After our house burned down in Wisconsin a few months ago, my husband and I packed our four young kids and all our belongings into a gold minivan and drove to my sister-in-law’s place, just outside of Atlanta. On the back windshield, we pasted six stick figures: a dad, a mom, three young girls, and one baby boy.

That minivan was sitting in the front driveway of my sister-in-law’s place the night a SWAT team broke in, looking for a small amount of drugs they thought my husband’s nephew had. Some of my kids’ toys were in the front yard, but the officers claimed they had no way of knowing children might be present. Our whole family was sleeping in the same room, one bed for us, one for the girls, and a crib.

After the SWAT team broke down the door, they threw a flashbang grenade inside. It landed in my son’s crib.

Flashbang grenades were created for soldiers to use during battle. When they explode, the noise is so loud and the flash is so bright that anyone close by is temporarily blinded and deafened. It’s been three weeks since the flashbang exploded next to my sleeping baby, and he’s still covered in burns.

There’s still a hole in his chest that exposes his ribs. At least that’s what I’ve been told; I’m afraid to look.

My husband’s nephew, the one they were looking for, wasn’t there. He doesn’t even live in that house. After breaking down the door, throwing my husband to the ground, and screaming at my children, the officers – armed with M16s – filed through the house like they were playing war. They searched for drugs and never found any.

I heard my baby wailing and asked one of the officers to let me hold him. He screamed at me to sit down and shut up and blocked my view, so I couldn’t see my son. I could see a singed crib. And I could see a pool of blood. The officers yelled at me to calm down and told me my son was fine, that he’d just lost a tooth. It was only hours later when they finally let us drive to the hospital that we found out Bou Bou was in the intensive burn unit and that he’d been placed into a medically induced coma.

For the last three weeks, my husband and I have been sleeping at the hospital. We tell our son that we love him and we’ll never leave him behind. His car seat is still in the minivan, right where it’s always been, and we whisper to him that soon we’ll be taking him home with us.

Every morning, I have to face the reality that my son is fighting for his life. It’s not clear whether he’ll live or die. All of this to find a small amount of drugs?

The only silver lining I can possibly see is that my baby Bou Bou’s story might make us angry enough that we stop accepting brutal SWAT raids as a normal way to fight the “war on drugs.” I know that this has happened to other families, here in Georgia and across the country. I know that SWAT teams are breaking into homes in the middle of the night, more often than not just to serve search warrants in drug cases. I know that too many local cops have stockpiled weapons that were made for soldiers to take to war. And as is usually the case with aggressive policing, I know that people of color and poor people are more likely to be targeted. I know these things because of the American Civil Liberties Union’s new report, and because I’m working with them to push for restraints on the use of SWAT.

A few nights ago, my 8-year-old woke up in the middle of the night screaming, “No, don’t kill him! You’re hurting my brother! Don’t kill him.” How can I ever make that go away? I used to tell my kids that if they were ever in trouble, they should go to the police for help. Now my kids don’t want to go to sleep at night because they’re afraid the cops will kill them or their family. It’s time to remind the cops that they should be serving and protecting our neighborhoods, not waging war on the people in them.

I pray every minute that I’ll get to hear my son’s laugh again, that I’ll get to watch him eat French fries or hear him sing his favorite song from “Frozen.” I’d give anything to watch him chase after his sisters again. I want justice for my baby, and that means making sure no other family ever has to feel this horrible pain.

Update: As of the afternoon of 6/24/2014, Baby Bou Bou has been taken out of the medically induced coma and transferred to a new hospital to begin rehabilitation. The hole in his chest has yet to heal, and doctors are still not able to fully assess lasting brain damage.

From here.

"Tough on crime" meets "think of the children." Whoever wins, we all lose.

Still, I wonder why people react with surprise when I tell them that I trust the police less than potential criminals.

This is a really tragic story, and alas one that is all too common.

If cops can be sued for excessive force, this sort of thing has to qualify, right?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 daedalus wrote:
"Tough on crime" meets "think of the children." Whoever wins, we all lose.

Still, I wonder why people react with surprise when I tell them that I trust the police less than potential criminals.

At the end of the day, criminals know what they are doing is wrong, and actually fear consquences.

Police feel that what they do is right, and are virtually immune from consequences.

It's pretty simple. If we talk of war on crime, the implication is police are soldiers. And that makes civilians (including babies) enemy combatants.

 Polonius wrote:


At the end of the day, criminals know what they are doing is wrong, and actually fear consquences.

Police feel that what they do is right, and are virtually immune from consequences.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - C.S. Lewis

I need to get away from the internet for a while. :(

 Manchu wrote:
It's pretty simple. If we talk of war on crime, the implication is police are soldiers. And that makes civilians (including babies) enemy combatants.

And things like this aren't hard to fix. If states passed laws that required a warrant for violent entry, then police would be protected when they knew they were in genuine danger.

But allowing children to be injured to make things safer for police is putting the cart before the horse.

 Polonius wrote:
But allowing children to be injured to make things safer for police is putting the cart before the horse.

B-b-but druuuuugs!

How will we ever win this War on Drugs if we can't (severely) injure a few infants?

And where are our (allegedly) conservative pundits?

 Manchu wrote:
And where are our (allegedly) conservative pundits?

What?

I'm outraged at this as well.

Mistake ONE
Lack of Situational Awareness.
Mistake Two
Not bouncing the flashbang off the floor. You do not toss it in.

No - mistake one: militarizing police.

More so if the military trained them to use it. Its no gain either way They are given mil grade equipment they become "militarized". If we trained them in use they become more militarized. Either way both the military and LEO still lose with public perception

It's a cliche, but it's true that when you have a hammer, all of your problems start looking like nails.

Cops are peopel too, and just like anybody, they want to play Action Hero. Carrying an assualt rifle, breaking down doors, flashbangs... this is allowing a desire to feel powerful and cool override common sense.

There have been tragic cases where police where outgunned, but those cases are painfully rare. There are also instances where a SWAT team is necessary. Those, again, are actually pretty rare.

 Jihadin wrote:
Either way both the military and LEO still lose with public perception

This isn't just a PR issue.

There is an irreconcilable difference between police and soldiers.

There is a irreconcilable difference between keeping the peace and fighting wars.

Its about the gear they are issue. Flashbang being one of them. No one trained this group on how to properly implement a flashbang.
Tactics are another ballgame.

Police do not need weapons designed for war.

 Jihadin wrote:
Mistake ONE
Lack of Situational Awareness.
Mistake Two
Not bouncing the flashbang off the floor. You do not toss it in.

Exalted.

Probably the fact that my two best friends are an Army soldier and a SWAT team member, but I'd rather have excessive force than have people who volunteer to protect citizens and uphold laws injured by dangerous criminals.

 Manchu wrote:
Police do not need weapons designed for war.

In some cases they do, as has been proven throughout American history; hence the existence of SWAT.

The issue at hand is the misuse of SWAT. Which, in this case, is very clear.

The things SWAT does, or at least should be doing, seem like military operations to me. It therefore seems to me that the military could do them.

Im one of the first to defend the police....but I have no words for this stupidity

This is a telling comment:

 dementedwombat wrote:
I'd rather have excessive force than have people who volunteer to protect citizens and uphold laws injured by dangerous criminals.

So how do you feel about people who volunteer to protect citizens using excessive force to injure them?

"Excessive" force has no place in police work.

I agree. They do not need crew serve weapons, MRAP's, MATV's and/or Frag grenades. Basically other equipment design for combat.
A flashbang (non-lethal) though can be used by either. In this case the LEO who had control of the flashbang fail to utilize it properly. That indicates no training.
It suppose to skip off the floor.
Its suppose to draw the attention of whoever is in the room, away from the entry point, to the flashbang itself before it goes off. Incapacitating whoever is in the room.

*In 1989, police in Minneapolis, Minnesota, conducted a drug raid at the home of an elderly couple, Lloyd Smalley and Lillian Weiss, after receiving inaccurate information from an informant. The flashbang grenades police used in the raid set the home on fire. Police said they were certain no one was inside, and so, at first, made no attempt at rescue. Smalley and Weiss died of smoke inhalation

*In May 2003, a woman named Alberta Spruill died from a heart attack after a police team detonated a stun grenade at her residence in Harlem, New York. Her family eventually won a $1.6 million civil suit against the city.

In January 2011, a California man named Rogelio Serrato died of smoke inhalation after a flashbang grenade launched by a police SWAT team ignited a fire in his home.[8] The man was believed to have been hiding in the attic when the fire broke out.

*In February 2011, a North Carolina SWAT police officer was injured at his home when a stun grenade accidentally detonated while he was attempting to secure his equipment. He underwent emergency surgery, but later died of his injuries.

*In January 2014, a man was severely injured during rioting caused by the 2014 Ukrainian revolution after he attempted to pick up a live, undetonated stun grenade. The grenade detonated seconds before he could reach it. The explosion caused damage to his right hand and arm, leading to the loss of most of his fingers, as well as heavy blood loss. As of February 2014, the man's condition is unknown.[10] However, a video of it has been uploaded to LiveLeak.

*On May 28, 2014, a 19-month-old baby was severely burned and placed in a medically induced coma after a SWAT team raided a home in Cornelia, Georgia at 2 a.m

Just by these incidents (Wikipedia) I can safely say. Bad Intel, stupidity, and lack of positive control of a stun grenade. Though when the military use it we generally know who's behind the door



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
The things SWAT does, or at least should be doing, seem like military operations to me. It therefore seems to me that the military could do them.

There's a difference. If there is a civilian sniper. Who would handle the situation better. A Infantry Platoon or a SWAT unit.

 Manchu wrote:
The things SWAT does, or at least should be doing, seem like military operations to me. It therefore seems to me that the military could do them.

But the military cannot, legally, do such things.

The existence of SWAT is definitely the militarization of the police, but the root issue is its misuse; not SWAT's existence.

I have no objection to the military using grenades to fight enemy combatants.

My objection is to suspects being treated by the police as enemy combatants. Militarizing the police through equipment and training tends to facilitate this.

One might expect those who fear the government is too powerful and intrusive would object to militarization of the police.

 dogma wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
The things SWAT does, or at least should be doing, seem like military operations to me. It therefore seems to me that the military could do them.

But the military cannot, legally, do such things.

And so we militarize police as an end run around the law. As Jihadin seems to be pointing out, pretending that some paramilitary forces are police can have significant disadvantages when it comes to effectiveness.

If there is a need to use military force in the criminal context then elected officials should have to call on the actual military and take responsibility for explaining the need.

 Manchu wrote:
I have no objection to the military using grenades to fight enemy combatants.

My objection is to suspects being treated by the police as enemy combatants. Militarizing the police through equipment and training tends to facilitate this.

One might expect those who fear the government is too powerful and intrusive would object to militarization of the police.

Whatever factor leads people to fear the government seem to have a huge blind spot for LEOs. That's not surprising, as people tend to be hyporcritical about the things they know well and like (see Medicare spending).

 dogma wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
The things SWAT does, or at least should be doing, seem like military operations to me. It therefore seems to me that the military could do them.

But the military cannot, legally, do such things.

And so we militarize police as an end run around the law. As Jihadin seems to be pointing out, pretending that some paramilitary forces are police can have significant disadvantages when it comes to effectiveness.

If there is a need to use military force in the criminal context then elected officials should have to call on the actual military and take responsibility for explaining the need.

Well, what police do, even in SWAT raid, isn't something that the military is particularly trained on. Giving police the tools they need to deal with real situations is fine, it's just that there should be some oversight on their use.

Odds are, the civil suits will bleed this issue dry.

Civil liability is not a great quality control approach.

 Manchu wrote:
Civil liability is not a great quality control approach.

What else is, when police are involved?

I would suggest de-militarization.

 Manchu wrote:
I would suggest de-militarization.

By what mechanism? FEderal law? State law? Local laws?

I wouldn't want to be the governor of a state after signing that law the first time a LEO was killed in the line.

I'd be all for it, but I think it will take the mean old courts to spoil this party.

I'm not sure the courts can do it. Real de-militarization requires an acknowledgement that the police are already militarized, which to my mind implicates legislative action.

What would meet the criteria of "military equipment" to demilitarize LEO though. Some things are obvious something are not. 9mm Beratta's are a issue weapon in the military as are M4/M16 A2's

 Jihadin wrote:
Some things are obvious something are not.

Agreed.

 Manchu wrote:
And so we militarize police as an end run around the law.

We give some of them the military grade equipment they need to do their jobs; and train them in the use of that equipment.

But, to reiterate, the issue is not the existence of SWAT, but the way it is employed and (to add) the training such LEOs undergo. Training which should include "Do not bounce a flashbang into a room that may contain non-hostiles.", a point Jihadin has already made.

 Manchu wrote:

If there is a need to use military force in the criminal context then elected officials should have to call on the actual military and take responsibility for explaining the need.

Elected officials will doubtlessly be called to task for this action, they simply won't be nationally elected.

One could point out that SWAT units in heavy armor with flashbangs and big guns become a necessity in a country where criminals frequently carry potent and readily available weapons and that the issue as others suggest isn't their existence but the police's nasty habit of frequently busting into the wrong house.

I suspect as in the past however such a thing would be pointless.

I should prefer that officials have to be persuasive before a harm occurs rather than after. Convincing the military to intervene and having that albatross around your neck entails much more responsibility than "mistakes may have been made" investigations that often go nowhere.

The 2nd Amendment in no way necessitates the militarization of the police. Private citizens owned and used firearms (including criminally) long before the development of SWAT.

So your solution to the militarization of the police is to ask the real military to go around shooting up people? Ignoring that that doesn't even remotely solve public officials exercising police powers with improper information (as presumably the military will simply act as SWAT teams do now, unless we're giving them the power to pick which doors they will and won't kick down) how on earth is letting the real military run around a civil improvement over cops dressed in military style?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
The 2nd Amendment in no way necessitates the militarization of the police. Private citizens owned and used firearms (including criminally) long before the development of SWAT.

It has nothing to do with the second amendment. When you're dealing with criminal organizations like the Cartel, who often find acquiring automatic weapons easy, sending cops in with revolvers and clean pressed shirts is madness.

And again, the idea of an automatic rifle was foreign to the Founders. Expecting them to make rules able to account for the use of such weapons, far more potent than anything they had in their time, is silly.

 Manchu wrote:
I should prefer that officials have to be persuasive before a harm occurs rather than after. Convincing the military to intervene and having that albatross around your neck entails much more responsibility than "mistakes may have been made" investigations that often go nowhere.

There's the crux of it. LEO can fall back on the excuse "of not properly trained" to get out of this situation. They do not do a "Risk Assessment" before kicking in the door. They ,most time it appears, assume a level of danger that justifies questionable actions. The group that hurt the kid in the crib totally lack situational awareness to being a van with a family head count sticker on the back window was parked (drive way?) out front. It just seems they were, LEO, itching for action.

 LordofHats wrote:
So your solution to the militarization of the police is to ask the real military to go around shooting up people?

Yes.

I would rather have elected officials have to ask, in front of everyone, that the real military attack the populace than for us to pretend that paramilitary police forces waging constant warfare against the populace is normal and okay.

 Manchu wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
So your solution to the militarization of the police is to ask the real military to go around shooting up people?

Yes.

I would rather have elected officials have to ask, in front of everyone, that the real military attack the populace than for us to pretend that paramilitary police forces waging constant warfare against the populace is normal and okay.

That would be an unlawful order.

As things stand, yes it is. And there is a good reason why it is unlawful to order a military force to attack the populace.

Assembling a military force, certainly a force better armed and trained than many of the forces our military fights, and calling it a police formation is essentially a game of pretend to get around that good reason.

 Jihadin wrote:

There's the crux of it. LEO can fall back on the excuse "of not properly trained" to get out of this situation. They do not do a "Risk Assessment" before kicking in the door. They ,most time it appears, assume a level of danger that justifies questionable actions. The group that hurt the kid in the crib totally lack situational awareness to being a van with a family head count sticker on the back window was parked (drive way?) out front. It just seems they were, LEO, itching for action.

I think we agree on this. I hate to paint the SWAT guys in a terrible light, but this really seemed like they enjoyed playing soldier. Which is scary when its all live.

You could argue that our troops in Iraq were more worried about collateral damage than these SWAT teams.

 Manchu wrote:
Yes.

