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24 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

So I heard through the grapevine that shit has really hit the fan in Seattle, since several businesses are trying to sue the city for the lack of emergency aid. One notable incident is where an arsonist tried to ignite a auto shop and attacked the owner's son with a knife. The owner had managed to detain the guy, but was forced to let him go because of the enraged mob. I also heard that it's became common practice for business owners to barricade their properties to stave off the crowd.

Why they never bothered to get the Hell out of Dodge is anyone's guess, but I'm hoping that the idiocy doesn't spread south.

What point are you making 

Are you one of those concerned citizens about looting amidst protest

Because idiocy has already spread south... For generations... I'm not sure that's what you should be worried about 

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1 minute ago, Armchair General said:

I live in Cali and the last thing I feel like dealing with is some crazy idiot jumping me...and I can't call the police about it.

Please explain your point in more than a few sentences.

The only things you've posted in here is complaints about racist statues being removed and calling the looters out instead of the police.

I think I detect some whistling, but the pitch may just be too high for humans.

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Up there in Seattle, the city cordoned off a section of the city and called it "CHAZ" which is basically an cop-free zone. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sure, a few grocery stores have packed their bags and left, so people are growing their own food. But the thing is, according to the New York Post, unspecified acts of violence have been happening within it and the local residents and businesses are creeped out by the sound of gunfire and shouting at night. As well as the lack of protection that they would normally have.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Armchair General said:

Up there in Seattle, the city cordoned off a section of the city and called it "CHAZ" which is basically an cop-free zone. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sure, a few grocery stores have packed their bags and left, so people are growing their own food. But the thing is, according to the New York Post, unspecified acts of violence have been happening within it and the local residents and businesses are creeped out by the sound of gunfire and shouting at night. As well as the lack of protection that they would normally have.

You have to be aware that the media, regardless of bias, does not want society to transform in any way, lest they become irrelevant. Most likely, no matter what the end result of CHOP, the real consequences and information about the area will not truly be known for years. There are many conflicting and misconstrued reports about it, and none of them are truly grasping the entirety of the situation. And the lack of protection is also because the Seattle Police themselves decided to abandon the area. Regardless of what the protestors wanted, the SPD had a duty to protect them, and they were found derelict... which is the entire reason CHOP even happened. Because police don't have the best interest of their charges at all. 

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Yeah, looking into it, they were initially using tear gas and flashbangs against the protesters. Consequently, their response times have increased from them abandoning that station without orders from the chief of the mayor.

 

And it's worth noting that Fox News was caught photoshopping pictures of the event.

 

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3 hours ago, Armchair General said:

I live in Cali and the last thing I feel like dealing with is some crazy idiot jumping me...and I can't call the police about it.

Sorry to hear about that. I know California is super restrictive but have you considered picking up a firearm for protection? 

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6 minutes ago, PyroPlazma said:

Sorry to hear about that. I know California is super restrictive but have you considered picking up a firearm for protection? 

I'm just being paranoid, because you never know what's going on in people's heads nowadays.  Although I would settle for a stun gun, less of an liability issue there.

 

But in all fairness, most of the crazy homeless that I've seen tend to keep themselves, except for this one guy walking around with a baseball bat that had the cops following him.

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1 minute ago, Armchair General said:

I'm just being paranoid, because you never know what's going on in people's heads nowadays.  Although I would settle for a stun gun, less of an liability issue there.

A large dog would also maybe be an alternative. Lots of upkeep with that one, but with the added benefit of companionship. Also nothing paranoid about wanting to be prepared to potentially deal with violent people especially in a time like this. 

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8 hours ago, Armchair General said:

Up there in Seattle, the city cordoned off a section of the city and called it "CHAZ" which is basically an cop-free zone. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sure, a few grocery stores have packed their bags and left, so people are growing their own food. But the thing is, according to the New York Post, unspecified acts of violence have been happening within it and the local residents and businesses are creeped out by the sound of gunfire and shouting at night. As well as the lack of protection that they would normally have.

 

 

It's literally two blocks and resembles Woodstock more than the lawless nightmare that a place like Fox News portrays it as.

Based on everything I've read, it's been mostly that, but my info is a week out of date or so.

