Kinda of Appropriate for the Things Going on Right Now

This is a terrible thread..
Terrible... Created to be provocative.. No other reason..

Funky_Catskills said:

This is a terrible thread..
Terrible... Created to be provocative.. No other reason..

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Lighten up Francis!!! Before you burst your ballon knot!!!!

this isn't a lighten up issue..

just my opinion..

Funky_Catskills said:

this isn't a lighten up issue..

just my opinion..

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Tend to agree. Why does the state of Connecticut have 11 MRAPs, free from the DoD? Why do cops in Greenwich CT wear fatigues? Why are 90% of SWAT activities across the country for non-violent consensual crimes?

Signs of a bigger problem.

Funky_Catskills said:

this isn't a lighten up issue..

just my opinion..

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It is not but the video is right on even though it is comedic.

ctenidae said:

Tend to agree. Why does the state of Connecticut have 11 MRAPs, free from the DoD? Why do cops in Greenwich CT wear fatigues? Why are 90% of SWAT activities across the country for non-violent consensual crimes?

Signs of a bigger problem.

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Agree, but part of the reason is the criminals were out gunning the cops.

Puck it said:

Agree, but part of the reason is the criminals were out gunning the cops.

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In the days of John Dillinger and one bank robbery in the past twenty years, yes. I don't mind the fire power, but driving heavily armored vehicles to complete search warrants and property seizures of individuals who don't own firearms and do not have a history of violence is just insane.

Tin said:

In the days of John Dillinger and one bank robbery in the past twenty years, yes. I don't mind the fire power, but driving heavily armored vehicles to complete search warrants and property seizures of individuals who don't own firearms and do not have a history of violence is just insane.

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Yup, but you never know.

Puck it said:

Yup, but you never know.

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I understand but with that logic they should also use them to catch people speeding and running stop signs in suburban neighbor hoods. Granted, they do come in handy during weather events. I guess for a few hundred dollars they are hard to pass up. I know the few Hummers my community police station purchased were bought between $500-600 at auction 2-3 years ago.

Tin said:

I understand but with that logic they should also use them to catch people speeding and running stop signs in suburban neighbor hoods. Granted, they do come in handy during weather events. I guess for a few hundred dollars they are hard to pass up. I know the few Hummers my community police station purchased were bought between $500-600 at auction 2-3 years ago.

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All valid points. Getting back the original point was if the two had just did what they were told. They would both be alive. Lawyer up after the fact to get your justice.

All these protesters are upset other the deaths. As they should be, but it was grand jury's not the police that decided not to indict. A jury of the victims peers deceided it.

Tin said:

I understand but with that logic they should also use them to catch people speeding and running stop signs in suburban neighbor hoods. Granted, they do come in handy during weather events. I guess for a few hundred dollars they are hard to pass up. I know the few Hummers my community police station purchased were bought between $500-600 at auction 2-3 years ago.

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I think there's a certain segment of our population that likes to "chest thump" and act manly...

Big guns make a bigger man to them.
I will almost always choose words.....

Puck it said:

All these protesters are upset other the deaths. As they should be, but it was grand jury's not the police that decided not to indict. A jury of the victims peers deceided it.

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The essential truth to the case at hand- These two cases, while sad and unfortunate, are not, according to two different grand juries, police brutality. Now, one might argue that we need to rethink or standards for what constitutes brutality, but, at least according to current standards as expressed by the juries, these two cases weren't it.

Should people be protesting the police? Probably, some, just to keep them honest. But really, it seems to me people need to be protesting each other, for allowing the situation to devolve as far as it has in the first place.

ctenidae said:

But really, it seems to me people need to be protesting each other, for allowing the situation to devolve as far as it has in the first place.

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+1

Funky_Catskills said:

this isn't a lighten up issue..

just my opinion..

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I agree...it runs so deep on so many levels, a ski message board cannot delve into it all. Like...maybe if gun control was a little more "control" cops wouldn't be afraid of what every Tom/Dick/Harry could be carrying....?