That you don't think that's silly is hilarious XD

I would rather have elected officials have to ask, in front of everyone, that the real military attack the populace than for us to pretend that paramilitary police forces waging constant warfare against the populace is normal and okay.

Except that's not what's happening (hyperbole out the extreme XD). You're solution just trades the police kicking in the wrong door to the military kicking in the wrong door, a complete non change. This isn't a problem with the police per se but a problem with the attitudes and accountability of public officials who hand down their orders (and whoever is supposed to be keeping them in line naturally), something you're change doesn't really fix without giving the military sweeping police powers.

LH: stop, breathe, and read for comprehension.

The change I am suggesting is between assuming it's okay to use military force against the people to "fight crime" and not assuming that.

You are complaining about hypothetically giving the military sweeping police powers.

The actual, real life issue we currently need to deal with is that the police have sweeping military powers.

We were/are under a ROE that is enforced. We also enforce fire discipline. Comparing LEO to the Military they, LEO, are a wild bunch. They operate, LEO, under the impression that they are not subject to ramification of their actions. If they are then Prosecution is cast as the "Bad People"

 Jihadin wrote:
Comparing LEO to the Military they, LEO, are a wild bunch.

I certainly believe this. It seems to me that if the military did become involved in some kind of domestic police action, it would be a damn sight more careful than the cops are. The US military is overall pretty sensitive to how it behaves abroad. I can only imagine every i would be dotted and t crossed at home.

The military makes for a bad police force, however, because it is meant to enact war. Police are supposed to preserve peace.

 dementedwombat wrote:
I'd rather have excessive force than have people who volunteer to protect citizens and uphold laws injured by dangerous criminals.

"We had to destroy the village in order to save it".

 Polonius wrote:

I think we agree on this. I hate to paint the SWAT guys in a terrible light, but this really seemed like they enjoyed playing soldier. Which is scary when its all live.

You could argue that our troops in Iraq were more worried about collateral damage than these SWAT teams.

Honestly, I think this also comes down to the SWAT in question. In areas like LA or NYC, the largest of large police departments have the money that they can spend on recruiting and properly training former SEALs, Green Beret's and whatnot from the SOF community. These guys are used to the sort of training and restraint needed in certain situations.

In smaller towns, as in the OP, they probably say, "Ohh, Bobby-Joe was our Quarterback in school, he's a good athlete, he can shoot real good, and he wants to be on the police force. Let's put him in the SWAT because he's a good athlete and can shoot real good", and as a result, you get a guy like "Bobby-Joe" who wouldn't make it through the first day of LA's SWAT training not only on the "SWAT" team, but probably leading as well.

The change I am suggesting is between assuming it's okay to use military force against the people to "fight crime" and not assuming that.

Until the police start drone striking their targets and leveling entire buildings, this is nothing more than hyperbole. A bunch of guys in body armor with mean looking guns is not 'military.' Flashbangs, being typically non-lethal are a great public tool for incapacitating threats over killing them, something that should be embraced. Given the nature of crime in the US, maintaining such force has become a necessity. We can accept that our we can live in fairytale land. You can't embrace the rights of the populace to own guns without accepting an immediate consequence, and you can't deal with criminals readily having access to very mean guns by their own means without turning out a meaner looking police officer.

The problem isn't that the police threw a flashbang into a room. It's that they threw it into the wrong room in a house they seemingly had no business being in. That requires a change of attitude in a lot of people and accountability further up the line. Attacking the equipment is backwards.

As I said, militarization of the police is a not a necessary consequence of private ownership of firearms.

Also, I am not attacking the equipment. I am attacking the mindset that tends to go along with certain equipment and training. The equipment is just one facet of militarization.

 Ouze wrote:
"We had to destroy the village in order to save it".

"And until we destroy another one with drones, militarization is just hyperbole."

 Manchu wrote:
As I said, militarization of the police is a not a necessary consequence of private ownership of firearms.

That's naive (though as I said earlier, this isn't strictly a consequence of private ownership either, as the Cartels and gangs, will find and use illegal weapons regardless of what the rest of us have).

I am attacking the a mindset that tends to go along with certain equipment and training.

Can you demonstrate that the mindset is the problem rather than accountability and way that mindset is employed? Cause attacking SWAT seems like a complete distraction from the real problem while flowering up language to fear monger people into simply accepting a false premise.

I also agree that ratcheting down the level of force is desirable, but unlikely. No elected official wants to be seen as soft on crime. Although you're right - this isn't a second amendment issue - i nonetheless find that the lack of any serious changes to how we do... well, anything - after Sandy Hook is a compelling argument that dead children, even dead white ones, are simply not a significant motivator for societal change for the American people.

We live with levels of violence that are nonexistent elsewhere in the first world, and we accept that. Our police officers riding MRAPS, wearing molle vests and toting M4s are simply part and parcel of that.

@LoH:

What is naive is to imagine that there is only one possible response to a problem. Your ideology is showing.

As to the rest of your post, please read the OP and then consider this:

 Manchu wrote:
If we talk of war on crime, the implication is police are soldiers. And that makes civilians (including babies) enemy combatants.

 LordofHats wrote:
Can you demonstrate that the mindset is the problem rather than accountability and way that mindset is employed? Cause attacking SWAT seems like a complete distraction from the real problem while flowering up language to fear monger people into simply accepting a false premise.

Another false premise would be the idea of the cartels using exotic, automatic military hardware on police officers inside the US thus justifying said militarization, where such HEAT-type scenarios remain almost totally within the purview of the movies. LA shootout aside, they simply do not actually happen.

@Ouze:

What you are describing is the failure of American conservatism. To wit, it is more important to appear "tough on crime" than to curb the excessive use of force by government agents at its root.

 Manchu wrote:
What is naive is to imagine that there is only one possible response to a problem. Your ideology is showing.

Pretend that's true (really, it's like no one here remembers the contents of any thread past a week).

And that makes civilians (including babies) enemy combatants.

Keep using that hyperbole and pretend it means something.

In a war on crime, criminals are the enemy, in which case the typical civilian is still a non-combatant (in this silly rhetorical argument people throw up). I read the OP and my response wasn't "why are the cops using flashbangs and mean looking guns" it was "why are they in that house?" The improper use of force is the real problem, the force used in the OP itself being demonstratably necessary in the modern US.

A discussion can be hand about a lot of fine details. Armored vehicles for example, seem like overkill in a lot of places and situations. Outside of major metro areas (where their usefulness in riot control is practical) they make no sense, but why some county sheriffs are buying them seems to simply be a case of wanting cool toys cause cool. Cops in body armor with M4's and flashbangs on the other are not, and attacking their existence as is often done is bonkers.

 Manchu wrote:
@Ouze:

What you are describing is the failure of American conservatism. To wit, it is more important to appear "tough on crime" than to curb the excessive use of force by government agents at its root.

I hate to get partisan, but alas, I think you're correct here. There's a bit of an "Only Nixon could go to China" aspect to this issue.

The rising police state is one area that could prove fruitful for a conservative/liberal alliance, but that seems to have not really taken root.

@LoH:

You keep saying "improper use of force" without ever accounting for what is improper and why it might have been applied in a case like this.

It's not just a matter of being at the wrong house. Even if they were at the right house, they're looking for a small amount of drugs. So they bring SWAT? And kick down the door in the middle of the night? And scream at a woman concerned for her baby, whom they have just severely injured?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Polonius wrote:
I hate to get partisan, but alas, I think you're correct here.

It's not so much a partisan attack but a partisan lament. I can think of nothing so seriously dangerous to the long term health of the public good in the US as the increasing irrelevance of authentic (i.e., non-neoliberal) conservatism.

 LordofHats wrote:
I read the OP and my response wasn't "why are the cops using flashbangs and mean looking guns" it was "why are they in that house?" The improper use of force is the real problem, the force used in the OP itself being demonstratably necessary in the modern US.

And this is what other people are also getting at... There definitely seems to be a mentality of "I have a badge, and a cool gun, I NEED to kick in a door to use this cool gun"

If the police, in this situation only had their kevlar vest, pistol and "pressed shirt" they'd probably knock on the door, see if so-and-so was home, and if he wasn't (which in the OP, he wasnt in that house), they'd tell the family, "please contact us if he does return here" or something to that effect. It's a more polite and civil way of dealing with the situation. (and you can tell when someone is lying when they say "he aint here", that aint hard to do)

 Manchu wrote:
You keep saying "improper use of force" without ever accounting for what is improper and why it might have been applied in a case like this.

Yeah people keep throwing out 'militarization of the police' without ever defining what militarization means or how the phrase is really supposed to mean anything at all.

It's not just a matter of being at the wrong house. Even if they were at the right house, they're looking for a small amount of drugs. So they bring SWAT?

Yes, a good question.

And kick down the door in the middle of the night?

You prefer they kick down the door in the middle of the day? Come on. The above question is extremely valid, but this one is silly. Preferably, taking their suspects while they're asleep and unarmed is preferable to the middle of the day where they could run or arm themselves and start a shootout.

And scream at a woman concerned for her baby, whom they have just severely injured?

I get that most people (even cops) don't like being told they're wrong, but the cops in particular seem to have a really bad issue with it. But then people throw all kinds of nonsense at them like "nazis" and "militarization" at them all the time so its kind of hard to sit them down and have a real intervention with all the gak coming from so many mouths.

 LordofHats wrote:
You prefer they kick down the door in the middle of the day? Come on. The above question is extremely valid, but this one is silly. Preferably, taking their suspects while they're asleep and unarmed is preferable to the middle of the day where they could run or arm themselves and start a shootout.

Maybe they don't need to kick in the door at all if it's a small amount of drugs, FFS.

 Ouze wrote:
Maybe they don't need to kick in the door at all if it's a small amount of drugs, FFS.

Didn't read the response directly above did you?

The concept of militarization is hardly the same thing as throwing around references to Nazis.

As to defining militarization, I agreed earlier with Jihadin that there are non-obvious issues as a matter of detail (e.g., equipment evaluation). We members of Dakka Dakka are not going to undertake an investigation and draft a white paper. If you're looking for a point-by-point technical evaluation, you are bound to be disappointed.

That does not, however, mean the concept has no value. Crime and war are different things. When they are conflated, this is militarization.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Maybe they don't need to kick in the door at all if it's a small amount of drugs, FFS.

Didn't read the response directly above did you?

No, after re-reading I did miss it, if you mean Ensis.

 Manchu wrote:

That does not, however, mean the concept has no value. Crime and war are different things. When they are conflated, this is militarization.

I think the biggest problem isn't equiptmen, or even tactics, but simply mindset. I think the police see themselves as much more paramilitary than they used to.

Agreed, Polonius, But when you dress them up like soldiers and give them soldier training and soldier weapons, I mean this has an effect on mindset.

 Manchu wrote:
Agreed, Polonius, But when you dress them up like soldiers and give them soldier training and soldier weapons, I mean this has an effect on mindset.

That's a good point.

 Ouze wrote:


No, after re-reading I did miss it, if you mean Ensis.

No. I mean the response where I agreed bringing SWAT into the situation in the OP is rather plainly excessive force even if they had the right house (I just find that they somehow managed to, once again, get the wrong address awe inspiring). SWAT aren't the only ones who can force their way into a building.

If you're looking for a point-by-point technical evaluation, you are bound to be disappointed.

I'm not.

That does not, however, mean the concept has no value. Crime and war are different things. When they are conflated, this is militarization.

And the "war on crime" is itself a hyperbolic term created for the purpose of politics.The traditional term for 'war on crime' is law enforcement. The conflation is fictional. Surely you don't think that if we took away the SWAT teams toys that all misuse of police power will just end. Misuse of power is not evidence that a fictional thing is actually happening.

 LordofHats wrote:
The traditional term for 'war on crime' is law enforcement.

No, it is not. "Law enforcement" and "war on crime" are different things.

 Manchu wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
The traditional term for 'war on crime' is law enforcement.

No, it is not. "Law enforcement" and "war on crime" are different things.

Yeah. One is a fictional phrase describing a situation that isn't really happening, while the other is just par for the course.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
The traditional term for 'war on crime' is law enforcement.

No, it is not. "Law enforcement" and "war on crime" are different things.

Yeah. One is a fictional phrase describing a situation that isn't really happening, while the other is just par for the course.

But I wonder which you think is which ...

 Manchu wrote:
But I wonder which you think is which ...

I ask myself the same question every time I go to Baskin Robins and wonder if they mixed up the cookies and cream with the oreo.

Its the Escalation of Force that is not in proportion to the situation.

 Jihadin wrote:
Its the Escalation of Force that is not in proportion to the situation.

I fail to see how this is a problem police forces have never encountered before, or one that can really be adequately described as 'militarized.'

My argument isn't that the cops don't use execessive force or that there isn't a lack of accountability. My argument is that throwing around fictional terminoloy whose only purpose is to inspire fear among the masses completely clouds reality. Something that we allow to happen too much in politics. You can't really sit at a table, start throwing around nonsense, and expect any progress on issues to be made.

What was the threat to warrant a stack entry and a flashbang.

 Jihadin wrote:
What was the threat to warrant a stack entry and a flashbang.

Didn't read any of my other posts in this thread did you?

I agree that you fail to see it.

Again, it is specifically "militarization" because law enforcement has been conflated with warfare.

I feel confident the conflation came before the equipment. But the equipment fulfills the conflation. And the conflation justifies the equipment. SWAT must be pretty expensive relative to its usefulness. You need a perpetual war to justify that, so we have one.

Even more troubling, we don't even need to explicitly call it a war anymore (that is, under the Obama administration) -- just like with the military-police cross-discipline effort, the omnipresent "war on terror."

It's just "the way things are/have to be."

The problem is that there are so many guns and weapons in America, anyone can be armed and houses can be full of guns, and police don't want to risk themselves so go in full force. Gun ownership is supposed to protect your freedom, but it looks increasingly like they create a prison through fear. You have children suspended from school for drawing a picture of a gun, and simple search warrants are treated like an assault on a terrorist bunker. People argue for concealed carry as they're legitimately worried they'll be robbed at gunpoint or have to prevent a spree shooter. No wonder the police are becoming militarised, it's a reaction a heavily armed populace. Pretty soon you'll be buying more guns to protect yourselves from the police.

 Manchu wrote:
Again, it is specifically "militarization" because law enforcement has been conflated with warfare.

Yeah you keep conflating it absent any evidence of real effect that calling something a war actually makes it a war.

And the conflation justifies the equipment. SWAT must be pretty expensive relative to its usefulness.

In big cities they're probably cost effective. Outside of big cities, less so, but the nature of how we fund things in the US makes it easy for places that don't need fulltime SWAT easy to get them, and hard for more nuanced solutions to be effectively implemented. End the pointless drug war and we probably wouldn't need any full time SWAT at all.

just like with the military-police cross-disicipline effort, the omnipresent "war on terror."

I find that less shocking than that saying "national security" still seems to be a free pass for all kinds of policies and programs that on paper look like terrible ideas that are just a waste of money.

 LordofHats wrote:
My argument is that throwing around fictional terminoloy whose only purpose is to inspire fear among the masses completely clouds reality.

What exactly is "fictional terminology"? Is that terminology you do not like? Is that terminology that you refuse to understand? Is that terminology that calls into question a deeply-held assumption of yours?

Militarization pretty clearly means "to become more military-like." It is a term meant to call out that these guys:eventually became these guys

 Manchu wrote:
What exactly is "fictional terminology"?

It's the creation of a term that holds no real meaning.

Militarization pretty clearly means "to become more military-like."

If I put on a vest and carry around an M4 then I'm more military like? Guess we should be concerned about the militarization of the populace, what with all the guns that are out there no- Oh wait we refuse to acknowledge that there are any negative consequences to gun rights. Right. Sorry I forgot for a moment.

My issue with the term "militarization of the police" and "war on crime" is that they don't account for anything meaningful. To become more military like? Soldiers sleep in barracks should I find a bunch of guys sharing an apartment alarming? Should we be concerned that a police station has a bunk room? They have guns guess they're going full Delta force. It's a definition so broad it carries no meaning and it uses terms that cloud real issues.

Further, they're often used in fallicious arguments by presenting a situation in a false light, making it harder to deal with real issues like excessive force or the appropriation of equipment that isn't needed, or a lack of accountability. Turns out that when you use a fallicious argument it becomes really easy for opponents to go from attacking the argument to attacking any problems that the argument might account of while it's busy peddling nonsense.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
No wonder the police are becoming militarised, it's a reaction a heavily armed populace.

