Now I'm not sure if Norway has similar laws, but I haven't heard of any.
However, watching John Oliver talk about how ridiculous the civil forfeiture laws are in the US just makes me want to laugh so much.
I know of all the great things happening in the US, and I'm not calling you a bad country. But it's so hard not to categorise you together with North Korea, China and the United Arab Emirates with how trigger happy your police are, how easy it is for them to steal from the population. How terribly you treat your sick and poor, and how fascinated you seem to be with groping people at the airport.
To group the US in with the likes of N. Korea and China is dishonest and inaccurate. If the US were run by either of those governments, you would not have Jon Oliver, Washington Post, etc. exposing and criticizing the very issues you mention.
Correct me if I am wrong, but you appear to believe that because I stated we have the freedom to have an open and critical dialogue around these issues - something one is unlikely to have in N. Korea, etc. - that I am implying we do not have these problems. That is not what I had stated.
Well, you said that "to group the US in with the likes of N. Korea and China is dishonest and inaccurate." So although you didn't expressly state that you didn't think the US has a police state problem, you did seem to think that grouping with other states with this same problem was deceptive. The only odd part was that you used as your justification an assessment that, in a completely separate (albeit obviously related) set of criteria, these states don't belong in the same group.
Thank you. This was the most constructive reply I've received.
I do acknowledge the issues raised by OP; my quote: "...exposing and criticizing the very issues you mention."
I read the original comment as a generalization that the US is grouped in with those other countries due to these issues. My reply was simply to refute that primarily on the fact that we have the ability to discuss and solve these issues that those other countries do not have. It is an important distinction in my opinion.
Maybe I misread the intent - it appears from some of the fiery responses I've received that may be true. :(
There is obviously a disconnect between what you think you wrote and how it reads to others. Perhaps instead of getting defensive you should acknowledge that the confusion is valid and apologize for being unclear.
People are responding to your exact comment, not guessing what you might be thinking.
I honestly don't feel/think I am being defensive here. I've even asked for correction if I am wrong. I'm not asking people to "guess" what I might be thinking, hence the discussion.
You accused the OP of being "dishonest and inaccurate" because he neglected to mention the differences in freedoms of speech. The parallels he draws are independent of that concern.
Yeah, the US is a big joke, and it sucks to have to suffer through the police state and looter healthcare system. Civil asset forfeiture is an insane rejection of our right to property. The problem is that "rights" are really more like "ideas which we must nod to and then can ignore fully" here.
Whether it makes it or not, I can accept speech/press protection + Internet as worthwhile results of the experiment that is the U.S.. Long as they stay around and get more uptake that is.
> But it's so hard not to categorise you together with North Korea, China and the United Arab Emirates with how trigger happy...
United Arab Emirates... trigger happy? You have no idea what you're talking about. The police there are extremely pleasant to deal with. You actually feel safe talking to them.
I don't know about Norway, but the other anglo countries have similar laws. It seems to be less of a problem over there because, as far as I can tell, the people are of a better moral stock. How law is carried into effect is a reflection of the virtue--or lack thereof--of the people.
Before taking that opinion it might be useful for you to go through the exercise of engineering solutions for the various problems that lead to some of the things you point out.
It sounds like you are in Norway, it might just be impossible for you to think of these solutions because of the lack of context. Not putting you down, it would be just as impossible for me to have a valid opinion about anything going on in Norway because I am completely ignorant of your laws and environment.
I am not disputing these problems are in a range from less-than-ideal to horrible. However, the term often used in product design "form follows function" might be applicable here.
For example, our police force's "form" is a result of the "function" they have to serve, which includes a country with 300 million guns, higher crime rate than a lot of countries and, currently, a situation where segments of the population are advocating killing cops. And, in fact, cops have been killed just sitting in their cars doing absolutely nothing more than existing.
Again, not proposing this is the police force I want. Yet one has to understand things in context before forming an opinion. I know lots of cops. I train at a local Aikido dojo that is run by a retired FBI agent. Probably 80% of the students are in law enforcement (police, CHP, correctional, anti-terrorist units, FBI and undisclosed). A number of them are friends. We go have lunch and dinner together and talk about these things. They are very concerned that every time they put on their uniform they become targets for maniacs. They'd love to be able to walk around without their guns when in uniform but, today, in the USA, that would be suicidal. And today, in the USA, for a cop to approach contact with a civilian not prepared for the potential of a gun being pointed at them would be just as dangerous.