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16 hours ago, Armchair General said:

I live in Cali and the last thing I feel like dealing with is some crazy idiot jumping me...and I can't call the police about it.

Very interesting how police now are literally like how can you expect us to do our job if we can't beat and murder whoever we want without being filmed, and don't have immunity from criminal prosecution and civil liability when we get caught??? Thats outrageous--we can't work under those conditions.

...its almost like they've become accustomed to doing whatever the hell they want with no real accountability or oversight, and let the so called ((bad-apples)) become the professional standard...

(HINT: thats exactly what happened) 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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11 hours ago, Lord Raven said:

It's literally two blocks and resembles Woodstock more than the lawless nightmare that a place like Fox News portrays it as.

Based on everything I've read, it's been mostly that, but my info is a week out of date or so.

Well, according to Wikipedia, someone was shot to death in there a few days ago and the protesters weren't willing to provide any info on it. But I think it started to die off yesterday.

 

@Shoblongoo

 

 

This why some of departments have started wearing body cams down here a few years ago. Kinda surprised that it didn't become a universal trend, yet.

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3 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

Very interesting how police now are literally like how can you expect us to do our job if we can't beat and murder whoever we want without being filmed, and don't have immunity from criminal prosecution and civil liability when we get caught??? Thats outrageous--we can't work under those conditions.

...its almost like they've become accustomed to doing whatever the hell they want with no real accountability or oversight, and let the so called ((bad-apples)) become the professional standard...

(HINT: thats exactly what happened) 

 

This is the core of why I'm pro gun rights. I use to drink the kool-aid of "it's to protect us against a tyrannical government!". But these days the country is far to hyper partisan and hyper divided for that to ever be remotely successful. 

I just never understood how people in good faith believed they should place 100% of their protection in the hands of an institution that....

1. Has no legal obligation to protect you according to the Supreme Court (see the Parkland shooting for a real world example of this ruling coming into play)

2. Vast majority of time won't even be there to protect you

3. Are rooted in racism and discrimination. Or just general ****headedness towards lower class people they know can't fight back legally speaking of which......

4. These days have barely any accountability for their actions up too and including controversial/unlawful shootings of innocent civilians  

5. Are increasingly well armed to the point of being indistinguishable from actual national guard/military units. So much so a national guard unit had to rumor control saying cops engaging in police brutality weren't them. I'm a Army vet and currently Active Duty Air Force and this stuff disgust me!

So the idea of placing 100% of the burden of your protection to these people is and has been baffling to me. I was on the ACAB train before the whole protest thing went down. I've literally had a friend unironically tell me that he believed the police were loose cannons who were out of control (pre protest). But still believed they should be the only ones armed. Of course when I politely brought this point back up he casually denied/side stepped it and tried to gas-light me lol. 

Normally I try not "I told you so" too hard, but..... yeah....... You see how police in America get down.... 

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35 minutes ago, PyroPlazma said:

 

This is the core of why I'm pro gun rights. I use to drink the kool-aid of "it's to protect us against a tyrannical government!". But these days the country is far to hyper partisan and hyper divided for that to ever be remotely successful. 

I just never understood how people in good faith believed they should place 100% of their protection in the hands of an institution that....

1. Has no legal obligation to protect you according to the Supreme Court (see the Parkland shooting for a real world example of this ruling coming into play)

2. Vast majority of time won't even be there to protect you

3. Are rooted in racism and discrimination. Or just general ****headedness towards lower class people they know can't fight back legally speaking of which......

4. These days have barely any accountability for their actions up too and including controversial/unlawful shootings of innocent civilians  

5. Are increasingly well armed to the point of being indistinguishable from actual national guard/military units. So much so a national guard unit had to rumor control saying cops engaging in police brutality weren't them. I'm a Army vet and currently Active Duty Air Force and this stuff disgust me!

So the idea of placing 100% of the burden of your protection to these people is and has been baffling to me. I was on the ACAB train before the whole protest thing went down. I've literally had a friend unironically tell me that he believed the police were loose cannons who were out of control (pre protest). But still believed they should be the only ones armed. Of course when I politely brought this point back up he casually denied/side stepped it and tried to gas-light me lol. 

