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As long as you continue to insist that public employee unions are good, you will get nowhere with this. They are the main reason cops are able to act with impunity. In California, the prison guards union blocks attempts at relaxing mandatory minimums and drug laws on an annual basis. Working for the government is working for the electorate; public employee unions are an anti-democratic phenomenon designed to extract tax dollars to their members. They are barely the same thing as a union in the private sector, which exists to counter a power imbalance between workers and private employers dictated by capitalistic principles. A public employee union is Democrats negotiating with themselves to give themselves more money and exempt themselves from laws, and is the source of massive corruption whenever it exists, as well as huge concrete amounts of suffering when we're talking about prison guards or cops being able to do whatever they want to the citizenry with no consequences.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:07
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JeffersonClay posted:Public sector unions account for more than half of the unionized labor in the US. Want to destroy whatever vestige of union power in the US remains? Get rid of public employee unions. If you're just going to admit that symbolic gestures in support of "union power" are more important to you than civil liberties and racial equality, then you are part of the problem. Two million people incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses. People shot by cops for sport on a daily basis. Militarization and legal impunity of police forces from Manhattan to small towns. But we can't get rid of fake public employee unions because that would decrease the number of people listed as being in unions, therefore literally any horror is acceptable to maintain the current system.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:54
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Accretionist posted:Then keep the discussion to police unions rather than public sector unions writ large as others are doing. All public sector unions should be illegal because they exist solely to thwart the will of the voters and break the law, but only police and prison guard unions do so in order to perpetuate racist, violent ends. It's an intertwined problem.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:58
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Pohl posted:He is so wrong, it doesn't matter. Police unions will literally barricade a courthouse and prevent an officer from being put on trial. Prison guard unions sank bills in the California legislature to relieve horrific prison conditions and mandatory minimums which had actually attracted sufficient support from delegates. Public employee unions are a cancer, this is an area where you must make a choice between leftist economics and liberal ideas about freedom and equality. Choosing leftist economics would be incorrect.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:05
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Pohl posted:Those sound like systemic issues, not union issues. I would be all for the FBI's role of investigating local police abuse being expanded aggressively. Great idea. Now, when the unionized Chicago cops start shooting back at the FBI agents, you are going to stand with me and demand that we not back down from this plan, right? Accretionist posted:Maybe in your head. You read any of the many recent articles about how, as measured by policy influence, the US is already a plutocracy? How can you be assuming capital's a non-factor regarding public unions? Oh I didn't know that your Scientifically Accurate Plutometer had proven that allowing police to sodomize blacks with impunity is the only thing standing between the U.S. and a Hunger Games-esque dystopia (p > 0.05). That does change things.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:16
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SedanChair posted:Not every barrier to voter accountability is unjust or undemocratic. If voters want to strip away the negotiated protections of public employee unions, that doesn't mean we should let them. Voters would vote to strip people of a lot of things. By definition it is undemocratic. We correctly choose to prevent certain things, enshrined in Constitutional amendments, from the democratic process -- no majority should be able to vote to make it illegal for certain racial groups to vote or ban gay people from getting married, and no majority can abridge the freedom of speech, or to bear arms, or so forth. There is no legitimate way that "allowing police to do whatever they want" or a specific benefits package for teachers falls under this umbrella. Factually, it does not (it is not in the Constitution). Morally, treating police behavior as outside the democratic process is abhorrent. On a more mundane level, things like how much resources a state wants to devote to education or health care are exactly the sorts of things we are supposed to be voting on. Public employee unions are an attempt to take EVERYTHING outside the democratic process and turn it into a union boss and a politician, the latter of whom owes nothing to anyone outside the union and isn't playing with his own money, "negotiating" a corrupt bargain. That is how we arrived at the situation we are in with police and prison guards, not to mention why in California a judge recently ruled that teachers unions are a form of racial discrimination, since they have enshrined a system that creates failing schools in majority-black areas. meat sweats fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 00:20
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Pohl posted:Yes? Why do you have to ask? The police need to be policed. The reason they aren't is not because of Unions, it is because of a stupid brotherhood of law enforcement that protects them. As I said, it is s systemic. Ah, the problem isn't the policemen's union, the problem is the brotherhood of law enforcement. That clears it up. MeramJert posted:So you're in favor of severely cutting teacher salaries and benefits, correct? I'm in favor of not letting teachers declare they have no intention of complying with the law in those states where electorates have chosen to cut salaries and benefits.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:28
