The United Police State (vid)

[40plusnewbie]

I have absolutely no idea what the relevance is of this post.

First, this is 2008.
Second, you have completely switched the topic that we were orginally debating, then made a point based nothing but on your idealistic fantasy world.
For future reference, when you're debating something with someone, then do a complete 180 with the topic, thats like you giving up, reintroducing a new argument (round 2) because you either a) couldn't stick to the subject or b) didn't want to because it wouldn't benefit your point anymore.

I don't give a shit about your "lets legalize everything" hippy attitude. Why?
BECAUSE, I am speaking, and WAS speaking, about what is now the PRESENT REALITY. And you are in the past (alcohol prohibition) the future (legalize everything and end the drug war) and everywhere but the present, or as I like to say, reality.

So the solution you propose, as a social worker, with a "hard job", is to legalize everything. So we'll eliminate dealers, guns, and addicts? Right?

Great, WHAT THE FVCK does that have to do with cops being bad? You are a social worker, you DON'T have a gun, you have no idea what its like to wake up everyday and have the logical fear that todays work might just be your last.
We can sit here and discuss law and theories, or we can discuss NOW, and what the reality is TODAY.
And more importantly, if you have a problem with US drug laws, go to Amsterdam and stop bitching.

What does it have to do with it? You said you were against narcotic dealers. Why? Are you against medical doctors, they 'deal' in narcotics.

My point is that the violence that cops deal with on their jobs is because drugs are illegal, not because drugs are 'bad'.

As evidence I offer the alcohol prohibition example. When it was illegal violent felons were in charge of the manufacture and distribution of it. They shot each other and they shot cops. Cops jobs were more dangerous because of prohibtion.

The same is true today. Violence has skyrocketed in this country since 1970. Want to know why? That is when the war on drugs was implemented.

And the 'I only care about reality' response from you is nonsense. Back when slavery was legal was a reasonable response to someone who said "owning black people and treating them like workhorses is wrong and bad"... was a reasonable response to say "I care about reality, take your dumb additude up to canada where they don't allow you to own black people and whip them and keep them in chains and treat them like workhorses and rape the female ones if you feel like it"?

That is not how progress is made my friend. Progress is made by recognizing when something is wrong and correctng it.

I think that using narcotics is a bad idea. But in case you haven't noticed, making them illegal doesn't stop people from using them. All it does is put extra problems on the people who use them and adds tons of violence to the world. Cops get murdered because drugs are illegal, not because drugs are evil or bad. Cigarettes are evil and bad but no one is murdering cops because of it. But make them illegal, watch the price shoot up to $50 bucks a pack and watch crime skyrocket. Hundreds of thousands of users who now pay $6.00/day for their habit can get by even if they have no job. But at $50.00/day they can't afford it. Sure some quit, but a lot start robbing people and homes and stores and use weapons to do it.

Prohibition is a BAD POLICY and SOLVES NOTHING. There has been a 'war' against narcotics for 40 years and they are still readily available in every maximum security prison in the country. That's your reality. And we have paid a trillion dollars to create that reality.

Your reality gets cops murdered. Pat yourself on the back.

[thegodfather]

Substance prohibition is nothing more than an attempt to legislate morality.

[Flagg]

If listen carefully you also hear her say f*cking do it again" (a threatening statement BTW) Wonder why she said that? I guess it wasn't the first time she heard the request maybe. Too bad its a edited clip with just a few short seconds to see whats going on.

No you're wrong, instead of listening to what you want to hear, actually HEAR. After he tells her to back up and pushes her over anyways, you hear the man kneeling beside her telling the cop "what the **** is your problem".

[Reed]

No you're wrong, instead of listening to what you want to hear, actually HEAR. After he tells her to back up and pushes her over anyways, you hear the man kneeling beside her telling the cop "what the **** is your problem".

Nope sorry bud your wrong. listen again, while the camera backs up before she gets shoved. Look it up if you don't believe me. I did and its confirmed. I think your the one listening to what you want to fit the agenda.

[40plusnewbie]

If a five year old said "fuking do it again" would it be cool for the cop to cross check the child with a weapon? And saying "****ing do it again" is not in and of itself a threatening statement. It calls for a conclusion in knowing what is in the mind of the person making the statement.

It might be considered a taunt, but so what? I'm a mature adult and if someone taunts me I don't impulsively assault them with weapons. That's because I am mature and have some modicum of control over my emotions. Of course if I was some kind of maniac I probably would though.

If your only tool is a hammer all the worlds problems look like nails.

[bigt10]

maybee with should just cut the head off the beats and get rid of the federal reserve.

If we didnt have the power to create new money and export our inflation we would not have a world empire, we could not afford all this policing.

I hate this because its so stupid. With a gold standard we wouldnt be arguing about this shit simply because the government could not afford it.

And it isnt 1 or 2 events i give a shit about. What i care about is it keeps getting worse in america and it is turning into a miltaristic facist state.

[40plusnewbie]

maybee with should just cut the head off the beats and get rid of the federal reserve.

If we didnt have the power to create new money and export our inflation we would not have a world empire, we could not afford all this policing.

I hate this because its so stupid. With a gold standard we wouldnt be arguing about this shit simply because the government could not afford it.

And it isnt 1 or 2 events i give a shit about. What i care about is it keeps getting worse in america and it is turning into a miltaristic facist state.

Too bad 90% of the population has no idea what your talking about, and the powers that be have intentions to lock down the free flow of information on the internet to prevent them from being educated about what is really going on.

[bigt10]

ya the nets gone next that is why the government and some seem to have a problem with something they dont have control over.

Most things the government manages and control always fails and never does what it should.

Perfect examples are government foreign aid, government education, government security you name it.

Fannie mae, freddie mac, most government institutions tend to waste money and never do what they should.

Some day will give the free market a try. And some day we might follow the constitution, what i fear is that the only way we will is were all going to learn the hardway.

[Bojangles69]

If a five year old said "fuking do it again" would it be cool for the cop to cross check the child with a weapon? And saying "****ing do it again" is not in and of itself a threatening statement. It calls for a conclusion in knowing what is in the mind of the person making the statement.

It might be considered a taunt, but so what? I'm a mature adult and if someone taunts me I don't impulsively assault them with weapons. That's because I am mature and have some modicum of control over my emotions. Of course if I was some kind of maniac I probably would though.

If your only tool is a hammer all the worlds problems look like nails.

If you were a cop you'd be dead your first year on the force.
If it was a 5 year old Id smack the fvcker.

An adult, I'd prob pull out my taser, so she got off easy.
A "taunt" for a cop is not a taunt, its an aggressive stance, posed threat and needs to be addressed immediately.