Absolutely false.

Private ownership of weapons does not necessitate militarized police. As far as I can tell, SWAT teams are meant to confront criminals with paramilitary capacity. That simply does not describe gun owners in the US, although I don't doubt it is hard for folks in places like the UK to understand that.

The real issue of militarization comes down to the attitude in the US towards drugs (and terrorism), not guns.

@LoH:

Again, waving "excessive force" and "lack of accountability" around as if they explain themselves. I have been using the concept of militarization in a clear and consistent way that could actually explain why some police officers act with excessive force and how how accountability is undermined.

The trouble is you really don't understand the difference between fighting a war and preserving the peace.

 Manchu wrote:
Again, waving "excessive force" and "lack of accountability" around as if they explain themselves.

Excessive force, like how officials regularly use SWAT in situations that don't call for SWAT, shouldn't really need explaining to anyone here, given that you and others have already identified them as problems and given them some context.

I have been using the concept of militarization in a clear and consistent way that could actually explain why some police officers act with excessive force and how how accountability is undermined.

I've also been rather clear and consistent in my claims that you have no evidence that this is something that is really happening, let alone that its even an issue that should be addressed over its underlying causes.

The trouble is you really don't understand the difference between fighting a war and preserving the peace.

You keep throwing out that hyperbole and pretending it has meaning. I can go wage war on the termites in my wall (I don't actually ahve termites in my wall) and it would still make a 'war on pests' a purely symbolic phrase.

"War on drugs" is not purely symbolic. It is a set of policies and approaches. Even you seem to recognize this much:

 LordofHats wrote:
End the pointless drug war and we probably wouldn't need any full time SWAT at all.

In other words, the only reason we need to have pretend soldiers is to fight a pretend war.

 Manchu wrote:
"War on drugs" is not purely symbolic.

It's symbolic in that it's not really a war. You complain that we can't call the war on crime a war anymore. Really, I find it scarier that people are actually incapable of distinguishing the phrase and what it represents from war.

If this term has no meaning, why do you think the Obama administration has stopped using the phrase "war on drugs" then?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:
It's symbolic in that it's not really a war.

We can agree there. It isn't really a war. That is why creating polices that use that analogy as their foundation (i.e., militarization) fosters problems like excessive force and lack of accountability.

 Manchu wrote:
If this term has no meaning, why do you think the Obama administration has stopped using the phrase "war on drugs" then?

Because the entire thing has become a political quagmire that no politician wants to be overly embroiled in, especially since as we've seen with weed, the tide is turning, and neither party wants to become the 'anti-freedom party' if and when the issue of legalization really start to catch more steam. Same reason the parties are moving away from the 'illegal' part of illegal immigrants. Political parties, as much as we like to mock them, aren't really stupid. They're quite intillegent as organized bodies.

Sort of. The administration says it is the wrong approach because drug addiction is better understood as a disease. Fighting a war on people with a disease just doesn't resonate.

Now, the scary part I mentioned before is this change in language has not been accompanied by a change in approach.

That is to say, we are past the point of the War on Drugs being purely symbolic. This "warfare" is now the default.

 Polonius wrote:
It's a cliche, but it's true that when you have a hammer, all of your problems start looking like nails.

I believe that this is a good analogy. In some situations I would agree that the police response should be SWAT based (e.g. an active shooter), but in cases like this which concern a small amount of drugs and a no-knock warrant I don't see the need for such tactics

 Manchu wrote:
B-b-but druuuuugs!

Legalize, regulate, and tax them

 Manchu wrote:
The things SWAT does, or at least should be doing, seem like military operations to me. It therefore seems to me that the military could do them.

Here we run into the problem of posse comitatus, not to mention the differences in focus and operating under very different laws

 Manchu wrote:
Now, the scary part I mentioned before is this change in language has not been accompanied by a change in approach.

Well they probably don't really care about the change as a matter of 'the right thing to do.' Enlightened self interest is still self interest (and really the political parties kind of scratch the bottom of the enlightened barrel).

That is to say, we are past the point of the War on Drugs being purely symbolic. This "warfare" is now the default.

I fail to see how the police pursuing criminals and criminal activity shouldn't be the default. Laws are on the books, mountains of money over decades has been poured into enforcing them, they're not really just gonna stop and I'm not sure we can realistically expect them too.

 LordofHats wrote:
I fail to see

Yes, again and again.

It remains simple. How one identifies a problem affects how one deals with it.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
The things SWAT does, or at least should be doing, seem like military operations to me. It therefore seems to me that the military could do them.

Here we run into the problem of posse comitatus, not to mention the differences in focus and operating under very different laws

Those are really the easiest, least problematic issues. The real issues of turning the military onto the populace are not abstract.

 Manchu wrote:
Those are really the easiest, least problematic issues. The real issues of turning the military onto the populace are not abstract.

I am aware that the army, in theory, could be set against the population. I would hope that it remains an academic rather than actual scenario

 Manchu wrote:
It remains simple. How one identifies a problem affects how one deals with it.

Something is illegal so the police pursue law enforcement, as is their charge. You can twist that any number of ways, but it's still what it is. No one can expect a police force to just drop an issue at a hat (and really they shouldn't). Until the laws change this is how things are going to go, at least to the extent that the police with equip themselves to enforce drug laws.

And even if we were to change our drug laws, I suspect we'll still have a problem with police and police officials being as close to human teflon as is possible in public office. Maybe in the case of the OP, someone will get a stern talking to, or maybe on the off chance the officer who threw the flashbang will be seriously punished, but the police tend to respond to these incidents with 'gak happens' which is true but it's not really an acceptable response. If the police bust down 1000 doors a year, sooner or later, they'll bust down the wrong one. That's law of probability. But doing nothing about it when it happens isn't the way things should be done. And they tend to range between doing nothing and doing next to nothing.

 LordofHats wrote:
the police pursue law enforcement

They can do it many different ways under many different assumptions. It's not just one thing always and everywhere under any conditions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
I would hope that it remains an academic rather than actual scenario

I agree. One only needs to read the OP to see why paramilitary police are bad enough.

 Manchu wrote:
It's not just one thing always and everywhere under any conditions.

Given the broad nature of this discussion, yeah. if you're complaint is tantamount to "the police (were attempting to, rather) enforce a law" you're just barking up at thin air because the tree is all the way over there *points*

You can't really expect the police to just stop enforcing drug laws because its become a political mess. And again, this is how the police should operate as they themselves should not make those kinds of decisions. That's the point at which you've transitioned from a state with an (excessively) strong police force to a full police state.

 LordofHats wrote:
if you're complaint is tantamount to "the police enforced a law"

There is no way you, in good will, can read what I've been posting here and believe I am saying that.

 Manchu wrote:
There is no way you, in good will, can read what I've been posting here and believe I am saying that.

I'm speaking specifically to the war on drugs issue (broadly) in that statement. So long as drug laws and polices are as they are now, the police will continue to equip themselves to enforce those laws.

 LordofHats wrote:
So long as drug laws and polices are as they are now, the police will continue to equip themselves to enforce those laws.

Sure, I agree. The mindset comes out of the policies, along with the equipment and the training. As I have said from the beginning of this thread, when you are fighting a war, you become a soldier, and the people you are after become enemy combatants.

 Manchu wrote:
The mindset comes out of the policies, along with the equipment and the training. As I have said from the beginning of this thread, when you are fighting a war, you become a soldier, and the people you are after become enemy combatants.

This is pretty much the same nonsense argument moral guardians have been using against TV, video games, movies, music, etc. for decades (that arguement being that people are too stupid to distinguish anything remotely close to reality from obvious fiction). Of course, seeing this argument actually being used to try and argue reality, maybe the moral guardians were right all along...

Moral guardians? You are a bit off the rails. We aren't talking about fiction.

Anyway ...

The whole point of a uniform is to affect the way a person sees themselves and how others see them.

That is why any police officer wears a uniform. And if you want them to see themselves differently and see others differently then put them in some other uniform. That would be an example of how policy matters.

 Manchu wrote:
Moral guardians? You are a bit off the rails. We aren't talking about fiction.

Yeah it's surprising to me too. We both agreed the war on crime isn't a real war, and that the phrase is just symbolic, yet you go on to base an entire argument that hinges on the police being incapable of recognizing what you or I both see. That they somehow take that symbolic phrase seriously and just dressing up in body armor and carrying M4's makes them think they're real soldiers in a real war (and that this is a policy decision that really matters compared to the number of others involved that should be the real point of inquiry, inquiries you yourself have raised in this thread). It's quite off the rails.

 Manchu wrote:
I agree. One only needs to read the OP to see why paramilitary police are bad enough.

I'm from Northern Ireland. I lived those lessons and that reality

Brasil is also a good example of what military police used in civic roles can get up to. They have to be some of the most savage police I have seen used in a democracy.

Give a man immunity from the consequences of his actions then you give a man immunity to the morality of situations.

I wonder how many people need to be killed via no-knock warrants before the rest of us make it stop.

Apparently it'll have to be catastrophic because an infant getting blown up didn't do it.

 Frankenberry wrote:
I wonder how many people need to be killed via no-knock warrants before the rest of us make it stop.

Perhaps if enough of the wrong people start getting killed.

EEssshhhh

I'm in no way shape or form advocating violence towards LEO Now if the LEO takes my coffee. We might have a disagreement

It seems in the US, criminals are actually nicer than the government.
No offense, but when hearing stories like this I sometimes am glad there is an ocean between us.
Why do you Americans accept this kind of government brutality?
Why do they send such heavily armed special units just to search for some drugs? Aren't those guys supposed to be just for hunting terrorists and other extremely dangerous criminals? And why does the police need so many heavily armoured vehicles? Isn't that what the National Guard would be for?
Maybe the Dutch should send some police trainers to the US
Dutch police can actually be nice. Sometimes.

Such police units and equipment, as well as SWAT raids often are isolated to specific areas, thus the majority of the population never sees them. In San Diego, in large swathes of the northern part of the city, the police can sometimes can be overzealous, but it's usually by sending two police cars to investigate a noise complaint because the Sheriff's deputies have literally nothing else to do or they just need to meet their ticket quota. You'll basically never see heavily armed police there in Suburbs and millions of middle class citizens never see these things, or if they do, it's a once-every-few-years major news story. Meanwhile, if you're further south, particularly if you're south and/or east of Downtown, you may see SWAT raids once a month. A lot of these things very much depend on where you live.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
It's a cliche, but it's true that when you have a hammer, all of your problems start looking like nails.

I believe that this is a good analogy. In some situations I would agree that the police response should be SWAT based (e.g. an active shooter), but in cases like this which concern a small amount of drugs and a no-knock warrant I don't see the need for such tactics

 Manchu wrote:
B-b-but druuuuugs!

Legalize, regulate, and tax them

Hahahahaha Sorry the Politicial side to me is laughing so bloody hard, no that would only increase crime

 Manchu wrote:
The things SWAT does, or at least should be doing, seem like military operations to me. It therefore seems to me that the military could do them.

Here we run into the problem of posse comitatus, not to mention the differences in focus and operating under very different laws

Personally the Police should be given laws they have to abide by, they have to follow the rules and serve their number role in society.
To be an Exemplary to Society,
To be pinnacle Citizen,
To Uphold the Law,
To Protect and Serve


This also goes to getting the right information.

You do not go to a house filled with children and start shooting up the place, you are two steps away from being a professional hit squad, you just happen to be wearing the uniform.
Lets say this was a delta operation, A Delta Squad was deployed and attacked a house because they believed they had possession of tactical information, even if they targets are childern of al queda members. Are they in the right? No they aren't, you can't go shooting up a place based on a whim.

Plus I think it is also the difference between trained military forces and the police, who are trained that fighting takes discipline, and that it is a duty.

Police are not trained to act be soldiers, they are meant to be peacekeepers, if they want to shoot guns and kill people (They are in the wrong [profession), this means keeping the peace, by being an exemplary citizen. Often times they fail at that. Most cops in the sururbs are known for being trigger happy, always pulling out big guns for small problems. There was a water gun fight next door, the police come because a senior citizen mistook the kids guns for real guns, to be safe, they brought automatic weapons. If the police dispatcher was smart they would of checked out the back ground and saw its an area not known for crime. She said children, not adults. I highly doubt that there are trained 10 year old with assault rifles living in the suburbs of Chicago.

Military units before they move in on a location they know is full of weapons is usually spied upon, usually the best time to attack someone is when they least expect it, but first you need to find out about the target. You know before you break in a throw a flash bang in.

All you have to do is do the following in this instance:
Knock on the Door
Say "We think someone on the premise is in possession of drugs or narcotics."
Because by this time after you have monitored the house, you would of seen they pose no threat. You don't go in and shoot first and ask questions later.

But anyway thats my two cents on the matter.

The situation is horrifying and stupid.

 Polonius wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
It's pretty simple. If we talk of war on crime, the implication is police are soldiers. And that makes civilians (including babies) enemy combatants.

And things like this aren't hard to fix. If states passed laws that required a warrant for violent entry, then police would be protected when they knew they were in genuine danger.

But allowing children to be injured to make things safer for police is putting the cart before the horse.

They have to geta special no knock warrant now. However, these are now notoriously easy to get.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Hahahahaha Sorry the Politicial side to me is laughing so bloody hard, no that would only increase crime

You mean like when Prohibition ended?

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
Hahahahaha Sorry the Politicial side to me is laughing so bloody hard, no that would only increase crime

You mean like when Prohibition ended?

No you cannot compare a substance that is made for narcotics compared to alcohol. Its own thing, its not as easy as just regulating it, taxing it and controlling it.

Because you will still have drug lords in mexico.
You will still have people who will avoid it.
If you put up a price even if it was cheap. People would avoid it.

Its not so simple. If it was we would of done it by now.

If we allow it to be legalized it will lead to more crime. Not less.

As this would only act as an incentive for the drug lords. The primary contributors. It will only add to the bloodshed in mexico.


But anyway on topic:

The police are stupid.

 Asherian Command wrote:


No you cannot compare a substance that is made for narcotics compared to alcohol. Its own thing, its not as easy as just regulating it, taxing it and controlling it.


Its not so simple. If it was we would of done it by now.

There are lots of vested interests in keeping the situations as is. law enforcement agencies and private prisons make gobs of money hand over fist in pursuit of the drug war and lobby very hard to keep it.

If we allow it to be legalized it will lead to more crime. Not less.

And yet such hasn't appeared to have happened in places where they've made them legal or cease enforcing the drug laws.

As this would only act as an incentive for the drug lords. The primary contributors. It will only add to the bloodshed in mexico.

if you legalized drugs in the US, the Cartels would be out of business in a week. It'd be the worst possible thing to happen to them. Los Zetas are fearsome indeed, but if they're having to compete with Phillip Morris? Forget it

 Asherian Command wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
Hahahahaha Sorry the Politicial side to me is laughing so bloody hard, no that would only increase crime

You mean like when Prohibition ended?

No you cannot compare a substance that is made for narcotics compared to alcohol. Its own thing, its not as easy as just regulating it, taxing it and controlling it.

I'm unsure of what "substance that is made for narcotics" you're referring to. Alcohol and opiates have some surprising similarities. For one, there's not a lot of things you can actually die of withdrawal from, but Alcohol and opiates are both those.

Massachusetts SWAT teams claim they’re private corporations, immune from open records laws

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/06/26/massachusetts-swat-teams-claim-theyre-private-corporations-immune-from-open-records-laws/

As part of the American Civil Liberties Union’s recent report on police militarization, the Massachusetts chapter of the organization sent open records requests to SWAT teams across that state. It received an interesting response.

As it turns out, a number of SWAT teams in the Bay State are operated by what are called law enforcement councils, or LECs. These LECs are funded by several police agencies in a given geographic area and overseen by an executive board, which is usually made up of police chiefs from member police departments. In 2012, for example, the Tewksbury Police Department paid about $4,600 in annual membership dues to the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, or NEMLEC. (See page 36 of linked PDF.) That LEC has about 50 member agencies. In addition to operating a regional SWAT team, the LECs also facilitate technology and information sharing and oversee other specialized units, such as crime scene investigators and computer crime specialists.

