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They get away with that kind of crap all the time That's a big claim, can you cite an example or two of Pinkerton kicking down doors an assaulting the resident

They get away with that kind of crap all the time That's a big claim, can you cite an example or two of Pinkerton kicking down doors an assaulting the residents?

hinkley 3y ago
If you want to go back to the Labor movement, the Pinkertons practically committed war crimes. When people say the police evolved from a misanthropic idea of keeping the peace, they are specifically thinking of the Pinkertons as an example. Hired thugs meant to keep those in power in power, not to protect the citizenry.
- mikestew 3y ago
  If you want to go back to the Labor movement... I do not. I would like an example from within the last, say, 75 years. Regardless, you didn't even cite an example.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    I don’t know if the Pinkertons directly, but their competitors have caused a lot of problems during our eternal war in the Middle East. That’s a problem of using a private police force like an army, and while the US government and military paid the bills and made requests, the triggermen bear their share of the blame. You’re trying to make an extraordinary claims play to deflect this part of the conversation and I’m not biting. If you don’t know the sordid history of private armies go do your own research. Don’t imply other people are wrong because they aren’t spoon feeding you facts that people who employ tactics like you won’t hear even if offered in earnest. As many people I’m the civil rights and LGBT community are now saying, it’s not my job to educate you for free.
    - mikestew 3y ago
      I don’t know if the Pinkertons directly... Then you probably should not have responded to a question specifically asking for an example of Pinkerton kicking down doors. As you've clearly stated that you can't answer the question, but rather prefer to go off on some vaguely related tangent, then I will go on about my day.
      - hinkley 3y ago
        Dude, your whole energy is trying to shut down conversation and I already told you that’s not going to work. I only knew the Pinkertons still existed reading about problems in the second gulf war, in which they were listed amongst the problem children. I thought that name was retired a century ago, turns out not. What I don’t know is any role they played in Afghanistan. Bracketing your base of knowledge is not weakness, it’s disclosure. Also they all hire the same kind of people. Just because BP had the Deep Water fiasco doesn’t mean we forget about Exxon Valdez. There are no “good ones” just short memories and willful lack of imagination. This is not high school debate class. Act like a grownup.
        justinclift 3y ago
        > Act like a grownup. Dude... :(
  - cfeduke 3y ago
    > I would like an example from within the last, say, 75 years. Regardless, you didn't even cite an example. From Wikipedia[0]: "In 2020, Matthew Dolloff, an unlicensed security guard contracted through Pinkerton, shot and killed Lee Keltner, a conservative protestor in Denver, Colorado." Not exactly kicking down doors and assaulting the residents, I know, but hopefully we can agree that its adjacent. Of course the premise is that "they get away with it all of the time." If such examples existed, citing them would be contrary to the act of getting away with it. I'm not saying that I know for a fact that the Pinkertons or other such similar organizations "get away with it." But I know the United States has produced numerous examples of police officers getting away with it, and in my mind it's very possible that detective agencies do all manner of reprehensible things, especially to people in poverty, and get away with it. We're hearing about it in the case of a YouTuber because they have a platform. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency)
midjji 3y ago
Nothing that isn't stories by friends working for securitas (the main company for which pinkerton is a brand), or anecdotes. I am certain I could find a story like that just by googling for it, but real statistics are what are interesting, and I cant be bothered to research it. So let me instead ask, what evidence do you have that they are better than the police? because that is what you are arguing. In general you can become a security guard in a tiny fraction of the time it takes to become a police, and they have much lower requirements compared to becoming a police. Oh and by the way, most of them believe themselves to have the same powers and protections as police, that they do not does not matter much. The real shitheads get pruned pretty quickly, but the middling level assholes instead sometimes get shifted into one of the offbrands.
- pc86 3y ago
  They're not arguing that they're better than police, they're saying that police have protections other people don't, and those protections are the only reason they feel comfortable kicking doors down. You're very, very unlikely to find some private security guy willing to kick a door down for some trading cards, because pretty much the first time they're wrong about it they're going to jail. You don't get qualified immunity as private security. And that's an awfully long paragraph when "no" would have sufficed just fine.
  - midjji 3y ago
    Those protections are not the only reason the police are comfortable doing things like that, those protections are there, because the justice system could not get police to stop doing that regardless, and in extraordinarily rare cases its justified.
hinkley 3y ago
You’re trying to assert that people making claims based on some knowledge are wrong because they don’t have every fact, while claiming that you have no facts whatsoever. Do you not see how completely fucked up that is? We don’t talk to each other this way here. We shouldn’t talk to each other this way at all. The “gotcha” structure of debate will be the death of public discourse and with it, democracy, and with that the rule of law. When we live in Idiocracy it will substantially be because of people trolling “prove it” because it gets them out of thinking about uncomfortable things. But this response isn’t about you. Not even a little. It’s for the other people reading this tree of replies, for the next time someone is trying to shut down conversation.
- beej71 3y ago
  We're an evidence-based group. I think it's perfectly fine to ask for sources on a claim. Your parent poster didn't say the claim was wrong.