[40plusnewbie]

A "taunt" for a cop is not a taunt, its an aggressive stance, posed threat and needs to be addressed immediately.

Bulls*it. The reason cops think like this is because the only tools they have to do their job are using violence.

If you taunt someone who is not conditioned to use violence at the drop of a hat they don't respond violently.

But if your only tool is violence (maybe cops are too stupid to use any other tools on their job?) then every single issue looks like it needs to be responded to with violence.

Like I said, if your only tool is a hammer all the worlds problems look like nails.

If someone razzes a cop they can simply ignore it. Or they can have a polite dialogue with the person as to why they would prefer the person not razz them. Or they could explain why in some isolated circumstances razzing cops can incite others to doing something that is actually threatening to the cop or to others in the area.

Maybe cops are too stupid to use their own judgement? Maybe that is why they don't do it, they can't think for themselves. Maybe they are too stupid to do that. I hadn't thought that was the case, but in reading some of your posts I am beginning to suspect this is the case more often than I used to.

[Bojangles69]

What does it have to do with it? You said you were against narcotic dealers. Why? Are you against medical doctors, they 'deal' in narcotics.

Because doctors don't carry guns. And they have something called an education.

My point is that the violence that cops deal with on their jobs is because drugs are illegal, not because drugs are 'bad'.

Drugs aren't inherently bad by themself, if thats what you mean.
If someone just got done sniffing embalming fluid, or taking PCP, and they're hallucinating out of their minds.
You introduce the human element, combined with a drug, which = a severly unstable situation.
+ drugs in an uncontrolled environment cause addiction, overdoses, liver & heart problems, homocides and suicides a lot more then people copping from a local distributor.

As evidence I offer the alcohol prohibition example. When it was illegal violent felons were in charge of the manufacture and distribution of it. They shot each other and they shot cops. Cops jobs were more dangerous because of prohibtion.

Yeh alcohol is like the only thing that really slipped governmental control. (with age still a factor).
But alcohol didn't become good after prohibition.
It simply became bad in a different way.
I wonder how much DWI's spiked afted prohibition? Vehicular manslaughter? Cirrsosis (sp), drug related offenses related to intoxication, rape, murder, and all those wonderful things.
So yeh, maybe it made cops lives easier, it def didn't make life easier for general society. And instead of cops arresting people for being in possesion of alcohol, now they arrest people after a drunk shoots someone in the face because dude made a bad joke. So prohibition really changed nothing in terms of how alcohol negatively impacts society.

The same is true today. Violence has skyrocketed in this country since 1970. Want to know why? That is when the war on drugs was implemented.

Violence is a single aspect of the havoc drugs wreak on society.
WHen you exmaine the 100s of other negative effects of drugs on society, even before the WOD, its no better either way. Why? Because drugs are bad, legal or illegal.

And the 'I only care about reality' response from you is nonsense. Back when slavery was legal was a reasonable response to someone who said "owning black people and treating them like workhorses is wrong and bad"... was a reasonable response to say "I care about reality, take your dumb additude up to canada where they don't allow you to own black people and whip them and keep them in chains and treat them like workhorses and rape the female ones if you feel like it"? .

Reality is never nonsense. Anyone who says that must not be living in it.

That is not how progress is made my friend. Progress is made by recognizing when something is wrong and correctng it.

I'm not sure what you define as "progress". But when you correct something, you really just change its initial state, of your percieved wrongness of it.
Did we progress and become more civilized with the advent of nuclear technology?
Has humanity really progressed at all since our hairy ape days? This is more a philosophical debate then anything. Progress in my mind is merely change. The more we try to control humanity and society, the more our innate human tendecy towards destruction will only find another way to manifest itself.

I think that using narcotics is a bad idea. But in case you haven't noticed, making them illegal doesn't stop people from using them. All it does is put extra problems on the people who use them and adds tons of violence to the world. Cops get murdered because drugs are illegal, not because drugs are evil or bad.

I agree. I still do not agree that specific drugs will ever have a "good" purpose in this world.
Moreso, I would recommend you start doing drugs for a few years. (*illegal ones) And see how functional of a life you can live.
Then come back and tell me drugs aren't bad.
When we illegalize drugs we simply shift some of the adverse problems and responsibilites from the public, to law enforcement. Why? Because I believe the larger general public (not cops) have no ability to control themselves with drugs.
The majority of american is addicteed to FOOD, they can't keep their fat mouths shut. So lets legalize cocaine, they'll drop weight and their hearts will explode. Great idea.
We should lock people up for eating too much imo. Let people kill each other over food.. oh wait, they already do that.

Cigarettes are evil and bad but no one is murdering cops because of it. But make them illegal, watch the price shoot up to $50 bucks a pack and watch crime skyrocket. Hundreds of thousands of users who now pay $6.00/day for their habit can get by even if they have no job. But at $50.00/day they can't afford it. Sure some quit, but a lot start robbing people and homes and stores and use weapons to do it.

Yeh, but maybe deaths by lung cancer, emphesema, and birth defects will drop.

Prohibition is a BAD POLICY and SOLVES NOTHING. There has been a 'war' against narcotics for 40 years and they are still readily available in every maximum security prison in the country. That's your reality. And we have paid a trillion dollars to create that reality.

Your reality gets cops murdered. Pat yourself on the back.

"readily available" in a maximum security prison?

haaaahaa.
Now I know where you're coming from. A frame of reference with no experience.
Ask a CO if drugs are available in prison. He'll say "sure, they always manage to find a way to sneak them in".

Ask a CO if they are "readily" available and he'll think your on drugs.
Let me just stick a bag up my ass, swallow a balloon, shit it out, sneak through the guards and strip searches. Poop it out, clean it, Find a place to hide it through intensive daily cell searches. Not let my cell mates find out about it because they'll either rat or beat me up for some.

Does it drive the prices up? Sure, WHY?
Supply and demand. Lower supply = higher demand. And $50 for an ounce of tobacco in prison really doesnt help proves your theory, that they're "readily" available.

Are you a social worker or a social manipulator?

[Bojangles69]

Bulls*it. The reason cops think like this is because the only tools they have to do their job are using violence.

If you taunt someone who is not conditioned to use violence at the drop of a hat they don't respond violently.

But if your only tool is violence (maybe cops are too stupid to use any other tools on their job?) then every single issue looks like it needs to be responded to with violence.

Like I said, if your only tool is a hammer all the worlds problems look like nails.

If someone razzes a cop they can simply ignore it. Or they can have a polite dialogue with the person as to why they would prefer the person not razz them. Or they could explain why in some isolated circumstances razzing cops can incite others to doing something that is actually threatening to the cop or to others in the area.

