Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[The Minsky Moment]

Of course money alone won't do it.  Police departments need to be rethought, restructured, and rebuilt.  But doing that costs money.

[garbon]

Of course money alone won't do it.  Police departments need to be rethought, restructured, and rebuilt.  But doing that costs money.

But then that sounds like the municipality setting aside budget to restructure, not so much better funding the police who will waste it.

[Berkut]

There is no need for more funding, just move the cash around.

Maybe don't buy an APC next budget and spend that on training.

Yeah, I agree with a lot of what you are saying, Joan, but I struggle to see evidence that increasing funding will make the police less shitty. Or is it just that higher wages will attract better calibre people?

I don't think there is any question that more funding, *properly applied* could make many of our police forces more professional, better trained, and more aligned with what we want societally.

But I don't think that is the necessary level. I think the fact that we have like 40,000 different "police" forces is a bigger problem. I think that the culture within some of those departments is toxic from the perspective of them serving the societal goals we want out of police is a MUCH bigger problem that funding doesn't really addresss.

[crazy canuck]

I agree with Berkut's basic point - many jobs entail danger for various reasons but at a basic level putting oneself into dangerous situations involving other people (and not just nature or risk in the abstract) *IS* the job of the police.  And that is part of the reason why police - like members of the uniformed armed services - attract political and social support, even if in terms of risk outcomes, one can find other jobs with higher mortality risks per person per unit of time.

The police attract mixed responses because their position in society is ill-defined.  One can imagine two poles: at one pole is the police as thuggish head-knockers using brutality or the threat of brutality to maintain the power of a ruling class and keep dissenters in line - a role police have played in many historical times and places.  At the other pole is police as a true profession - a well-trained and educated cadre of professional officers, under democratic control, responsible for responding to breaches of the peace in all their many manifestations, incorporating the best current practices. 

In the US, police departments fall variously between those two poles - with different strata of people experiencing different aspects of police interaction.  That explains the different perceptions and levels of social support for police. And also why the "defund the police" movement, in addition to being terrible politics, was also bad policy.  Because if the goal is to have police departments move to pole 2, there is a need for more funding, not less.

Miners putting themselves in dangerous situations IS the job of a miner.

Loggers putting themselves in dangerous situation IS the job of a logger.

etc etc etc.

Your qualifier that it is a dangerous situation involving other people is not all that convincing, since a lot of the danger of those other jobs comes from what other people do (including their managers who make resourcing decisions which directly impact the degree of danger).  These are all jobs where the danger cannot be mitigated only by the efforts of the worker themselves.

[grumbler]

Miners putting themselves in dangerous situations IS the job of a miner.

Loggers putting themselves in dangerous situation IS the job of a logger.

etc etc etc.

Nonsense.  If there was no danger at all, there would still be loggers and miners.  Going into danger is not their job at all.  OTOH, if there was no danger, there would be no need for police.

Your qualifier that it is a dangerous situation involving other people is not all that convincing, since a lot of the danger of those other jobs comes from what other people do (including their managers who make resourcing decisions which directly impact the degree of danger).  These are all jobs where the danger cannot be mitigated only by the efforts of the worker themselves.

Your red herring is both red and a herring.

[crazy canuck]

Miners putting themselves in dangerous situations IS the job of a miner.

Loggers putting themselves in dangerous situation IS the job of a logger.

etc etc etc.

Nonsense.  If there was no danger at all, there would still be loggers and miners.  Going into danger is not their job at all.  OTOH, if there was no danger, there would be no need for police.

Your qualifier that it is a dangerous situation involving other people is not all that convincing, since a lot of the danger of those other jobs comes from what other people do (including their managers who make resourcing decisions which directly impact the degree of danger).  These are all jobs where the danger cannot be mitigated only by the efforts of the worker themselves.

Your red herring is both red and a herring.

It's a nice fantasy world you have created to make the argument.  But we live in the real world where the danger of those jobs cannot be eliminated.  Talk about red herrings.

[Syt]

From my niece's husband:

[crazy canuck]

Translation?

[Razgovory]

That's pretty crazy.

[Jacob]

Translation?

My guess: Mass shooters are a deep state plot, but if the citizenry has access to military grade weaponry they will stop the mass shooters and everything will be better.

[The Minsky Moment]

If the deep state can stage manage shooting incidents and staff them with crisis actors, how come they can't manage to stop ordinary armed citizen from wandering on their set?

It's convenient for the paranoid mindset that the evil elites are simultaneously omnipotent and deviously clever, and yet also comically incompetent and ineffective.

[Eddie Teach]

I thought they were referring to a real person. 

[grumbler]

Miners putting themselves in dangerous situations IS the job of a miner.

Loggers putting themselves in dangerous situation IS the job of a logger.

etc etc etc.

Nonsense.  If there was no danger at all, there would still be loggers and miners.  Going into danger is not their job at all.  OTOH, if there was no danger, there would be no need for police.

Your qualifier that it is a dangerous situation involving other people is not all that convincing, since a lot of the danger of those other jobs comes from what other people do (including their managers who make resourcing decisions which directly impact the degree of danger).  These are all jobs where the danger cannot be mitigated only by the efforts of the worker themselves.

Your red herring is both red and a herring.

It's a nice fantasy world you have created to make the argument.  But we live in the real world where the danger of those jobs cannot be eliminated.  Talk about red herrings.

It must be nice to live in your little fantasy world where you can convince yourself that your non sequiturs are actual responses to intellectual arguments.

Let's remember that your argument is that "Miners putting themselves in dangerous situations IS the job of a miner."  That means that, the more dangerous the mine, the more miners it will employ, regardless of the amount of ore, because the miners' jobs are not mining ore, but "putting themselves in dangerous situations."  In fact, if your contention were correct, a perfectly safe mine would have no miners at all! 

Logic alone should make you7 retract your absurd claim, but I know that you cannot admit being wrong, so I'll just show the others the link to the 48 Most Dangerous Mines in America according to Congress (in 2010). The most dangerous coal mine employed only 44 people, the most dangerous non-coal mine employed only 28.

[crazy canuck]

First rule of holes Grumbles.

If you want to deny that miners are employed to work in a dangerous environment, keep digging.  If not stop digging and climb out.

[viper37]

Some people seem to have a knack to dig up old photos.  Anyway, this your average photo, a producer and 3 people involved in the humoristic industry.  But it's creepy, in retrospect.




From left to right:
Gilbert Rozon, founder and former owner of Just for laughs festival.  Accused of multiple rapes and sexual harassement toward many women a few years ago.  For Québec, this is as big as Harvey Weinstein.

Philippe Bond.  Stand up comic.  8 women recently (this morning) came forward to accuse him of rape and inapropriate sexual behavior.  Some victims attempted to press charges but where not believed by the police.

Eric Salvail.  Former talk show host/radio jock.  Accused of sexual harassment and inapropriate sexual behavior (groping, masturbating in front of people, puting his dick where it didn't belong, etc) on straigh males, gay males and women.  Lots of people excused his behavior, especially toward women, because he was gay.  

Just another stand up comic, not involved in anything, but who must really regret having taken this picture today...