Election 2024: beware of emotions

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Very important point here.

Might be best to have a mix of local and non-local cops, where the non-local cops specialize in going after the kinds of criminals most likely to have lots of money for bribes. (The latter kind of cops should probably have a separate, special department of their own, structured in such a way as to make corruption as difficult as possible.) This would free up other, mostly local cops to do "common-sense policing."

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 25 Oct 2024, 3:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

No, we also hear about some good things, like the NYPD was pretty quick about catching a mass shooter in my neighborhood a year or two ago.


For too many people, alas, their negative impression of the police gets formed by personal experience of the police harassing them for no good reason.

For example, in a lot of places here in the U.S.A., where most people have cars, cops tend to assume that anyone walking must be up to no good. My partner has lived in a bunch of different places around the U.S.A., and NYC is the only place he has ever lived where he has NOT gotten harassed by cops.

See also bee33's post here.


In small towns, perhaps. Much less so in large cities, where social services are provided by other agencies.


This can be either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how it's done and how they decide who is a "bad actor."


These are some of the people cops should be going after. No doubt they do these things much better in some places than in other places.


How ready the police are for them varies from one locale to another. Some places are over-policed, others are under-policed. Here in NYC, this seems to vary a lot from one neighborhood to another.

High-crime neighborhoods need more policing than low-crime neighborhoods, but not so much more policing that a lot of innocent people get harassed by the cops for no good reason. (Here in NYC, the latter has apparently been a big problem in mostly-Black neighborhoods.)


Yep it is. Is is important that the police be well-trained to handle many different kinds of situations.

I disagree with that opinion. I have over 60 years' experience witnessing the police in my community, and the stories I could tell would curl your hair....and I'm not Black, so my stories are at the shallow end of the pool.

One of the main points of the entrance exam is to weed out anyone who is of higher than average intelligence. Think about that. Why wouldn't you want people with more complex understanding of things dealing with high stress and risk situations?

Bringing it back to emotions and this election, the one that could literally destroy the U.S.A. as it was created, we have seen the valor of Capitol police and can only hope that when push comes to shove, law enforcement at every level will rise to the challenge. But the fact that we're so dependent on a group that has shown their 'bad apple' side way too many times for too many people is something that cannot merely be considered rationally. Of course people are emotional: scared and angry.

But hopeful too, and that's a powerful emotion.

Sounds like you and I should sit down over coffee/tea (or wine) and have a lovely chat!

EDIT: This startled me, so I did some googling. I just now found this news story: Court OKs Barring High IQs for Cops, ABC News, September 8, 2000:


So, yep, it looks like you may be right about this, at least for some police departments. I wonder how widespread this is.

It's a very old news story, though. I wonder if things have changed at all in this regard, in at least some places?

More proof of how unhinged the right is:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-man-arrested-allegedly-punching-poll-worker-maga-trump-hat/story?id=115165176

Trump is a fascist.

Trump:

"I will get rid of the communist vermin," "I will take care of the threat from within," "Migrants are poisoning the blood of our country," and "One people, one family, one glorious nation."

Hitler:

"I will get rid of the 'communist' 'vermin'," "I will take care of the 'enemy within'," "Jews and migrants are poisoning Aryan blood," and "One people, one realm, one leader."

Mussolini:

Our myth is the nation. Our myth is the greatness of the nation.

Note: Trump specifically said that Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff our threats from within. Also, the goal of fascism is to do "whatever brings about the greatness of the nation."

Note that MAGA stands for Make America Great Again.

My suggestion is to believe what Trump is saying. He is not joking, and when he arrests his political opponents and violently rounds up millions of migrants (Many legals will be rounded up, too), he will say he is doing what he said he was going to do.