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The Criminalization of Everyday Life

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Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#111

Post by ptaffs »

crazygringo wrote: post #22

I can't say I'm exactly surprised. If you ran a police department, you're not about to turn down a free tank -- I mean, how cool is that, toys for the boys?!?! What's bothersome is that a police department is allowed to do this. That DoD rules don't prohibit selling/giving military equipment to police departments. That state legislatures don't prohibit it. A police department, like any organization, is always going t…

I wonder if this stuff is surplus when bought, the M.O. of the military industrial machine seems to be financing a small group of firms for equipment and services we don't need. Just like NSA monitoring data centers and drones.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#112

Post by talmand »

ahomescu1 wrote: post #103
rprospero wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I'm naive, but I never understood why a despotic US President would need all of these weapons and vehicles. I mean, they're a nice convenience, but they're complete unnecessary for a takeover. My thought would be that you just need the presidency and maybe six high ranking military officers. You then declare a presidential address where you announce that you're declaring yourself dictator for life. If anyone…

Sounds like a B-movie plot. The problem is, the newly-appointed tyrant would need everyone in the military to play along with the blackmail. All it would take is a few rogue Air Force pilots to shoot down that ICBM.

Never underestimate the ability of human beings to go along with, and justify in their minds, a bad idea.

How does any tyrant do the things they do without enough people willing to go along with it?

Actually, your idea of rogue Air Force pilots shooting down an unscheduled launch of an ICBM is classic B-movie material. As long as there are three pilots and there's some love triangle sub-plot involved. Plus, one of them has to die in some meaningless and tragic way.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#113

Post by rjd »

CurtMonash wrote: post #8

"If you didn't do anything wrong, you have nothing to fear (at least from the cops)" is looking stupider every day.

Not being from the states I've only seen this through documentaries and expose shows... but to me its just seems to be the police are starting to treat everybody the way minorities have said they have been treated for decades.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#114

Post by jseliger »

dmix wrote: post #61

I wish people would move beyond 1984 and quote more Foucault's Discipline & Punishment [1]. There is a much deeper-rooted problem in society than mass surveillance or militarization of police. It's the question of why we all let this happen without any resistance. We accept and welcome our controllers. Foucault wrote about the effects of prisoner mindset in society in the 1960-70s. Our subjugation and tolerance to au…

quote more Foucault's Discipline & Punishment

Foucault's style is (possibly deliberately) obtuse, and his knowledge of history dubious at best, per Keith Windschuttle's book The Killing of History: http://www.amazon.com/The-Killing-History-Theorists-Murderin... .

It's the question of why we all let this happen without any resistance

Because it's easy, because most of the time it doesn't affect us, and because it's hard for one voter to fix the problem. Bryan Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter is very good on this subject. Most people (and voters) don't even know how many Senators their state has, or their terms, let alone why complex subjects like privacy are important. Based on Caplan's book, I think ignorance is a more reasonable explanation than a fear of being anti-authoritarian or an institutionalized mindset.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#116

Post by avmich »

walid wrote: post #105
avmich wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't evaluate officials - especially elected ones - on their views. Now, what could be a workable approach...

But I don't think this is a workable task in a political system. The views of the guy you voted for are going to be different from the one you didn't vote for. In a perfect system every person will be impartial in evaluating elected officials. In the real world, if you evaluate the guy you DID NOT elect you would be perceived as being biased. On the other hand, if you evaluate the person you DID elect you would be pe…

Voting is the evaluation I'm talking about. Of course it's biased :) .

Systems and results are surely quite important but we still have individuals in the picture, so we want to pay attention to them as well.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#117

Post by ctdonath »

redblacktree wrote: post #109
ctdonath wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short version: In 1934, machineguns & "destructive devices" were hit with a $200 "transfer tax" and subject to tight paperwork regulations and severe penalties for violations. Given the products in question cost around $50, and the tax equaled some $3000 in today's US$, it was practically a ban. Inflation brought the tax down to affordable (cough) levels today. In 1986, possession/manufacture of new machineguns was b…

> When the US Army transitioned to "Humvees" replacing Jeeps, the contract included a clause prohibiting resale to civilians. Likewise other equipment cannot be resold, not so much by law but by contract. Do you know why this is? It sounds more like economic protectionism than a desire to keep them out of the hands of civilians.

Confluence of both? Sometimes disparate goals make for good symbiosis.

BTW: MREs ("meals ready to eat") are likewise restricted, marked with warnings about resale.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#118

Post by memracom »

Americans really should learn more about the Soviet KGB and its predecessor, the NKVD, and how they ran a campaign of terror against citizens who did little more than have a different opinion of how the country should be run. Because now that America no longer compares itself to the Soviet Union, this is the kind of police state that is being constructed in the USA.

Meanwhile, in Russia, the place where the Soviet system used to be, they have moved in the opposite direction and dismantled most of the police state. In Russia people have more personal freedoms with respect to the state than they do in the USA. Of course one unfortunate side effect of so much freedom is that there was a great increase in corruption and the growth of the oligarchs after the fall of the Soviet Union. But Russia is dealing with this step by step, reducing corruption and reigning in the oligarchs. Their ideal seems to be the USA of the 1960s or 70s, but not the USA of today.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#119

Post by tunap »

mortyseinfeld wrote: post #9

This is probably more of "If we scare people by throwing around the terrorist word then we get to spend money, have cool new toys, and look badass". It's pathetic, but it seems to work.

Pathetic & self serving. There would be a cessation of federal/State/Muni funds if any agency's focal issue(s) were eradicated, hence the popularity of "War On..." ideologies with unattainable objectives. What starts as a legitimate(sic) cause all too often morphs into a personal job security issue. Imagine all the ICE, DHS, NSA, FBI, CIA, state, county and local LEOs that would have to look elsewhere for jobs if the "War on..."s didn't raise their budgets every fiscal quarter.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#120

Post by batbomb »

VLM wrote: post #41
crazygringo wrote: post #22

I can't say I'm exactly surprised. If you ran a police department, you're not about to turn down a free tank -- I mean, how cool is that, toys for the boys?!?! What's bothersome is that a police department is allowed to do this. That DoD rules don't prohibit selling/giving military equipment to police departments. That state legislatures don't prohibit it. A police department, like any organization, is always going t…

The mayor is busy making speeches about how he's tough on crime. Things are gerrymandered enough that its a one party system where I live, so any speeches are a bit extreme, hoping to rise up in the party ranks, not appeal to anyone but extremists. My little city has one of those tanks and used it down the street from my home a couple years ago. Couple broke up, guy goes out, gets drunk, comes home, mostly but not en…

A year ago, SWAT bust into the house two doors down from mine. I live on a corner unit, and had been drinking when I saw these funny looking guys dressed up for what looked like a game of paintball or some kind of motorcycle night-rider gang, right outside my window. The window which was around the corner from the house two doors down, the bottom of which was about 6.5' about the sidewalk. In my intoxicated silliness, I decided to go ahead and tap on the window. Right then, one of them looked into the window, and I'm sure caught me with a wonderful "Oh Shit" face as I realized these guys were holding AR-15s and wearing military-style Go-Pros and LED headlamps on their helmets.
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