Normally I try not "I told you so" too hard, but..... yeah....... You see how police in America get down.... 

This becomes something of a circular argument:

AMERICAN POLICE:  "We need to use more aggressive police tactics and resort to force more often than police in this country, because in America anyone could have a gun and we always have to assume a belligerent suspect is armed." 

PRIVATE CITIZENS:  "We can't trust the police to provide law enforcement services without resorting to excessive use of force, so we need to protect ourselves with more guns."

AMERICAN POLICE:  "Well now we have to be even more aggressive and use more  violence, because there's even more armed-and-dangerous individuals that we have to assume we're encountering on patrol."

PRIVATE CITIZENS: "Well now the police are even less trustworthy, so we need more private self-defense and more guns."

AMERICAN POLICE:  "We wouldn't be so quick to resort to extreme force if you didn't have so many guns."

PRIVATE CITIZENS:  "We wouldn't need so many guns if you weren't so quick to resort to extreme force." 

AMERICAN POLICE:  "You're the reason we have to do that."

PRIVATE CITIZENS:  "No you're the reason we have to do that."

...and so on, and so forth....
__________________

I think I'd rather just reform broken institutions and restore public trust in policing, then substitute private violence for the state-sanctioned variant.

 

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22 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

This becomes something of a circular argument:

AMERICAN POLICE:  "We need to use more aggressive police tactics and resort to force more often than police in this country, because in America anyone could have a gun and we always have to assume a belligerent suspect is armed." 

PRIVATE CITIZENS:  "We can't trust the police to provide law enforcement services without resorting to excessive use of force, so we need to protect ourselves with more guns."

AMERICAN POLICE:  "Well now we have to be even more aggressive and use more  violence, because there's even more armed-and-dangerous individuals that we have to assume we're encountering on patrol."

PRIVATE CITIZENS: "Well now the police are even less trustworthy, so we need more private self-defense and more guns."

AMERICAN POLICE:  "We wouldn't be so quick to resort to extreme force if you didn't have so many guns."

PRIVATE CITIZENS:  "We wouldn't need so many guns if you weren't so quick to resort to extreme force." 

AMERICAN POLICE:  "You're the reason we have to do that."

PRIVATE CITIZENS:  "No you're the reason we have to do that."

...and so on, and so forth....
__________________

I think I'd rather just reform broken institutions and restore public trust in policing, then substitute private violence for the state-sanctioned variant.

 

It's not circular because the police are straight up lying to you. Crime has been going down as with police deaths. So the police have been arming the ever living crap out of themselves to deal with a increasingly safer country. Further more increased militarization has been shown to not seriously affect already decreasing crime rates overall.

You still haven't addressed large swaths of my post. Such as the basic reality that cops will rarely arrive to actually stop crimes in progress or that police have no legal obligation to protect citizens as per the supreme court. Please address my individual points. 

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On 6/23/2020 at 8:51 PM, XRay said:

People who own their homes in poorer neighborhoods generally have more wealth than people who rent in the same neighborhoods, but they are not exactly rich either. Artificially keeping their home values low is just worse in my opinion.

Housing shouldn't be a commodity, and that extends to the middle-class homeowner as well. Not that it's their fault, we shouldn't be living in a world where you buy a home as a means of investment as opposed to just getting proper

On 6/23/2020 at 8:51 PM, XRay said:

The government can employ more inspectors to enforce rental regulations to make sure homes are hospitable.

There's a flipside to that thinking-- HOPE VI, for instance, a government program designed to demolish slums and rebuild them, sounds pretty good on paper, until they took out the provision that they had to rebuild the same number of housing units. There was also an issue where the designation of "slum" was ambiguous, leading to a large amount of adequate condition low-income housing being destroyed in order to build new fancy units with a higher ROI for owners. Keep in mind that the overarching issue with gentrification is how it displaces poor people.

On 6/23/2020 at 8:51 PM, XRay said:
We will not have a direct war with them, but we need to spend that amount. Not spending it would lead to more situations where Russia and China can just curbstomp and bully their neighbors with impunity. Ukraine already lost Crimea, and South East Asian countries are in the process of losing the South China Sea. We cannot let that happen to our closer allies, we need that spending to be prepared.