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Accretionist posted:A scourge of which we shall never be free until so long as teachers and postal workers are unionized If you're going to talk about how only "plutocrats" think an organization that perpetrates violent, racist abuse and covers it up/lies about it on literally a daily basis is a Bad Thing, then we're going to have to have this discussion, yeah.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:29
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MeramJert posted:So, yes? The teachers go on strike until the budget is restored to the level they demand, irrespective of what the voters or their elected representatives have democratically chosen. I admire your strategy of "accuse everyone who wants police abuse curtailed of hating teachers"; it's bound to be effective. Not particularly good in terms of what it says about your morality, though. I'm sure everyone who had a nightstick rammed up his rear end by a bored cop and the millions of people who live in fear every day because mafia thugs in blue roam the streets looking to pick a fight appreciate that Mrs. Appleworth is restricted to a 6.5 hour workday. Really helps.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:34
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JeffersonClay posted:Public employee unions have existed since the 80's in many areas. Have we seen a massive uptick in police brutality since then? No, we have not. Texas, Georgia, Virginia, North and South Carolina do not allow public sector unions to bargain collectively. Are these states paragons of police conduct? No, they are not. Do we similar police brutality issues in European countries with public employee unions? No, we do not. Unions aren't the problem here. If you actually believe that police aren't getting worse or that there is no abuse in Glorious Utopian Paradise Europe, you're even more out of touch with reality than the people who think that protecting union membership is more important than protecting civil liberties.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:35
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SedanChair posted:Huh!? There's something in the constitution that prevents employees from negotiating pay packages? There is no guarantee that they must do so or have a *right* to do so, therefore it is legitimate for a vote to remove or affect this ability. quote:But again you're missing the critical distinction between law enforcement and any other kind of public employee. Teachers don't operate with impunity like police, because police enforce laws. Teachers can't commit fraud or theft or rape and get away with it because they are a teacher. Right, the police are worse because of exactly the reasons you stated. But fighting for the blanket "public employee unions are good" principle because people like teachers is going to make the police problem impossible to solve, because the police, who are worse, are also a public employee union and their union status is intimately tied to the reason they are worse. That's my point. SedanChair posted:e: wait, is this just a straight up libertarian argument? Is "unions are good" a straight up Communist argument? Come on. "Oh no, someone said something that might agree with the boogeyman people! That must mean they are wrong!"
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Jun 30, 2014 00:42
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Throwdini posted:Don't feed the Republicans for Christ's sake. Yes, anyone who disagrees with you about anything is a libertarian-republican-neoconservative-neoliberal-zionist-plutocrat vampire. Especially people who are saying that cops are bad and should not be trusted because they abuse minorities (classic Republican sloganeering!) or that the FBI should have more power (notorious libertarian belief!) Keep using these thought-terminating cliches to avoid addressing the contradictions in your own value system, it will get you far.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:45
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Why is "police should stop abusing people, drugs should be legal, there should be fewer people in prison, and racism is bad" a "bullshit policy" supported by "conservatives?" Sounds a lot better than most conservative policies I'm familiar with. What do "Likudniks" have to do with this? That's kind of an inflammatory thing to inject into this thread about domestic American policies. Seems like there's a lot of thrashing around here from people who don't want to admit that a choice must be made between blanket support of public employee unions and civil liberties-oriented support of police reform. Anyone who wants one iota of improvement away from the militarized, aggressive, racist police is accused of being all sorts of things -- my goodness, a conservative libertarian likudnik who hates teachers and is literally the Koch Brothers! Typical police-apologist rhetoric, if you ask me.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:51
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SedanChair posted:I didn't mean it like that. I mean, are you arguing that voters should just vote away all infrastructure and safety nets? Short answer, no. quote:I'm not asking if they have the right to do it, I'm asking if it's a good idea. You should focus on this distinction more. quote:Because you seem to think following the tax-aversive whims of the American voter is somehow the solution to mistreatment of minorities by the government. I'm demonstrating that this is in fact the case in some respects, no matter how poorly it may sit with you.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:56
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Accretionist posted:It's your transparent attempt at packaging neoliberalism in terms salient to the left. "Destroying the unions? It's about stopping ~child-rapist cops~ and nothing else! Nothing else!" The left doesn't care about cop abuses. This is a liberal issue in which leftist rhetoric has been mobilized in favor of a fascist police state agenda. My whole point is: leftism is incompatible with liberalism in this arena. You must make a choice. Do not choose "unions always good!" over protecting people from rampaging cops.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:57
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Pardon me if after sitting through the last Venezuela thread, in which the leftist brigade defended shooting into protests, detention without charge, and actual torture in jails by the police, I would rather side with the ACLU than the Z Magazine brigade on this issue. I shouldn't have to explain the lengthy history of leftist police states to convince you that a union which exists literally to make sure none of its members are ever held accountable for violating civil liberties is bad.