Some of these LECs have also apparently incorporated as 501(c)(3) organizations. And it’s here that we run into problems. According to the ACLU, the LECs are claiming that the 501(c)(3) status means that they’re private corporations, not government agencies. And therefore, they say they’re immune from open records requests. Let’s be clear. These agencies oversee police activities. They employ cops who carry guns, wear badges, collect paychecks provided by taxpayers and have the power to detain, arrest, injure and kill. They operate SWAT teams, which conduct raids on private residences. And yet they say that because they’ve incorporated, they’re immune to Massachusetts open records laws. The state’s residents aren’t permitted to know how often the SWAT teams are used, what they’re used for, what sort of training they get or who they’re primarily used against.

Stop fear mongering us Whitey

 MrDwhitey wrote:

Massachusetts SWAT teams claim they’re private corporations, immune from open records laws

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/06/26/massachusetts-swat-teams-claim-theyre-private-corporations-immune-from-open-records-laws/

As part of the American Civil Liberties Union’s recent report on police militarization, the Massachusetts chapter of the organization sent open records requests to SWAT teams across that state. It received an interesting response.

As it turns out, a number of SWAT teams in the Bay State are operated by what are called law enforcement councils, or LECs. These LECs are funded by several police agencies in a given geographic area and overseen by an executive board, which is usually made up of police chiefs from member police departments. In 2012, for example, the Tewksbury Police Department paid about $4,600 in annual membership dues to the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, or NEMLEC. (See page 36 of linked PDF.) That LEC has about 50 member agencies. In addition to operating a regional SWAT team, the LECs also facilitate technology and information sharing and oversee other specialized units, such as crime scene investigators and computer crime specialists.

Some of these LECs have also apparently incorporated as 501(c)(3) organizations. And it’s here that we run into problems. According to the ACLU, the LECs are claiming that the 501(c)(3) status means that they’re private corporations, not government agencies. And therefore, they say they’re immune from open records requests. Let’s be clear. These agencies oversee police activities. They employ cops who carry guns, wear badges, collect paychecks provided by taxpayers and have the power to detain, arrest, injure and kill. They operate SWAT teams, which conduct raids on private residences. And yet they say that because they’ve incorporated, they’re immune to Massachusetts open records laws. The state’s residents aren’t permitted to know how often the SWAT teams are used, what they’re used for, what sort of training they get or who they’re primarily used against.

That's actually an interesting stance to take.

Less you know what would draw attention for SWAT activation the more likely they (SWAT) succeed

 MrDwhitey wrote:
Some of these LECs have also apparently incorporated as 501(c)(3) organizations. And it’s here that we run into problems. According to the ACLU, the LECs are claiming that the 501(c)(3) status means that they’re private corporations, not government agencies. And therefore, they say they’re immune from open records requests.

Like the privatization of the prison system wasn't bad enough. Who wants to take bets on how long it'll be before we find some scandal where LEC's and prison contractors are shown to be conspiring to create criminals with the US Marshall's lying to judges about police investigations to ensure that the criminals end up convicts @_@

Sounds like "contracts"

Having served on a swat team, and assuming this story is indeed true, I have to question the training of this supposed swat team. As was stated above, you never toss a flash bang into a room we were trained the give a quick peak into the room to make sure we weren't going to hit someone with it, or toss it into a meth lab and blow the whole place up, and slid it across the floor. Also, you usually bang the front door, not te bed rooms, which makes me question if this actually happened. All of this happens after extensive observation of the house to e hit, specifically looking for children or innocent parties that may be in the house. There has usually been a undercover in the house so they have at least a basic idea of the lay out.

A local police department lost an officer a couple years ago when a bang grenade on his vest went off accidentally and blew a hole in his chest, killing him. This is yet another thing that makes me question this. A two year old survived a direct blast that killed a full grown man? Possible but I doubt it.

Harming a innocent child is my biggest fear.

 Asherian Command wrote:
No you cannot compare a substance that is made for narcotics compared to alcohol. Its own thing, its not as easy as just regulating it, taxing it and controlling it.

Why not? Give an actual legitimate reason why two substances that were illicit, used by the public in contravention of the law of the day, required a massive investment in the criminal process to tackle cannot be compared.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Because you will still have drug lords in mexico.

We still have moonshiners in Kentucky. Are most people doing and picking up beer in a liquor store or meeting someone by a copper still in the boonies?

 Asherian Command wrote:
You will still have people who will avoid it.

I don't imagine that the overwhelming majority of people will avoid a safer, cheaper product that is more readily available.

 Asherian Command wrote:
If you put up a price even if it was cheap. People would avoid it.

You mean someone is going to pay more for an illicit version that is more difficult to obtain, more expensive, and may not be as effective?

 Asherian Command wrote:
Its not so simple. If it was we would of done it by now.

If it was a matter of convenience alone we would have done it, Instead it is a moral and political football

 Asherian Command wrote:
If we allow it to be legalized it will lead to more crime. Not less.

How?

 Asherian Command wrote:
As this would only act as an incentive for the drug lords. The primary contributors. It will only add to the bloodshed in mexico.

You mean when their funds dry up and they cannot afford bribes for officials? Cannot afford their foot soldiers? Cannot sustain their empires? What do you think happened after Prohibition ended? The moonshiners lost out and couldn't compete. Everything that you have predicted did not happen. Instead it was the opposite.

But but, gotta hate the marijuana!

It doesn't matter if legalisation might actually help people in Mexico being murdered by the cartel, that's just an excuse for RAGE AGAINST THE DRUG.

Marijuana is BS! There i was, all pumped up after hearing all the stuff in anti-drug class in school and what did i get?

Sex parties? Nope
Hallucinations? Nope
Nothing that was told to me in anti drug class! It was from that point on I decided school was BS. War on drugs, more like lies on drugs.

There is some compelling evidence that it causes some minor damage to the brain.

I'm not sure if that was a dig at me or not

 Grey Templar wrote:
There is some compelling evidence that it causes some minor damage to the brain.

Indeed, alcohol is pretty dangerous.

as is marijuana

 MrDwhitey wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
There is some compelling evidence that it causes some minor damage to the brain.

Indeed, alcohol is pretty dangerous.

as is marijuana

Alcohol makes me stronger, smarter, and more attractive to the ladies. That's just science.

To protect and serve the budget for war on crime!

Raven911 wrote:
As was stated above, you never toss a flash bang into a room we were trained the give a quick peak into the room to make sure we weren't going to hit someone with it, or toss it into a meth lab and blow the whole place up

A great counterpoint, especially when you're serving on drug offenders to begin with.

That being said, the police do not dispute the flashbang landed in the crib and caused the injuries to the child - so just because something's sort of a bad idea doesn't negate that they did it, anyway.

And if that is indeed the case they f-ed up big time. Some guys get too jacked up on the whole thing, those guys scare me. I'll take the calm and controlled guys anytime, which was what my old team was. The leaders did a good job weeding the trouble makers out of the application process.

My prayers to the baby.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
B-b-but druuuuugs!

Legalize, regulate, and tax them

Which ones?

Pot? Sure.

Crack? Hell no.

This is one of the few times I actually appreciate British/Northern Irish police. British police do not carry weapons or conduct drugs raids armed with flashbangs and military grade weaponry. The average drug raid has a small hand-held battering ram and tasers and are only fired when faced with threat. Armed RESPONSE teams are available in RESPONSE to major threats such as automatic weapons. And any example of extreme force and the resultant harm to the baby and threats against the family would be immediately investigated by every newspaper and politician and their mothers and the cops hung out to dry and to face the angry mobs.
Here in NI we see a little more heavy-handed due to the sectarian tensions. For example, last December during the flag protests (where Loyalists [to the British Crown and Westminster] protested the Irish Republican Sinn Fein government's decision.to only fly the British flag on City Hall on designated days instead of 365 days), police patrolled in ones or twos, with one armed with MP5s. And the police almost universally use armoured Land Rovers, but its.

 Deadshot wrote:
This is one of the few times I actually appreciate British/Northern Irish police. British police do not carry weapons or conduct drugs raids armed with flashbangs and military grade weaponry. The average drug raid has a small hand-held battering ram and tasers and are only fired when faced with threat. Armed RESPONSE teams are available in RESPONSE to major threats such as automatic weapons. And any example of extreme force and the resultant harm to the baby and threats against the family would be immediately investigated by every newspaper and politician and their mothers and the cops hung out to dry and to face the angry mobs.
Here in NI we see a little more heavy-handed due to the sectarian tensions. For example, last December during the flag protests (where Loyalists [to the British Crown and Westminster] protested the Irish Republican Sinn Fein government's decision.to only fly the British flag on City Hall on designated days instead of 365 days), police patrolled in ones or twos, with one armed with MP5s. And the police almost universally use armoured Land Rovers, but its.

Not being confrontational
Ours do not in public patrol equipped with a automatic nor roll in a armor vehicle

 Deadshot wrote:
This is one of the few times I actually appreciate British/Northern Irish police. British police do not carry weapons or conduct drugs raids armed with flashbangs and military grade weaponry. The average drug raid has a small hand-held battering ram and tasers and are only fired when faced with threat. Armed RESPONSE teams are available in RESPONSE to major threats such as automatic weapons. And any example of extreme force and the resultant harm to the baby and threats against the family would be immediately investigated by every newspaper and politician and their mothers and the cops hung out to dry and to face the angry mobs.
Here in NI we see a little more heavy-handed due to the sectarian tensions. For example, last December during the flag protests (where Loyalists [to the British Crown and Westminster] protested the Irish Republican Sinn Fein government's decision.to only fly the British flag on City Hall on designated days instead of 365 days), police patrolled in ones or twos, with one armed with MP5s. And the police almost universally use armoured Land Rovers, but its.

US police on an typical day are armed the same as the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland - but I still think the acronym should have been NIPS ) with a 9mm pistol. Lest we forget the British police have made their fair share of mistakes when it comes to armed intervention;
- Jean Charles de Menezes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes)
- Harry Stanley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Harry_Stanley)
- James Ashley (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/mar/05/police-shooting-james-ashley)

Let's hope these incidents are not causing the police to become like corporations with little to no oversight.

Oh, looks like someone already had that bright idea. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/06/26/massachusetts-swat-teams-claim-theyre-private-corporations-immune-from-open-records-laws/

sqir666 wrote:
Let's hope these incidents are not causing the police to become like corporations with little to no oversight.

Oh, looks like someone already had that bright idea. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/06/26/massachusetts-swat-teams-claim-theyre-private-corporations-immune-from-open-records-laws/

I really think it will be interesting to see how that develops. They are employed directly by the State as public officers, paid from the public purse, and exercise a public function.

That's what troubles me about this development.Though, i will be watching this very closely.

All the bad gak from Shadowrun keeps coming true but there are still no hot elf chicks.

 Manchu wrote:
All the bad gak from Shadowrun keeps coming true but there are still no hot elf chicks.

Maybe once we do more genetic manipulation/Stem cell research. We can even rely on cosplay until then

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
This is one of the few times I actually appreciate British/Northern Irish police. British police do not carry weapons or conduct drugs raids armed with flashbangs and military grade weaponry. The average drug raid has a small hand-held battering ram and tasers and are only fired when faced with threat. Armed RESPONSE teams are available in RESPONSE to major threats such as automatic weapons. And any example of extreme force and the resultant harm to the baby and threats against the family would be immediately investigated by every newspaper and politician and their mothers and the cops hung out to dry and to face the angry mobs.
Here in NI we see a little more heavy-handed due to the sectarian tensions. For example, last December during the flag protests (where Loyalists [to the British Crown and Westminster] protested the Irish Republican Sinn Fein government's decision.to only fly the British flag on City Hall on designated days instead of 365 days), police patrolled in ones or twos, with one armed with MP5s. And the police almost universally use armoured Land Rovers, but its.

US police on an typical day are armed the same as the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland - but I still think the acronym should have been NIPS ) with a 9mm pistol. Lest we forget the British police have made their fair share of mistakes when it comes to armed intervention;
- Jean Charles de Menezes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes)
- Harry Stanley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Harry_Stanley)
- James Ashley (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/mar/05/police-shooting-james-ashley)

No question, British police can makes mistakes. No arguement there.

@Jahidin

The armour is left over from the 70s and 80s during the Troubles, where the police were regularly bombed and shot at. Its easier to keep the armoured cars than replace with regular sedans, and the armour could prove useful. Better to have and not need as the saying goes.
The automatic is purely during that one time, to prevent the instigation of riots, as riots were high. Many people still have weapons from the Troubles. Again, better to have and not need, in case soke ex-paramilitaries decide to break out some Yugos during the middle of a protest (riot).

 Deadshot wrote:
@Jahidin

The armour is left over from the 70s and 80s during the Troubles, where the police were regularly bombed and shot at. Its easier to keep the armoured cars than replace with regular sedans, and the armour could prove useful. Better to have and not need as the saying goes.
The automatic is purely during that one time, to prevent the instigation of riots, as riots were high. Many people still have weapons from the Troubles. Again, better to have and not need, in case soke ex-paramilitaries decide to break out some Yugos during the middle of a protest (riot).

Like when the landrovers went from battleship grey to white with regular markings

Here is something that I say when people say it will stop Cartels in mexico.
Do you really think that just stopping their supply will make the go away? They are addicted to power, if they cant make money off drugs they will from human trafficking.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Here is something that I say when people say it will stop Cartels in mexico.
Do you really think that just stopping their supply will make the go away? They are addicted to power, if they cant make money off drugs they will from human trafficking.

I don't think the claim is that the Cartels will go away, but it would give them 1 less source of revenue. It's unlikely the Cartels could maintain a legal drug business and all their illegal businesses as a single entity if the US and it's allies were to as a group end the drug war. It's hard to maintain power with less money and really, how much is there to fight over with other people absent the drug trade and the mountain of dollars involved?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Here is something that I say when people say it will stop Cartels in mexico.
Do you really think that just stopping their supply will make the go away? They are addicted to power, if they cant make money off drugs they will from human trafficking.

Their market shrinks drastically overnight. They find themselves without the funds to keep their minions loyal, to keep corrupt officials in their pocket, and to keep themselves in the manner to which they have become accustomed to. A lot of their money is tied up in the product itself. Without a marketplace that product is worthless. The cartels will likely implode as whatever small niche still exists for illegal drugs will be hotly contested.
With a reduction in violence in the long term it is likely that this will somewhat reduce the amount of people risking a border crossing. Although for this to be truly effective the US has to actually want to enforce its border controls effectively.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Here is something that I say when people say it will stop Cartels in mexico.
Do you really think that just stopping their supply will make the go away? They are addicted to power, if they cant make money off drugs they will from human trafficking.

Their market shrinks drastically overnight. They find themselves without the funds to keep their minions loyal, to keep corrupt officials in their pocket, and to keep themselves in the manner to which they have become accustomed to. A lot of their money is tied up in the product itself. Without a marketplace that product is worthless. The cartels will likely implode as whatever small niche still exists for illegal drugs will be hotly contested.
With a reduction in violence in the long term it is likely that this will somewhat reduce the amount of people risking a border crossing. Although for this to be truly effective the US has to actually want to enforce its border controls effectively.

They're not going to lose their market.

They'll still be able to offer it without taxes and without regulation.

With a reduction in violence in the long term it is likely that this will somewhat reduce the amount of people risking a border crossing.

For that to be true cartel violence would have to be a significant source of illegal immigration, which I don't really buy. Even without cartel violence there's still being dirt poor and dirt poor countries with a lot of violence not based in the drug trade.

Maybe it'll be a small decline, but not significant enough to really be a factor in favor of deregulating drugs.

Although for this to be truly effective the US has to actually want to enforce its border controls effectively.

It's been explained countless times in countless forums for decades. The border cannot be controlled. You can't control 2000 miles of nothing unless you really want to turn the border into a police state and my understanding is that we don't like police states


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
They'll still be able to offer it without taxes and without regulation.

If we legalize drugs without tax or regulation we're doing it wrong.

Of course we'd regulate the crap out of any drug we legalized.

Look at tobacco. Its a wonder anyone can afford to smoke.

They'll still smuggle in drugs, but it'll be tax evasion instead of trafficking in illegal substances. Trading one crime for another, and all the other assorted problems will remain.