Maybe cops are too stupid to use their own judgement? Maybe that is why they don't do it, they can't think for themselves. Maybe they are too stupid to do that. I hadn't thought that was the case, but in reading some of your posts I am beginning to suspect this is the case more often than I used to.

Yeh when I pull someone over and their being an arrogant asshole the last thing I want to do is use my "judgement" and hope they don't have a gun in the car.
A cops judgement, the little bit they have, is an autopilot fear based survival mechanism.
So great, they should all walk around with rulers in their hand and smack people on the back of their hand. The reality is cops do use their judgment. Most of the time in an average situation they use verbal warnings first.
In a nonaverage situation. When I'm getting jumped by some dude with a gun, and a cop nearby has a can of silly string to protect me with.

I'm coming directly to your ass, (the guy who passed that law) but AFTER I buy a gun first. So you're actually contributing to violence when you force me to hurt you. (hypothetically speaking of course)

[thegodfather]

Yeh, but maybe deaths by lung cancer, emphesema, and birth defects will drop.

Ok, and can you please explain to me how you, or the government have any RIGHT to prevent people from doing something which will ONLY harm themselves? It is their life, and not the governments, and therefore the government has no business to regulate something in order to "save" a person from themselves.

[Bojangles69]

Ok, and can you please explain to me how you, or the government have any RIGHT to prevent people from doing something which will ONLY harm themselves? It is their life, and not the governments, and therefore the government has no business to regulate something in order to "save" a person from themselves.

well maybe because people are selfish and really believe they're harming just themselves.
watch this video, and tell me that again.
Then all I can say is your god given right, to commit suicide, would be the most selfish right in the world:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQjF0...eature=related

[jleal]

Here I go... cops are here to protect and serve the people, guns dont kill people, people kill people, cops have no right touching you in no way other then to defend themselves or others, or to put you under arrest. Free speach... we have given too much leeway to cops and say thier job is too stressfull, no one force them to be cops...they always expect free stuff becuse of their position like eating at luby's. cops are people to and make mistake and like everyone that makes mistakes should be punished. not given well...thet are stress with all the shit that goes on...fvck that. Cops are here to protect and serve not excicute and judge.

[CSAR]

Here I go... cops are here to protect and serve the people, guns dont kill people, people kill people, cops have no right touching you in no way other then to defend themselves or others, or to put you under arrest. Free speach... we have given too much leeway to cops and say thier job is too stressfull, no one force them to be cops...they always expect free stuff becuse of their position like eating at luby's. cops are people to and make mistake and like everyone that makes mistakes should be punished. not given well...thet are stress with all the shit that goes on...fvck that. Cops are here to protect and serve not excicute and judge.

My eyes!!! My eyes!!

[40plusnewbie]

"Because doctors don't carry guns. And they have something called an education."

Doctor's don't carry guns, at least not as a tool of their trade...because they don't have to. They have law enforcement to call if someone robs them because they sell drugs in the white market. People who sell drugs in the black market can not call the cops when someone robs them. So they either 1. Keep getting robbed until they realize that selling drugs is costing them money, not making them money or 2. Provide their own protection. It's the market that makes things this way. The particular players really don't matter in the grand sceme of things.

If there is a product with inelastic demand there will always be supply. Make it illegal and all you do is turn over the operation to people who are fairly comfortable (or prefer, or excell at) using violence as part of the course of doing business.

If being a doctor were illegal, if practicing medicine were illegal, doctors sure as hell would carry guns (or pay people to carry guns to protect their practice). That is unless the demand for medical care disappeared. Maybe the 'smartest' one's wouldn't want to be doctors anymore, but doctors would still exist and their practices would be protected by violent felons because they would have to operate in secret, underground. Otherwise they could not distribute drugs as part of their operation the way they do now.

"Drugs aren't inherently bad by themself, if thats what you mean.
If someone just got done sniffing embalming fluid, or taking PCP, and they're hallucinating out of their minds.
You introduce the human element, combined with a drug, which = a severly unstable situation.
+ drugs in an uncontrolled environment cause addiction, overdoses, liver & heart problems, homocides and suicides a lot more then people copping from a local distributor."

All of the problems that you associated with drug use (except the unstable situations) are not things cops are trained to deal with. Doctors are trained to deal with those things. So but your nose out of it and let them do their jobs. As far is the pcp thing..that's a red herring. how many times out of 1 million where there is a distubance being caused by someone under the influence of a drug happen to be pcp or paint sniffers? I'd guess 75% or more of the time it is alcohol. Maybe 85 or 90% or more. Heroin addicts never do it-robbing doesn't count b/c if it were legal a days dosage would not cost $100 so people wouldn't steal to suport their habbits any more than they steal to suppor their vodka habbits- and cocaine users do sometimes but not nearly as much as alcohol users.

I say let cops still deal with drunks who are being violent, let them deal with cocaine users who are being violent. But only because of the violence. If someone is using alcohol and getting cerossis that is the realm of social workers and doctors and nurses and psychologists.

Should I go round up 100 people who have cerrosis of the liver and drop them off at your police station? Is your department prepared to fix them? It is a medical issue, a health issue. Not a danger to the public issue that requires police intervention.

"I'm not sure what you define as "progress". But when you correct something, you really just change its initial state, of your percieved wrongness of it.
Did we progress and become more civilized with the advent of nuclear technology?
Has humanity really progressed at all since our hairy ape days? This is more a philosophical debate then anything. Progress in my mind is merely change. The more we try to control humanity and society, the more our innate human tendecy towards destruction will only find another way to manifest itself."

I"m not the one into controlling people, YOU are. I believe people should be left alone. Left alone unless they are causing violence to another or doing property damage or propterty theft to anothers property.

"I agree. I still do not agree that specific drugs will ever have a "good" purpose in this world.
Moreso, I would recommend you start doing drugs for a few years. (*illegal ones) And see how functional of a life you can live.
Then come back and tell me drugs aren't bad.
When we illegalize drugs we simply shift some of the adverse problems and responsibilites from the public, to law enforcement. Why? Because I believe the larger general public (not cops) have no ability to control themselves with drugs.
The majority of american is addicteed to FOOD, they can't keep their fat mouths shut. So lets legalize cocaine, they'll drop weight and their hearts will explode. Great idea.
We should lock people up for eating too much imo. Let people kill each other over food.. oh wait, they already do that."

Law enforcement has failed with respect to 'helping society with it's drug problem'. It's time to turn over the 'problem' to the medical community. You failed. Can't you see that? A trillion dollars spent by cops to get rid of drugs and you can't even keep them out of maximum security prisons, let alone off of street corners, after FORTY YEARS! lol Wake up and smell the coffee already. Drugs are a commodoty that has an inelastic demand. Trying to stop people from using them is like trying to stop people from using water. Make water illegal and the mafia will sell that too. It's DUMB. Sure they cause harm, no one is denying that. But making them illegal does not make them not cause harm. The harm still happens, PLUS people get murdered left and right over it. Duh.

