Like I said so far the main difference has been accountability and orders. The military was super peaceful last night but thats because that was their orders. If you go against military orders you get jailed for a super long time no questions asked.
But I agree if those orders were to be violent the soldiers would be. Lots of the soldiers in DC last night refused to even look at the protesters. One protester kept screaming look at us, acknowledge our humanity! And several of the soldiers refused to. Some didn’t. But I bet the ones who did wouldn’t mind orders to crack some skulls.
That said at least with some of the leadership its clear ideals are playing a part. No way the whitehouse isn’t asking them to crack skulls and do a huge show of force, and so far its clear they’re refusing to give those orders.
I don’t think this is right. Modern crowd control is at least a hundred years old and relates to police forces trying to maintain order at public gatherings.
I don’t think this is true, but on behalf of foreigners I’ll just say that we’re equally concerned about the soldiers who obey orders and attack/hurt/kill civilians.
The police in the USA are full of ex-military. It’s not only the surplus hardware from our recent overseas escapades that have made it to our police forces: It’s a lot of the violent young men too.
A few years back we hired a very aggressive cop in my town that had just returned from Iraq and started patrolling the mean streets of suburban NH as if he was in Fallujah. He got fired almost immediately, and the police chief sent a letter to residents apologizing for the behavior, (which wasn’t even violence just aggressive rudeness to white people, tailing “suspicious looking” people, etc.). The chief said that he said he took his oath to protect and serve the community very seriously, and that what the young cop was doing did not represent the values to protect and serve. I’m going to guess my police chief was one-in-a-million and that cop is working in some nearby town ramping up the bullshit with no repercussions. And there are probably a few hundred thousand just like him across the country.
I don’t really get why you reject personal responsibility for the armed forces but apply it to the police (who, presumably, are also trained and socialised to do the job they do). It seems related to that while soldiers might massacre Iraqis they’d never massacre Americans. I dunno, I may have misunderstood, but it pissed me off quite a bit. Anyway, I deleted a few potential replies and am feeling OK now.
Republicans don’t even need to try to rehabilitate their image–Democrats do it for them!
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that former defense secretary Jim Mattis’s criticism of President Trump for trying to deliberately divide Americans was “right on the money” and cited another Republican chief executive — George W. Bush — as an example of appropriate leadership.
I’ve seen both sides. A lot of soldiers become police here. I don’t know where they fall on the psycho range typically but my old neighbor who has done a few tours was tossing around the idea of becoming a cop because he felt he missed his time to get any schooling done and start a career still at his age. He is very level headed.
The one Joe Rogan episode I find myself recommending over and over is the one with the ex soldier who was a cop in Baltimore (?). Great episode. He was baffled by the lack of training in the police departments and their inability to know when they should be scared of someone or not.
If you read those threads your blood will start to boil again for all those ridiculous “he was no angel” arguments about Michael Brown, Trevor Martin and Tamil Rice having been targeted correctly because their behavior was threatening. Anyone remember how absurd Ikes got with the “a sidewalk is a lethal weapon” argument?
The protest in Prague was canceled by the organizer because it would be impossible to maintain social distancing (no shit) and would certainly surpass the 300 person limit for public demonstration given that 1,400 people signed up to attend.
Basically, we were encouraged to drop off signs, flowers, banners etc at the American embassy instead.
I wonder if people are going to defy that cancellation and protest anyway. I have nothing going on Saturday. I might go to the embassy and see what’s there in the afternoon.
Yeah that’s a pretty good episode of Joe Rogan. And let’s be really clear it’s episodes like this one, the Bernie one, and the Yang one that make me resist the notion that Joe Rogan is all bad and has done nothing of value.
Rogan has a very basic schtick - being contrarian and presenting it as being smart. This is not all bad, many widely accepted beliefs disintegrate on careful examination. But it is also the weakest form of being “smart”. The actually smart people tackle problems where there are no clear answers and develop the best solutions available. Seeking out stupid ideas to criticize is not that impressive.