 LordofHats wrote:
It's been explained countless times in countless forums for decades. The border cannot be controlled. You can't control 2000 miles of nothing unless you really want to turn the border into a police state and my understanding is that we don't like police states

You make it sound like the US is the only nation that has a significant land border, It isn't.
Citizens do not like being under a police state. Protecting a long land border is nowhere near turning the US into a police state. But if actually stopping people from crossing the border isn't to your tastes then perhaps more focus should be on removing the incentives for illegal immigration, and reducing their access to public services (no healthcare, no SSN, no foodstamps, no education, no driver's license, no housing) and any unlawful jobs (with an emphasis on punishments for those found willfully hiring illegal immigrants)

 Grey Templar wrote:
They'll still smuggle in drugs, but it'll be tax evasion instead of trafficking in illegal substances. Trading one crime for another, and all the other assorted problems will remain.

And the only people who would buy then would be insane. Even with heavy regulation and taxes, legalized drugs would be infinitely cheaper than illegal drugs. If anything, like Tobacco there will probably be crimes involving the removal of the real drug from products and replacing it with a cheap knock off and then reselling the real drug at a higher price.

Either way, the Cartel's aren't going to need personal armies to defend their business anymore.

You make it sound like the US is the only nation that has a significant land border, It isn't.

France has a rather large water border and gets plenty of illegal immigrants (and 2000 miles is just the land border, 4x that for our total border that would need policing to make a significant dent in illegal migration). All of the developed world deals with challenges concerning illegals, but it's hard to argue that the US massive border's don't contribute to the larger influx, as well as it's massive prosperity even compared to other developed countries. Most of the rest of the world doesn't have a border made up mostly of sparsely inhabited bordering on uninhabited desert.

It's not that it's not in my tastes (countless people are killed crossing the border every year from all kinds of things) as much as I don't view any real way to secure the border. It's too big and the resources that would be necessary for the task are realistically unobtainable. Unless you want to turn the US into a third world country, we can't really remove the incentive for illegal immigration by any means other than making legal immigration really easy. The whole reason people want to live here is because we're not Honduras or the Congo.

Illegal immigration is a net consequence of our size and our prosperity. It's not going away because of rhetorical arguments about Americaness and how lazy poor people are.

 LordofHats wrote:
France has a rather large water border and gets plenty of illegal immigrants (and 2000 miles is just the land border, 4x that for our total border that would need policing to make a significant dent in illegal migration). All of the developed world deals with challenges concerning illegals, but it's hard to argue that the US massive border's don't contribute to the larger influx, as well as it's massive prosperity even compared to other developed countries. Most of the rest of the world doesn't have a border made up mostly of sparsely inhabited bordering on uninhabited desert.

I assume you mean the southern border. Even so it is easier to jump from North Africa to Spain and then onto France, or come through Eastern Europe. Funny story, France has little problem deporting illegal immigrants.

 LordofHats wrote:
It's not that it's not in my tastes (countless people are killed crossing the border every year from all kinds of things) as much as I don't view any real way to secure the border. It's too big and the resources that would be necessary for the task are realistically unobtainable. Unless you want to turn the US into a third world country, we can't really remove the incentive for illegal immigration by any means other than making legal immigration really easy. The whole reason people want to live here is because we're not Honduras or the Congo.

I offered suggestions above, none of them would have involved turning the US into a third world country

 LordofHats wrote:
Illegal immigration is a net consequence of our size and our prosperity. It's not going away because of rhetorical arguments about Americaness and how lazy poor people are.

You might have a point if I put this argument forward (I didn't)

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Funny story, France has little problem deporting illegal immigrants.

Read more French news (not that I do mind you, but they have no more success than anyone else). They're debate on this issue is quite similar to ours.

I offered suggestions above, none of them would have involved turning the US into a third world country

Honestly, I disagree. Destroying welfare programs doesn't just effect illegal immigrants it effects legal ones too as well as natural born citizens. There's no shortage of people offering fake and stolen identities. Unless we want everything to become the Inquisition, which again I understand people are general unhappy with such things, you aren't going to be able to deny services to just illegals and no one else. There's a half decent reason the government lets them have those things and its because the struggle to deny those to them would probably cost more overall than just letting illegals have them.

It's the same logic corporations use when they settle with a plaintiff even when they know they'd win in court. The cost of the battle is in excess of its worth. It's easier and cheaper not to fight it at all (same logic used by those who want the Drug War to end too). Further, even if we did away with all welfare for everyone (which, really?) it's still better to live here than there.

I do find it very distasteful when people are happy with letting other people starve, die of curable ailments, and live in third world conditions just because we don't like them. It's one thing to say people in another country are not our problem, we have our own to worry about. It's another to be completely indifferent to people on our lawn, whether the law says they're supposed to be here or not. There are too many illegals to deport, so we have to develop a practical and humane way of dealing with the ones already here. "They shouldn't be here at all" isn't an argument. It's just ignoring the problem.

You might have a point if I put this argument forward (I didn't)

I don't claim you did. I'm referencing the larger immigration debate, which like many debates, tends to be dominated by really stupid talking points.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
They'll still smuggle in drugs, but it'll be tax evasion instead of trafficking in illegal substances. Trading one crime for another, and all the other assorted problems will remain.

And the only people who would buy then would be insane. Even with heavy regulation and taxes, legalized drugs would be infinitely cheaper than illegal drugs. If anything, like Tobacco there will probably be crimes involving the removal of the real drug from products and replacing it with a cheap knock off and then reselling the real drug at a higher price.

Either way, the Cartel's aren't going to need personal armies to defend their business anymore.

Yup.

Think of it this way, Grey Templar. Use tobacco as an example. As a criminal, I could smuggle my product all the way to Britain in order to avoid the taxes (which are incredibly heavy over here!). The problem with doing so is that firstly, I'd have to smuggle cigarettes for the larger part, as that's what smokers here use for convenience. People do buy pouches of tobacco, but far fewer than buy cigarettes.

Secondly, I'd be competing with huge legal conglomerates and corporations. They can grow stuff in bulk, ship it in bulk, and distribute it in bulk. My product, comparatively, moves in far smaller amounts and in far more secretive ways. This raises the price of smuggling the blasted things to almost as high as it would be with the tax included. And with the tobacco being legal, I don't have the grip, and will never have the grip on the market needed that I can arbitrarily raise my prices whilst the legal industry is trading. So no raising my prices to offset my smuggling costs and turn myself into a tobacco kingpin.

This in turn reduces the profits of your local dealer to that of someone who runs the local convenience store. Which hits your ability to build a distribution network, because why would risk getting locked up and prosecuted for the same level of money you can make legally? Then, even if I had dealers still willing to sell, customers like convenience. If my heavily smuggled product only comes at at 20p cheaper per box of ciggies, no-one will deal with me. Shoppers want to just pick up a pack of smokes whilst doing their shopping, getting the paper, etc. Why would you bother cultivating drug and gang contacts for a 20p discount? Why would you meet people in car parks at awkward times of day? Sod that, you just buy legally.

Finally, as a consumer, you'd be worrying about what was in your smuggled ciggies. They're not checked, and anything can make it's way into the supply chain to bulk it out. I'd worry about finding sawdust and rat crap bulking out those ciggies on a minor level, and if it was in bulk pure tobacco form, many other substances. I have no recourse as a consumer should this stuff I'm smoking not be entirely what it says on the packet.

The result? You buy legal, and tobacco smuggling here is practically non-existent, despite being heavily taxed. Weed would be exactly the same. The cartels think they have power, but when Benson and Hedges start cultivating weed on an industrial production level, they'll find their income from that department dwindles over the course of 2-3 years until it becomes non-existent.

Now this is not an argument for legalisation. Simply an analysis of some of the effects thereof.

The argument that a police officer might die if you don't tech them up to the nines is a weird one. The risk of harm is part of being a police officer, it's an assumed part of the job.

I'm pro-police (my Dad was a policeman) but I think they do what they do in the knowledge that they're not going to be perfectly safe.

'course, I'm coming at this as someone who grew up in the Republic of Ireland, where beat gardaí are only armed with sticks in a lot of areas, and at most a stab vest and some pepper spray in the rough inner city areas. Living abroad and seeing policemen carrying guns on the street, or automatic weapons in some cases is totally jarring and intimidating to me.

(To be honest, it gives me the feeling of being a Hobbit seeing a fully armed and armoured Man for the first time, after dealing with mostly genial Sheriffs up to that point!)

 Da Boss wrote:
The argument that a police officer might die if you don't tech them up to the nines is a weird one. The risk of harm is part of being a police officer, it's an assumed part of the job.

I'm pro-police (my Dad was a policeman) but I think they do what they do in the knowledge that they're not going to be perfectly safe.

'course, I'm coming at this as someone who grew up in the Republic of Ireland, where beat gardaí are only armed with sticks in a lot of areas, and at most a stab vest and some pepper spray in the rough inner city areas. Living abroad and seeing policemen carrying guns on the street, or automatic weapons in some cases is totally jarring and intimidating to me.

Same argument could be made for us in the military. So should I not be issued my ACH and IOTV? Risk is part of the job, so why should I have the equipment that lowers that risk?

Equipment is not the issue. It's the policy that drives its use. That is the issue.

The military has a different job than the police though. The police are supposed to keep the peace, and protect the community. It's harder for them to connect with that community if everyone is afraid or intimidated by them.

The military is completely different, and I think that's the point of this thread.

To possibly stretch my argument too far, I am a teacher. I could enforce discipline a lot more easily if I could beat the crap out of or kill unruly students. But that would be completely wrong, because that's not what being a teacher is about.

(To be absolutely clear on this, because the internet leaves things a bit ambiguous at times: I don't ever want to have to raise a hand to another person's kid.)

 Ketara wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
They'll still smuggle in drugs, but it'll be tax evasion instead of trafficking in illegal substances. Trading one crime for another, and all the other assorted problems will remain.

And the only people who would buy then would be insane. Even with heavy regulation and taxes, legalized drugs would be infinitely cheaper than illegal drugs. If anything, like Tobacco there will probably be crimes involving the removal of the real drug from products and replacing it with a cheap knock off and then reselling the real drug at a higher price.

Either way, the Cartel's aren't going to need personal armies to defend their business anymore.

Yup.

Think of it this way, Grey Templar. Use tobacco as an example. As a criminal, I could smuggle my product all the way to Britain in order to avoid the taxes (which are incredibly heavy over here!). The problem with doing so is that firstly, I'd have to smuggle cigarettes for the larger part, as that's what smokers here use for convenience. People do buy pouches of tobacco, but far fewer than buy cigarettes.

Secondly, I'd be competing with huge legal conglomerates and corporations. They can grow stuff in bulk, ship it in bulk, and distribute it in bulk. My product, comparatively, moves in far smaller amounts and in far more secretive ways. This raises the price of smuggling the blasted things to almost as high as it would be with the tax included. And with the tobacco being legal, I don't have the grip, and will never have the grip on the market needed that I can arbitrarily raise my prices whilst the legal industry is trading. So no raising my prices to offset my smuggling costs and turn myself into a tobacco kingpin.

This in turn reduces the profits of your local dealer to that of someone who runs the local convenience store. Which hits your ability to build a distribution network, because why would risk getting locked up and prosecuted for the same level of money you can make legally? Then, even if I had dealers still willing to sell, customers like convenience. If my heavily smuggled product only comes at at 20p cheaper per box of ciggies, no-one will deal with me. Shoppers want to just pick up a pack of smokes whilst doing their shopping, getting the paper, etc. Why would you bother cultivating drug and gang contacts for a 20p discount? Why would you meet people in car parks at awkward times of day? Sod that, you just buy legally.

Finally, as a consumer, you'd be worrying about what was in your smuggled ciggies. They're not checked, and anything can make it's way into the supply chain to bulk it out. I'd worry about finding sawdust and rat crap bulking out those ciggies on a minor level, and if it was in bulk pure tobacco form, many other substances. I have no recourse as a consumer should this stuff I'm smoking not be entirely what it says on the packet.

The result? You buy legal, and tobacco smuggling here is practically non-existent, despite being heavily taxed. Weed would be exactly the same. The cartels think they have power, but when Benson and Hedges start cultivating weed on an industrial production level, they'll find their income from that department dwindles over the course of 2-3 years until it becomes non-existent.

Now this is not an argument for legalisation. Simply an analysis of some of the effects thereof.

Tobacco smuggling is also far more difficult to do because there is no infrastructure for doing it.

The drug lords have a massive existing well organized supply chain.

And we don't have massive companies to supply weed, yet. They may exist eventually, but given that people already have a very large source either by growing it themselves or by buying it from the guy in the alley...

Yes, it may reduce the market the Drug Lords have. But they'll still smuggle it in.


And even if their weed market dries completely up, they'll just step up smuggling of other drugs.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Tobacco smuggling is also far more difficult to do because there is no infrastructure for doing it.

You really thing the infrastructure of the drug trade changes between coke and tobacco? Really?

And we don't have massive companies to supply weed, yet. They may exist eventually, but given that people already have a very large source either by growing it themselves or by buying it from the guy in the alley...

This is circular logic.

they'll just step up smuggling of other drugs.

Weed and coke are the biggest markets. The more intense the drug, the fewer people addicted and crazy enough to use them, especially when you consider how drug dealers try to push users towards harder and more expensive drugs. Make week and coke legal, and you can start dealing with addicts like we deal with alcoholism, especially since the stigma of illegality is removed and discussion addiction and abuse becomes easier. Help those people and you have fewer people moving to harder stuff, etc etc.

Not to mention give it time, with a lack of the ability to exploit, use of such drugs might drop alongside the decreasing of of tobacco.

You've gone past grasping straws to grasping ashes that use to be straws before they were burned in an accidental house fire started by someone who left their oven on and foolishly placed gasoline inside it for some god awful reason then went out to lunch.

Just for general knowledge, there is a big tobacco smuggling industry in the US.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/03/cigarette-smuggling-new-york-_n_5041823.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/06/25/why-the-massive-black-market-trade-in-cigarettes-affects-you-even-if-you-dont-smoke/

http://taxfoundation.org/article/cigarette-taxes-and-cigarette-smuggling-state

 djones520 wrote:


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/03/cigarette-smuggling-new-york-_n_5041823.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/06/25/why-the-massive-black-market-trade-in-cigarettes-affects-you-even-if-you-dont-smoke/

http://taxfoundation.org/article/cigarette-taxes-and-cigarette-smuggling-state

I referenced this earlier when I mentioned how people swap cigerettes with cheap knock offs to resale the products elsewhere. If you look for it, there's an illegal trade on a lot of luxury items. Tobacco, prescription drugs, guns, electronics, pirated media, etc etc. Even olive oil (hint, it's entirely possible you've never consumed real olive oil, literally). Interesting thing is is that while there's big money in all these trades, it's nothing compared to what the Cartels are into, and no one is raising armed militias to defend the business because that kind of money just isn't there.

The illegal trade of an legal item to skirt regulations and taxes is not quite in the same league as the coke trade.

 Grey Templar wrote:


Tobacco smuggling is also far more difficult to do because there is no infrastructure for doing it.

If a weed smuggler wanted to smuggle tobacco instead, they'd just swap what they put in the packet. It's exactly as difficult, no more, no less.

The drug lords have a massive existing well organized supply chain.

I guarantee the tobacco companies supply chain make the cartel's ones look like kids swapping sherbet in the playground.

And we don't have massive companies to supply weed, yet.

Because it hasn't been legalised on the same scale. Note the '2-3 years' timeframe.

They may exist eventually, but given that people already have a very large source either by growing it themselves or by buying it from the guy in the alley...

I just gave about twenty five reasons up above as to why the bloke in the alley will no longer be interested in selling it, and people wouldn't bother buying it from the guy in the alley when they get it in the supermarket.

Yes, it may reduce the market the Drug Lords have. But they'll still smuggle it in.

Not really. When you're making barely any more profit then you would doing it legally, why bother doing it illegally?

And even if their weed market dries completely up, they'll just step up smuggling of other drugs.

Possibly. Khat smuggling looks sure to pick up here. But ultimately, as others have said, it's a lot less sociably acceptable to do the harder stuff, a lot more expensive, and a lot fewer people are willing to take a chance on it then they are a casual spliff. The profits will drop whatever the drug barons try and smuggle as substitution.

 djones520 wrote:
Just for general knowledge, there is a big tobacco smuggling industry in the US.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/03/cigarette-smuggling-new-york-_n_5041823.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/06/25/why-the-massive-black-market-trade-in-cigarettes-affects-you-even-if-you-dont-smoke/

http://taxfoundation.org/article/cigarette-taxes-and-cigarette-smuggling-state

By 'smuggling', I wasn't really referencing driving between the borders of different states to save cash. That's like people who drive lorries from Britain over to France and buy booze in bulk in a port town and then drive back on the same day and sell it to the off licenses. It's not the quite same thing as the narcotics networks. Sure, it's a bit dodgy, but it doesn't exactly support the cartels in Mexico, or the poppy trade in Afghanistan.