"Yeh, but maybe deaths by lung cancer, emphesema, and birth defects will drop."

50% of adult smokers in this country have quit over the past 20 years. How? Education. Getting the word out there that cigs are bad.

1% of the population has been addicted to drugs for the past 100 years. Prior to the harrison drug act, prior to Nixon's war on drugs, and today. Law Enforcement does nothing to change this. All they do is enage in violent exchanges with people who are the users and sellers.

Deal with it like booze. Having it in your trunk is not the issue. Your BEHAVIOR when under the influence of it IS THE ISSUE. Leave it alone until the person's BEHAVIOR endangers others. Simple.


How hard is it to get drugs outside of prison? After 40 years and a trillion dollars I can drive into town and get what I want. I can pick up the phone and get what I want.

I don't care if it's 'harder' to get in a maximum security prison. That's not the point. The point is that after we have spent a TRILLION DOLLARS and hundreds of cops have been murdered, tens of thousands of citizens, many complete innocents, Millions of families torn apart so children grow up fatherless b/c their daddy is dead or in jail....which leads to them growing up messed up themselves.... and none of it has got one gosh darn bit better. None of it.

The war on drugs is a scorn on society. It isn't even a war on drugs. It's a war on humans. Have fun slapping a felony charge on some college kid because he has a little baggie in his pocket of something. Gee, in another year or 2 drugs will be gone and we will be all riding ponies over the rainbow....

Do you think we can get rid of drugs? (If your answer is no, which is the only sane answer in reality) then what the hell are you doing?

Why don't you go outside in a storm and fight the rain. It makes about as much sense.

[40plusnewbie]

Here I go... cops are here to protect and serve the people, guns dont kill people, people kill people, cops have no right touching you in no way other then to defend themselves or others, or to put you under arrest. Free speach... we have given too much leeway to cops and say thier job is too stressfull, no one force them to be cops...they always expect free stuff becuse of their position like eating at luby's. cops are people to and make mistake and like everyone that makes mistakes should be punished. not given well...thet are stress with all the shit that goes on...fvck that. Cops are here to protect and serve not excicute and judge.

Drug counselors have difficult jobs where people give them s*it all the time. It's not OK for them to beat them or scream at them though, even though the job is very stressful.

Same thing with ER nurses and doctors. Same thing with meter maids. Same friggin thing with kindergarden teachers dealing with a dozen toddlers running around screaming lol pretty stressful. But violence and sreaming are a no-no.

When people are under stress, be they doctors, nurses, social workers, bus drivers, whatever...sometimes they do stupid stuff and should be FIRED. We don't say "well you have to be a bus driver to know what it's like, you can't judge the situation unless you were there." No, we judge the situation and fire people who overreact and do dumb or dangerous shizat that puts people in harms way.

No free passes to cops. The job sucks. The job is hard. Lots of jobs suck and lots of jobs are hard. If you can find a job lying in a hammock sipping cranberry juice served by topless women on a beach hit me up with a pm because we would probably both enjoy less stressful jobs. But as the poster I quoted says, it's no excuse to go off and get violent with people. It's not even an excuse to treat people disrespectfully. Drug counselors get treated disrespectfully. They don't assualt the people who do it, they bite their tongue and behave like an adult, not a wild animal. Time for cops to follow their lead, or GTFO.

[sooners04]

This video doesn't show the whole situation with her. There obviously was something else that had happend or she wouldn't have said "****ing do it again". The one thing that most don't realize is 1. how close she is to the officer, why is she even that close, being that close is confrontational. 2. The force continuum: If/when someone does not respond to VERBAL commands, then the officer IS justified to use physical force or a taser/O.C. whatever the policy says.

If this lady was that close to you, arguing with you, would you as a citizen not push her away, and if you say that you would just walk away that's fine, but unfortunately during a large protest that officer cannot leave his duty. Again, Ill reinstate the fact that being within arms reach on an officer who is telling you to back up and you don't do it, sorry.

[gixxerboy1]

If you were a cop you'd be dead your first year on the force.
If it was a 5 year old Id smack the fvcker.

An adult, I'd prob pull out my taser, so she got off easy.
A "taunt" for a cop is not a taunt, its an aggressive stance, posed threat and needs to be addressed immediately.

i dont think a cop should be treated any different. If i person was on my property and i told them to move and they took the stance she did i couldnt assualt her.

[40plusnewbie]

This video doesn't show the whole situation with her. There obviously was something else that had happend or she wouldn't have said "****ing do it again". The one thing that most don't realize is 1. how close she is to the officer, why is she even that close, being that close is confrontational. 2. The force continuum: If/when someone does not respond to VERBAL commands, then the officer IS justified to use physical force or a taser/O.C. whatever the policy says.

If this lady was that close to you, arguing with you, would you as a citizen not push her away, and if you say that you would just walk away that's fine, but unfortunately during a large protest that officer cannot leave his duty. Again, Ill reinstate the fact that being within arms reach on an officer who is telling you to back up and you don't do it, sorry.

And for every video that doesn't show bad behavior by citizens prior to the tape rolling there are circumstances with bad behavior by cops who provoke people.

I had some small cop (I'm 6'2" 250lbs) get in my face to 'question' me when it was totally unnecessary and he had more than enough back up. I was actually helping out a friend get a coked up maniac off his property and the idiot charged me and punched me in the balls. I was sober. When the cops arrived on the scene I soberly told them what had happened and instead of detaining me and continuing to conduct their investigation to corroborate, the little man cop got in my face closer, invading my personal space and making me feel threatened. There were like 6 cops on the scene and less party goers there, 1/2 female.

I was assaulted by a guy who had just assuaulted my friend and ripped his phone from his wall and smashed his storm door and all I was doing was holding him and talking to him to get him to agree to chill before I let him go. I could have broken that suckers jaw and been justified if that's the way I rolled but I don't.

I stated that I felt threatened by his getting very close to me and that I felt he could have been conducting his interview from the 3-4 feet away he was at originally. None of the cops did jack, they let him give me shit right up in my face without even knowing what was going on (other than that I was competely sober and cooperative).

I told them to go cooberate my story and they just all stood there. Then I told them to detain me or let me go b/c I wasn't talking anymore and was considering filing a civil rights case against the dept for the cops unwarranted, threatening and provocative behavior that was completely unnecessary, as he could have asked me anything he wanted from 3-4 feet away that he was originally rather than getting up in my face (acutally up in my sternum lol).

At that point the sargent told him to back off and handled things propery but not before.

