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busdriver

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Posts posted by busdriver

  1. 1 hour ago, jazzdude said:
    3 hours ago, busdriver said:
    Of course "they" wouldn't be. 
    If you're seriously looking for a nice tidy answer, there isn't one.  Everything is a compromise of trade-offs. 

    I agree. Unfortunately, both Republicans and Democrats don't want to compromise, and both sides are happy to fuel the fire and polarize politics, largely on single issues to try and get a majority and push things through unilaterally.

    Of course they're intransigent jerks.  The government has too much power.

    My statement has nothing to do with political compromise.  The point is someone who views the government's role to make a better society will try to figure out which policy levers to pull to get closer to their vision of a better future without negative consequences.  That lever is a myth.  There are always negative consequences.

     

  2. 19 hours ago, jazzdude said:

    The challenge I see is that someone or some group will step in to fill that power gap, and they might not be accountable to the citizens.

    Of course "they" wouldn't be. 

    If you're seriously looking for a nice tidy answer, there isn't one.  Everything is a compromise of trade-offs. 

  3. 3 hours ago, jazzdude said:

    .....Stuff that supports my argument that your interaction with SF is very different than anyone's interaction with an offbase cop............

    Difference from a defensive student backed into a corner is that the defensive student has no authority ........ (though probably not the best instructional technique, especially if your student outranks you or is a commander). ...........

    Was a newly pinned on major 

    Copy, so a base cop is different than off base.  For what it's worth I have a substantial libertarian type bias against police, so I get your impulse.  

    It's the same mindset, and it's human nature.  In one case you have an additional "STF" option, the other you don't.  In both cases, STF is rarely the first choice.  So know the threat and react accordingly.

    Talking to the CC doesn't mean you have to be a dickhead (it almost never works anyway), and is easier if you're the same rank.  But, an FGO to FGO talk about something you noticed during an interaction with one of said commander's troops doesn't have to be a bad thing.  If you came to me to tell me one of my guys was being a little shit, I'd listen and file it away to see what may need to be done to mentor said troop (in this case that it's ok to be wrong if you fix it, but it's not ok to be an asshole).  If you came into my office ranting and demanding something, I'd tell you to fuck off and get out.

    Something I learned dealing with the Army (granted, as a LtCol and group deputy): don't argue with the enlisted troops, don't plead your case to a CGO.  As a LtCol, I talk to CCs/O5s and above.  If it's worth my time, it's worth theirs. 

  4. 3 hours ago, jazzdude said:

    .....Stuff that supports my argument that your interaction with SF is very different than anyone's interaction with an offbase cop............

    Difference from a defensive student backed into a corner is that the defensive student has no authority ........ (though probably not the best instructional technique, especially if your student outranks you or is a commander). ...........

    Was a newly pinned on major 

    Copy, so a base cop is different than off base.  For what it's worth I have a substantial libertarian type bias against police, so I get your impulse.  

    It's the same mindset, and it's human nature.  In one case you have an additional "STF" option, the other you don't.  In both cases, STF is rarely the first choice.  So know the threat and react accordingly.

    Talking to the CC doesn't mean you have to be a dickhead (it almost never works anyway), and is easier if you're the same rank.  But, an FGO to FGO talk about something you noticed during an interaction with one of said commander's troops doesn't have to be a bad thing.  If you came to me to tell me one of my guys was being a little shit, I'd listen and file it away to see what may need to be done to mentor said troop (in this case that it's ok to be wrong if you fix it, but it's not ok to be an asshole).  If you came into my office ranting and demanding something, I'd tell you to fuck off and get out.

    Something I learned dealing with the Army (granted, as a LtCol and group deputy): don't argue with the enlisted troops, don't plead your case to a CGO.  As a LtCol, I talk to CCs/O5s and above.  If it's worth my time, it's worth theirs. 

  5. 1 hour ago, jazzdude said:

     damages the relationship with the public, and can create distrust of the police in individuals. 

     I have the same expectation from the SrA ATC controller in tower/approach, so why should SF be held to a lower standard.

    OG had a call with the MSG (that got my situation resolved), and I'm sure crap rolled downhill.

    You aren't the public WRT a base cop.  It's different, and I think you know that.  Practically, the worst thing they're gonna do is waste your time and tell dad on you.

    That SrA cop isn't any different than a defensive student that gets backed into a corner and refuses to budge.  Know the threat, and react accordingly.

    If the OG got involved, then all you can do is assume it's taken care of until proven otherwise.  I took re-qual to mean you are coming off a staff gig and are an O4/O5.