That military spending also acts as a counterbalance for other countries to utilize. I do not think India wants American troops and hardware on their soil right now, but if shit hits the fan between them and China, we need to be able to send India stuff at a moment's notice if they ask for it.

If anything, our military spending as percentage of GDP is low by historical standards. When we were facing the Soviet Union, our military expenditure ranged from 5-10% of our GDP. Our military spending last year is about 3.4% of GDP.

I don't have any interest in discussing defense spending with you because we've done this song and dance many times before. I will, however, mention that the Pentagon and DOD people I talk to all agree that the military budget is absurdly higher than it needs to be and there'd be little to no impact on our global standing if we cut it significantly.

Obligatory:

On 6/23/2020 at 8:51 PM, XRay said:

As a temporary solution, checks will have to do for now. The long term solution is to build more housing but we are going to need a lot more planning and funding to get that done, not to mention the amount of votes needed. I am not sure how receptive people are to building subsidized housing on a much larger scale than we have now.

For NYC's housing project, the rent is based on a percentage of income, so we can try that model, but the current model also has a lot of problems where people are not moving out and there is a long wait list, so there needs more fine tuning. Japan's model has a long wait list too, but it seems more financially sustainable and they do not seem to have a problem with demolishing old buildings and rebuilding them.

It's true, we do need checks in the short term. The underlying issue is the neoliberal thinking of letting the market solve the problem when it's the source of the problem. The long term solution goes far beyond even building more housing, including a massive legislative overhaul. A number of major laws regarding public housing have been largely detrimental and instead favor private companies over middle-class owners and renters, and those laws need to be repealed or heavily amended.

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1 hour ago, Armchair General said:

Well, according to Wikipedia, someone was shot to death in there a few days ago and the protesters weren't willing to provide any info on it. But I think it started to die off yesterday.

 

@Shoblongoo

 

 

This why some of departments have started wearing body cams down here a few years ago. Kinda surprised that it didn't become a universal trend, yet.

Body cams didn't do anything to help with accountibility. In fact there's been no penalty for taping over them in many districts.

PyroPlazma nailed it, otherwise. For the record, my view was that nobody should have guns and we should disband the military beforehand, and that the populace should be at least as armed as the police (and self defense against police should be justified). I'm all for abolishing the police, but gradually (and with more restrictions on police) so suburban whites don't shit their pants without their personal 911-summon materia.

I mean, Im on the ACAB train in the sense of how PDs don't have a systemic infrastructure for a "good cop" to thrive, so ultimately you either stop being a cop or you become complicit. It sucks because there's people who legitimately need the work to feed their families and they get ex-commed for doing the right thing. It's fucked, really, so saying ACAB is necessary until the "good" cops can be rewarded for being good, rather than punished.

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6 minutes ago, Johann said:

Housing shouldn't be a commodity, and that extends to the middle-class homeowner as well. Not that it's their fault, we shouldn't be living in a world where you buy a home as a means of investment as opposed to just getting proper

I do not see anything wrong with owning a home as an investment.

Assuming we are able to solve the housing crisis, people who want to move out of government housing, want a detached home, and can afford one should be able to buy and own their own dwelling and land.

12 minutes ago, Johann said:

There's a flipside to that thinking-- HOPE VI, for instance, a government program designed to demolish slums and rebuild them, sounds pretty good on paper, until they took out the provision that they had to rebuild the same number of housing units. There was also an issue where the designation of "slum" was ambiguous, leading to a large amount of adequate condition low-income housing being destroyed in order to build new fancy units with a higher ROI for owners. Keep in mind that the overarching issue with gentrification is how it displaces poor people.

That sounds more like a rule/loophole causing a problem than the program as a whole. If they kept the provision that the number of new housing units must match or exceed the number of demolished units, then there should be less of a problem. Tightening the definition of slum would also be good so we are not wasting money to rebuild neighborhoods that do not need rebuilding yet.

17 minutes ago, Johann said:

I don't have any interest in discussing defense spending with you because we've done this song and dance many times before. I will, however, mention that the Pentagon and DOD people I talk to all agree that the military budget is absurdly higher than it needs to be and there'd be little to no impact on our global standing if we cut it significantly.