So cops do things to unnecessarilly provoke citizens all the time. If they do it to ppl who have drank 5-6 beers the likelyhood of violence increases dramatically. They know this. They like this. This is bad.

Doormen at nightclubs have more professionalism in dealing with problematic people that cops do, and they do it with less violence.

It's called Crisis Prevention and Intervention or Verbal Deescalation Techniques.

There was absolutely no reason for the cop to step to me like that and get right up in my face. He could have conducted his interview from 4 feet away where he was standing orininally. But did any of the cops stop him? No.

And I don't know your personal stance on the 'no snitching' street code but if it's different than the 'no snitching' police code it seems to me that would make you a hyppocryte, at least in that regard.

[40plusnewbie]

i dont think a cop should be treated any different. If i person was on my property and i told them to move and they took the stance she did i couldnt assualt her.

Cops expect special rights. They expect to be treated as though they are above the law.

Whenever you have 2 distinct classes of citizens (regular people on the one hand and then cops and politicians and judges on the other, as well as the elite rich who control the politicians and the media) you can not have equality. YOu can not have peace.

It's time to end this belief that only a cop in the particular circumstance can judge what is the correct way to handle a situation, I don't care if their adrenaline is rushing a mile a minute or not.

ER doctors have adrenaline rushing through their veins, ems workers do, drug counselors do, etc.... and we don't just say "well you can't judge it". F no. Sometimes those people deserve to be FIRED even if they were operating under stressful circumstances. No eveyone is cut out to be a doctor or a drug counselor, or a COP.

We should also have citizen review boards overseeing every police dept in the country. They don't have to all be liberal peace nics, but we need the perspective of ordinary citizens to inject training protocol into cops behavior on the job and to ax the bad seeds.

We also need to put a couple of under cover investigators into a bunch of big city departments, like fbi posing as new cop recruits to get on the force and gather information over the course of 4-5 years to really find out the atrocities that happen on a day to day basis.

Sure cops jobs suck. So don't dishwashers jobs. Tough noogies, if your a cop and can't follow the law you should suffer 3x the penalty a non cop does for the same crime.

[Bojangles69]

"Because doctors don't carry guns. And they have something called an education."

Doctor's don't carry guns, at least not as a tool of their trade...because they don't have to. They have law enforcement to call if someone robs them because they sell drugs in the white market. People who sell drugs in the black market can not call the cops when someone robs them. So they either 1. Keep getting robbed until they realize that selling drugs is costing them money, not making them money or 2. Provide their own protection. It's the market that makes things this way. The particular players really don't matter in the grand sceme of things.

If there is a product with inelastic demand there will always be supply. Make it illegal and all you do is turn over the operation to people who are fairly comfortable (or prefer, or excell at) using violence as part of the course of doing business.

If being a doctor were illegal, if practicing medicine were illegal, doctors sure as hell would carry guns (or pay people to carry guns to protect their practice). That is unless the demand for medical care disappeared. Maybe the 'smartest' one's wouldn't want to be doctors anymore, but doctors would still exist and their practices would be protected by violent felons because they would have to operate in secret, underground. Otherwise they could not distribute drugs as part of their operation the way they do now.

"Drugs aren't inherently bad by themself, if thats what you mean.
If someone just got done sniffing embalming fluid, or taking PCP, and they're hallucinating out of their minds.
You introduce the human element, combined with a drug, which = a severly unstable situation.
+ drugs in an uncontrolled environment cause addiction, overdoses, liver & heart problems, homocides and suicides a lot more then people copping from a local distributor."

All of the problems that you associated with drug use (except the unstable situations) are not things cops are trained to deal with. Doctors are trained to deal with those things. So but your nose out of it and let them do their jobs. As far is the pcp thing..that's a red herring. how many times out of 1 million where there is a distubance being caused by someone under the influence of a drug happen to be pcp or paint sniffers? I'd guess 75% or more of the time it is alcohol. Maybe 85 or 90% or more. Heroin addicts never do it-robbing doesn't count b/c if it were legal a days dosage would not cost $100 so people wouldn't steal to suport their habbits any more than they steal to suppor their vodka habbits- and cocaine users do sometimes but not nearly as much as alcohol users.

I say let cops still deal with drunks who are being violent, let them deal with cocaine users who are being violent. But only because of the violence. If someone is using alcohol and getting cerossis that is the realm of social workers and doctors and nurses and psychologists.

Should I go round up 100 people who have cerrosis of the liver and drop them off at your police station? Is your department prepared to fix them? It is a medical issue, a health issue. Not a danger to the public issue that requires police intervention.

"I'm not sure what you define as "progress". But when you correct something, you really just change its initial state, of your percieved wrongness of it.
Did we progress and become more civilized with the advent of nuclear technology?
Has humanity really progressed at all since our hairy ape days? This is more a philosophical debate then anything. Progress in my mind is merely change. The more we try to control humanity and society, the more our innate human tendecy towards destruction will only find another way to manifest itself."

I"m not the one into controlling people, YOU are. I believe people should be left alone. Left alone unless they are causing violence to another or doing property damage or propterty theft to anothers property.

"I agree. I still do not agree that specific drugs will ever have a "good" purpose in this world.
Moreso, I would recommend you start doing drugs for a few years. (*illegal ones) And see how functional of a life you can live.
Then come back and tell me drugs aren't bad.
When we illegalize drugs we simply shift some of the adverse problems and responsibilites from the public, to law enforcement. Why? Because I believe the larger general public (not cops) have no ability to control themselves with drugs.
The majority of american is addicteed to FOOD, they can't keep their fat mouths shut. So lets legalize cocaine, they'll drop weight and their hearts will explode. Great idea.
We should lock people up for eating too much imo. Let people kill each other over food.. oh wait, they already do that."

Law enforcement has failed with respect to 'helping society with it's drug problem'. It's time to turn over the 'problem' to the medical community. You failed. Can't you see that? A trillion dollars spent by cops to get rid of drugs and you can't even keep them out of maximum security prisons, let alone off of street corners, after FORTY YEARS! lol Wake up and smell the coffee already. Drugs are a commodoty that has an inelastic demand. Trying to stop people from using them is like trying to stop people from using water. Make water illegal and the mafia will sell that too. It's DUMB. Sure they cause harm, no one is denying that. But making them illegal does not make them not cause harm. The harm still happens, PLUS people get murdered left and right over it. Duh.

"Yeh, but maybe deaths by lung cancer, emphesema, and birth defects will drop."

50% of adult smokers in this country have quit over the past 20 years. How? Education. Getting the word out there that cigs are bad.

1% of the population has been addicted to drugs for the past 100 years. Prior to the harrison drug act, prior to Nixon's war on drugs, and today. Law Enforcement does nothing to change this. All they do is enage in violent exchanges with people who are the users and sellers.