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Jun 30, 2014 01:07
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EvanSchenck posted:I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to this question but I'll ask anyway, meat sweats, what do you think the public employee union does when an allegation of misconduct is made against a police officer--or an educator, postal worker, etc.? What is your understanding of how that process plays out? Well, usually the accusation can never go anywhere because of provisions the police union has already negotiated -- it's nearly impossible to investigate a cop, if you do nail him with rock-solid evidence he just gets a paid vacation. In the ultra-rare event that a cop goes to trial, he never goes to prison, it ends with his acquittal or a suspended sentence because the union has made it clear that any prosecutor or judge who goes against a cop will never be able to win a case that depends on cop testimony again. Oftentimes, the police union will go on strike, physically block the courthouse, threaten to do those things, or otherwise use its power to prevent a trial from happening. All police union members will lie, destroy evidence, intimidate and harass witnesses, and otherwise abuse their police power to make sure no cop is convicted of anything. This is the insidious part and why there are no "good cops" -- while only a small fraction of cops have actually shot a black man for sport or planted evidence on a suspect, every single one of them without exception has been involved in covering up for those who have. That's the actual process, what actually happens in the real world with cops and cop unions. Sometimes, there is a happy ending, i.e. the FBI coming to town and not giving a gently caress about local yokels and the cops' bullshit and cleaning house, but this is not how it usually goes. I'm sure you have some alternate universe conception of the process playing out that you are going to share instead.
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Jun 30, 2014 01:11
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made of bees posted:The ACLU? The ones who sue schools for talking about JESUS? As well they should...are you still operating under the conception that I'm an agent of the Republican menace? SedanChair posted:The ACLU thinks public employee unions should be destroyed? The ACLU takes a drat more principled stand on police abuse than the left-wingers in this thread, who are opposed to it up until the moment that doing anything about it might require going against a union.
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Jun 30, 2014 01:16
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Pohl posted:What the gently caress are you even talking about? You sound like a wounded animal right now, thrashing around to survive. I dunno, I figured it was about as relevant as someone trying to make this about Israel. I don't really have to prove that ideologically committed leftists support unlimited state power, though.
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Jun 30, 2014 01:16
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JeffersonClay posted:Police Unions don't ever have the last word on disciplinary actions taken against their members. They provide their members representation to ensure that their members receive their constitutional right to due process. Oh, does my "right to due process" as a non-cop mean that I will get a paid vacation and never, ever go to prison in the event that I'm accused of a crime? Does it mean my coworkers will constantly find reasons to arrest the person who accused me? Does it mean there will be a picket line at the courthouse demanding I be released no matter what I am accused of? Does it mean evidence will be planted or destroyed to bolster my case? Tell me more about how no one is defending police unions!
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Jun 30, 2014 01:29
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Throwdini posted:Stripping workers of collective bargaining rights is not something people who work for a living should reasonably accept as a solution. What people who work for a living? I thought we were talking about cops.
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Jun 30, 2014 01:32
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Pohl posted:Funny. Literally "you don't know what it's LIKE out there, you stupid civvie." Nice "leftism." Should I even bother saying the things I always say to cop-defending right-wingers when they bring this garbage? About how cops are less likely to be killed in the line of duty than commercial fisherman or construction workers? About how most cops do nothing but sit on speed traps or protect and serve the 7-11 donut case all night? Is there any point in assuming you haven't heard this before?