 LordofHats wrote:
Honestly, I disagree. Destroying welfare programs doesn't just effect illegal immigrants it effects legal ones too as well as natural born citizens. There's no shortage of people offering fake and stolen identities. Unless we want everything to become the Inquisition, which again I understand people are general unhappy with such things, you aren't going to be able to deny services to just illegals and no one else. There's a half decent reason the government lets them have those things and its because the struggle to deny those to them would probably cost more overall than just letting illegals have them.

It's the same logic corporations use when they settle with a plaintiff even when they know they'd win in court. The cost of the battle is in excess of its worth. It's easier and cheaper not to fight it at all (same logic used by those who want the Drug War to end too). Further, even if we did away with all welfare for everyone (which, really?) it's still better to live here than there.

I do find it very distasteful when people are happy with letting other people starve, die of curable ailments, and live in third world conditions just because we don't like them. It's one thing to say people in another country are not our problem, we have our own to worry about. It's another to be completely indifferent to people on our lawn, whether the law says they're supposed to be here or not. There are too many illegals to deport, so we have to develop a practical and humane way of dealing with the ones already here. "They shouldn't be here at all" isn't an argument. It's just ignoring the problem.

You seem very quick to reach for a strawman. No one but you said destroy welfare. No one said anything about ending welfare. What was said was to tighten it up and stop illegal immigrants using it. It is hard to have a conversation with someone who is doing his level best to ignore what is being said.

Too many illegals to deport you say? Why is that? Simple, because they know that there is little enforcement and that some places will shelter them from Federal authorities. To repeat my point about removing economic incentives for illegal immigrants, that means that a lot will self deport as they cannot sustain a life here.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
To repeat my point about removing economic incentives for illegal immigrants, that means that a lot will self deport as they cannot sustain a life here.

Well you can pick the comment not expressly intended to respone to you and ignore the rest of the post if you want to

 LordofHats wrote:
Well you can pick the comment not expressly intended to respone to you and ignore the rest of the post if you want to

You quoted me three times, and replied to each. which reply (after each of my quotes) was I to take as not intended as a response?

 Grey Templar wrote:
They're not going to lose their market.

They'll still be able to offer it without taxes and without regulation.

Do you think that cigarettes without a tax stamp and moonshine liquor are putting serious dents in the profits of Phillip Morris and Anheuser Busch?

Yes, there will still be untaxed, and hence, illegal product; but it will be some tiny fractional bit of the market that can barely even be said to exist. Yeah, the moonshine might blind you, but it's $2 cheaper! Come on.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also how did we get here from the militarization of police? I just realized what thread we're in.

 Ouze wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
They're not going to lose their market.

They'll still be able to offer it without taxes and without regulation.

Do you think that cigarettes without a tax stamp and moonshine liquor are putting serious dents in the profits of Phillip Morris and Anheuser Busch?

Yes, there will still be untaxed, and hence, illegal product; but it will be some tiny fractional bit of the market that can barely even be said to exist. Yeah, the moonshine might blind you, but it's $2 cheaper! Come on.

Yes, I do think there will still be a significant illegal weed market even if we legalize it.

You can't draw a parallel between Weed and Booze or even Tobacco. Tobacco has never been illegal IIRC and Alcohol was only illegal for a very short time.

The Drug Lords will just cut their prices, if they need to at all, to compete with any legal sources of weed. The profits will not dry up like people claim, just shift around.

You might make the case for what you are claiming 100 years down the road, if Marijuana is socially acceptable(which it should never be) like Tobacco and Alcohol.

Marijuana is going to get the gak regulated and taxed out of it(as it should be)

I'm ok with legalization for medical use, and maybe recreational use if, and only if, its highly regulated. And I mean a legal age, producer regulation, taxes to support drug rehabilitation, no private production or sales, and a general PR campaign highlighting the problems with using drugs. Similar to what we do for Tobacco.

Anyone using it medically should have to get their supply from a pharmacy like any other regulated medicine.

 Grey Templar wrote:

You might make the case for what you are claiming 100 years down the road, if Marijuana is socially acceptable(which it should never be) like Tobacco and Alcohol.

I can think of several large parts of the country, and segments of the national population, in which marijuana use is not only considered socially acceptable; but expected.

 Grey Templar wrote:

They'll still be able to offer it without taxes and without regulation.

The only relevant piece of your comment is the bit about regulation. Where illicit dealers will maintain an advantage is in their ability to supply a product laced with a substance that is probably itself illegal.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

Too many illegals to deport you say? Why is that?

Does it matter?

They're already here, and the methods you wish to use to encourage them to "self-deport" would negatively impact legal immigrants and natural-born citizens; concerns which I believe outweigh any associated with illegal immigration.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/26/living/vargas-documented-immigration-essay/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
This should give you am idea of how to curb abuses by illegal immigrants - someone gave them a step by step of lying on government forms

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

You quoted me three times, and replied to each. which reply (after each of my quotes) was I to take as not intended as a response?

I'll put up a big sign reading "Not a Direct Reply to Another Poster!" next time

My main response to you in that bit was that you can't realistically say "services for legal citizens only" unless you want everything in the US government to become the Inquisition. Is vetting 300,000,000 people really worth it just to catch the 10 to 20 million who aren't supposed to be here? It is cheaper by magnitudes for the government to just let them have services than it is to try and deny it to them. Not to mention the number of jobs that would need to be added to the public sector to really start investigating that many people.

Too many illegals to deport you say? Why is that?

I thought we were in a thread where (regardless of the whole militarization thing) people were concerned about growing police power . But then I remember that people are never really concerned about growing police power, only police power kicking down their door rather than the door belonging other human being they don't care about (hence why no one ever comments on SWAT kicking down doors until they kick down the wrong door). EDIT < Not a Direct Reply to Dreadclaw

There could be as many as 20,000,000 Illegals in the US (no one really knows since you can't really call for hands and start counting). Not to mention trails and inquiries into asylum claims, anchor babies, illegals married to legals, etc etc. You're not going to be able to deport that many people in a realistic fashion without creating the Gestapo in the process. That's why this conversation in this thread is a little ironic XD EDIT: And really this is before we start talking about the economics and politics of illegal immigration, where businesses love cheap labor, and politicians don't want to be too hard on a potentially significant future voting block.

"Deport them all" is as much a fantasy as "ban all the guns." Neither thing is remotely possible in the real world.

Also how did we get here from the militarization of police? I just realized what thread we're in.

The power of friendship!

The Drug Lords will just cut their prices

Its already been explained why that won't work.

You might make the case for what you are claiming 100 years down the road

You really think that if there is demand on the market, which really would there even be an argument for legalization catching steam like it is if there wasn't, it'll take 100 years for a company to catch on and start supplying? I think CEO's are aholes but I don't think they're idiots.

 Deadshot wrote:
This is one of the few times I actually appreciate British/Northern Irish police. British police do not carry weapons or conduct drugs raids armed with flashbangs and military grade weaponry. The average drug raid has a small hand-held battering ram and tasers and are only fired when faced with threat. Armed RESPONSE teams are available in RESPONSE to major threats such as automatic weapons. And any example of extreme force and the resultant harm to the baby and threats against the family would be immediately investigated by every newspaper and politician and their mothers and the cops hung out to dry and to face the angry mobs.
Here in NI we see a little more heavy-handed due to the sectarian tensions. For example, last December during the flag protests (where Loyalists [to the British Crown and Westminster] protested the Irish Republican Sinn Fein government's decision.to only fly the British flag on City Hall on designated days instead of 365 days), police patrolled in ones or twos, with one armed with MP5s. And the police almost universally use armoured Land Rovers, but its.

Thats how our SWAT times started, to deal with what would now be termed "domestic terrorists" aka Black Panthers and similar organizations, bank robberies, and similar hostage situations.

We have a combination of three things going on:
*No knock warrants driven by trying to seize drugs before they were flushed.
*Keeping up with the Jones' and a massive amount of cheap military/semi military equipment through grants from the HS and old military gear.
*The profit motive that allows the government to seize assets "involved" in the drug trade.

Also although I have no knoweldge of this being a real factor, I'll accept open borders and drug money have allowed many in that trade to have a higher level of firepower then the old days, although thats kind of contravened by the 30s.

 Frazzled wrote:
Thats how our SWAT times started, to deal with what would now be termed "domestic terrorists" aka Black Panthers and similar organizations, bank robberies, and similar hostage situations.

Too add, there's also the influence of various major riots throughout the last century. LA, Detroit, Chicago. Used to be cities planned on bringing in significant military assets to help restore order. People found this both distasteful and a little bit infeasible for logistics reasons. Many of the earliest SWAT like units (as in units actually equipped with heavier armor and gear) started as Riot responders.

EDIT: There's also the Kent State incident, a significant blast for many who wanted the military to never be involved in domestic disturbances of that nature.

 LordofHats wrote:
My main response to you in that bit was that you can't realistically say "services for legal citizens only" unless you want everything in the US government to become the Inquisition. Is vetting 300,000,000 people really worth it just to catch the 10 to 20 million who aren't supposed to be here? It is cheaper by magnitudes for the government to just let them have services than it is to try and deny it to them. Not to mention the number of jobs that would need to be added to the public sector to really start investigating that many people.

That strawman has escaped again. No one talked about vetting 300 million people except you. What was being talked about was not allowing illegal immigrants to access public services. All services in any given country are for legal residents and/or citizens only

 LordofHats wrote:
I thought we were in a thread where (regardless of the whole militarization thing) people were concerned about growing police power . But then I remember that people are never really concerned about growing police power, only police power kicking down their door rather than the door belonging other human being they don't care about (hence why no one ever comments on SWAT kicking down doors until they kick down the wrong door). EDIT < Not a Direct Reply to Dreadclaw

We're talking about the militarization of police, you are correct. I don't think anyone advocated that ICE get MRAPs, Class 3 armour, and M4s to round up illegal immigrants. But why let facts get in the way of your strawman again

 LordofHats wrote:
There could be as many as 20,000,000 Illegals in the US (no one really knows since you can't really call for hands and start counting). Not to mention trails and inquiries into asylum claims, anchor babies, illegals married to legals, etc etc. You're not going to be able to deport that many people in a realistic fashion without creating the Gestapo in the process. That's why this conversation in this thread is a little ironic XD EDIT: And really this is before we start talking about the economics and politics of illegal immigration, where businesses love cheap labor,

It's almost as if I covered this already and you managed to ignore what was said. Conversations are usually easier when you read and respond to what is being said.

 LordofHats wrote:
and politicians don't want to be too hard on a potentially significant future voting block.

The only way that these people could be a voting block is if they are granted citizenship. As most of them are here illegally and for a prolonged period the only thing they should be granted a lifetime ban from entering the United States

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
What was being talked about was not allowing illegal immigrants to access public services. All services in any given country are for legal residents and/or citizens only

And how exactly are you going to deny it to non-Citizens? They can get fake IDs and information to apply for these services, so unless you want to vet everyone you can't create a system they can't get into. Any system to deny a service requires checking whatever criteria for the service is needed. This means vetting the American population to see who is legal and who isn't in some way, and doing that to over 300,000,000 people doesn't make any fiscal sense just to deny 10 to 20 million.

EDIT: For numbers, at most this means a system designed to block access for 7% of the population in the United States from getting services.

It's almost as if I covered this already and you managed to ignore what was said. Conversations are usually easier when you read and respond to what is being said.

I could say the same to you

The only way that these people could be a voting block is if they are granted citizenship. As most of them are here illegally and for a prolonged period the only thing they should be granted a lifetime ban from entering the United States

That's what you think, and it makes sense maybe if you ignore the reality that we can't make them disappear. Politicians being politicians, they recognize that giving illegals citizenship is going to win whichever party did it the Hispanic vote for decades (in much the same way the Civil Right's Act switched the voting trends of the Southern states and Blacks). Right now, they see more value in arguing over amnesty than actually granting it, but neither of them wants to remove the possibility of some day being able to push amnesty through and winning those votes. And it's not just the illegals become legal who will vote for them. Legal residence from South America will likely join step as they're already closely related to the illegal immigration issue in many ways.

 LordofHats wrote:
And how exactly are you going to deny it to non-Citizens? They can get fake IDs and information to apply for these services, so unless you want to vet everyone you can't create a system they can't get into. Any system to deny a service requires checking whatever criteria for the service is needed. This means vetting the American population to see who is legal and who isn't in some way, and doing that to over 300,000,000 people doesn't make any fiscal sense just to deny 10 to 20 million.

EDIT: For numbers, at most this means a system designed to block access for 7% of the population in the United States from getting services.

Checks on IDs, removing provisions for illegals to access services when they declare themselves as illegal immigrants, prosecuting people fraudulently using SSNs, prosecuting people mis-using tax regulations for people here on temporary visas, and any number of similar measures is not vetting the American population. Do not be so obtuse.

 LordofHats wrote:
I could say the same to you

You could but, like a lot of your comments, it would be inaccurate

 LordofHats wrote:
That's what you think, and it makes sense maybe if you ignore the reality that we can't make them disappear. Politicians being politicians, they recognize that giving illegals citizenship is going to win whichever party did it the Hispanic vote for decades (in much the same way the Civil Right's Act switched the voting trends of the Southern states and Blacks). Right now, they see more value in arguing over amnesty than actually granting it, but neither of them wants to remove the possibility of some day being able to push amnesty through and winning those votes. And it's not just the illegals become legal who will vote for them. Legal residence from South America will likely join step as they're already closely related to the illegal immigration issue in many ways.

Any comparison between amnesty for illegal immigrants and the Civil Rights Act is a gross distortion that twists facts and history.
Yeah, immigration is a poorly disguised attempt at establishing a compliant voting block. That has been apparent for a very long time. It benefits certain politicians. It does not benefit the country.

Interesting debate here, one I've had many a time with friends - I'll add that I'm a cop in the UK.

From a UK perspective - though I suspect the motivation is similar in other western countries such as the US/Canada etc - the 'militarization' of police isn't a long-term insidious plan. As an organisation we tend to be not so great at adapting to change and being pro-active about future issues...pretty much like most large organisations.

Most of the equipment, training and doctrine that you're seeing employed by armed/SWAT officers in the West has been very much reactive in nature, as a few people have mentioned already. A good example of this in the US and in the UK is the change in policy with regards to 'active shooters' - initially the first officers on the scene would try and contain the shooter and wait for specialist teams and negotiators to deploy. That approach was shown as pretty futile as the shooter is just going to keep shooting people until he is confronted by police at which point he either gets shot by police or he shoots himself. So policy now for active shooters is to confront them and stop them as quickly as possible. Incidentally, in the US this has led to patrol officers being given training on CQB tactics which is very much militaristic in nature, and often patrol officers are being given rifles and carbines to carry with them in their vehicles in case such an incident occurs. Same in the UK for our Authorised Firearms Officers - nowadays they are trained to respond much more aggressively in certain situations (such as active shooter incidents) because the previous approach was costing lives. It might not look as good but it is more effective.

Now, this is very much a 'militarisation' of police - however, at the same time, the police are there to protect people and they were (rightly) drawing a significant amount of criticism because they were not trained or equipped to adequately deal with these kinds of incident. This is where we see the classic 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' dilemma that I've noticed the police often get faced with.

It's also worth bearing in mind that we rely on the media for information with regards to a lot of incidents, and the media are very selective in what they report. Which is understandable in a way as they can't report everything, however they do like a juicy story and a lot of the times they're not too fussy about the fine details. Whenever armed police in the UK shoot someone there tends to be a media frenzy and a reminder of the various incidents when police have shot other people over the years....however they usually fail to mention the thousands of incidents where firearms officers are deployed and no shots are fired.

Bit of an old link but revealing nonetheless:

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/statistics-on-police-use-of-firearms-in-england-and-wales-2011-12

I would submit that using firearms in 5 out of 12 550 incidents is pretty damn good. I'd also be willing to bet good money that the 5 shooting incidents garnered a lot more media attention and criticism than the 12 545 incidents that were resolved by officers peacefully.