Deal with it like booze. Having it in your trunk is not the issue. Your BEHAVIOR when under the influence of it IS THE ISSUE. Leave it alone until the person's BEHAVIOR endangers others. Simple.


How hard is it to get drugs outside of prison? After 40 years and a trillion dollars I can drive into town and get what I want. I can pick up the phone and get what I want.

I don't care if it's 'harder' to get in a maximum security prison. That's not the point. The point is that after we have spent a TRILLION DOLLARS and hundreds of cops have been murdered, tens of thousands of citizens, many complete innocents, Millions of families torn apart so children grow up fatherless b/c their daddy is dead or in jail....which leads to them growing up messed up themselves.... and none of it has got one gosh darn bit better. None of it.

The war on drugs is a scorn on society. It isn't even a war on drugs. It's a war on humans. Have fun slapping a felony charge on some college kid because he has a little baggie in his pocket of something. Gee, in another year or 2 drugs will be gone and we will be all riding ponies over the rainbow....

Do you think we can get rid of drugs? (If your answer is no, which is the only sane answer in reality) then what the hell are you doing?

Why don't you go outside in a storm and fight the rain. It makes about as much sense.

We can sit here for 10 years and play semantics, which is what I see you really like doing.

If a point doesn't matter, why the fvck would you make it first, wait for me to reply, then say it didn't matter? (*YOUR POINT* - not mine)
The point clearly mattered when you had something to say earlier, something that you thought you were proving.
Then it turns out you're completely wrong, and you trash your own idea?

Asking whats the point of your own idea?
This is the second time you've done this.

I said I was done after the first, I'm done now. So get your last word in, because for anyone who cares or has common sense, you're just not making much sense at all.

G/luck on your journey ending the war on drugs.

Now tell everyone thats not what you're trying to do, and dish out 90 statistics that you think mean something.

[MuscleScience]

Yes captain obvious. Because steroids don't destroy our neighborhoods. But guns/drugs/drunks/addicts and random violence does..

None of these destroy neighborhoods, its the actions of people that do all these. If it wasn't gun violence it would be knife violence if it wasnt that it would be sticks. So are we supposed to take everything away that may be used by irresponsible people to kill or harm others. Irresponsible people will always be irresponsible people.

[Bojangles69]

None of these destroy neighborhoods, its the actions of people that do all these. If it wasn't gun violence it would be knife violence if it wasnt that it would be sticks. So are we supposed to take everything away that may be used by irresponsible people to kill or harm others. Irresponsible people will always be irresponsible people.

Yeh like guns don't kill people. Just the holes guns make in peoples bodies do?

This is one of those old things I really don't get into deep anymore.
A pile of crack sitting on a table by itself isn't bad.

Thats something that should go w/out saying.
When people say drugs are bad, they mean in association with the human factor.
You can say w/e you think makes sense to you.
I'll just say what makes sense to me.
And no, this isn't just about drugs.
Theres always more then one factor.

Second being money.

Take all the drugs out of Newark, give them some money. And watch the death toll level off to something closer to the state avg.

So yeh, if drugs weren't bad, then why is it when you take them out of a neighborhood it becomes better?
"The people"?

w/e, I'm not trying to change anyones mind.
Be born in a poor shitty ghetto infested with drugs, and see how well you can behave yourself.

[MuscleScience]

Yeh like guns don't kill people. Just the holes guns make in peoples bodies do?

This is one of those old things I really don't get into deep anymore.
A pile of crack sitting on a table by itself isn't bad.

Thats something that should go w/out saying.
When people say drugs are bad, they mean in association with the human factor.
You can say w/e you think makes sense to you.
I'll just say what makes sense to me.
And no, this isn't just about drugs.
Theres always more then one factor.

Second being money.

Take all the drugs out of Newark, give them some money. And watch the death toll level off to something closer to the state avg.

So yeh, if drugs weren't bad, then why is it when you take them out of a neighborhood it becomes better?
"The people"?

w/e, I'm not trying to change anyones mind.
Be born in a poor shitty ghetto infested with drugs, and see how well you can behave yourself.

A gun is a tool and a tool only. A hammer or a axe or any other tool can be used to kill people. Guns are not inherently bad in them selves its the intent of the user of the tool that is. I could kill someone just as easy with a baseball bat as I could with a gun. The argument that guns are the root of all evil is moot. People killed people long before guns were ever invented. Take guns away from law abiding citizens and guess who the only people with guns will be.

As far as drug abuse goes, there is a great article in the Journal of Public Health, May Edition. Where a group of Ph.D's in Public Health, Medicine, Sociology bring to light that the Policies of War on Drugs has destroyed communities of all types for more so than the other wise non-legal consequences of drub abuse, by taking otherwise law abiding members of the community and imprisoned them and in most cases forming them into hardened criminals.

I respect your view, my point is that these arguments are the ones that have led to the current policies that our so disastrous to our society in the 37 years since the War on Drugs was declared.

[40plusnewbie]

We can sit here for 10 years and play semantics, which is what I see you really like doing.

If a point doesn't matter, why the fvck would you make it first, wait for me to reply, then say it didn't matter? (*YOUR POINT* - not mine)
The point clearly mattered when you had something to say earlier, something that you thought you were proving.
Then it turns out you're completely wrong, and you trash your own idea?

Asking whats the point of your own idea?
This is the second time you've done this.

I said I was done after the first, I'm done now. So get your last word in, because for anyone who cares or has common sense, you're just not making much sense at all.

G/luck on your journey ending the war on drugs.

Now tell everyone thats not what you're trying to do, and dish out 90 statistics that you think mean something.

Pay attn.

We have had a 'war on drugs' for 40 YEARS and spent a TRILLION DOLLARS on this war and not only are all drugs readily available in every city in the country they area ALSO AVAILABLE IN EVERY MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON IN THE COUNTRY!

After 40 YEARS and a TRILLION DOLLARS drugs can not even be kept out of MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISONS, let alone kept off of the street corners.

There is no contradiction in what I am saying.

The war on drugs creates violence and solves NOTHING, and is a COMPLETE FAILURE. If you can't even keep them out of maximum security prisons after 40 YEARS and using ONE TRILLION DOLLARS to fight this so-called war, what the hell makes you think you can change the supply of it on the streets?

[40plusnewbie]

If you can't take my word for it, turn to your fellow officers with decades of experience in Law Enforcement to see what they have to say.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

www.leap.cc

[DSM4Life]

You guys could go round and round on this topic of who kills, the guns or the people. A gun is a inadequate object and can't kill. Its the person being the gun doing the killing. Should people to allowed to own guns ? IMO no but for the fact that most people can't even take care of their children properly let alone a gun.