They get away with that kind of crap all the time That's a big claim, can you cite an example or two of Pinkerton kicking down doors an assaulting the residents?

hinkley 3y ago

If you want to go back to the Labor movement, the Pinkertons practically committed war crimes. When people say the police evolved from a misanthropic idea of keeping the peace, they are specifically thinking of the Pinkertons as an example. Hired thugs meant to keep those in power in power, not to protect the citizenry.

mikestew 3y ago
If you want to go back to the Labor movement... I do not. I would like an example from within the last, say, 75 years. Regardless, you didn't even cite an example.
- hinkley 3y ago
  I don’t know if the Pinkertons directly, but their competitors have caused a lot of problems during our eternal war in the Middle East. That’s a problem of using a private police force like an army, and while the US government and military paid the bills and made requests, the triggermen bear their share of the blame. You’re trying to make an extraordinary claims play to deflect this part of the conversation and I’m not biting. If you don’t know the sordid history of private armies go do your own research. Don’t imply other people are wrong because they aren’t spoon feeding you facts that people who employ tactics like you won’t hear even if offered in earnest. As many people I’m the civil rights and LGBT community are now saying, it’s not my job to educate you for free.
  - mikestew 3y ago
    I don’t know if the Pinkertons directly... Then you probably should not have responded to a question specifically asking for an example of Pinkerton kicking down doors. As you've clearly stated that you can't answer the question, but rather prefer to go off on some vaguely related tangent, then I will go on about my day.
    - hinkley 3y ago
      Dude, your whole energy is trying to shut down conversation and I already told you that’s not going to work. I only knew the Pinkertons still existed reading about problems in the second gulf war, in which they were listed amongst the problem children. I thought that name was retired a century ago, turns out not. What I don’t know is any role they played in Afghanistan. Bracketing your base of knowledge is not weakness, it’s disclosure. Also they all hire the same kind of people. Just because BP had the Deep Water fiasco doesn’t mean we forget about Exxon Valdez. There are no “good ones” just short memories and willful lack of imagination. This is not high school debate class. Act like a grownup.
      - justinclift 3y ago
        > Act like a grownup. Dude... :(
- cfeduke 3y ago
  > I would like an example from within the last, say, 75 years. Regardless, you didn't even cite an example. From Wikipedia[0]: "In 2020, Matthew Dolloff, an unlicensed security guard contracted through Pinkerton, shot and killed Lee Keltner, a conservative protestor in Denver, Colorado." Not exactly kicking down doors and assaulting the residents, I know, but hopefully we can agree that its adjacent. Of course the premise is that "they get away with it all of the time." If such examples existed, citing them would be contrary to the act of getting away with it. I'm not saying that I know for a fact that the Pinkertons or other such similar organizations "get away with it." But I know the United States has produced numerous examples of police officers getting away with it, and in my mind it's very possible that detective agencies do all manner of reprehensible things, especially to people in poverty, and get away with it. We're hearing about it in the case of a YouTuber because they have a platform. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency)

midjji 3y ago

Nothing that isn't stories by friends working for securitas (the main company for which pinkerton is a brand), or anecdotes. I am certain I could find a story like that just by googling for it, but real statistics are what are interesting, and I cant be bothered to research it. So let me instead ask, what evidence do you have that they are better than the police? because that is what you are arguing. In general you can become a security guard in a tiny fraction of the time it takes to become a police, and they have much lower requirements compared to becoming a police. Oh and by the way, most of them believe themselves to have the same powers and protections as police, that they do not does not matter much. The real shitheads get pruned pretty quickly, but the middling level assholes instead sometimes get shifted into one of the offbrands.

pc86 3y ago
They're not arguing that they're better than police, they're saying that police have protections other people don't, and those protections are the only reason they feel comfortable kicking doors down. You're very, very unlikely to find some private security guy willing to kick a door down for some trading cards, because pretty much the first time they're wrong about it they're going to jail. You don't get qualified immunity as private security. And that's an awfully long paragraph when "no" would have sufficed just fine.
- midjji 3y ago
  Those protections are not the only reason the police are comfortable doing things like that, those protections are there, because the justice system could not get police to stop doing that regardless, and in extraordinarily rare cases its justified.

hinkley 3y ago

You’re trying to assert that people making claims based on some knowledge are wrong because they don’t have every fact, while claiming that you have no facts whatsoever. Do you not see how completely fucked up that is? We don’t talk to each other this way here. We shouldn’t talk to each other this way at all. The “gotcha” structure of debate will be the death of public discourse and with it, democracy, and with that the rule of law. When we live in Idiocracy it will substantially be because of people trolling “prove it” because it gets them out of thinking about uncomfortable things. But this response isn’t about you. Not even a little. It’s for the other people reading this tree of replies, for the next time someone is trying to shut down conversation.

beej71 3y ago
We're an evidence-based group. I think it's perfectly fine to ask for sources on a claim. Your parent poster didn't say the claim was wrong.