I prefer to see some written sources from the military that says that.

Russia and China are not some wild animal that pose little threat to America. They pose a significant and major threat. And they do not affect just our standard of living or national prosperity, people's lives are also at stake. With how easy it was Russia to interfere with our election process, and how bat shit stupid some of our people are, Russia could promote some dumb conspiracy theory that our uneducated idiots would gobble up. If we are already having trouble telling people to wear masks and having trouble trying to save them from their own stupidity, it would not take much effort for Russia and China to make disinformation worse.

While we might not have bear patrol, we still have animal control for when those situations to arise.

36 minutes ago, Johann said:

It's true, we do need checks in the short term. The underlying issue is the neoliberal thinking of letting the market solve the problem when it's the source of the problem. The long term solution goes far beyond even building more housing, including a massive legislative overhaul. A number of major laws regarding public housing have been largely detrimental and instead favor private companies over middle-class owners and renters, and those laws need to be repealed or heavily amended.

I do not think there is anything wrong with letting the market solve the problem if the market can do it. If the market is not willing to step in to build low income housing, then the government can step into that role. If the market can provide adequate middle income and high income housing, then the government does not need to involve itself there.

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53 minutes ago, XRay said:

I do not see anything wrong with owning a home as an investment.

Assuming we are able to solve the housing crisis, people who want to move out of government housing, want a detached home, and can afford one should be able to buy and own their own dwelling and land.

It's not that it's wrong, per se, but solving the housing crisis would make buying/selling a home less of an investment vehicle, not because people couldn't, but because it wouldn't be necessary.

Bear in mind that one of the loooong standing issues with the housing market is banks and lenders denying mortgages and loans to minorities. Buying a home is not as simple as you seem to think it is.

53 minutes ago, XRay said:

That sounds more like a rule/loophole causing a problem than the program as a whole. If they kept the provision that the number of new housing units must match or exceed the number of demolished units, then there should be less of a problem. Tightening the definition of slum would also be good so we are not wasting money to rebuild neighborhoods that do not need rebuilding yet.

The provision was removed by the Republican-controlled House in 1998. It was very much a deliberate choice.

Here, do your own homework: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOPE_VI#Criticisms

53 minutes ago, XRay said:

I prefer to see some written sources from the military that says that.

Russia and China are not some wild animal that pose little threat to America. They pose a significant and major threat. And they do not affect just our standard of living or national prosperity, people's lives are also at stake. With how easy it was Russia to interfere with our election process, and how bat shit stupid some of our people are, Russia could promote some dumb conspiracy theory that our uneducated idiots would gobble up. If we are already having trouble telling people to wear masks and having trouble trying to save them from their own stupidity, it would not take much effort for Russia and China to make disinformation worse.

While we might not have bear patrol, we still have animal control for when those situations to arise.

You do realize that no military person working today would ever go on the record criticizing the military budget, right? That'd be career suicide.

I've already stated I don't have any interest in discussing Russia and China with you because your viewpoint is coming from an emotional place and and you're not really open to anything that pokes a hole in that.

53 minutes ago, XRay said:

I do not think there is anything wrong with letting the market solve the problem if the market can do it. If the market is not willing to step in to build low income housing, then the government can step into that role. If the market can provide adequate middle income and high income housing, then the government does not need to involve itself there.

The market has no incentive to fix it. They have a very strong incentive to keep it as is, at the expense of the poor. It's really not complicated, dude.

-----------------------------

If your answers on housing are just going to amount to "nah, I think it's fine" when I'm telling you that people's lives are being ruined daily, then we're all set here and your response is neither required nor welcome.

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1 hour ago, XRay said:

I do not see anything wrong with owning a home as an investment.

Assuming we are able to solve the housing crisis, people who want to move out of government housing, want a detached home, and can afford one should be able to buy and own their own dwelling and land.

That sounds more like a rule/loophole causing a problem than the program as a whole. If they kept the provision that the number of new housing units must match or exceed the number of demolished units, then there should be less of a problem. Tightening the definition of slum would also be good so we are not wasting money to rebuild neighborhoods that do not need rebuilding yet.