That, BTW, is one of the problems we have today in this country. Nobody talks to anyone in an effort to understand what's going on yet everyone has an opinion. Sit down with a cop for a two or three hour heart-to-heart conversation and your view of their reality will be very different. Don't think of them as an image on TV. Think of them as your brother, sister, father or mother.
The sick and the poor? That's an entirely different problem. Again, go through the mental exercise of developing a solution --a realistic one-- before forming opinions. You can't just say "do it like Norway" or "do it like France", because we are not Norway or France. We have our own laws, problems, culture and dynamics. And so, the solutions have to be had in the context of an entire society.
In my opinion the USA is going through some of the phases Latin America has gone through in terms of what's happening with government and the poor. In order to understand what I mean you have to understand Latin American history going back to 1492 and probably a bit before that. I am not going to go into the details, there's an excellent set of videos that paint a strong evidence-based image of the problem. If you don't speak Spanish you can turn on subtitles and google translate (not a great translation but it might do). Here they are:
There are a couple of lines in these videos that hit the "poor" problem in the US right on the head. Please remember the context here is Latin American history, not US. I am simply proposing there are important parallels (not a match, parallels):
"Populism: It's the shortcut through which politicians play with people's passions, dreams and ideals to promise them the impossible, taking advantage of the people making decisions outside the bounds of logic and reason as they focus in their misery. It plays with necessities of the population to impose a dictatorship."
"Populism has such love for the poor that it multiplies them."
The latter one is particularly powerful. When politicians play the people for their own benefit nothing good can come from that. I feel very strongly that the Latin American historical experience is a time machine for aspects of the US experience. They are probably fifty years ahead of us in populism and it's effects.
A populist uses the population for votes during elections yet needs them to stay poor and miserable after winning the election or they lose their "base". They do this by promising to fix their problems and, ultimately, not doing anything for them. The poor staying poor is good for the populist. They appease them with gifts that might feel good but do not, ultimately, solve the real problems. YouTube is full of videos going back to 2008 with people in absolutely rapture about the Obama era solving all their problems. Obama promised the parting of the oceans and beyond and, of course, just like any good populist, delivered almost nothing. The poor are still poor, the uneducated are still uneducated and we have worst problems than we had seven years ago.
And so I ask, before forming an opinion about anything --not just the US, anything in your life-- take the time to really understand it from the inside and develop solutions on paper. Opinions without solid context and deep solution analysis aren't very valuable.
BTW, we are all guilty of this. Most of use react to things rather than taking the more difficult road of investing time and mental effort to dig deep into something before shaping an opinion. People will, for example, down vote this post without investing the four hours, or more, that it would take to research and truly understand. Nobody is going to go to the local police station and engage a cop in a conversation to understand what being a cop feels like. And nobody is going to devote a couple of hours to watch those videos and another two or more hours to research what they learned and develop context. That's just the way things are. Again, we are --me included-- all guilty of this, which is part of the problem.
>a situation where segments of the population are advocating killing cops. And, in fact, cops have been killed just sitting in their cars doing absolutely nothing more than existing.
[...]
>They are very concerned that every time they put on their uniform they become targets for maniacs. They'd love to be able to walk around without their guns when in uniform but, today, in the USA, that would be suicidal. And today, in the USA, for a cop to approach contact with a civilian not prepared for the potential of a gun being pointed at them would be just as dangerous.
That comes with the territory of participating in a violent criminal gang. Perhaps if, collectively, they behaved more like police instead, it wouldn't be as risky for them. Unfortunately, the cops have been giving people lots of good reasons to be defensive and/or seek vengeance, and their actions have eroded trust and respect even in those who aren't their usual victims.
It may be a small percentage of cops that are bad while the rest just support them, but because their coworkers don't bother to stop them, and they are unaccountable and immune to any form of punishment for violating the law, and they take advantage of that to victimize the citizens, they (and their fellow gang members) are naturally going to be at risk of their victims fighting back. When their victims can't get justice through the justice system, it is going to be messy frontier justice.
> form follows function
And effect follows cause. We should address the cause.