The Weds night before Thanksgiving there were a bunch of Ferguson protests. I had agreed to pick up my daughter on Tremont Street in Boston at 11pm. Pick her up right across from Park St. Station - have google maps open on phone to figure best way to get to 93No, city is so quiet...but as I get closer I hear sirens. Finally see 93No is blocked off yet I'm going that way.....crap...where now? All in a split second I'm thinking...and paused...Can I even go right with all the Boston one-way roads...??? and then this cop comes screaming yelling at me to go right...like spitting mad at me....like he thought I had bombs or something...I put my arms up in this "sorry, I'm an idiot and don't know where I'm going" look. So if he's THAT keyed up about a middle-aged lady in a non-stolen car on a dead night in the city...he must be trigger happy like hell if I'm black and he suspects I stole a pack of cigs from a liquor store. Bless all the innocent black people in this country, that's all that I can say. But I see the cops side too - with all the nastiness and guns out on the streets...they don't know who/what has one. Profiling..yeesh...don't get me started...yet we all do it day in and day out in our lives...so can't be too hypocritical... On and on...the issue spirals... But in the end "did the punishment fit the crime"...?????

I refuse to make this us against them..

I had a guy cancel a work meeting in NYC the other day because he was afraid of the protesting..
Really? that's just f'd up.... And a totally partisan response..

Funky_Catskills said:

I refuse to make this us against them..

I had a guy cancel a work meeting in NYC the other day because he was afraid of the protesting..
Really? that's just f'd up.... And a totally partisan response..

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From where I sit, Ferguson is the poster child for decades of failed public policy. In 1990, Ferguson was a fully functional working class inner suburb where most of the housing was owner-occupied multifamily with rental income covering some of the mortgage. Fast forward 25 years and it's a failed town. Fully 1/3 of the housing units are single mothers with most on public assistance. Section 8 housing collapsed the town and all those working class people moved out as their neighborhoods became nonviable.

I live next to New Bedford, Ma. The same thing has happened there. The only difference is that New Bedford has a tiny African American population and the local permanent underclass is mostly from the Azores Islands and is ethnically classified as white. Other than that, it' the same. Single mothers on public assistance living in Section 8 housing. Failed elementary schools. Very high crime rate. Drugs. Prostitution. Street crime. The police are very aggressive.

What we've been doing since the LBJ "Great Society" isn't working. We can't have a perverse safety net that rewards poor young women for getting pregnant and raising welfare children. I don't see this as a race problem as much as a permanent underclass problem. That's what needs to be fixed.

Funky_Catskills said:

I refuse to make this us against them..

I had a guy cancel a work meeting in NYC the other day because he was afraid of the protesting..
Really? that's just f'd up.... And a totally partisan response..

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Maybe you know the guy and it was a partisan response.

Just playing devil's advocate here, but maybe the guy didn't want to be anywhere near the protesting. I know I don't and I agree with what many people have been protesting about the past couple of weeks. I just don't want to be in a large angered crowd like what we've seen. Even when I was younger, attending protests or being anywhere near them is just not my thing. That includes rallies for sports teams after titles too. Too much potential for things to get out of hand with a large mob mentality like that.

Now, if my boss scheduled a meeting near one of the protests; I'd probably show up, but might voice my concern that maybe there's a better location at the moment.

YMMV

Geoff said:

What we've been doing since the LBJ "Great Society" isn't working. We can't have a perverse safety net that rewards poor young women for getting pregnant and raising welfare children. I don't see this as a race problem as much as a permanent underclass problem. That's what needs to be fixed.

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Agreed. Regardless of race, some kids are so screwed from the starting gate. You only know what you're taught. It's just a TV show, but The Wire, great as it is, just makes you throw your hands up at the hopelessness.

deadheadskier said:

Now, if my boss scheduled a meeting near one of the protests; I'd probably show up, but might voice my concern that maybe there's a better location at the moment.

YMMV

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really depends.. We do all our business in Midtown Manhattan. Media and Entertainment..

I don't bitch when I can't make it into NYC because of weather... Or I'm late to meetings because of a stupid One Direction concert in Times Square.. PArt of doing business there... Most everyone understands..

But at least in NYC there's a dozen different ways to get anywhere.. I can't speak for other cities...