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Jun 30, 2014 01:43
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Untagged posted:Actually its not. But quick, run and pull out the "most dangerous jobs in America" list and confirm Fisherman are still #1 to make yourself feel correct. Then just forget fisherman don't routinely respond to aggravated calls, deal with armed suspects, are assaulted while working, or potentially even shot and killed while eating lunch simply "for being a fisherman". More goes in to what makes a job "dangerous" for a worker than simply running the statistics at the end of the year and seeing how things shake out. But most people know this. And even though they don't do these things, they still die and are injured more, as are many other professions. Police have no duty to help you and usually won't. Most of them never draw a gun or have one drawn at them in their whole career. The average cop is a full-time meter maid who thinks this justifies a $200K salary and immunity from the laws. Defending them and claiming to be some sort of gently caress-the-system leftist revolutionary is pathetic.
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Jun 30, 2014 02:01
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Requiring police to have a body camera enabled in order to use any police power is an idea whose time has long come. Obviously, certain mysterious organizations oppose this (http://nypost.com/2013/08/14/nypd-in-a-snap-judgment-pba-and-brass-resist-order-to-carry-cameras/) and cops in general are not afraid of intimidating people who record them on their own initiative (http://reason.com/blog/2014/04/11/dallas-police-union-recording-cops-creat et al). But it needs to happen as the very first step towards reining in police abuse.
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Jun 30, 2014 02:38
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Mr. Nice! posted:
Most NYPD cops make more than this when you put valuation on their benefits -- the base salary at 5 years service is six figures automatically before adding in the overtime rate and the endless benefit packages. I don't really care if some idiot in a rural county only makes $35K, though. It doesn't give him any more right to oppress people than the New York cops have.
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Jun 30, 2014 03:28
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at the thought of a police officer in the US making $200k.
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I think cops are overpaid for a job mostly staffed by washed-out high school jocks with community college degrees in a fake field, whose daily workload is mostly writing traffic tickets and bullshitting with each other at coffee shops. I don't know why you think I would hide this, based on my previous posts in the thread. It is a fact that many cops make 3 or 4 times the rate of professions requiring comparable skills. Some don't. None of them should abuse their police power. Is there something you disagree with here?
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Jun 30, 2014 03:41
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Samurai Sanders posted:Honestly, I question the value of a civilian oversight council as well. Why would the same people who make criminal laws so bad in the first place (by voting for "tough on crime" local politicians over and over again) have anything different to say in that setting? Possibly. But also, good people don't want to enforce bad laws. As long as cops are the foot soldiers of the ridiculous, racist war on drugs, no good person is ever going to become a cop. When you have to rely on constantly monitoring and threatening bad people to act good, you will achieve spotty results at best.
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Jun 30, 2014 06:47
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I would have to say that on my list of problems with cops "accidentally wounding bystanders while shooting at a suspect in an otherwise justified shooting scenario" is pretty far down priority-wise. It happens once in a while but this is dwarfed by the systematic problems with abuse of authority and cops as revenue extraction. I can't imagine why anyone would be this focused on it.
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Jun 30, 2014 18:37
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SedanChair posted:"Sure, every once in a while innocent bystanders get hosed down with bullets. But let's focus on what's really important here: gutting pensions and salaries!" Shooting are either justified or not ... right now there are a lot more people shot by the police on purpose who shouldn't be, then there are bystanders wounded in avoidable accidental situations. I hold the cops to the same standard as any civilian gun owner; if your life is being threatened you can shoot, and if someone else gets hurt, it's the fault of the person who instigated the situation. Similarly, if you want to go out and shoot someone for wielding a deadly candy bar at you, you're a murderer. The second one is what cops get away with all the time, a lot more often than this weird bystander scenario, and is a more pressing issue.
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Jun 30, 2014 19:34
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SrgMagnum posted:You would be amazed at the number of people from all walks of life who will go out of their way to approach a cop and call him a racist, thug, babykiller, etc before spitting on him. I had it happen dozens of times just in the last year of my career. Either you are The Unluckiest Cop In The World or this is a big ol' crop of stdh.txt. People walked up to you and spit on you dozens of times? Multiple people have pulled guns on you for no reason? Oh, you just now remembered that you got shot twice? You're either a fourteen-year-old roleplaying as a cop or just prone to confabulation.
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Jul 1, 2014 16:13
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justsharkbait posted:If people are afraid of the feared "police state" then you don't want to take away the discretion because you will have a police state. That's not what this term means. Stripping away the rule of law and having police arbitrarily decide who does and doesn't go to prison is what makes a police state. Guess what you're advocating for.