I would suspect it's a similar situation in the US. For every SWAT operation where somebody gets shot there are many that are resolved peacefully. But the media isn't going to report about a SWAT operation where nothing interesting happened, so those get pushed into the background a bit. A brief Google shows not a lot of information is available on statistics pertaining to SWAT teams, though I did find this https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/223855.pdf which has limited data but at least it's something.

With regards to 'no-knock' warrants - typically they will be used in drug enforcement operations. And the reason they are used is so that we can get our hands on evidence that will help us bring about a successful prosecution. The police will do this because those drugs are illegal, and we are there to enforce the laws that the government sets. There's really not much point in complaining about the police doing this because we don't make the laws - the government does. That's a state of affairs that needs to be addressed at a much higher level. My own personal opinion on the current drug laws in the UK is that they are nonsensical, ineffective and need some radical changes (that's a discussion for another thread!) but that cannot and does not have any effect on how I do my job.

Another point I've noticed folks commenting on is how rarely cops get prosecuted for shootings or similar incidents. Whilst I am very much in favour of prosecuting cops who are genuine bad eggs or who are grossly negligent, the difficulty here is that - in my experience at least - as a cop you're often going into situations about which you know very little, with information that's at best second-hand, and that usually involves dealing with persons who have mental health issues or are under the influence of drink or drugs...often they have a combination of all three going on. These are chaotic situations where people will both intentionally and unintentionally present false information, will act in an extremely erratic manner and can vary their behaviour radically from one second to the next. I accompanied a guy up to hospital one night who was crying away and very upset as he had a bad cut to his head from a bottle...ten minutes after we get in to hospital he went from crying and asking me to help him to gouging open the wound on his head with his bare hands and trying to smear blood all over my face, while at the same time screaming about how he was HIV positive (he wasn't, and we found out later he smashed the bottle over his own head).

My point is that it is ridiculously easy to make a mistake in these kinds of situation. Sometimes you make the wrong decision full stop.....other times you'll make what would have been the right decision but you base it on information that's inaccurate....other times there is no right decision. Throw in the fact that you have to make this decision very quickly - often in a split-second - and add the various other contributing factors, which can range from 'it's very poor visibility and I can't see exactly what it is that guy is taking out of his pocket but the dispatcher told me the person who phoned 999 said she saw a guy with a knife' to 'it's 0500 on my last night shift and I've been delayed every single shift so far and have averaged about three hours sleep a day'....it's extremely easy to make a wrong decision, in the same way that a GP can mis-diagnose a patient or a surgeon can err during an operation. Prosecuting someone for making what they honestly thought was the right decision is morally questionable and apart from anything else is just going to encourage people to never make any decisions. Most police - certainly the vast majority of the ones I know and work with - are genuinely good people who are committed to their job. But at the end of the day we are still people and we can still make mistakes, same as everyone else.

On a final note - we, the police, do not exist in a vacuum. Police officers are not cloned at a factory, tucked away somewhere until they are of suitable age and then let loose on the streets. We grow up, watch TV, go to school and are generally a reflection of society, and in the UK we enforce laws that are enacted by politicians elected by the public. We usually end up having to try and cope with the people and situations that society has failed, yet we usually take the blame for not being able to magically fix them. Police reform by itself is probably not going to achieve much without matching reform throughout society in general.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

Checks on IDs, removing provisions for illegals to access services when they declare themselves as illegal immigrants, prosecuting people fraudulently using SSNs, prosecuting people mis-using tax regulations for people here on temporary visas, and any number of similar measures is not vetting the American population. Do not be so obtuse.

It's not obtuse to point out this is already law save the provisions about declared illegals (and really, revoke those and they'll never declare so that's a does nothing change). ID's can be forged, information faked, taxes lied about and people legal or otherwise get away with these things for decades for lots of reasons. It's easy to claim that it's easy. It's also easy to see its not that easy.

Any comparison between amnesty for illegal immigrants and the Civil Rights Act is a gross distortion that twists facts and history.

Not really. At least, not in comparison to how the political parties would view the effects of such a thing. If amnesty were granted, it would be the biggest shake up for the electorate since the Civil Rights Act at least. The ramifications would be huge.

I don't compare it to the Civil Rights Act to say we should grant Amnesty, I compare them because the political parties in the US know how the CRA effected voting trends back in the 60's and they know that Amnesty will produce a similar effect. Give people what they want and they vote for you. Give something they want desperately, and their kids and grand-kids will vote for you too.

It does not benefit the country.

Defining illegal immigration as having no benefits ignore the mountains of research that have gone into the issue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/magazine/do-illegal-immigrants-actually-hurt-the-us-economy.html?pagewanted=all

Earlier this month I met Pedro Chan at his small apartment above an evangelical church in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood. Chan, who shares the place with three others, is short and muscular. He has a quiet voice and a patient demeanor that seems to have served him well on his journey to New York. In 2002, he left his Guatemalan village for a long trip through Mexico and, with the help of a smuggler, across the Texas border. In 2004, he made it to Brooklyn, where his uncle helped him find work on small construction crews.

Deep thoughts this week:

1. Illegal workers do undercut the salaries of millions of Americans.

2. But they boost the income of nearly everyone else.

3. Why don’t people know this already?

4. Oh, yeah: politics.

It’s the Economy

Adam Davidson translates often confusing and sometimes terrifying economic and financial news.

These days, Chan helps skilled (and fully documented) carpenters, electricians and stucco installers do their jobs by carrying heavy things and cleaning the work site. For this, he earns up to $25,000 a year, which is considerably less than the average entry wage for New York City’s 100,000 or so documented construction workers. Chan’s boss, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that unless he learned a specialized skill, Chan would never be able to move up the income ladder. As long as there are thousands of undocumented workers competing for low-end jobs, salaries are more likely to fall than to rise.

As Congress debates the contours of immigration reform, many arguments have been made on economic grounds. Undocumented workers, some suggest, undercut wages and take jobs that would otherwise go to Americans. Worse, the argument goes, many use social programs, like hospitals and schools, that cost taxpayers and add to our $16 trillion national debt. Would deporting Pedro Chan and the other 11 million or so undocumented workers mean more jobs, lower taxes and a stronger economy?

Illegal immigration does have some undeniably negative economic effects. Similarly skilled native-born workers are faced with a choice of either accepting lower pay or not working in the field at all. Labor economists have concluded that undocumented workers have lowered the wages of U.S. adults without a high-school diploma — 25 million of them — by anywhere between 0.4 to 7.4 percent.

The impact on everyone else, though, is surprisingly positive. Giovanni Peri, an economist at the University of California, Davis, has written a series of influential papers comparing the labor markets in states with high immigration levels to those with low ones. He concluded that undocumented workers do not compete with skilled laborers — instead, they complement them. Economies, as Adam Smith argued in “Wealth of Nations,” work best when workers become specialized and divide up tasks among themselves. Pedro Chan’s ability to take care of routine tasks on a work site allows carpenters and electricians to focus on what they do best. In states with more undocumented immigrants, Peri said, skilled workers made more money and worked more hours; the economy’s productivity grew. From 1990 to 2007, undocumented workers increased legal workers’ pay in complementary jobs by up to 10 percent.

I saw this in action when Chan took me to his current work site, a two-story office building on Coney Island Avenue. The skilled workers had already installed wood flooring in a lawyer’s office and were off to the next job site. That left Chan to clean up the debris and to install a new toilet. As I looked around, I could see how we were on one end of an economic chain reaction. Chan’s boss no longer had to pay a highly skilled worker to perform basic tasks. That lowered the overall cost of construction, increasing the number of jobs the company could book, which meant more customers and more money. It reminded me of how so many restaurants operate. Without undocumented labor performing routine tasks, meals, which factor labor costs into the price, would be more expensive. There would also be fewer jobs for waiters and chefs.

Earlier that day, I was reminded of another seldom-discussed fact about immigrant life in the United States. Immigrants spend most of the money they make. Chan had broken down his monthly expenses: $400 a month in rent, another $30 or so for gas, electric and Internet. He sends some money home and tries to save a few thousand a year in his Citibank account, but he ends up spending more than $10,000 annually. That includes the $1,400 or so he pays the I.R.S. so that he can have a taxpayer I.D. number, which allows him to have a credit score so that he can rent an apartment or lease a car.

There are many ways to debate immigration, but when it comes to economics, there isn’t much of a debate at all. Nearly all economists, of all political persuasions, agree that immigrants — those here legally or not — benefit the overall economy. “That is not controversial,” Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told me. Shierholz also said that “there is a consensus that, on average, the incomes of families in this country are increased by a small, but clearly positive amount, because of immigration.”

The benefit multiplies over the long haul. As the baby boomers retire, the post-boom generation’s burden to finance their retirement is greatly alleviated by undocumented immigrants. Stephen Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration, told me that undocumented workers contribute about $15 billion a year to Social Security through payroll taxes. They only take out $1 billion (very few undocumented workers are eligible to receive benefits). Over the years, undocumented workers have contributed up to $300 billion, or nearly 10 percent, of the $2.7 trillion Social Security Trust Fund.

The problem, though, is that undocumented workers are not evenly distributed. In areas like southern Texas and Arizona and even parts of Brooklyn, undocumented immigrants impose a substantial net cost to local and state governments, Shierholz says. Immigrants use public assistance, medical care and schools. Some immigrant neighborhoods have particularly high crime rates. Jared Bernstein, a fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, told me that these are also areas in which low-educated workers are most likely to face stiff competition from immigrants. It’s no wonder why so much political furor comes from these regions.

Undocumented workers represent a classic economic challenge with a fairly straightforward solution. Immigrants bring diffuse and hard-to-see benefits to average Americans while imposing more tangible costs on a few, Shierholz says. The dollar value of the benefits far outweigh the costs, so the government could just transfer extra funds to those local populations that need more help. One common proposal would grant amnesty to undocumented workers, which would create a sudden increase in tax payments. Simultaneously, the federal government could apply a percentage of those increased revenues to local governments.

But that, of course, seems politically improbable. Immigration is one of many problems — like another economic no-brainer: eliminating farm subsidies — in which broad economic benefits battle against a smaller, concentrated cost in one area. As immigration reform seems more likely than at any time in recent memory, it’s important to remember that it is not the economic realities that have changed. It’s the political ones.

One of the most striking things about the above is that illegal immigrants are often paying taxes, not just sales tax but taxes to the IRS as well and to social security;

Over the years, undocumented workers have contributed up to $300 billion, or nearly 10 percent, of the $2.7 trillion Social Security Trust Fund.

 LordofHats wrote:
It's not obtuse to point out this is already law save the provisions about declared illegals (and really, revoke those and they'll never declare so that's a does nothing change). ID's can be forged, information faked, taxes lied about and people legal or otherwise get away with these things for decades for lots of reasons. It's easy to claim that it's easy. It's also easy to see its not that easy.

It is obtuse to even suggest that ensuring that fraud does not occur is tantamount to vetting 300 million Americans. And your pithy response that fraud will occur regardless does not merit an in depth response.

 LordofHats wrote:
Not really. At least, not in comparison to how the political parties would view the effects of such a thing. If amnesty were granted, it would be the biggest shake up for the electorate since the Civil Rights Act at least. The ramifications would be huge.

Granting voting rights to those who broke the law to get here, and who should have absolutely no right to vote would be a massive shake up. But to pretend that it is similar to the Civil RIghts Act is a distortion and is not an accurate comparison. Those fighting for civil rights were US citizens, who had historically suffered a great many injustices, and were asking for their lawful rights. Illegal immigrants are demanding special treatment above legal migrants

 LordofHats wrote:
Defining illegal immigration as having no benefits ignore the mountains of research that have gone into the issue.

Really?
http://www.illegalimmigrationstatistics.org/illegal-immigration-a-113-billion-a-year-drain-on-u-s-taxpayers/

A study released by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimates that illegal immigration now costs federal and local taxpayers $113 billion a year. The report, The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers, is the most comprehensive analysis of how much the estimated 13 million illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children cost the federal, state and local governments
The cost estimates are based on an extensive analysis of federal, state and local spending data. The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers examines dozens of government programs that are available to illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children, both legally and fraudulently. The report provides detailed analysis of the impact of illegal immigration on education, health care, law enforcement and justice, public assistance, and other government programs.

The report also accounts for taxes paid by illegal aliens about $13 billion a year, resulting in a net cost to taxpayers of about $100 billion. However, the study notes that government at all levels would likely have realized significantly greater revenues if jobs held by illegal aliens had been filled by legal U.S. residents instead.

Federal spending on illegal aliens amounts to $29 billion, finds Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers. The lion’s share of the costs of illegal immigration is borne by state and local taxpayers an estimated $84.2 billion. In 18 states, expenditures on illegal aliens exceeded the size of those states’ budget deficits in FY 2009.

Among the key findings of The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers:

The $113 billion in outlays for services and benefits to illegal aliens and their families represents an average cost to native-headed households of $1,117 a year. Because the burdens of illegal immigration are not evenly distributed, the costs are much higher in states with large illegal alien populations.
Education for the children of illegal aliens represents the single largest public expenditure at an annual cost of $52 billion. Nearly all of that cost is absorbed by state and local governments.
The federal government recoups about one-third of its share of the costs of illegal immigration in the form of taxes collected. States, which bear a much greater share of the costs, recoup a mere 5 percent of their expenditures from taxes paid by illegal aliens.
Granting amnesty to illegal aliens, as President Obama and others propose, would not significantly increase tax revenues generated by current illegal aliens. However, over time, amnesty would dramatically increase public costs as newly-legalized aliens become eligible for all means-tested government programs.

Arizona’s annual cost of illegal immigration is $2.5 billion.
“The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers provides a definitive response to the question of whether illegal aliens are a net benefit or a net drain on government coffers,” stated Dan Stein president of FAIR. “The report examines virtually every federal, state and local government program to determine the impact of illegal immigration on the bottom line. That bottom line $113 billion a year, and growing makes our nation’s failure to control illegal immigration one of the largest preventable burdens borne by American taxpayers.”

“If political leaders in Washington and state capitals want to understand why the American public is demanding enforcement of our immigration laws, The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers, provides 113 billion good reasons,” Stein concluded.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/immigrationnaturalizatio/a/caillegals.htm

In hosting America's largest population of illegal immigrants, California bears a huge cost to provide basic human services for this fast growing, low-income segment of its population. A new study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) examines the costs of education, health care and incarceration of illegal aliens, and concludes that the costs to Californians is $10.5 billion per year.

Among the key finding of the report are that the state's already struggling K-12 education system spends approximately $7.7 billion a year to school the children of illegal aliens who now constitute 15 percent of the student body. Another $1.4 billion of the taxpayers' money goes toward providing health care to illegal aliens and their families, the same amount that is spent incarcerating illegal aliens criminals.

"California's addiction to 'cheap' illegal alien labor is bankrupting the state and posing enormous burdens on the state's shrinking middle class tax base," stated Dan Stein, President of FAIR. "Most Californians, who have seen their taxes increase while public services deteriorate, already know the impact that mass illegal immigration is having on their communities, but even they may be shocked when they learn just how much of a drain illegal immigration has become."

The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Californians focuses on three specific program areas because those were the costs examined by researchers from the Urban Institute in 1994. Looking at the costs of education, health care and incarceration for illegal aliens in 1994, the Urban Institute estimated that California was subsidizing illegal immigrants to the tune of about $1.1 billion. The enormous rise in the costs of illegal immigrants over the intervening ten years is due to the rapid growth in illegal residents. It is reasonable to expect those costs to continue to soar if action is not taken to turn the tide.

"Nineteen ninety-four was the same year that California voters rebelled and overwhelmingly passed Proposition 187, which sought to limit liability for mass illegal immigration. Since then, state and local governments have blatantly ignored the wishes of the voters and continued to shell out publicly financed benefits on illegal aliens," said Stein. "Predictably, the costs of illegal immigration have grown geometrically, while the state has spiraled into a fiscal crisis that has brought it near bankruptcy.

"Nothing could more starkly illustrate the very high costs of ‘cheap labor' than California's current situation," continued Stein. "A small number of powerful interests in the state reap the benefits, while the average native-born family in California gets handed a nearly $1,200 a year bill."

The Federation for American Immigration Reform is a nonprofit, public-interest, membership organization advocating immigration policy reforms that would tighten border security and prevent illegal immigration, while reducing legal immigration levels from about 1.1 million persons per year to 300,000 per year.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/dec/6/20041206-102115-6766r/

Illegal immigration costs the taxpayers of California — which has the highest number of illegal aliens nationwide — $10.5 billion a year for education, health care and incarceration, according to a study released yesterday.