I prefer to see some written sources from the military that says that.

Russia and China are not some wild animal that pose little threat to America. They pose a significant and major threat. And they do not affect just our standard of living or national prosperity, people's lives are also at stake. With how easy it was Russia to interfere with our election process, and how bat shit stupid some of our people are, Russia could promote some dumb conspiracy theory that our uneducated idiots would gobble up. If we are already having trouble telling people to wear masks and having trouble trying to save them from their own stupidity, it would not take much effort for Russia and China to make disinformation worse.

While we might not have bear patrol, we still have animal control for when those situations to arise.

I do not think there is anything wrong with letting the market solve the problem if the market can do it. If the market is not willing to step in to build low income housing, then the government can step into that role. If the market can provide adequate middle income and high income housing, then the government does not need to involve itself there.

Aside from anything else, owning a home as an investment is not a great idea. What happened in 2008 should be a stark reminder of that. 

In any case, the government turning to private enterprise to solve housing shortages and outright crises hasn't had good results. There's very little corporate interest in building cheap housing across the globe.

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3 hours ago, PyroPlazma said:

You still haven't addressed large swaths of my post. Such as the basic reality that cops will rarely arrive to actually stop crimes in progress or that police have no legal obligation to protect citizens as per the supreme court. Please address my individual points. 

Cops routinely respond to emergency calls and disrupt crimes in progress. The problem is thats a very, very, VERY small percentage of the work that we actually have police doing atm. 

We moved away from the idea that this is supposed to be their main job. 

They're mostly just out there now doing highway patrol, harassing motorists, and issuing ticketing citations for traffic offenses and violations of low-level municipal ordinances subject to minor fines. (because thats how The State makes its money)

...and then at some point, we also decided its their job to be the one's called out as the first line of response when someone with a mental illness or a drug habit is in crisis...

And I think one of the institutional fixes that needs to be made is that we have to move back to the idea of police-work being narrowly focused on responding to emergency calls, catching criminals, and disrupting crime.

...police aren't supposed to be social workers.
...police aren't supposed to be highway tax collectors.

Think about this: for many Americans living outside of high-crime areas, your only regular interactions with police officers are at traffic stops. 

And you actively go out of your way to avoid them.

And when you see a cop car out on the road your gut-response isn't thank you Mr. Police Officer, for Protecting our Streets.

Its Oh Fuck. Whats the speed limit?  Did I signal when I made that last turn? Are my high-beams on? Is my taillight out? Is my registration up-to-date? Whats this fucker going to pull me over for this time? 

And I think one of the most basic things we can do to restore public confidence and policing even outside the whole issue of police brutality is take that role away from them, and get them laser-focused back on stopping crimes. 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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48 minutes ago, Johann said:

The provision was removed by the Republican-controlled House in 1998. It was very much a deliberate choice.

Here, do your own homework: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOPE_VI#Criticisms

I think the program just needs to close the loopholes and have better oversight so it cannot be abused. Having additional rules like giving residents the priority to live in the new developmental housing with a similar size and price point that they previously lived in sounds pretty reasonable to incorporate.

50 minutes ago, Johann said:

You do realize that no military person working today would ever go on the record criticizing the military budget, right? That'd be career suicide.

I've already stated I don't have any interest in discussing Russia and China with you because your viewpoint is coming from an emotional place and and you're not really open to anything that pokes a hole in that.

You have not cited any sources. If a military source is not available, an academic one or a trustworthy news source explaining how redirecting some of our military expenditure is going to better improve American interests and influence abroad would help.

51 minutes ago, Johann said:

The market has no incentive to fix it. They have a very strong incentive to keep it as is, at the expense of the poor. It's really not complicated, dude.

-----------------------------

If your answers on housing are just going to amount to "nah, I think it's fine" when I'm telling you that people's lives are being ruined daily, then we're all set here and your response is neither required nor welcome.

I literally just mentioned having the government stepping in. I find your antipathy against the market to be unreasonable. Just because one portion of the market is not working does not mean you need to get rid of the entire market.

2 hours ago, XRay said:

I do not think there is anything wrong with letting the market solve the problem if the market can do it. If the market is not willing to step in to build low income housing, then the government can step into that role. If the market can provide adequate middle income and high income housing, then the government does not need to involve itself there.