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Jul 1, 2014 21:04
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justsharkbait posted:the main problem i have with that is civilians The best thing we can do for police reform is immediately fire any cop who views the world as divided into virtuous warriors and idiotic/dangerous "civilians."
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Jul 6, 2014 03:05
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justsharkbait posted:You are trying to imply that the cops said "hey. let's go flashbang a baby because some dude who might be home did some meth". I don't know of any cops who would find that OK Uh, yes you do, because this is how cops are now. Do you think this doesn't happen every day? A big part of the reason that militarization of the police has happened is that too many cops want to play around with the intimidating new equipment because they find it fun. The other part is that cops have convinced themselves that every non-cop (using code words such as "civilians," "criminals," "the bad guys," "the public," all of which cops view as interchangeable terms for the same thing) is out to get them, so the siege mentality makes thinking "this house full of people who are distantly related to an accused drug dealer who doesn't even live here are probably all going to fire automatic weapons at us, better treat it like storming Hamburger Hill" seem rational, when in fact it's totally loving insane. Here's a proposal: if you're too scared to execute a search warrant on a baby's room without grenades, body armor, and a tank, don't become a cop and then tell me how "brave" you are. Furthermore, this is just more evidence that unjust laws, particularly the war on drugs, need to be repealed before any decent person can think about joining a police force.
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Jul 6, 2014 03:09
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ImAMinister posted:Oh, well in the meantime here's some content. Nothing -- cops are convinced that every "civilian", that is to say, all non-cops including children and dogs, is out to get them; they know that they can shoot at whoever or whatever they feel like without ever suffering a real consequence; and too many people are wrapped up in the "our heroes risking their lives YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE" bullshit to ever reign them in. Move somewhere where no cops ever go or don't have a dog or children, I guess.
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Jul 12, 2014 21:53
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Why should we pretend being a cop is dangerous when cops have the unlimited right to shoot any person or dog based on third-degree hypotheticals? You're not ever in danger if you get to shoot every dog you see because it might be part of a criminal conspiracy and might clamp onto your leg so a person who might exist can get the drop on you. You're taking ridiculous precautions against made-up dangers to ensure you never face any actual jeopardy, at the expense of everyone else's safety and freedom.
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Jul 13, 2014 16:08
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ImAMinister posted:So if it's a risk inherent to the job, taxi drivers and 7-11 clerks have the right to shoot any costumer they come across because they don't know that costumer's intentions? Especially given that taxi drivers are, as a matter of actual fact, killed on the job more often than cops...
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Jul 13, 2014 17:01
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computer parts posted:I'm still wondering why the guy shot the dog that was in a locked car. Because cops enjoy killing things and know they will never be held responsible. That dog could have been an advance scout for an invisible drug dealer!
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Jul 13, 2014 17:02
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No one has disputed the right to defend yourself from a person or dog who is actually attacking you. What does that have to do with breaking into someone's house or car and shooting their dog, a common cop recreational activity that is the subject of the incidents cited on this page? You don't get to claim dog self-defense when the only reason the animal is physically able to interact with you at all is because you illegally broke down a barrier between you and the dog in the first place.
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Jul 13, 2014 17:55
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Ableist Kinkshamer posted:There seems to be an unstated assumption here that cops should treat dogs like little people. I hate to break this to you, but dogs aren't people. I understand that this is hard for some to grasp since they get so emotionally invested and attached to them. I'm not sure what you're talking about as far as other options (hit it with a baton? dog has successfully distracted you. pepper spray it? i'm not sure that would actually be effective in most situations). I fully acknowledge that dogs are property. I don't think cops should destroy my property for fun. You seem to disagree.
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Jul 13, 2014 18:17
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Cole posted:More people want to kill cops than your average civilian. Their paranoia seems a little justified. quote:http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/27/16196680-police-deaths-down-23-percent-this-year-across-us http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/16/u-s-murder-rate-higher-than-nearly-all-other-developed-countries-fbi-data/ quote:But the 2012 murder rate — 4.7 murders per 100,000 people — was significantly higher than in most other wealthy nations. You are more than 7 times as likely to be murdered as a "civilian" than a cop. The idea that cop work is particularly dangerous or life-threatening just isn't true.
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Jul 13, 2014 19:00
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