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In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me
21–30 of 301 posts
Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me
#22I sometimes find ex-military folks analogies between their wartime service and situations in civilian life rather forced, but this analysis is exactly right. I used to ask myself why the Israeli Defence Forces would risk innocent palestinian civilian lives to kill the terrorists who hide among them by using drones or airstrikes instead of the kind of techniques they would no doubt use if the terrorists were surrounde…
> The simple answer is that the life of an Israeli civilian is considered (by the IDF) to be worth more than that of a palestinian civilian. It's important here to draw a philosophical distinction between the claim that the lives of some groups are more important than the lives of others, and the claim that a particular person or organization has a greater duty to some groups than others. It's perfectly consistent to…
> It's perfectly consistent to think that ...
If you say so.
Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me
#23FWIW Fairfax County, VA is about as rich, white, and suburban place that you can find in the US.
Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me
#24> The culture that encourages police officers to engage their weapons before gathering information promotes the mind-set that nothing, including citizen safety, is more important than officers’ personal security. This seems like the thing police forces need to change in order to fix the situation.
If wishing made it so.
The institution of the police is intrinsically corrupt and unbalanced. This has nothing to do with the fact that your neighbor or your Uncle Joe is a police officer and seems like a perfectly nice person, and joined for all the right reasons, their job is not to keep you safe, it is to keep you under control. All of us, collectively.
I know it's a big complex discussion to have about, "if we didn't have the police, what would blah blah", but instead of recoiling from fear, it's important to address the facts.
Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm going to go full-on cynical here: A) because they can, and B) because it counts towards SWAT gear maintenance To expand on point B, I would not be the least bit surprised if police departments' beancounters actually kept tabs on the average cost of SWAT gear maintenance costs. Higher number of conducted raids means a lower bolded number in metrics spreadsheet. ... which actually brings up another item. Do the per…
I don't think the article said it was a SWAT team conducting the raid. I mean, I could see some off-hand justification by saying that they get to practice for real raids in an unfamiliar situation... but raids are prone to inciting over-reactions and media attention, which clearly doesn't provide long term value.
> .. which clearly doesn't provide long term value.
The police are not interested in long term value. They want action, they want to play with their toys. It is simply not more complex than that.
Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me
#26FWIW Fairfax County, VA is about as rich, white, and suburban place that you can find in the US.
I wholeheartedly disagree with that. Alexandria, maybe. But Fairfax County is pretty large: it encompasses Annandale, Springfield, and Centreville. Springfield has a heavy latino population, and Centreville and Annandale have like a 25% Asian population. Annandale even has a section called "Little Korea" for pete's sake.
To be fair, though, Alexandria is not fair from Arlington, and about the only people who can afford to live in either of them these days are trust fund babies.
Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The simple answer is that the life of an Israeli civilian is considered (by the IDF) to be worth more than that of a palestinian civilian. It's important here to draw a philosophical distinction between the claim that the lives of some groups are more important than the lives of others, and the claim that a particular person or organization has a greater duty to some groups than others. It's perfectly consistent to…
> It's perfectly consistent to think that ... If you say so.
weak ass downvote. It is not perfectly consistent, nor logical, to say that violent actions toward people by other people in favor of particular people don't assign intrinsic value to all of those people.
But it is something a lot of people tell themselves because it makes it easy to sleep perfectly consistently, every night.
Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me
#28FWIW Fairfax County, VA is about as rich, white, and suburban place that you can find in the US.
I wholeheartedly disagree with that. Alexandria, maybe. But Fairfax County is pretty large: it encompasses Annandale, Springfield, and Centreville. Springfield has a heavy latino population, and Centreville and Annandale have like a 25% Asian population. Annandale even has a section called "Little Korea" for pete's sake. To be fair, though, Alexandria is not fair from Arlington, and about the only people who can affo…
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Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me
#29I sometimes find ex-military folks analogies between their wartime service and situations in civilian life rather forced, but this analysis is exactly right. I used to ask myself why the Israeli Defence Forces would risk innocent palestinian civilian lives to kill the terrorists who hide among them by using drones or airstrikes instead of the kind of techniques they would no doubt use if the terrorists were surrounde…
> I used to ask myself why the Israeli Defence Forces would risk innocent palestinian civilian lives to kill the terrorists who hide among them by using drones or airstrikes instead of the kind of techniques they would no doubt use if the terrorists were surrounded by Israeli civilians
Generally, the former occurs in places where the IDF has no access other than by air or by long range shelling. If the latter occurred, it would likely be in a place where the IDF has full surrounding access and so could use techniques like snipers that can be directed more specifically at an individual.
Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me
#30This reminds me of Sandra Bland who was put into jail for three days because of improperly signaling a lane change. Police in the US is totally out of control it seems.