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It's hardly inescapable. Police in the nordic countries acts and behaves more or less as a service branch of the government rather as a bully. But they have sev
by fsloth 6y ago
It's hardly inescapable. Police in the nordic countries acts and behaves more or less as a service branch of the government rather as a bully. But they have several years of training whereas US has only - what, a few months? I would say it's about skimping costs in the wrong place. US system is weird that in it's local search of frugal solutions it creates inefficient systems (like the medical sector).
- eganist 6y agoThe US has underfunded education and training at every fundamental step of life. It's the root of many of our problems.
- dm319 6y agoYes, underfunding education is the real root of the problem as it hampers the democratic process later on.
- da39a3ee 6y agoI would love to see better funding for education everywhere, But, no, that's not the real root of the problem. To see the real root of the problem, compare the USA to other western democracies such as in Europe. The structure of society is very different, the nature of poverty, the number of people living as an economic underclass, the acceptance in the USA that poor areas of cities will just be fucked and that's normal, the presence of a never-ending source of ignorant, and often racist, people from small-town America, and the presence of a never-ending source of guns. Of course a lot of the above is related to the lack of a strong belief across the voting population that government should protect and support the poorest in society. Things won't change in America until the above changes meaningfully. That would require the majority of the population to start thinking more like the liberal half, and there is no reason to think that that will happen any time soon.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago"the acceptance in the USA that poor areas of cities will just be fucked and that's normal" This is certainly not limited to the USA and you will readily find it in European democracies as well. A significant portion of French people have long since assumed that the banlieues are hopeless and there is little sense trying to improve them. In Eastern Europe you will find the same attitudes about Roma neighborhoods. Even in the Nordic countries which are held up as models of social equality, one finds the genesis of immigrant-heavy neighborhoods that, local people tell themselves, will forever have the problems that immigrant-heavy neighborhoods stereotypically have.
- vixen99 6y agoThat does not seem to be the case. The US spends more on education than any other country. $16,268 a year per student vs global average of $10,759". It's evident that money does not translate into better results. "According to the Washington thinktank the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), the average student in Singapore is 3.5 years ahead of her US counterpart in maths, 1.5 years ahead in reading and 2.5 in science. Children in countries as diverse as Canada, China, Estonia, Germany, Finland, Netherland, New Zealand and Singapore consistently outrank their US counterparts on the basics of education." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/07/us-education-spending-finland-south-korea https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/07/us-education...
- eganist 6y agoWhat's the money actually spent on? I'd argue that massive American football stadiums for grades 9-12 are perhaps incorrectly prioritized as compared to e.g. teachers.
- sethammons 6y agoA decade ago, I was a high school teacher in inner-city San Bernardino. At the time, the district had more administrative personnel than teachers. I’d wager that kind of spending surpasses stadiums.
- madengr 6y agoAgreed. I can’t reply to the child comment, but school infrastructure is usually funded with bonds (at least around here).
- amiga_500 6y agoYour banks writing $10,000 on a piece of paper, followed by some saying "this basic service costs $10,000" has no relation to value transactions in real countries.
- Broken_Hippo 6y agoThe problem with these sorts of averages is that it doesn't paint an accurate picture. There are schools with buildings in disrepair and schools without the same resources as other schools. And some have waaay more resources and spending per student than most schools. This is, in part, because a lot of states don't fund their schools by redistributing money across all schools. Instead, they rely on the school district's tax base - which means if you are in a poor neighborhood, you probably won't have as much funding. The same goes for being in an area that doesn't utilize the public schools as much as other areas (using private schools) - this decreases federal funding that is reliant on the number of children going to your school. All this means that it isn't really evident that money doesn't translate into better results. It isn't strictly funding, that is true - poverty seriously affects how well students can perform, for example - but it should be quite obvious that a school that cannot afford maintenance, proper computers for students to learn on, or enough staff so that classes are a manageable size can't really teach as well as a moderately funded school.
- mtts 6y agoWhat’s the situation with Nordic police and minorities? Because in the not really Nordic but reasonably civilized Netherlands the supposedly well educated police force is also a known hotbed of racism. Members of the police force in The Hague refer to themselves as “exterminators of Moroccan vermin”. Ethnic profiling is rampant and on at least one occasion a man of color was held down by a group of cops until he died as well. At least part of the problem is cops themselves.
- tokai 6y agoPolice in Denmark are bullies too. Breaking basic rights, assaulting citizens, covering for each other, lobbying against body cams and visible identifiers on cops like numbers, etc. Profiling is legal and used extensively.
- ficklepickle 6y agoUntil we realize that tribalism is human nature, it won't change. Racism is universal amongst humans. We are tribal primates, after all. We need to admit the biases exist and address them head-on. It stands to reason that having a bias against out groups once increased an individuals chance of survival. Now it is actively harming society. If we can't rise above our primitive impulses, we are doomed.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoI agree with what you're saying, but I think it's important to understand that the actual politics of reform pose a serious obstacle to admitting biases exist. If a police department produced a document saying "10% of our officers are moderately to severely racist, we're aiming to get that below 3%", they'd be eviscerated.
- bsanr2 6y agoBigotry is universal amongst humans. Racism is a systematic application of that bigotry such that it can operate on an "undesirable" population with or without the consent of the people supporting and maintaining that system. Racism is not a natural sociological phenomenon; it is a deliberate effort to twist the nature of human behavior and cognition towards cruel, cynical, violent, and destructive ends. We need to stop telling ourselves these lies about who we are and what we're capable of.
- eternalban 6y agoUS police have been receiving advanced training in Israel. The changes in tactics, gear, are all part of this training. This incident in MN with United States citizens getting shot at on their own porch is a much milder form of thuggery — it was not legal application of force — that Palestinians have been living with for decades. Karma. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joint-us-israel-police-and-law-enforcement-training https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joint-us-israel-police-...
- alexilliamson 6y agoWhat in the world. I had no idea. How did you learn about this?
- eternalban 6y agoThis has been covered fairly extensively in alternative press over the years.