— — — — — — —

27 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

They're mostly just out there now doing highway patrol, harassing motorists, and issuing ticketing citations for traffic offenses and violations of low-level municipal ordinances subject to minor fines. (because thats how The State makes its money)

I think that is a pretty reasonable job for police to handle. While they are patrolling in their cars, they might as well enforce traffic laws. I do not think we need to create a separate department that only handles traffic violations if the police can do it in their down time.

I agree that cops should not be the one to deal with drug addicts, delinquent students, domestic abuse (unless it gets physical), etc. though, since I think there are other professionals who can better handle that. I think it is still a good idea for police to arrive on the scene or escort others depending on the emergency just in case it is necessary, but other professionals should handle the situation.

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53 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Cops routinely respond to emergency calls and disrupt crimes in progress. The problem is thats a very, very, VERY small percentage of the work that we actually have police doing atm. 

We moved away from the idea that this is supposed to be their main job. 

They're mostly just out there now doing highway patrol, harassing motorists, and issuing ticketing citations for traffic offenses and violations of low-level municipal ordinances subject to minor fines. (because thats how The State makes its money)

...and then at some point, we also decided its their job to be the one's called out as the first line of response when someone with a mental illness or a drug habit is in crisis...

...police aren't supposed to be social workers.
...police aren't supposed to be highway tax collectors.


...And I think one of the most basic things we can do to restore public confidence and policing even outside the whole issue of police brutality is take that role away from them, and get them laser-focused back on stopping crimes. 

"When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

Anyone who doubts the capacity for abuse, the leeway a nation's police force has in dealing with matters outside their depth and breadth of work need only look at the slam-bang, really stellar job other countries' police forces are doing, such as the Philippines:

  • An exponential rise in COVID-19 cases ever since an Inter-Agency Task Force comprised largely of police and ex-military bigwigs (instead of independent health experts not beholden to Duterte) handled things,
  • Harrassment of human rights activists who are taking the government to task for their lackadaisical approach to the pandemic (no reported killings...yet),
  • Members of the press, big and small, experiencing arm-twisting from law enforcers as they go about their work. 

It's anyone's guess where the billions of dollars in loans to combat COVID-19 went, but I'm willing to wager that a good portion of it goes to the police, who have more than enough power as it is (and it stands to earn more power, with PH's version of the Patriot Act). They've clearly encroached on sectors that they shouldn't be involved in, and in cases other than this one, serve as a veritable cautionary tale for every other country.

You want to see a de facto police state? Look no fucking further.

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3 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

Cops routinely respond to emergency calls and disrupt crimes in progress. The problem is thats a very, very, VERY small percentage of the work that we actually have police doing atm. 

We moved away from the idea that this is supposed to be their main job. 

They're mostly just out there now doing highway patrol, harassing motorists, and issuing ticketing citations for traffic offenses and violations of low-level municipal ordinances subject to minor fines. (because thats how The State makes its money)

...and then at some point, we also decided its their job to be the one's called out as the first line of response when someone with a mental illness or a drug habit is in crisis...

And I think one of the institutional fixes that needs to be made is that we have to move back to the idea of police-work being narrowly focused on responding to emergency calls, catching criminals, and disrupting crime.

...police aren't supposed to be social workers.
...police aren't supposed to be highway tax collectors.

Think about this: for many Americans living outside of high-crime areas, your only regular interactions with police officers are at traffic stops. 

And you actively go out of your way to avoid them.

And when you see a cop car out on the road your gut-response isn't thank you Mr. Police Officer, for Protecting our Streets.

Its Oh Fuck. Whats the speed limit?  Did I signal when I made that last turn? Are my high-beams on? Is my taillight out? Is my registration up-to-date? Whats this fucker going to pull me over for this time? 

And I think one of the most basic things we can do to restore public confidence and policing even outside the whole issue of police brutality is take that role away from them, and get them laser-focused back on stopping crimes. 

As someone who been stopped by the police and asked why I was eating outside a fast food restaurant in a car (honestly, they were after us for an different reason, but I wasn't the one driving), I agree with this.

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