5 ms·

>However, Texans do have a tendency to blindly support anything the Military and Police want to do, while at the same time complaining about big government. I

>However, Texans do have a tendency to blindly support anything the Military and Police want to do, while at the same time complaining about big government. I did observe that. Why is that so? Historically was the police or sheriffs independent from the government?

nojvek 10y ago
I never understand why America spends an obscene amount of money to make technology to kill other people. Education is suffering, public transportation and healthcare is ridiculously behind western nations but military still gets an insane budget. I would like Google and Apple to really up their game on security.
- visarga 10y ago
  It's a consequence of the puritanical roots of US. It's a fetish for punishment.
  - sdoering 10y ago
    This does seem to me to be a little bit of a to easy explanation. Is it really so that this can be tied back to the founding roots of the country, when the setup of the population nowadays can be tied back to so many different influences from different parts of the world? I never understood the "fetish" of Hollywood for the lone ranger and bullet slinging revenge guy. Or the idea that guns are a valid protection. Non the less - there are other parts of the world that maybe have the same (or even higher) amounts of guns in private possession without the military and police fetish. I am even not sure, that this is a valid correlation. Private gun ownership and police/military spending/fetish.
    - ciaranm 10y ago
      From an outsider's perspective, nowhere comes close to the US for gun (and by extension, miltary/police) fetish. Wikipedia seems to back up my first thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_c...
- wwweston 10y ago
  It might be part and parcel with the American Dream. Believing that society is a meritocracy -- that your success or failure is primarily a function of the effort you put in (plus whatever sui generis "merit" you personally have) is another version of a just world. And if you have a just world, well, surely if you've commanded the attention of the police or ire of the military, you've done something to deserve it, right?
  - tr1ck5t3r 10y ago
    You forget the espionage aspect or extortion aspects. All technology is dual use. You can make your own fake cell towers for under £100 with a raspberrypi and a USB Software Defined Radio (SDR) adaptor that's got a range of 40metres. However its not just fake cell towers you can make, you can listen into calls made with wireless handsets that plug into landlines, obviously crack wifi, but you can also intercept and mess around with peoples air conditioning, lighting systems and central heating if these use radio frequency. The infrared remote controls need line of sight to interfere with devices, so someone appearing at your lounge window to switch TV channels is a bit obvious. Some instructions you may be interested in. This link even played Stevie Wonder's "I just called" to hacked mobiles, but you can download everyones messages, and other files from their smart phones now a days or infect their smart phone, again dual use! https://julianoliver.com/output/stealth-cell-tower https://julianoliver.com/output/stealth-cell-tower http://hackaday.com/2013/10/22/cracking-gsm-with-rtl-sdr-for-thirty-dollars/ http://hackaday.com/2013/10/22/cracking-gsm-with-rtl-sdr-for... Even back in 2008 its been going on, well actually I was first alerted to it in the 90's, when mobiles were just coming into existence, that person who alerted me is now the highest risk Cat A prison in the UK. http://hackaday.com/2008/02/15/shmoocon-2008-intercepting-gsm-traffic/ http://hackaday.com/2008/02/15/shmoocon-2008-intercepting-gs...
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Check the list of largest arm exporters and manufacturers the enlightened EU says hi.
  - fao_ 10y ago
    total budget of the EU on Military: $226.73 billion total nominal GDP: $16.97 trillion total budget of the US on Military: $3.97 trillion total nominal GDP: $18.56 trillion
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      Let the US pullout of NATO and see how the EU long the EU will remain with 226 bln. Most NATO members defense budgets and contribution are below NATO requirements. And again this has nothing to do with spending, France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands combined export more arms than the US while having approximately the same population. Overall the EU as a whole exports more arms per capita than the US, you might not like buying guns but you sure love selling them.
      - privateprofile 10y ago
        According to [1], the volume of arms exports in 2015 (at least) was lower for the countries you mentioned (a sum of USD 7755M for France + Germany + UK + Spain + Italy + Sweden + Netherlands) when compared to USD 10484M in the US. Another perspective would be to check the nationality of the largest weapons manufacturers, 6 US companies in the Top 10, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companies_by_arms_sales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companies_by_arms_sales [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#World.27s_largest_arms_exporters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#World.27s_larges...
    - randcraw 10y ago
      Source? Annual US military budget for 2016: 521.7 billion $ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_... Annual EU military budget for 2015: 203.143 billion Euros http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/Brief_10_Defence_spending.pdf http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/Brief_10_Defence_spen...
- chillingeffect 10y ago
  It's been the world hegemony since World War II. US protects the oil supply, particular factions of Islam, and Europe and sells outdated versions of our weapons to foreign countries. A peek at American military base locations will give a clue.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
pjc50 10y ago
It's strange, isn't it? I wouldn't discount the possibility of people simply failing to think it through and tribally repeating statements ("get your government hands off my medicare"). But historically there's been a faction that very preferred local law enforcement to Federal law enforcement, because of a particular set of interventions made about 50 years ago by the Feds in response to popular protests in the South.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
It was never very uniform, but parts of Texas were quite violent in the post-Civil War period. Parts of the culture kind of got stuck there. The documentary about Todd Willingham goes into it at some depth. So far as the Federal government goes, Texas has an active secession movement. They don't seem very dangerous.
Pigo 10y ago
My experience here in Houston (Spring) is that the police will come down hard on people who are breaking laws regarding endangering others, moving large amounts of drugs, or general asshat'dness. But otherwise, they let stuff slide with maybe a stern lecture. So the public I'm familiar with trusts the law enforcement. Maybe I'm naive, but I've not witnessed abuse of power or Barney Fife'ness like I did in Ohio. When it comes to the military or anything coming from Washington, everyone's inner Dale Gribble comes out.

