4 ms·

As an American who has seen blasphemous spending on similar terms at all of my workplaces, I technically believe this, but I have trouble relating or visualizin

As an American who has seen blasphemous spending on similar terms at all of my workplaces, I technically believe this, but I have trouble relating or visualizing it. The whole thing is just so surreal in the context of law enforcement.

threwawasy1228 8y ago
Let me help you visualize it, in the midwest i live in a town of ~80k people. The local police department just spent money on buying a armored bearcat assault vehicle.[0] At the city council meetings we were assured that the vehicle would 'hopefully never' need to be used. And people fought back saying that the there is no need for this in our small town. There are literal gun ports out the sides of the thing like a tank. They ended up buying it, and now that they have spent massive amounts of money on it, they are probably going to find some excuse to use it. For reference they bought the Military warzone model not the SWAT model. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenco_BearCat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenco_BearCat
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  I think the glorification of the military they did during the Gulf wars to avoid a backlash like during Vietnam is backfiring now. Now everybody wants to get on the "military warrior" bandwagon. Cops don't just want to do boring police work to keep the peace, even in tech we now have "boot camps".
  - fouc 8y ago
    Bootcamps don't make me think of war/military though. It just makes me think of pushups and climbing over walls and crawling through mud under rope.
    - PeanutNore 8y ago
      And swabbing the latrines with a toothbrush
    - lostlogin 8y ago
      Where I am the term instantly conjours up visuals of Lycra clad men and women shouting to each other as they do push ups on my driveway while someone else changes the music to a different track every 30 seconds. Generally it’s 5.45am and I hate them.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    American police forces were paramilitary forces in several cases originally created largely as ethnic gangs to violently suppress other ethnic gangs, and have always been on a warrior model (and in many ways less restrained in use of force than the actual military); the problem does not stem from Gulf War propaganda. (OTOH, it has been exacerbated in the last couple decades by War on Terror propaganda, and by policies around military to law enforcement transfers of surplus equipment, complete with “use it or lose it” rules.)
    - mfoy_ 8y ago
      and all that sweet, sweet military surplus.
- jstarfish 8y ago
  The military version was likely cheaper than the SWAT model. There is a lot of surplus military hardware being bought up by local PDs.
  - mfoy_ 8y ago
    Which I see as a much larger problem... you're putting military hardware in the hands of local police officers.
    - lovehashbrowns 8y ago
      Right?! How that's used as any kind of justification seems insane to me. Oh, don't worry! It's surplus military equipment... ?! That alone is startling. It's infinitely worse when you consider that this military equipment will then be used to raid alleged drug dealers/users--AKA killing puppies, flashbanging babies, and stealing private property with no practical legal recourse. Even if it were ONLY ever used for 100% guilty drug users and dealers, it's in the name of a failed drug war.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  Yep, fellow Bloomingtonian (IN) here as well. I'm the one who stood in city council and asked 6 questions (and emailed as requested) regarding corruption of Mayor Hamilton and Police Chief Diekhoff. If you dig deeper, you also find things like how a sitting judge over criminal proceedings is also the police cheif's wife. It's moving the overton window that more violence is normalized alongside sliding military tools into civilian countermeasures. But hey, they brought out the bearcat for a "possible gun domestic disturbance". And the sliding window goes further to fascism.
- blattimwind 8y ago
  > Type: Non-military armored vehicle [picture of armored car with MG nest on the roof follows] Recognise newspeak when you see it.
vinceguidry 8y ago
Law enforcement is like the military in that they are organizations in charge of legitimate use of force. At the same time, they are bureaucracies and bureaucracies are hierarchical organizations in charge of translating public will and resources into quantifiable results. The hierarchical element means that the people at the top in charge of making overarching decisions that the entire bureaucracy then has to follow has very little visibility into the "facts on the ground". Even worse, they can have zero insight into how said problem space actually works because they're often political appointees and not people that rose from the ranks. This normally isn't that much of a problem in other types of endeavors. But when the use of legitimate force comes into play, decisions from 'on high' can be amazingly arbitrary from a public interest standpoint. The military generally solves this by making it so there aren't any purely political appointees in the chain of command. That, plus the fact that the military generally doesn't exercise force within the borders means that any problems can be hidden from public scrutiny. But law enforcement does not have this luxury.

