the 'thank you' was pretty pointless really.

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

#126

Post by apineda »

smky80 wrote: post #110
mikeash wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, yes, it is the America that America wants, as far as I can tell. I think this is where efforts to fight these problems fall down. They're almost all based on the assumption that the populace doesn't want this stuff to happen, but that the government pushes it through by abusing power, subverting democracy, etc. But from what I see, this is not the case. Most Americans want this. Whether it's gun-wielding mania…

They do not "like" it. It's just that, to be very blunt, most people are basically peasants at heart. They're going to go along with whatever the king says. Twenty years ago, on that side of the line on a map, the people believed in capitalism, while on the other side the people believed in communism. On this side of the line people believed in this god, on that side, they believe in that god. It has nothing to do wi…

Blame our compulsory state education? http://school.neocities.org/

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

#127

Post by kevinmchugh »

smky80 wrote: post #110
mikeash wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, yes, it is the America that America wants, as far as I can tell. I think this is where efforts to fight these problems fall down. They're almost all based on the assumption that the populace doesn't want this stuff to happen, but that the government pushes it through by abusing power, subverting democracy, etc. But from what I see, this is not the case. Most Americans want this. Whether it's gun-wielding mania…

They do not "like" it. It's just that, to be very blunt, most people are basically peasants at heart. They're going to go along with whatever the king says. Twenty years ago, on that side of the line on a map, the people believed in capitalism, while on the other side the people believed in communism. On this side of the line people believed in this god, on that side, they believe in that god. It has nothing to do wi…

This is a somewhat ugly and self-aggrandizing view. It's easy to let people you don't know and will never meet become sub-human, but it's dangerous and harmful. The relevant xkcd is of course, http://xkcd.com/610/.

I don't presume to know why most people are not particularly vocal on these matters, but it's certainly not because they lack critical thought.

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

#128

Post by gaius »

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…

because there's a Big-Brother wannabe conspiring to destroy the constitution

"Yes we scan"

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

#129

Post by takluyver »

stcredzero wrote: post #98
mikeash wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, yes, it is the America that America wants, as far as I can tell. I think this is where efforts to fight these problems fall down. They're almost all based on the assumption that the populace doesn't want this stuff to happen, but that the government pushes it through by abusing power, subverting democracy, etc. But from what I see, this is not the case. Most Americans want this. Whether it's gun-wielding mania…

> Sadly, yes, it is the America that America wants, as far as I can tell. Many young people coming out of school seem to have no conception of rights. To them, it's excusable for rights to be violated if they feel enough justified anger. They are unclear on the concept that rights apply to people and situations in ways they may not like.

> To them, it's excusable for rights to be violated if they feel enough justified anger.

I don't think this is specific to young people, or to the present time. Everyone will be very noble when talking about rights in the abstract, but they quickly throw that away when it's the rights of a specific group they don't like. I was struck by it after the London riots last year, when there were loud calls for looters to be punished beyond what the judicial system normally allows. You can see the same attitude to terrorism.

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

#130

Post by wavefunction »

wavefunction wrote: post #8
mark_l_watson wrote: post #5

Sorry if this is off topic, but: I think that taking reasonable steps for both protecting our rights as citizens and not screwing up the environment are sort-of the same topic: making sure that future generations have life as good as our generation (or my generation, I am in my early 60s) have it. Native American Indians have a philosophy that our actions should be guided by what is best for future generations. Being…

Not to take away from your message but you can just say "Native Americans" and leave the "Indian" part off. Otherwise I totally agree with your post.

My point was more about the redundancy rather than an attempt to be pedantic or politically correct, but go ahead and downvote...
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