  6. 1 hour ago, FLEA said:

    Some important questions I've been asking that I have not received answers on:

    1.) If 75-85% of the population needs inoculated to achieve herd immunity, how will we achieve it when 25% of the population is inellegible for vaccination due to age? 

    2.) If herd immunity relies on depriving a virus of eligible hosts of which to infect, how will we achieve it if even after vaccination a person remains an eligible host, albeit with vastly reduced symptoms? 

    If the vaccine doesn't actually stop the virus from spreading, it will still make an infected person less of a transmitter.  That has the effect of increasing the number of people needing vaccination to get to "herd immunity."  Which isn't stopping the virus, it's dropping the reproduction number below 1, so it eventually dies out.

    Considering there isn't any data that I'm aware of that actually pins down how transmissible a low grade infection or borderline asymptomatic infection is, well, I think point 1 is an educated guess.  People think "the experts" know all sorts of secret knowledge, when they're just modeling with lots of assumptions.  The models get better with data, with no data they have to use past experience to make a best guess.

  7. 48 minutes ago, Danger41 said:

    ...PPL....

    ....why not stack the deck to get the best candidates*

    I'm not going to watch the stupid video.  Based on comments thus far, the good general did a piss poor job of advocating for getting rid of PPL advantage.

    Logical argument for PPL: someone who's already a pilot obviously can already fly, that means they have a higher likelihood of getting through UPT.  Safer bet.

    Argument against: Everyone knows the policy, and prospective applicants who can afford it will spend the money to pad their resume (partial PPL, or all the way).  Couple problems: just getting a PPL isn't all that hard given enough time, I would contend that being an experienced pilot vs a brand new minted PPL are very different things.  The former should absolutely be given "credit" the latter is the USAF allowing the public (applicant) to fund it's screening program.  

     

  8. I got the vaccine.  I now want a shirt that proudly tells everyone I have it and they can fuck off.  Then I'll parade around in said T-shirt, no mask, and no pants.

    The last part is a lie.  I'm too much of a chickenshit to actually do that.  But I did think about it, so that's something right?

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  9. 4 minutes ago, Lawman said:

    There is very little in the typically referenced events that would be actual “victimless crimes.”

    The crime itself is still victimless and the result of a consenting adult being a consenting adult, the secondary effects are typically already crimes themselves.

    As a society we've waged war on the supply side of the drug question for decades, zero impact, shitloads of money spent, and the cartels have literal armies.  Our solution to the demand side is to just lock people up once their lives get shitty enough that they self destruct.  At what point do we stop doing the same thing over and over expecting a better outcome?

    If for no other reason than taking money and power away from cartels and stop throwing money away trying to outspend them.

  10. 36 minutes ago, Lawman said:

    Mandatory 2 officer patrol units, and more hours spent doing hand to hand combative/retention/ground drills. 

    They also suck at shooting.

     

    ETA:  Roland Fryer did a pretty exhaustive econometric deep dive into the racial disparities in police encounter outcomes.  The short version is there isn't a significant disparity between races in fatality rates that isn't explainable by non racist means.  There is a disparity in the rate at which officers use force below the lethal threshold.

  11. 12 hours ago, Buddy Spike said:

    This is a bit of a fallacy.  There are even fewer aviation crashes per year as a percentage of flight hours, should we therefore not have boldface and emergency procedures because the risk is small?  Of course not. Every officer should approach every interaction as if it could become a lethal encounter, because it absolutely can. Complacency kills.

    It's easy to throw stones from the cheap seats, but unless you've done it, you're not really speaking from a knowledgeable position. 

     

    I don't think I can make my first point in a way that you wouldn't see him as anything by a law-breaker.  So we'll have to agree to disagree.

    I don't really disagree with your points about training and people in general. My point is the overstated risk without a confidence boosting level of training to deal with the risk just leaves fear and an inability to think.  It's like that IP that tells you about all the shit that can kill you but doesn't give you any tools to avoid those things.

    My brother is a cop, I get the sport smashing of police in general is demoralizing.  I'm also well aware of how little time there is to process things, and quite frankly how crappy training shrinks that.

    The idea that criticism can only be levied from a former or current officer to another is nothing be a recipe for authoritarianism.

    So I'll pass on the ride along, I'm already well aware of how to hide to get caught up on paperwork.  It's basically what I do now.  

  12. 14 hours ago, Buddy Spike said:

    That's like saying "otherwise legally driving" when your BAC is above the limit. It is a very important point. 

    I can show you hundreds of examples of officers in this situation who hesitated and wound up dead or bleeding on the side of the road. Officer safety is a big deal. They have a right to go home after the end of the shift, and asking cops to sacrifice safety in the name of propping up criminals is ludicrous.  