Stop letting police commit armed robbery under the fancypants name "civil asset forfeiture" and start holding them accountable for behaving properly and respectably. Teach them that throwing flashbangs at babies, shooting at protesters, stealing from people, and randomly arresting people for not being white are not proper respectable behavior. Teach them about the constitution and the laws of our land. It'll be a long and difficult change, but de-escalating (something police are supposed to do) sure beats the alternative of escalating further.
Hundreds of years ago, we had problems with corruption in law enforcement. That's why we have explicit laws against this: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated [...] nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation"
While the police are acting as a violent criminal gang, they will be perceived and treated as such. When they stop doing that, or at least justice occurs, then the problems will be greatly reduced and the police themselves will be much safer.
I am not going to dispute your points. I'll just say that painting all cops with the same brush is as fair as painting all Muslims as terrorists. Which is to say it isn't fair at all.
Their jobs are unimaginable to most of us, particularly when they work difficult areas. One of the cops from my Aikido dojo is in a gang task force. One day he entered this room (I can't give too much detail) and had a full clip emptied in his direction just as he closed the door. To this day he has no clue why not one bullet hit him.
Not one of us outside law enforcement or military service is equipped to understand what it would mean to wake up every day and go to work doing THAT job. It's far too easy to be angry at videos on youtube from behind a keyboard.
Again, I am not pushing back on anything you said. Your opinion could be exactly on point. I don't know and I won't take sides other than to say, perhaps take the time to go talk to a cop or two human-to-human in order to understand their plight. Buy them a cup of coffee and tell them there are a few things you'd like to understand. You know, they are sons, daughters, fathers and mothers, they are people, just like you and I. And yes, there are assholes in there just like in any other population.
I am not defending the assholes, but, yes, the vast majority of good cops out there deserve our thanks and respect for doing a job most of us might not want to do. Let's walk in their shoes a bit and avoid lumping them in with the assholes you see on youtube.
I agree. One of my family members is now retired law enforcement and the stories that he has to tell are incredible (and sometimes hysterical). And of course the job affected his wife and kids - sometimes he would get called away on the weekend and they wondered whether he'd come back.
But my point is that, while most cops have good intentions, instead of punishing and removing the few assholes so that people can feel safer with cops around, we're rewarding them, giving them heavier weapons, institutionalizing their assholery, and possibly turning good cops bad by encouraging them to do unethical/immoral/illegal things. That makes people feel threatened by cops, and that makes it more dangerous for the cops. Citizens and police should not be an adversarial us-vs-them relationship.
Edit: Sorry, still on my first cup of coffee. Here it goes: the purpose of news is to objectively inform you of facts. The purpose of these comedy shows is to make you laugh, often by distorting or exaggerating the facts. By getting your news from comedy shows, you are receiving a distorted view of reality, which you seem to admit in your post. However, I see this as a greater problem with some youth.
"the purpose of news is to objectively inform you of facts"
Which news source does that? Fox News? the NYT? Al Jazeera? the WSJ? Democracy Now? the Washington Post? RT? The Guardian? Der Spiegel? No matter which one you pick, others will point out failures.
No news source can give you all the news. As commenters have long noted, the selection of facts to present is itself subject to bias.
For example, during a contract negotiation between a company and a union, does the news source report the facts as management sees it? Or as the union sees it? If it presents both sides, but one side is likely lying, does the news source report the lie, or let the reader decide, or interview a third party to have that third party point out the lie?
"Last Week Tonight" is a commentary news show that also happens to be funny. Its content is entirely factual and has way more in common with "60 Minutes" than with "Saturday Night Live". I'd argue that the purpose of the show is in fact to make you cry. Sometimes laughing makes that easier.
"Last Week Tonight" is satire. It says so on its web site. Satire involves the use of humor to exaggerate or ridicule. It is not serious news and if that is your source of news, you are foolish.
The irony here is comedians speak the truth while politicians lie. If John Oliver, George Carlin (my favorite), et al were serious in their monologues hardly anyone would listen to them.
However, watching John Oliver talk about how ridiculous the civil forfeiture laws are in the US just makes me want to laugh so much.
I know of all the great things happening in the US, and I'm not calling you a bad country. But it's so hard not to categorise you together with North Korea, China and the United Arab Emirates with how trigger happy your police are, how easy it is for them to steal from the population. How terribly you treat your sick and poor, and how fascinated you seem to be with groping people at the airport.