nojvek 10y ago

I never understand why America spends an obscene amount of money to make technology to kill other people. Education is suffering, public transportation and healthcare is ridiculously behind western nations but military still gets an insane budget. I would like Google and Apple to really up their game on security.

visarga 10y ago
It's a consequence of the puritanical roots of US. It's a fetish for punishment.
- sdoering 10y ago
  This does seem to me to be a little bit of a to easy explanation. Is it really so that this can be tied back to the founding roots of the country, when the setup of the population nowadays can be tied back to so many different influences from different parts of the world? I never understood the "fetish" of Hollywood for the lone ranger and bullet slinging revenge guy. Or the idea that guns are a valid protection. Non the less - there are other parts of the world that maybe have the same (or even higher) amounts of guns in private possession without the military and police fetish. I am even not sure, that this is a valid correlation. Private gun ownership and police/military spending/fetish.
  - ciaranm 10y ago
    From an outsider's perspective, nowhere comes close to the US for gun (and by extension, miltary/police) fetish. Wikipedia seems to back up my first thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_c...
wwweston 10y ago
It might be part and parcel with the American Dream. Believing that society is a meritocracy -- that your success or failure is primarily a function of the effort you put in (plus whatever sui generis "merit" you personally have) is another version of a just world. And if you have a just world, well, surely if you've commanded the attention of the police or ire of the military, you've done something to deserve it, right?
- tr1ck5t3r 10y ago
  You forget the espionage aspect or extortion aspects. All technology is dual use. You can make your own fake cell towers for under £100 with a raspberrypi and a USB Software Defined Radio (SDR) adaptor that's got a range of 40metres. However its not just fake cell towers you can make, you can listen into calls made with wireless handsets that plug into landlines, obviously crack wifi, but you can also intercept and mess around with peoples air conditioning, lighting systems and central heating if these use radio frequency. The infrared remote controls need line of sight to interfere with devices, so someone appearing at your lounge window to switch TV channels is a bit obvious. Some instructions you may be interested in. This link even played Stevie Wonder's "I just called" to hacked mobiles, but you can download everyones messages, and other files from their smart phones now a days or infect their smart phone, again dual use! https://julianoliver.com/output/stealth-cell-tower https://julianoliver.com/output/stealth-cell-tower http://hackaday.com/2013/10/22/cracking-gsm-with-rtl-sdr-for-thirty-dollars/ http://hackaday.com/2013/10/22/cracking-gsm-with-rtl-sdr-for... Even back in 2008 its been going on, well actually I was first alerted to it in the 90's, when mobiles were just coming into existence, that person who alerted me is now the highest risk Cat A prison in the UK. http://hackaday.com/2008/02/15/shmoocon-2008-intercepting-gsm-traffic/ http://hackaday.com/2008/02/15/shmoocon-2008-intercepting-gs...
dogma1138 10y ago
Check the list of largest arm exporters and manufacturers the enlightened EU says hi.
- fao_ 10y ago
  total budget of the EU on Military: $226.73 billion total nominal GDP: $16.97 trillion total budget of the US on Military: $3.97 trillion total nominal GDP: $18.56 trillion
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Let the US pullout of NATO and see how the EU long the EU will remain with 226 bln. Most NATO members defense budgets and contribution are below NATO requirements. And again this has nothing to do with spending, France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands combined export more arms than the US while having approximately the same population. Overall the EU as a whole exports more arms per capita than the US, you might not like buying guns but you sure love selling them.
    - privateprofile 10y ago
      According to [1], the volume of arms exports in 2015 (at least) was lower for the countries you mentioned (a sum of USD 7755M for France + Germany + UK + Spain + Italy + Sweden + Netherlands) when compared to USD 10484M in the US. Another perspective would be to check the nationality of the largest weapons manufacturers, 6 US companies in the Top 10, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companies_by_arms_sales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companies_by_arms_sales [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#World.27s_largest_arms_exporters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#World.27s_larges...
  - randcraw 10y ago
    Source? Annual US military budget for 2016: 521.7 billion $ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_... Annual EU military budget for 2015: 203.143 billion Euros http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/Brief_10_Defence_spending.pdf http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/Brief_10_Defence_spen...
chillingeffect 10y ago
It's been the world hegemony since World War II. US protects the oil supply, particular factions of Islam, and Europe and sells outdated versions of our weapons to foreign countries. A peek at American military base locations will give a clue.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

pjc50 10y ago

It's strange, isn't it? I wouldn't discount the possibility of people simply failing to think it through and tribally repeating statements ("get your government hands off my medicare"). But historically there's been a faction that very preferred local law enforcement to Federal law enforcement, because of a particular set of interventions made about 50 years ago by the Feds in response to popular protests in the South.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

It was never very uniform, but parts of Texas were quite violent in the post-Civil War period. Parts of the culture kind of got stuck there. The documentary about Todd Willingham goes into it at some depth. So far as the Federal government goes, Texas has an active secession movement. They don't seem very dangerous.

Pigo 10y ago

My experience here in Houston (Spring) is that the police will come down hard on people who are breaking laws regarding endangering others, moving large amounts of drugs, or general asshat'dness. But otherwise, they let stuff slide with maybe a stern lecture. So the public I'm familiar with trusts the law enforcement. Maybe I'm naive, but I've not witnessed abuse of power or Barney Fife'ness like I did in Ohio. When it comes to the military or anything coming from Washington, everyone's inner Dale Gribble comes out.