3 ms·

> Have we really reached this level of paranoia? Watching the news in the US from the UK, it's pretty clear that you (in the states) long ago reached the point

by dave2000 11y ago

> Have we really reached this level of paranoia? Watching the news in the US from the UK, it's pretty clear that you (in the states) long ago reached the point where it's not even paranoia any more. The police there killed more civilians in a few weeks of the year than the UK police have killed here in hundreds of years. They murder and lie about it; it's going to be interesting to see what happens now that it's routinely caught on camera, but to suggest that there's anything tin-foil-hat crazy about suggesting that the police might have done something wrong here which has resulted in someone's death betrays a naive (at best) comprehension of the situation there today.

specialp 11y ago
OK well I suppose then it is fair to say that on average 150 police a year die in the line of duty from criminal action, yet in the UK, here is a list of all that have died since 1900: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_police_officers_killed_in_the_line_of_duty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_police_officer... The police in the US face many more people with guns, so comparing it with the UK is absurd. I have lived in the UK it is a lot different there in regards to violent crime, and gun crime is basically unheard of. To put this in perspective there are more deaths per year in the NYPD than all of UK, Iceland, Japan and other countries that are used to make non equivalent comparisons. The police do indeed do wrong things sometimes, but to imply that the higher rate of citizen killings here is due to some police malfeasance or conspiracy is indeed tinfoil hat.
- dave2000 11y ago
  You can't explain away the massive discrepancy between the UK and the US simply by saying it's because the police face more people with guns, I'm afraid, although clearly the ridiculous US gun laws are implicated. There's simply no willingness to take the generally speaking white-cop-on-black-guy murder seriously; it doesn't require a conspiracy to explain it; the transition from slavery to lynching to today just hasn't been handled very well and therefore it's essentially still happening in slow motion. Sort that out and you'll address much of the problem. The other side of the coin is the whole US military industrial thing; the massive profits in being a provider to the military for their little ongoing adventures in muslim countries, and the sideline in providing much of the kit to police forces. This will only get worse as the divide between rich and poor continues to grow. There's no need for conspiracy theories to explain what's happening; no need to look for secret meetings; this is all out in the open and has been for decades.
dinkumthinkum 11y ago
Well, the US has far more citizens killing other citizens than than the UK, that should be kept in mind if you are on the verge of calling the police basically murderers. It's convenient that you don't consider how often police are murdered by citizens either. I don't think it's naive not to be a conspiracy theorist. Sure, there are some cases of police murders and other misconduct but it's hardly the norm and it is rather spurious to think every run-in with the police lurks the head of a grand conspiracy or a cover-up. When you watch the news in the US from the UK, keep in mind that many have a vested interest in telling a certain narrative.
- dave2000 11y ago
  The police ask to be police; I don't care about occupational hazards; I'm more concerned with people going to work and not coming back home because of a cops paranoia or attitude problem. And it's not interesting to me to determine which percentage of cops are guilty of misconduct; the problem is that the system as a whole is was not designed to protect justice or the citizens of the US but the people who run it and the people it was set up to protect (the wealthy) so you'd not expect it to do a very good job of protecting poor black people. Whether 1% or 60% of cops overstep the mark, murder, frame, torture etc? Not really a very interesting statistic. The various news sources in the UK have no reason to attack the US police; i'm not sure where you get that from; perhaps it's something you say when someone receives information you don't agree with or find damaging to your beliefs. Statistics; simply the number of dead; don't really lend themselves to much to "narratives".

specialp 11y ago

OK well I suppose then it is fair to say that on average 150 police a year die in the line of duty from criminal action, yet in the UK, here is a list of all that have died since 1900: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_police_officers_killed_in_the_line_of_duty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_police_officer... The police in the US face many more people with guns, so comparing it with the UK is absurd. I have lived in the UK it is a lot different there in regards to violent crime, and gun crime is basically unheard of. To put this in perspective there are more deaths per year in the NYPD than all of UK, Iceland, Japan and other countries that are used to make non equivalent comparisons. The police do indeed do wrong things sometimes, but to imply that the higher rate of citizen killings here is due to some police malfeasance or conspiracy is indeed tinfoil hat.

dave2000 11y ago
You can't explain away the massive discrepancy between the UK and the US simply by saying it's because the police face more people with guns, I'm afraid, although clearly the ridiculous US gun laws are implicated. There's simply no willingness to take the generally speaking white-cop-on-black-guy murder seriously; it doesn't require a conspiracy to explain it; the transition from slavery to lynching to today just hasn't been handled very well and therefore it's essentially still happening in slow motion. Sort that out and you'll address much of the problem. The other side of the coin is the whole US military industrial thing; the massive profits in being a provider to the military for their little ongoing adventures in muslim countries, and the sideline in providing much of the kit to police forces. This will only get worse as the divide between rich and poor continues to grow. There's no need for conspiracy theories to explain what's happening; no need to look for secret meetings; this is all out in the open and has been for decades.

dinkumthinkum 11y ago

Well, the US has far more citizens killing other citizens than than the UK, that should be kept in mind if you are on the verge of calling the police basically murderers. It's convenient that you don't consider how often police are murdered by citizens either. I don't think it's naive not to be a conspiracy theorist. Sure, there are some cases of police murders and other misconduct but it's hardly the norm and it is rather spurious to think every run-in with the police lurks the head of a grand conspiracy or a cover-up. When you watch the news in the US from the UK, keep in mind that many have a vested interest in telling a certain narrative.

dave2000 11y ago
The police ask to be police; I don't care about occupational hazards; I'm more concerned with people going to work and not coming back home because of a cops paranoia or attitude problem. And it's not interesting to me to determine which percentage of cops are guilty of misconduct; the problem is that the system as a whole is was not designed to protect justice or the citizens of the US but the people who run it and the people it was set up to protect (the wealthy) so you'd not expect it to do a very good job of protecting poor black people. Whether 1% or 60% of cops overstep the mark, murder, frame, torture etc? Not really a very interesting statistic. The various news sources in the UK have no reason to attack the US police; i'm not sure where you get that from; perhaps it's something you say when someone receives information you don't agree with or find damaging to your beliefs. Statistics; simply the number of dead; don't really lend themselves to much to "narratives".