A key finding of the report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) said the state’s already struggling kindergarten-through-12th-grade education system spends $7.7 billion a year on children of illegal aliens, who constitute 15 percent of the student body.

The report also said the incarceration of convicted illegal aliens in state prisons and jails and uncompensated medical outlays for health care provided to illegal aliens each amounted to about $1.4 billion annually. The incarceration costs did not include judicial expenditures or the monetary costs of the crimes committed by illegal aliens that led to their incarceration.

“California’s addiction to ‘cheap’ illegal-alien labor is bankrupting the state and posing enormous burdens on the state’s shrinking middle-class tax base,” said FAIR President Dan Stein.

“Most Californians, who have seen their taxes increase while public services deteriorate, already know the impact that mass illegal immigration is having on their communities, but even they may be shocked when they learn just how much of a drain illegal immigration has become,” he said.

California is estimated to be home to nearly 3 million illegal aliens.

Mr. Stein noted that state and local taxes paid by the unauthorized immigrant population go toward offsetting these costs, but do not match expenses. The total of such payments was estimated in the report to be about $1.6 billion per year.

He also said the total cost of illegal immigration to the state’s taxpayers would be considerably higher if other cost areas, such as special English instruction, school meal programs or welfare benefits for American workers displaced by illegal-alien workers were added into the equation.

Gerardo Gonzalez, director of the National Latino Research Center at California State at San Marcos, which compiles data on Hispanics, was critical of FAIR’s report yesterday. He said FAIR’s estimates did not measure some of the contributions that illegal aliens make to the state’s economy.

“Beyond taxes, these workers’ production and spending contribute to California’s economy, especially the agricultural sector,” he said, adding that both legal and illegal aliens are the “backbone” of the state’s $28 billion-a-year agricultural industry.

In August, a similar study by the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, said U.S. households headed by illegal aliens used $26.3 billion in government services during 2002, but paid $16 billion in taxes, an annual cost to taxpayers of $10 billion.

The FAIR report focused on three specific program areas because those were the costs examined by researchers from the Urban Institute in 1994, Mr. Stein said. Looking at the costs of education, health care and incarceration for illegal aliens in 1994, the Urban Institute estimated that California was subsidizing illegal immigrants at about $1.1 billion a year.

Mr. Stein said an enormous rise in the costs of illegal immigrants in 10 years is because of the rapid growth of the illegal population. He said it is reasonable to expect those costs to continue to soar if action is not taken to turn the tide.

“1994 was the same year that California voters rebelled and overwhelmingly passed Proposition 187, which sought to limit liability for mass illegal immigration,” he said. “Since then, state and local governments have blatantly ignored the wishes of the voters and continued to shell out publicly financed benefits on illegal aliens.

“Predictably, the costs of illegal immigration have grown geometrically, while the state has spiraled into a fiscal crisis that has brought it near bankruptcy,” he said.
Mr. Stein said that the state must adopt measures to systematically collect information on illegal-alien use of taxpayer-funded services and on where they are employed, and that policies need to be pursued to hold employers financially accountable.

http://cis.org/High-Cost-of-Cheap-Labor

Executive Summary
DHS
This study is one of the first to estimate the total impact of illegal immigration on the federal budget. Most previous studies have focused on the state and local level and have examined only costs or tax payments, but not both. Based on Census Bureau data, this study finds that, when all taxes paid (direct and indirect) and all costs are considered, illegal households created a net fiscal deficit at the federal level of more than $10 billion in 2002. We also estimate that, if there was an amnesty for illegal aliens, the net fiscal deficit would grow to nearly $29 billion.

Among the findings:

Households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only $16 billion in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of almost $10.4 billion, or $2,700 per illegal household.
Among the largest costs are Medicaid ($2.5 billion); treatment for the uninsured ($2.2 billion); food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches ($1.9 billion); the federal prison and court systems ($1.6 billion); and federal aid to schools ($1.4 billion).
With nearly two-thirds of illegal aliens lacking a high school degree, the primary reason they create a fiscal deficit is their low education levels and resulting low incomes and tax payments, not their legal status or heavy use of most social services.
On average, the costs that illegal households impose on federal coffers are less than half that of other households, but their tax payments are only one-fourth that of other households.
Many of the costs associated with illegals are due to their American-born children, who are awarded U.S. citizenship at birth. Thus, greater efforts at barring illegals from federal programs will not reduce costs because their citizen children can continue to access them.
If illegal aliens were given amnesty and began to pay taxes and use services like households headed by legal immigrants with the same education levels, the estimated annual net fiscal deficit would increase from $2,700 per household to nearly $7,700, for a total net cost of $29 billion.
Costs increase dramatically because unskilled immigrants with legal status -- what most illegal aliens would become -- can access government programs, but still tend to make very modest tax payments.
Although legalization would increase average tax payments by 77 percent, average costs would rise by 118 percent.
The fact that legal immigrants with few years of schooling are a large fiscal drain does not mean that legal immigrants overall are a net drain -- many legal immigrants are highly skilled.
The vast majority of illegals hold jobs. Thus the fiscal deficit they create for the federal government is not the result of an unwillingness to work.
The results of this study are consistent with a 1997 study by the National Research Council, which also found that immigrants' education level is a key determinant of their fiscal impact.

It should be clear by now that anything the illegal immigrants pay into the system is dwarfed by what they take out

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

Checks on IDs...

What sort of IDs? Passports?

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

...removing provisions for illegals to access services when they declare themselves as illegal immigrants...

So? Such an illegal alien would simply not declare that they were illegally in the US.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

...prosecuting people fraudulently using SSNs...

Most illegal aliens are paid in cash, and so do not file taxes; or use SSNs. And the people that pay them aren't exactly above board.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

...and any number of similar measures is not vetting the American population. Do not be so obtuse.

Actually, all three of the measures you brought up, and I cited, would necessarily involve vetting the American population; legal and otherwise.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

It should be clear by now that anything the illegal immigrants pay into the system is dwarfed by what they take out

Which is in turn dwarfed by what it would cost to kick them out of the US.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

It is obtuse to even suggest that ensuring that fraud does not occur is tantamount to vetting 300 million Americans.

How can you check if someone has a right to services without checking them out?

And your pithy response that fraud will occur regardless does not merit an in depth response.

It will always happen regardless because no system is perfect, no human incorruptable, and there will always be someone clever enough and willing to find a way to cheat. Its not about will it happen but will the reduction of occurances be worth the cost to achieve it. I find it illinformed to for a moment believe that any system we could develop to reduce the number of immigrants in our system would be worth its cost.

But to pretend that it is similar to the Civil RIghts Act is a distortion and is not an accurate comparison. Those fighting for civil rights were US citizens, who had historically suffered a great many injustices, and were asking for their lawful rights. Illegal immigrants are demanding special treatment above legal migrants

You got in before my edit. Recheck the above for my clarification of my intent with that comment.

Really?

I never claimed there were no negative consequences to them, merely that defining their presence as solely negative is to black and white to be anywhere near true.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

It is obtuse to even suggest that ensuring that fraud does not occur is tantamount to vetting 300 million Americans.

That's right, ya only gotta check the brown ones, right? Right?

Face it, your country runs on illegal labour. So efficiently so that my government has set up a program to legalise the process (the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. If a Canadian waited less than five minutes for his Timmy Ho's in the morning, it because it is crewed by hardworking middle aged Filipino ladies, over here on the TFWP.)

That the labor is illegal isn't really the driving factor, it's that the labor is cheap. A smart country might come up with a program to allow such laborers to continue working cheap but my country doesn't develop smart programs. Just programs that will pass the Senate

 LordofHats wrote:
How can you check if someone has a right to services without checking them out?

Checking out someone =/= equal vetting 300 million people.

 LordofHats wrote:
It will always happen regardless because no system is perfect, no human incorruptable, and there will always be someone clever enough and willing to find a way to cheat. Its not about will it happen but will the reduction of occurances be worth the cost to achieve it. I find it illinformed to for a moment believe that any system we could develop to reduce the number of immigrants in our system would be worth its cost.

So you think that we would spend over $100 billion would be spent in preventing fraud?

 LordofHats wrote:
You got in before my edit. Recheck the above for my clarification of my intent with that comment.

So now you want to pretty much artificially create a new set of voters. If you cannot see the folly of this then nothing further can be said

 LordofHats wrote:
I never claimed there were no negative consequences to them, merely that defining their presence as solely negative is to black and white to be anywhere near true.

You almost got through a post without a strawman. Empirical evidence shows that illegal immigration is overwhelmingly a burden, not solely a burden.

feeder wrote:
That's right, ya only gotta check the brown ones, right? Right?

And with any good discussion on immigration someone always feels the need to inject race into the discussion for absolutely no benefit.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

Checking out someone =/= equal vetting 300 million people.

10 people apply for a service with information that looks valid.

How the hell are you going to determine one of them is lying without an investigation? How are you going to determine who to investigate without a process that goes through the information and tries to detect fraud? I.E. Given that we don't automatically know who is committing fraud just by looking at them, you have to develop a process to find them meaning you are vetting everyone who applies for a service to see if they are a valid applicant for said service.

How is this hard to understand?

So you think that we would spend over $100 billion would be spent in preventing fraud?

Given the costs of what would need to be done to do it? Yes...

Do you think the IRS investigates everyone who defrauds them? They often know for a fact they're being defrauded and don't bother because it's not worth the investigation. And these are cases where they are informed by someone fraud is occurring sometimes with hard evidence. Tens of thousands of Americans get away every year with with not paying the IRS money because it costs too much for the IRS to go after them, and you don't think the it's too expensive to go after millions? The IRS loses 2 to 3 hundred billion a year in tax fraud and only from a number of people miniscule compared to illegal immigrants.

So now you want to pretty much artificially create a new set of voters. If you cannot see the folly of this then nothing further can be said

I have no idea how you can get that from what I clarified. I don't care about a new set of voters. People who's job position depend on winning votes do, hence why the government is so sits on the fence about immigration. They won't throw them out, but they don't want to make citizens either and they do this for many reasons. Potential future voters is one of the reasons, so is economics and business interests. Right now it's just too profitable to keep them illegal, and neither party is really gunning at the moment for more voters (though I think the Republicans may surprise us in a decade or so).

Empirical evidence shows that illegal immigration is overwhelmingly a burden, not solely a burden.

Most economics experts consider illegals to be a net positive for the US economy, so no, empirical evidence in fact disagrees with you since how much the government pays out and how much immigrants themselves pay into it isn't the sole point on which their economic impact can be determined. Read the article above. Illegal workers have raised wages of citizen in complementary jobs by 10% and helped allow business to expand by providing cheap labor. They pay 15x into Social Security what they take out.** Almost all the money they earn stays in the US economy spent on consumer goods. The idea that all the illegals jobs would go to a citizen if we kicked the illegals out is pure folly*. The business could just not hire anyone (the more probably outcome) and the claim ignores the argument that illegal immigration has created jobs in some markets for US citizens.

*And this being the base of the claim that the government would lose money legalizing immigrants, makes that number silly in itself. Really the reason business' want illegals to stay illegal is because if they become legal their cheap labor goes away and so will those jobs. Yeah, we'd probably lose money legalizing immigrants (EDIT: As an immediate short term trade off, long term economics favor amnesty), but to claim those jobs will become jobs for legals is stupidly pointless.

**Really, more illegals is a potential solution to the looming SS crash.

And the burden? Considering no other economic factor is bad math and bad politics but I'll look at the number anyway. The Federal government alone spends 3.5 trillion dollars. Combined the states spend 1.89 trillion. 100 Billion in 5.39 Trillion is a little under 2%. The governments of our country lose about as much on rounding errors as they do on illegals. Further it's stupid, as always, to take the amount the government spends and proclaim every citizen is paying X, because that assumes every citizen pays the government the same amount in taxes which they obviously don't.

And with any good discussion on immigration someone always feels the need to inject race into the discussion for absolutely no benefit.

It's hard to look at the immigration debate as a whole without getting a racist vibe from some of the things that are said so inevitably, no matter what, if there's an immigration discussion someone's gonna jump in and call racism. Kind of like Godwin's Law but with racism instead of Nazis (though not much a difference there I guess)

It's hard to look at the immigration debate as a whole without getting a racist vibe from some of the things that are said so inevitably, no matter what, if there's an immigration discussion someone's gonna jump in and call racism. Kind of like Godwin's Law but with racism instead of Nazis (though not much a difference there I guess)

I'm waiting for that to happen on the Boehner thread

 Jihadin wrote:

It's hard to look at the immigration debate as a whole without getting a racist vibe from some of the things that are said so inevitably, no matter what, if there's an immigration discussion someone's gonna jump in and call racism. Kind of like Godwin's Law but with racism instead of Nazis (though not much a difference there I guess)

I'm waiting for that to happen on the Boehner thread

There are lots of articles that claim Republicans are especially hostile to Obama because he's black. Personally, outside of Birthers, I think that's stretching it but people do make the claim

 LordofHats wrote:
It's hard to look at the immigration debate as a whole without getting a racist vibe from some of the things that are said so inevitably, no matter what, if there's an immigration discussion someone's gonna jump in and call racism. Kind of like Godwin's Law but with racism instead of Nazis (though not much a difference there I guess)

The accusation of racism with no evidence, the last resort of someone with nothing else to say.

Good talking with you.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

The accusation of racism with no evidence, the last resort of someone with nothing else to say.

Good talking with you.

Oh please. I'm not calling you a racist, simply answering why that accusation always pops up. Might as well call it 'Hats Law' If there's a conversation predominantly about a specific ethnic group, the chances that someone will accuse someone else of racism slowly approaches 1

So since most conversations about illegal immigration tend to orient around Hispanics, eventually someone will accuse someone of being a racist and you and me are kind of the only ones talking about it right now so it had to be your or me

"I'm going to take one little thing you said, get upset by it and use that to ignore everything else that might actually show I'm incorrect"

"Good" is the wrong word.

 LordofHats wrote:
Oh please. I'm not calling you a racist, simply answering why that accusation always pops up. Might as well call it 'Hats Law' If there's a conversation predominantly about a specific ethnic group, the chances that someone will accuse someone else of racism slowly approaches 1

So since most conversations about illegal immigration tend to orient around Hispanics, eventually someone will accuse someone of being a racist and you and me are kind of the only ones talking about it right now so it had to be your or me

I don't recall mentioning a specific group

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

I don't recall mentioning a specific group

Yeah but it's an illegal immigration. The first thought in any talk of it for most people is 'hispanics' even if the word is never even uttered (I think I'm the only one who has mentioned it, but people think what they think).

Personally, people would be interested to know most illegals deported from Mexico are from Hong Kong. They go the Mexico because they're trying to get here and there's a lot of them. 100,000 at least actually make it here yearly. Then there's the tens of thousands from Eastern Europe. Illegal immigration from Asia is increasing over the years faster than immigration from South America. Maybe some day we'll have more illegal Asians in the US than Hispanics. We'll need to think up a whole new slew of racist immigrant jokes. That one about the Olympics just isn't gonna cut it anymore.

Dread....Lord is right Immigration talks breaks down into Race debate. Who's not racist, who appears to be racist, what group is not racist, what group is racist and the Lock hammer of Alpharius, actually Major Tom hits the thread

 Jihadin wrote:
Dread....Lord is right Immigration talks breaks down into Race debate.

Happens to debates about the urban poor too

And of course, back in the dark days of G-Baby, every debate was about how white people hate black people and how only white people can be racist and only black people can suffer from racism. Good times /sarcasm

Something something faecal matter.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Dread....Lord is right Immigration talks breaks down into Race debate.

Happens to debates about the urban poor too

And of course, back in the dark days of G-Baby, every debate was about how white people hate black people and how only white people can be racist and only black people can suffer from racism. Good times /sarcasm

Was I around for "G-Baby"?

 Jihadin wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Dread....Lord is right Immigration talks breaks down into Race debate.

Happens to debates about the urban poor too

And of course, back in the dark days of G-Baby, every debate was about how white people hate black people and how only white people can be racist and only black people can suffer from racism. Good times /sarcasm

Was I around for "G-Baby"?

No. He hit here right after I joined in like, 2008 I think. As you can imagine, he didn't stick around for long.

Whew. I was overseas stomping out some disgruntled local in cave up some mountain at that time frame