The Glade 4.0

Here's hoping the "militarization of the police" angle of these events helps move the ball toward the goal of reversing that particular trend.



**** ridiculous.

What's **** ridiculous is pretending there's any "militarization: going on based on such trivialities as rifles and camo patterns. These types of devices are the least powerful things in the military's arsenal and the most powerful for law enforcement. That's the extent of the overlap. When people feel justified going on a riot and looting spree because a black kid died (and that's not to say it was justified) then the police need to use those things to regain control.

Who cares what color their pants are? And any "82nd airborne trooper" claiming they "rolled lighter in a warzone" is either lying about that, or lying about having been in a warzone.

Or we can just get the National Guard to do the same thing, and get the same effect. Either way, quit being an armchair quarterback.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

They're not trivialities, though, DE. They both reflect and reinforce an aggressive, violence-centered approach (both in attitude and tactics) that is similar to a military engaging with a hostile, foreign population (e.g., US troops patrolling in Afghanistan or Iraq) rather than the protection/enforcement-centered approach that a domestic police force engaging with its own community should have. That's what "militarization of the police" refers to, and the rifles, camo patterns, armored vehicles, etc. are the visible indications of that underlying mentality.

This guy was a regular cop in a regular cop car as far admi understood.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Also maybe if our population was less hostile then maybe the cops wouldn't have to be so military

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

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This thread makes me wonder what is the proper response of government to the wanton destruction of innocent third party's homes and livelihoods by a mass of hoodlums? One Bullet Barney doesn't cut it.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

This will become more common until it reaches a point where a mob so incensed and with so little to lose that the will soak up every single round thrown out them and tear those firing to pieces, quite literally, with the bare hands if necessary.

Two-thousand to one are not the best of odds.

On the upside every day this goes on there are likely a few hundred more AR's and AK's in lawful African American hands for when this comes to their neighborhood and they teach their family and their friends.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Jesus, watching this thing unfold...it's insane.

I guess this week's third famous death was the First Amendment.

This is a circular argument that amounts to "the police are becoming militarized because they're becoming militarized" and based entirely on superficialities of appearance. Your entire paragraph is nothing but vague buzzwords.

The police are not engaging in a "violence centered approach" at all.. and what's really hilarious is that, in Iraq particularly, the military struggled not to do so, and finally was able to make a go of it when the surge strategy was implemented. In Afghanistan this has not been as practical to implement, but even there (whining about drones notwithstanding) the military has mad major efforts to reduce the indiscriminate use of firepower - you don't see the massed B-52 raids of Viet Nam, or for that matter, even the approach of the Israelis in Gaza.

Armored vehicles - insignificant. So what if a vehicle is "armored"? Military armored vehicles use belt-fed crew-served weapons (at a minimum), which are noticeably absent from police armored vehicles - armored vehicles which are not only nothing new, but are also notably not the same type as the ones used to "Ward off bombs" that the article refers to. In this context, "armored vehicles" is a loaded term used for it's very broad nature. A tank is an armored vehicle, and so is the truck that picks up cash from the safe at the gas station. The term is used intentionally to create an impression of militarism, when in point of fact "armored vehicles" are not inherently military.

If the National Guard shows up, however, to quell the riots - which is what happens when we intentionally cripple the police because we focus on trivial appearance issues - they will be using military armored vehicles with crew-served weapons.

Rifles - These are the same rifles that anti-gun nitwits whine are for the "battlefield" and complain that "citizens don't need". Amazing how quickly that argument gets polished off and refurbished by whiners when the police have the same weapons. There is nothing wrong with the police having rifles, just like there is nothing wrong with the citizens having them.

Camo pants - most likely, they picked up some cheap surplus military camo pants to save money, since these are really not the normal colors for the police, but still...

CAMO PANTS!!

This sort of straw-grasping is almost as good for the comedy value as it is for demonstrating how far some people will go to take issue with the cops.

I mean, never mind the kid that got shot originally - that was on Saturday, but no one made a thread about that, even though it's certainly an incident worthy of scrutiny. Never mind the people looting and rioting that are the reason for this deployment of police force. Never mind that civil unrest actually is normally a reason to deploy the military - in the form of the National Guard. Never mind that "looking intimidating" is a good way to get people to quit rioting and go home, and stop looting the stores of people that had nothing to do with the shooting! No, let's whine about rifles and vehicles and.. and... and CAMO PANTS!! THEY'RE WEARING THE WRONG PANTS!!

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Camo pants.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I hard the police wearing the wrong colored pants and carrying the same rifles citizens insist they have a right to carry and stopping people from looting and burning businesses means the First Amendment is dying.

True story bro.

CAMO PANTS RARRR!!!!

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I think you're reversing the order of causation, Rori (particularly in the case of the African-American population, which has obviously borne the brunt of aggressive policing since day one). Polls show that law enforcement is actually one of the most highly trusted/respected professions in the country, and violent crime has been steadily decreasing for 20 years, yet over that same 20 years (more like 30 years, actually), the police have been making increasing use of tasers, pepper spray, and SWAT-style equipment and tactics. Mostly, it has to do with the spike in urban unrest in the 60s and violent crime in the 70s and 80s, coupled with the "War on Drugs" rhetoric of the 80s and 90s. There was a shift in the general culture of the country toward a much more aggressive, punitive attitude toward crime and drugs - hence all the 80s movies glorifying Dirty Harry-style cops and portraying dystopian crime-riddled cities in the near future, the "tough on crime / soft on crime" nonsense in political campaigns, the adoption of increasingly harsh sentences and mandatory minimums, and the "broken windows" approach to policing whereby even minor infractions get the hammer. Police culture, training and tactics simply mirrored that shift in the overall culture, but as the spike in crime reversed itself and the overall culture shifted back to a less hysterically fearful mode, police culture and tactics just kept right on ratcheting things up.