    There are millions of police interactions that happen daily that you never hear about because they are uneventful and usually positive. The 0.01% make the news (in the most slanted way possible for ratings and a narrative that NEVER gets corrected when the facts come out) and you want to make it even more dangerous for law enforcement as a result (i.e. - removing qualified immunity, which is idiotic).  

    It's the same flawed logic as the "bAn AsSaULT rIfLeS" crowd after a psychopath shoots up a school with a handgun. 

    Point 1: The only way it would be relevant is if his intoxication level directly impacted his ability to comprehend what the officer was telling him.  Which is possible, but as yet not what I'm seeing here or elsewhere.  Otherwise, it's a non-sequitur.

    Point 2/3:  The threat to officers is something like 150-200ish killed in the line of duty a year, right?  So in the millions of officer interactions that happen in this country.....just like the threat of civilians getting killed by errant cops, the various sides of this argument overstate the severity of what is going on. 

    I agree the media malfeasance is gross.  That said, the overall crime rate has gone down a lot in the past couple decades, but the number of civilian deaths from officer involved altercations has not matched the decline.  So something is out of whack.  I'm not saying they're running around maliciously murdering people.

    The entire framing of the discussion (cops vs criminals, "sacrifice safety in the name of propping up criminals" or "I don't care if it's an 11 year old, I'm going home tonight!" ) guarantees problems.

    I don't think completely eliminating qualified immunity is a good idea.  However departments get away with terrible policy and practices, reference the SWAT raid that fucked up an infant when an officer lobbed a flash bang (which landed in the crib) instead of rolling it along the floor.  Officer acquitted.  Maybe that officer should have been acquitted if he was following his training.  But that technique is negligent, and that isn't news to people who actually know what they're doing.

    I do appreciate that policing in the country has come a long way since the days of the stake out squad.  That doesn't mean there isn't room to improve.  And yes, I do expect police officers to assume risk on behalf of the civilians they are sworn to serve.

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  13. 7 hours ago, Buddy Spike said:

    He was not legally armed. It is illegal to carry a firearm while under influence of drugs.

    Castile said he had a weapon and then reached for it despite being told not to.

    As I said, "but otherwise legally armed." 

    His weapon and his ID were co-located, which he expressed.  I went back and re-watched the video, for whatever reason I thought he had said that, but didn't see it.  

    I don't think he is guilty of murder.  I think he could have led that situation to a better outcome.  My personal opinion is as an armed agent of the state, that is his responsibility.  I understand that the law doesn't support my opinion, it is just my opinion.

    Castile clearly fucked up by not telling the cop where his wallet was located.  He could have done better to not get himself killed, but he is not an armed agent of the state.

    I get that it's a hard job and their life is potentially on the line, I get that demanding perfection is unrealistic.  I get that cops are not evil assholes trying to fuck up people's lives.  But they are armed agents of the state, they should have a higher level of responsibility. 

    Officer safety has been used as rationale for changes that help cops and not the public for a very long time.  I've seen the attitude among family and friends that are police officers.

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  14. 1 hour ago, Buddy Spike said:

    .....  He was armed, told the officer he was armed, and the officer told him not to reach for it.  .....

    ......He did it anyway.....

    ......Whether he was reaching for his ID or the weapon is obviously up for debate....

     ....But it is DUI, child endangerment and illegally carrying a weapon.

    ..... Get the actual training...  

    Think about what you posted for a second.  Assume Castile was a 100% honest, just high, but otherwise legally armed.  He told the officer he was armed and where the gun was located.

    Was the officer reasonable in the way he handled a legally armed citizen?  I would contend, no. 

    Smelling weed is not an indication that the dude is a violent junkie.  It's weed not PCP.

    The training is the problem.  And I'm well aware of what gets taught.

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  15. 23 minutes ago, pawnman said:

    kneeling on his windpipe?

    He was kneeling on the side of his neck not the windpipe, so half of a carotid choke.  I would guess the other side artery was likely restricted to some degree, but not fully since he knelt there for a long fucking time before he became unresponsive.

    Watch the Tony Timpa video.  Died the same way, no knee on neck.  The knee is a red herring, the confounding factors (for both cases, in my estimation) is a prone restraint and drug related physiology.  So not being able to breath is true, but it had nothing to do with the knee.

    Qualified immunity is a problem.  I'm not convinced just erasing it is a good idea, but it's something to look at that could allow better accountability of department policy within the current system.

    Having higher standards for police officers in general is warranted.  With that comes a need for more money not less however.  More training time requires more officers on the pay-role to cover the additional requirement.  Want higher caliber people?  Be prepared to pay them more.  Etc. etc.

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