threwawasy1228 8y ago

Let me help you visualize it, in the midwest i live in a town of ~80k people. The local police department just spent money on buying a armored bearcat assault vehicle.[0] At the city council meetings we were assured that the vehicle would 'hopefully never' need to be used. And people fought back saying that the there is no need for this in our small town. There are literal gun ports out the sides of the thing like a tank. They ended up buying it, and now that they have spent massive amounts of money on it, they are probably going to find some excuse to use it. For reference they bought the Military warzone model not the SWAT model. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenco_BearCat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenco_BearCat

maxxxxx 8y ago
I think the glorification of the military they did during the Gulf wars to avoid a backlash like during Vietnam is backfiring now. Now everybody wants to get on the "military warrior" bandwagon. Cops don't just want to do boring police work to keep the peace, even in tech we now have "boot camps".
- fouc 8y ago
  Bootcamps don't make me think of war/military though. It just makes me think of pushups and climbing over walls and crawling through mud under rope.
  - PeanutNore 8y ago
    And swabbing the latrines with a toothbrush
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    Where I am the term instantly conjours up visuals of Lycra clad men and women shouting to each other as they do push ups on my driveway while someone else changes the music to a different track every 30 seconds. Generally it’s 5.45am and I hate them.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  American police forces were paramilitary forces in several cases originally created largely as ethnic gangs to violently suppress other ethnic gangs, and have always been on a warrior model (and in many ways less restrained in use of force than the actual military); the problem does not stem from Gulf War propaganda. (OTOH, it has been exacerbated in the last couple decades by War on Terror propaganda, and by policies around military to law enforcement transfers of surplus equipment, complete with “use it or lose it” rules.)
  - mfoy_ 8y ago
    and all that sweet, sweet military surplus.
jstarfish 8y ago
The military version was likely cheaper than the SWAT model. There is a lot of surplus military hardware being bought up by local PDs.
- mfoy_ 8y ago
  Which I see as a much larger problem... you're putting military hardware in the hands of local police officers.
  - lovehashbrowns 8y ago
    Right?! How that's used as any kind of justification seems insane to me. Oh, don't worry! It's surplus military equipment... ?! That alone is startling. It's infinitely worse when you consider that this military equipment will then be used to raid alleged drug dealers/users--AKA killing puppies, flashbanging babies, and stealing private property with no practical legal recourse. Even if it were ONLY ever used for 100% guilty drug users and dealers, it's in the name of a failed drug war.
crankylinuxuser 8y ago
Yep, fellow Bloomingtonian (IN) here as well. I'm the one who stood in city council and asked 6 questions (and emailed as requested) regarding corruption of Mayor Hamilton and Police Chief Diekhoff. If you dig deeper, you also find things like how a sitting judge over criminal proceedings is also the police cheif's wife. It's moving the overton window that more violence is normalized alongside sliding military tools into civilian countermeasures. But hey, they brought out the bearcat for a "possible gun domestic disturbance". And the sliding window goes further to fascism.
blattimwind 8y ago
> Type: Non-military armored vehicle [picture of armored car with MG nest on the roof follows] Recognise newspeak when you see it.

vinceguidry 8y ago

Law enforcement is like the military in that they are organizations in charge of legitimate use of force. At the same time, they are bureaucracies and bureaucracies are hierarchical organizations in charge of translating public will and resources into quantifiable results. The hierarchical element means that the people at the top in charge of making overarching decisions that the entire bureaucracy then has to follow has very little visibility into the "facts on the ground". Even worse, they can have zero insight into how said problem space actually works because they're often political appointees and not people that rose from the ranks. This normally isn't that much of a problem in other types of endeavors. But when the use of legitimate force comes into play, decisions from 'on high' can be amazingly arbitrary from a public interest standpoint. The military generally solves this by making it so there aren't any purely political appointees in the chain of command. That, plus the fact that the military generally doesn't exercise force within the borders means that any problems can be hidden from public scrutiny. But law enforcement does not have this luxury.