Well, your hypo presupposes the existence of a rampaging mob intent on violence, which, I agree, generally has to be met with force. The thing is, though, neither the Ferguson situation nor most other protests with sporadic incidents of violence fit that mold. The key in those situations is to de-escalate the situation, not to, as DE suggests, attempt to intimidate the protestors into quiescence. Yes, there may be isolated instances of vandalism and looting, and the people involved can often be carved out of the main protest and arrested or at least halted, such that the majority of people who are just there to express their anger/frustration feel that they have the ability to do so without resorting to violence. Setting up skirmish lines of SWAT/military-equipped cops, ordering the entire crowd to disperse, and firing tear gas when they don't is the exact opposite of what you should do if you want to keep a mostly-peaceful protest from erupting into a riot.

Or, y'know, arrests of reporters for...nothing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ ... story.html

Ordering reporters to turn off recording equipment.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/1 ... 76940.html

Firing tear gas on a news crew setting up for a live shot.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/1 ... 78081.html

Bro.

Those pictures are F-ing absurd. There is absolutely no excuse for the presentation of the police in this fashion. Regardless of the obvious tactical irrelevance of the color of one's pants, the civilian protect-and-serve police force should not be presenting itself in this manner. First, it's inappropriate to what their mission should be (serve the public), second it's counter productive. After all, the populace is upset about possible excessive use of force.

I won't speak too much on the need for assault weapons - seems very excessive, but yeah.

They should be dressed as cops - standard uniforms - pants, yes, not cammo.
Kneepads - yes
Helmets - yes
Gas masks - yes
Goggles - yes
Gloves - yes
Boots - yes
Zip ties - loads

Armored vehicles? I can see the advantage of a large sturdy vehicle in a riot zone - keeps you from having to defend more vehicles, and might keep post-riot repairs down. Still, appearance matters.

By the way, DE, did you notice that in the middle of your rant about how silly it is to complain about "camo pants", you straight up admitted that intimidation via a visible display of force is part of the purpose behind the cops' tactics and gear, which is, you know, part of my point?

More video of the Al Jazeera news team getting gassed. Note the complete lack of protestors around them.

http://www.ksdk.com/videos/news/local/2 ... /14042891/

This is a common sentiment, and there's only one problem with it: it's based on an entirely false perception.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/150464/americans-believe-crime-worsening.aspx

There is a persistent and almost universal belief among Americans that violence is increasing, both nationally and locally. And yet, reality is the complete opposite. Violent crime rates today are hovering just barely above what they were in the 1950s, which was itself an anomalously non-violent decade.

But it isn't just the US, nor is it merely a recent trend. The modern zeitgeist holds that the 20th century was an extraordinarily deadly one, with mechanized warfare bringing about death on an unprecedented scale. But again, our perceptions deceive us.

http://www.slate.com/articles/Arts/books/2011/10/steven_pinker_s_the_better_angels_of_our_nature_why_should_you_b.2.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/books/review/the-better-angels-of-our-nature-by-steven-pinker-book-review.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

In reality, humanity has grown steadily more peaceful over the centuries, and ours has been the most peaceful yet. The ~60 million death toll of WW2 may be the largest in absolute terms, but this says more about our population growth than it does about our capacity for violence. It's a staggering number, but it's hardly unprecedented. As Pinker points out, the Mongols managed to wipe out about 40 million people in the 13th century, when the world was a much smaller place. On a per-capita basis, the 20th century was actually a remarkably peaceful era. This is especially true when one considers the latter half. The US and the USSR, each armed with enough nuclear weaponry to destroy nearly all human life, went toe-to-toe. And then something really bizarre happened.

Nothing. Or at least, very nearly nothing from a broader perspective. The two never directly engaged one another in armed conflict, and their indirect conflicts were fairly minor from a historical context. The Cold War remained cold, and it's difficult to impress just how unprecedented that truly is. One must grant that the dissolution of the USSR may not be the end of that story; however, such as it is, two super powers have never before resolved their rivalry as peacefully. Either way, it's been nearly 70 years since the last armed conflict between major world powers. Historically, that's a very peculiar thing.

And there's the paradox. Technology has vastly increased our capacity for violence, but our propensity for violence only continues to shrink. The increasingly heavy-handed, military-style tactics and armaments of our civilian police forces are supposedly justified by the need to keep pace with an increasingly violent public. Similarly, the vast erosion of civil liberties and the equally significant broadening of executive powers that began with the Patriot Act were justified by the need to meet the rising threat of terrorism. In both cases, we are chasing phantoms. The public is less violent now than they ever were in the past; yes, including Colombine/Sandy Hook/etc. Terrorism has decreased over the course of the 20th century; yes, including 9/11.

Nevertheless, it feels wrong. Even knowing the actual trends in violence, I have a hard time accepting it. I would say that our perceptions of the present are distorted, but I'm not sure that's where the problem lies. Our memories, both individual and cultural are short, fickle beasts. Maybe we perceive the present accurately, and our error is in failing to remember how bloody the past really was. Or, in case the tenor of Khross's post was missed: the past just ain't what she used to be.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

People don't understand big numbers and their relationship to one another. When I hear a story about a school shooting in Colorado, I feel threatened without realizing just how very far away Colorado really is.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Colorado is not far away, when you think about a school shooting. If it can happen in Colorado, it's roughly the same culture here. Now, if you actually felt threatened by that particular shooter, then yeah.

That's incredibly bad.

Meatheads.

I know right!

What's the matter Cop guys? If you're not doing anything wrong, you shouldn't worry about being videotaped.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Hold on guys, I'm sure DE will tell us why it was okay to tear gas a camera crew.