OT: Sens Lounge CVI - The O & D Edition

[PoutineSp00nZ]

There are those who will take a valid point like "don't be racist or misogynistic or discriminatory" and stretch it to its extremes. That's always been the case and will always be the case, on both ends of the spectrum. All we can do is look at our own beliefs, challenge them early and often, and land in a place where we're comfortable that we're being good, kind and non-judgmental. Social media has taken a lot of the middle area out of discussions and rendered them black and white, right and wrong, good and evil. Life's more nuanced than that.

That said, if you can't look out at the world right now and say "Black people are being murdered by police at disproportionate rates for things that white people likely wouldn't be murdered for," you're part of the problem.

Oh for sure. I dont disagree with you there on all points.

Most people are rational and level headed, but often times smaller groups talk the loudest and thats what gets heard.

I guess the concern is society catering to that, and the pendulum swinging so far that personal freedom for the majority is lost.

Hopefully it doesn't come to that. But we clearly need to find solutions to the problems we have. Change is needed, not just to the extreme degree we see sometimes.

I think the fear of social media condemnation has a lot of people saying things they don't really believe.

 

[coladin]

Lol no one cares . They all live by a video clip, from the comforts of their couch, and become judge, jury, and executioner of everything that happens know, regardless of the context or the situation. I loved how the activist changed his tune, and true he has no training, but I don't think training would have changed much in any of those scenarios. Police are hated more than ever. They are abused more than ever, and will not think twice if someone is walking away from a loaded police weapon and reaches into a vehicle. Many will say that Trump started it, and maybe he did. But his validation of believing his own lies is widespread and basically accepted on social media know, especially on the left. This world is messed up and will only continue to worsen, especially in the U.S.

 

[PoutineSp00nZ]

Lol no one cares . They all live by a video clip, from the comforts of their couch, and become judge, jury, and executioner of everything that happens know, regardless of the context or the situation. I loved how the activist changed his tune, and true he has no training, but I don't think training would have changed much in any of those scenarios. Police are hated more than ever. They are abused more than ever, and will not think twice if someone is walking away from a loaded police weapon and reaches into a vehicle. Many will say that Trump started it, and maybe he did. But his validation of believing his own lies is widespread and basically accepted on social media know, especially on the left. This world is messed up and will only continue to worsen, especially in the U.S.

I think trump is a symptom of the problem more than the cause. He certainly isn't helping all that much though.

On one hand you can't blame cops for getting defensive. They have a tough job. And most of them aren't horrible people who murder. But its the kind of job where people need to be held to a higher standard, due to the power they have. And a lot of them don't want that either. Gotta find a balance somewhere.

I think part of the issue is calling it defund the police. Its more of a resource reallocation. Call it something positive, like empower social workers instead of something negative thats gunna get a lot of people up in arms.

 

[thinkwild]

Demilitarize the police would have been such a smarter slogan. But if police are still receiving War on Drugs money, this would be a good time to defund that I'd think.

Interesting that one successful example of defunding the police was I think in New Jersey where they apparently managed to obliterate the police union in the process and rebuild back from scratch getting community buy-in and becoming much more trusted by everyone. No bubbas were rehired. Would be interesting to see that model held up more and if anti-police union sentiments took hold on either side.

 

[Stylizer1]

I think trump is a symptom of the problem more than the cause. He certainly isn't helping all that much though.

On one hand you can't blame cops for getting defensive. They have a tough job. And most of them aren't horrible people who murder. But its the kind of job where people need to be held to a higher standard, due to the power they have. And a lot of them don't want that either. Gotta find a balance somewhere.

I think part of the issue is calling it defund the police. Its more of a resource reallocation. Call it something positive, like empower social workers instead of something negative thats gunna get a lot of people up in arms.

Rogan had a great discussion on this topic a month ago.

In this clip Nancy Panza who is a Professor of Psychology at Cal State Fullerton talks about the psychology of being a police officer and it's explained in a way most may not of contemplated. It's cued up to the part I found eye opening but suggest people listen to the whole thing because it explains a lot



In this clip Rogan speaks to a navy seal about how to train police which I think is equally important.

 

[jhutter]

Sure, there are people who hold extreme views, they are out there, but thats very different than people getting ostracized from society for not adhearing to the extreme views. Idk man, but if you've heard the "you are transphobic for personally not being interested in intimate relations" sentiment a lot, maybe your just hanging out in areas where more extreme views are espoused.

If you started watching infowars you'll probably hear lot about the lizard people taking over, doesn't mean the pendulum has swung too far towards that perspective (well, ok maybe thats a bad example as any degree of swinging towards lizard people is too much...)

Spend some time on Twitter and you'll begin to think that 99% of the public is comprised of the two extremes. It's really refreshing to see some of the discussion on here. Good job, everyone.

 

[Stylizer1]

Demilitarize the police would have been such a smarter slogan. But if police are still receiving War on Drugs money, this would be a good time to defund that I'd think.

Interesting that one successful example of defunding the police was I think in New Jersey where they apparently managed to obliterate the police union in the process and rebuild back from scratch getting community buy-in and becoming much more trusted by everyone. No bubbas were rehired. Would be interesting to see that model held up more and if anti-police union sentiments took hold on either side.

