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I don't think you'd be very excited to do your job either in the environment they're in. The BLM movement has been given far too much latitude to kick up dust o

by dolni 5y ago

I don't think you'd be very excited to do your job either in the environment they're in. The BLM movement has been given far too much latitude to kick up dust over police encounters that aren't worth getting bent out of shape about. Perhaps you could try to be a police officer and help out.

MattRix 5y ago
BLM has every right to “kick up dust” about police brutality. On the other hand, the police have a job they get paid way too much to do (just look at police budgets around the country!) so the least they could do is actually do it instead of acting like petulant children.
- pl0x 5y ago
  Yes BLM has this right, the police in America are racist.
tqi 5y ago
If they won't do their jobs then they should be fired.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  > If they won't do their jobs then they should be fired. No need: they are just quitting and getting other/better jobs. Civil servants (teachers and police, among others) aren't slaves after all, they have plenty of options.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- option_greek 5y ago
  And hire who? Its not like the job is very appealing in current environment. The risk of either dying on job or getting imprisoned due to domestic disturbance calls gone wrong is very high. Not to mention, a lot of cops not showing up situation seem to be in line with the demands of general public who instead want to mental health workers to show up for handling a variety of scenarios.
  - drdeca 5y ago
    Do other jobs of comparable death rates have higher pay? My understanding is that there are a number of jobs with higher death rates which aren't typically thought of as like, super "in the line of danger" jobs. Are those stats wrong? or maybe misleading by focusing on the wrong slice of the population? Or something like that? Or is the compensation for those jobs more than it is for police officers?
lkrubner 5y ago
If an organization has bad morale then it needs to change. It doesn't matter if the bad morale had some initial justification -- bad morale tends to be self-reinforcing. Even if the public now said very nice things about the police, it is unlikely that would improve the morale of the police. It's a bit like trying to pull a friend out of depression by saying nice things about them -- it doesn't work. A prolonged episode of bad morale also indicts the leadership -- such episodes are impossible without some official support. In the USA the model for turning things around is what the USA military managed to do in the ate 1970s, after the defeat in Vietnam. New leadership needs to be promoted, and the old leadership needs to be forced out. Then the rank-and-file must be given the choice, they can get their head in the game, or they can leave. That spirit of feeling sorry for oneself needs to are broken, and it can only be broken when top leadership is committed to breaking it. And at this point, police forces in the USA generally need the same kind of reforms that the USA military needed in the late 1970s. In particular, it was generally understood that the officer corp had been openly racist during the years of the Vietnam War, and after 1975 there was a growing commitment to transform the military into one of the most anti-racist organizations in the USA. This was achieved by the late 1980s, when the military transformed into an organization that then became the model for other Federal organizations that wanted to transform their internal cultures. That movement reached its apex General Colin Powell became the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1989 -- a moment which symbolized how much the military had transformed its culture. And now the USA police will need to under go the same transformation. To the extent that the police currently feel sorry for themselves, the current mood is entirely unsustainable.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  It is just not a good time to be a cop. The right says you aren't doing enough, the left says you are doing too much. It is demoralizing and the pay just isn't there while the job market for doing other things is really hot. Cities, their governments, and the people who live in them (who elect the people who run the cities) will have to figure out how to re-build their police departments, but don't expect the police officers themselves to come up with their own solutions. The USA lost in Vietnam, went on to have a very mixed record in the 1980s, got their confidence back in the early 90s, lost some of it in the mid to late 90s...and...well, the 00s taught the USA military again to be humble. Not a good template for municipal police departments.
deanCommie 5y ago
> kick up dust over police encounters that aren't worth getting bent out of shape about. When every major BLM-esque protest in the last several years was triggered by the death of a black person at the hands of the police, that characterization is "grossly offensive" Not saying you should be put on trial for it (like in the article's case). Just stating a fact. We could debate their tactics or the value of property damage to a social cause in terms of convincing moderates. But your presentation is pretty gross.

by dolni 5y ago

MattRix 5y ago

BLM has every right to “kick up dust” about police brutality. On the other hand, the police have a job they get paid way too much to do (just look at police budgets around the country!) so the least they could do is actually do it instead of acting like petulant children.

pl0x 5y ago
Yes BLM has this right, the police in America are racist.

tqi 5y ago

If they won't do their jobs then they should be fired.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
> If they won't do their jobs then they should be fired. No need: they are just quitting and getting other/better jobs. Civil servants (teachers and police, among others) aren't slaves after all, they have plenty of options.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
option_greek 5y ago
And hire who? Its not like the job is very appealing in current environment. The risk of either dying on job or getting imprisoned due to domestic disturbance calls gone wrong is very high. Not to mention, a lot of cops not showing up situation seem to be in line with the demands of general public who instead want to mental health workers to show up for handling a variety of scenarios.
- drdeca 5y ago
  Do other jobs of comparable death rates have higher pay? My understanding is that there are a number of jobs with higher death rates which aren't typically thought of as like, super "in the line of danger" jobs. Are those stats wrong? or maybe misleading by focusing on the wrong slice of the population? Or something like that? Or is the compensation for those jobs more than it is for police officers?

lkrubner 5y ago

If an organization has bad morale then it needs to change. It doesn't matter if the bad morale had some initial justification -- bad morale tends to be self-reinforcing. Even if the public now said very nice things about the police, it is unlikely that would improve the morale of the police. It's a bit like trying to pull a friend out of depression by saying nice things about them -- it doesn't work. A prolonged episode of bad morale also indicts the leadership -- such episodes are impossible without some official support. In the USA the model for turning things around is what the USA military managed to do in the ate 1970s, after the defeat in Vietnam. New leadership needs to be promoted, and the old leadership needs to be forced out. Then the rank-and-file must be given the choice, they can get their head in the game, or they can leave. That spirit of feeling sorry for oneself needs to are broken, and it can only be broken when top leadership is committed to breaking it. And at this point, police forces in the USA generally need the same kind of reforms that the USA military needed in the late 1970s. In particular, it was generally understood that the officer corp had been openly racist during the years of the Vietnam War, and after 1975 there was a growing commitment to transform the military into one of the most anti-racist organizations in the USA. This was achieved by the late 1980s, when the military transformed into an organization that then became the model for other Federal organizations that wanted to transform their internal cultures. That movement reached its apex General Colin Powell became the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1989 -- a moment which symbolized how much the military had transformed its culture. And now the USA police will need to under go the same transformation. To the extent that the police currently feel sorry for themselves, the current mood is entirely unsustainable.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
It is just not a good time to be a cop. The right says you aren't doing enough, the left says you are doing too much. It is demoralizing and the pay just isn't there while the job market for doing other things is really hot. Cities, their governments, and the people who live in them (who elect the people who run the cities) will have to figure out how to re-build their police departments, but don't expect the police officers themselves to come up with their own solutions. The USA lost in Vietnam, went on to have a very mixed record in the 1980s, got their confidence back in the early 90s, lost some of it in the mid to late 90s...and...well, the 00s taught the USA military again to be humble. Not a good template for municipal police departments.

deanCommie 5y ago

> kick up dust over police encounters that aren't worth getting bent out of shape about. When every major BLM-esque protest in the last several years was triggered by the death of a black person at the hands of the police, that characterization is "grossly offensive" Not saying you should be put on trial for it (like in the article's case). Just stating a fact. We could debate their tactics or the value of property damage to a social cause in terms of convincing moderates. But your presentation is pretty gross.