[Flagg]

A gun is a tool and a tool only. A hammer or a axe or any other tool can be used to kill people. Guns are not inherently bad in them selves its the intent of the user of the tool that is. I could kill someone just as easy with a baseball bat as I could with a gun. The argument that guns are the root of all evil is moot. People killed people long before guns were ever invented. Take guns away from law abiding citizens and guess who the only people with guns will be.

As far as drug abuse goes, there is a great article in the Journal of Public Health, May Edition. Where a group of Ph.D's in Public Health, Medicine, Sociology bring to light that the Policies of War on Drugs has destroyed communities of all types for more so than the other wise non-legal consequences of drub abuse, by taking otherwise law abiding members of the community and imprisoned them and in most cases forming them into hardened criminals.

I respect your view, my point is that these arguments are the ones that have led to the current policies that our so disastrous to our society in the 37 years since the War on Drugs was declared.

I have to say I disagree on a couple of things MS. First off, an Axe and a Hammer are tools, their primary use is for construction/building, that sort of thing. You could use a brick or even a tree branch to kill someone, anything your imagination can think of, however a gun is built for ONE PURPOSE. To shoot things. A gun is not a tool.

[sooners04]

cops expect special rights. They expect to be treated as though they are above the law. that's your opinion and not a fact, you cannot speak for all cops in america.

whenever you have 2 distinct classes of citizens (regular people on the one hand and then cops and politicians and judges on the other, as well as the elite rich who control the politicians and the media) you can not have equality. You can not have peace. it's also tough to have peace when you have asshole citizens breaking the law whether violently or non-violently

it's time to end this belief that only a cop in the particular circumstance can judge what is the correct way to handle a situation, i don't care if their adrenaline is rushing a mile a minute or not. cops don't judge the best way to handle situations, they do their best to obey policies and procedures, judges decide what is the best way to handle things

er doctors have adrenaline rushing through their veins, ems workers do, drug counselors do, etc.... And we don't just say "well you can't judge it". F no. Sometimes those people deserve to be fired even if they were operating under stressful circumstances. No eveyone is cut out to be a doctor or a drug counselor, or a cop. plenty of cops have been fired for being stupid, you act like every cop gets away with breaking the law with no punishment.

we should also have citizen review boards overseeing every police dept in the country. They don't have to all be liberal peace nics, but we need the perspective of ordinary citizens to inject training protocol into cops behavior on the job and to ax the bad seeds. those citizen review boards are called city council officials that do have monthly meetings about the city and their employees. Those officials are voted in by the city's citizens.

we also need to put a couple of under cover investigators into a bunch of big city departments, like fbi posing as new cop recruits to get on the force and gather information over the course of 4-5 years to really find out the atrocities that happen on a day to day basis.this does happen all the time, internal affairs does this to do exactly what you want them to.

sure cops jobs suck. So don't dishwashers jobs. Tough noogies, if your a cop and can't follow the law you should suffer 3x the penalty a non cop does for the same crime.

now your being hypocritical, you want cops to follow the same rules, which most do, but you want more punishment just because your a cop?

[40plusnewbie]

It's only tough to have peace when people break laws that violate the property rights of others (or violate the bodies of others).

There is nothing non-peaceful about someone having a billion dollars worth of some plant that is declared illegal in a warehouse somewhere.

And I'm still interested in hearing your opinions on the opinions of the very experienced members of law enforcement from LEAP, in particular the video that is 12min long and about 1/2 way down the page on the right side. I think the title is something like leap promotional video.

www.leap.cc

Please explain to me why I should not believe and pay attn to everything they say in that video. Please explain to me why they are wrong. They have decades of experience in law enforcement and are saying the drug war is garbage (acutally it's a war on young people and people of color, not drugs). Thank God I'm 41 and drive a volvo type vehicle so I don't get profiled and screwed with anymore like the 25 and under crowd does.

[40plusnewbie]

Yeh like guns don't kill people. Just the holes guns make in peoples bodies do?

This is one of those old things I really don't get into deep anymore.
A pile of crack sitting on a table by itself isn't bad.

Thats something that should go w/out saying.
When people say drugs are bad, they mean in association with the human factor.
You can say w/e you think makes sense to you.
I'll just say what makes sense to me.
And no, this isn't just about drugs.
Theres always more then one factor.

Second being money.

Take all the drugs out of Newark, give them some money. And watch the death toll level off to something closer to the state avg.

So yeh, if drugs weren't bad, then why is it when you take them out of a neighborhood it becomes better?
"The people"?

w/e, I'm not trying to change anyones mind.
Be born in a poor shitty ghetto infested with drugs, and see how well you can behave yourself.

Well, let's see what the Mayor of Newark has to say about the drug war

http://www.csdp.org/publicservice/booker.pdf

If drugs were legal do you really think some knuckle head standing on the stoop in the ghetto would be able to compete with CVS, Walmart, etc?

Sorry, legalize drugs and all the idiots who are low level dealers are out of business overnight. Virtually all the violence stops as well. Oh yeah.... a bunch of cops would have nothing to do and be out of jobs thou.... must be a bad idea.

[MuscleScience]

I have to say I disagree on a couple of things MS. First off, an Axe and a Hammer are tools, their primary use is for construction/building, that sort of thing. You could use a brick or even a tree branch to kill someone, anything your imagination can think of, however a gun is built for ONE PURPOSE. To shoot things. A gun is not a tool.

Websters dictionary:

Tool:

1. a handheld device that aids in accomplishing a task.
2. something (as an instrument or apparatus) used in performing an operation or necessary in the practice of a vocation or profession

Gun:

1. a piece of ordnance usually with high muzzle velocity and comparatively flat trajectory b: a portable firearm (as a rifle or handgun)

2.a device that throws a projectile

Guns are not just used to kill people, hunters use them to kill prey. Track officials use them to start a race. Others use them for pure recreation. While some use them for self defense and security. A gun is a tool by every definition of the word. It is an aid to help accomplish a task.

Human nature is to fear that which we do not understand.

Personally I fear aliens, they are always flying around abducting people and anally probing them.

[Flagg]

Websters dictionary:

Tool:

1. a handheld device that aids in accomplishing a task.
2. something (as an instrument or apparatus) used in performing an operation or necessary in the practice of a vocation or profession

Gun:

1. a piece of ordnance usually with high muzzle velocity and comparatively flat trajectory b: a portable firearm (as a rifle or handgun)

2.a device that throws a projectile

Guns are not just used to kill people, hunters use them to kill prey. Track officials use them to start a race. Others use them for pure recreation. While some use them for self defense and security. A gun is a tool by every definition of the word. It is an aid to help accomplish a task.

Human nature is to fear that which we do not understand.

Personally I fear aliens, they are always flying around abducting people and anally probing them.

God, those gang probes suck..

[sooners04]

It's only tough to have peace when people break laws that violate the property rights of others (or violate the bodies of others).

There is nothing non-peaceful about someone having a billion dollars worth of some plant that is declared illegal in a warehouse somewhere.

And I'm still interested in hearing your opinions on the opinions of the very experienced members of law enforcement from LEAP, in particular the video that is 12min long and about 1/2 way down the page on the right side. I think the title is something like leap promotional video.

www.leap.cc

Please explain to me why I should not believe and pay attn to everything they say in that video. Please explain to me why they are wrong. They have decades of experience in law enforcement and are saying the drug war is garbage (acutally it's a war on young people and people of color, not drugs). Thank God I'm 41 and drive a volvo type vehicle so I don't get profiled and screwed with anymore like the 25 and under crowd does.

Well it wouldn't load on my computer as I am having internet problems. As far as you believing EVERYTHING these cops say confuses me. You do nothing but bash on the cops and how shitty they are and how none of them are good but then you turn around and immediately want to side with them when they are saying things you agree with.

[40plusnewbie]

Well it wouldn't load on my computer as I am having internet problems. As far as you believing EVERYTHING these cops say confuses me. You do nothing but bash on the cops and how shitty they are and how none of them are good but then you turn around and immediately want to side with them when they are saying things you agree with.

My 'bashing on cops' is a generalization dude. I have said before, and I will say again, if cops jobs were restricted to responding to reports of rapes, robberies, assaults, thefts... then they would be loved by me and just about everyone (except rapists and armed robbers, etc) because it is heroic to put yourself in harms way after rapidly responding to a call where someone is in danger. That aspect of a cops job makes them HERO'S.

I don't know how old you are but I'm 41. I'm old enough to remember how cops behaved 30-35 years ago, before the war on drugs really got up and running. I'm old enought to remember when cops walked a beat and interacted socially with all the store owners, store customers, basically all the people in the neighborhood. Everyone trusted them and everyone liked them. Cops back then were friendly. Cops back then were well liked. I felt like cops were on my side back then, that cops were the people you turn to for help. That they could be trusted. They looked out for you. They liked people and joked and socialized with people in coffee shops and the like. Cops back then were everyones FRIEND.

Cops today are a different breed of human. Today cops act like they need to be the boss, they need to control other people. That's fine when responding to a bank robbery, not so good going in a dunkin donuts for a coffee.

The war on drugs has turned millions of non violent people into criminals, into enemies of the police when they are not endangering me or my neighbors or the police. With the drug war (i.e. prohibition as a high priority agenda item even for personal use ammts) millions, if not 10's of millions of people are now 'suspects'.

So back when I was a boy cops didn't really need to fear for their safety during routine traffic stops and routine interactions with small groups of people because the only one's who might have a gun and turn violent on them were murderers, bank robbers, rapists, guys like that who might have a warrant for them or be an escaped convict or something.

Nowadays, because the war on drugs, cops don't know where the next guy with a handgun who might use it is going to pop up. They are all over the place. So like you say they are on auto piolet defense out of fear for their safety. Makes sense to me that they would be, given the way the war on drugs has warped our society. End drug prohibition and the mafia and street gangs are immediately out of the drug dealing business. Drug prices drastically drop so addicts who now steal to pay for their fix don't need to do that any more than vodka addicts or cigarette addicts need to do it. So crime drops dramatically. Violence drops dramatically.

Then cops would only need to fear the bank robbers, the professional armed robbers, the murderers and rapists... a tiny segment of the population when compared to the millions that are involved in the sale or usage of drugs.

There would still be problems, but the violence would decrease a hell of a lot. I'm sure you will agree that you face a lot more bs on your job dealing with drunks than people on other substances. Some of them make people docile so they are less of a threat than a random sober person. No more need for addicts to conceal needles that can stick you and give you aids. No more drug dealers protecting their freedom and their product and money with guns. All the drugs are distributed by pharmacies, you are the protection of the pharmacy. Pharmacies would be much less likely to be robbed than they are today because today they are robbed for drugs that are in essence similar to the drugs that are illegal, they are robbed of drugs whose supply is restricted. No restriction, no need to steal them. No more teenagers carrying guns and dealing drugs on the streets. No more addicts getting shot for trying to steal 10 bucks of crack from some dealer.

I'm not anti-cop. I'm against what the drug war has turned cops into. 35 years ago cops did not bark orders at ordinary citizens like they were dogs the way they do now at random little bs traffic stops. They didn't talk to people like they were dogs. Today they do. Today it is commonplace. Sure your gonna take some grief from some people who don't want to get a ticket, tough noogies. Lots of people take grief as part of their job. Just because you have weapons on your belt doesn't mean your not expected to take grief like the next guy. We are all in this world together.

[Bojangles69]

I think I finally see where 40plus is coming from, conceptually at least.

I was not around back then so I can't compare cops at that point to cops now. So I have to judge cops from my birth which was after the war on drugs started.

If I saw a universal decline in the way cops were, I might be the same way.
But in my lifetime, I have to respect cops, because they don't make the laws, so I can't put *any* blame on them.

But I also have to wonder is it *just cops that changed, or society as a whole?
Cops prob were better and more polite, but I bet citizens were too. (before WOD)

So when you fast forward to this point, society as a whole being worse, cops being worse, sure it makes sense from that perspective, cops are worse than what they were. But I also don't believe cops can behave like they use to, and that theres a great reason why they changed.

And that reason has nothing to do with cops being bad, but the system as a whole being corrupt, and cops simply being pawns of the system.
In that respect, cops are good people.
They keep society civil.
And we need them more then any aspect of society to keep the little bit of peace and order we have in our daily lives. So if you have anything bad to say about cops (which is what this whole thread is about) maybe should imagine what your life would be w/out them, realistically. Than you should try practicing some humility for what they actually do an a daily basis.

and after that, protest the war on drugs and end up on youtube like the girl this thread was about.

[MuscleScience]

But I also have to wonder is it *just cops that changed, or society as a whole?

I think your on to something, I also think the rule of law and order was more respected. More specifically the Constitution was more of a sacred document and both the Civilians and the Police respected what it stood for regardless of self interest.

[40plusnewbie]

Well it wouldn't load on my computer as I am having internet problems. As far as you believing EVERYTHING these cops say confuses me. You do nothing but bash on the cops and how shitty they are and how none of them are good but then you turn around and immediately want to side with them when they are saying things you agree with.

It takes a little while to load before you can click play and watch it bro. Watch the little grey bar move across the bottom of the screen, when it reaches the right side the vid is loaded and you can click play.