They shouldn't defund the police but reallocate the money for better training.

 

[Micklebot]

Demilitarize the police would have been such a smarter slogan. But if police are still receiving War on Drugs money, this would be a good time to defund that I'd think.

Interesting that one successful example of defunding the police was I think in New Jersey where they apparently managed to obliterate the police union in the process and rebuild back from scratch getting community buy-in and becoming much more trusted by everyone. No bubbas were rehired. Would be interesting to see that model held up more and if anti-police union sentiments took hold on either side.

Defund the police was such a terrible slogan, it doesn't do anything to describe the end goal or the rationale and steps proposed to get there, instead it evokes an emotional response from both sides. It's almost as though the people against the reform strategy got to decide the slogan and chose something easy to demonize.

Demilitarize the police is a great idea both in practice and in terms of its marketability, but doesn't really evoke the idea of what defund the police is about either...

There are so many really straight forward things the state's could do wrt police reform which would be a lot harder to be critical of, and you could probably sneak in some of the less contentious ideas that are core to defund the police along the way.

And omg does autocorrect ever like changing defund to refund...

 

[Stylizer1]

I think trump is a symptom of the problem more than the cause. He certainly isn't helping all that much though.

On one hand you can't blame cops for getting defensive. They have a tough job. And most of them aren't horrible people who murder. But its the kind of job where people need to be held to a higher standard, due to the power they have. And a lot of them don't want that either. Gotta find a balance somewhere.

I think part of the issue is calling it defund the police. Its more of a resource reallocation. Call it something positive, like empower social workers instead of something negative thats gunna get a lot of people up in arms.

It's easy to point the finger at Trump for everything but I mean Obama didn't do anything to combat the issue either.

 

[Micklebot]

They shouldn't defund the police but reallocate the money for better training.

Reallocating funds to better training could certainly help in some cases, but we are asking police to be experts in a lot of different fields as it is.

I think what they should do is take a long look at what tasks police really should be doing, and when appropriate hand some of the stuff they currently do over to more appropriate professions. If that results in them needing less funding, so be it.

 

[Micklebot]

It's easy to point the finger at Trump for everything but I mean Obama didn't do anything to combat the issue either.

This is getting a bit off topic, but they did create a task force on policing reform focused on establishing oversight and examined misconduct. They also entered into court binding consent decrees to correct misconduct discovered, some of which are still in force to my knowledge.

 

[thinkwild]

I remember this story a few years ago about an American policeman and his wife on vacation in Calgary. Apparently they were strolling through a park when a few enthusiastic students with a summer job to market the stampede came upon them and were trying to get them to buy tickets for the stampede. The policeman wrote a letter to the editor saying how foolish it was in Canada not to allow him to carry his gun. He felt scared and accosted. The paper actually had to write a follow up saying stop laughing, this was a real policeman. Imagine someone with that low a threshold being a cop with a gun. Might be some intense training to get past that.

Last year they were showing that scene in Toronto where the police had the mass killer in front of them. The killer was repeatedly pulling his cell phone out of his pocket as if it was a gun, presumably hoping for death by cop. But the Toronto cop recognized the situation, kept his cool, and took him into custody alive.

Trevor Noah had a funny story showing an American cop questioning some white guy standing beside his driver door and then the white kid reaches into the car to get his license out of the glove compartment while the cop just stood there. Imagine a black person doing that. Don’t even need to imagine it.

Training would probably be good. But you know when you send the incorrigibles to sensitivity training they usually make a joke out of it. I think Police chiefs need to be fired when they have racist cops that don’t meet standards expected. Why are all these bad cops getting hired and keeping their jobs? Seems something systemic at play if they cant be fired. But I guess its only teachers unions where that is a focus, not police unions.

 

[AchtzehnBaby]

Rogan had a great discussion on this topic a month ago.

In this clip Nancy Panza who is a Professor of Psychology at Cal State Fullerton talks about the psychology of being a police officer and it's explained in a way most may not of contemplated. It's cued up to the part I found eye opening but suggest people listen to the whole thing because it explains a lot



In this clip Rogan speaks to a navy seal about how to train police which I think is equally important.

Thanks again for posting these. That was really thought awakening. I wish I had the time to watch more Rogan.

 

[Stylizer1]

Thanks again for posting these. That was really thought awakening. I wish I had the time to watch more Rogan.

I once spoke to a retired NYC detective years ago when I went to a wedding in Atlanta and the reason cops do so much overtime is so they can retire after 20 years with a hefty pension. They don't realize it's detrimental to their health. The next night we sat and drank Hennessy and he told me about 9/11. One of the most intense conversations I've ever had.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

Spend some time on Twitter and you'll begin to think that 99% of the public is comprised of the two extremes. It's really refreshing to see some of the discussion on here. Good job, everyone.

That's what gets me...the extremes.

Like the riots. We all know human life is worth so much more than property....but that doesn't make property worthless. Anyone who has dealt with insurance companies know that you almost never get good value for a loss. Folks who spend a lifetime to own a small business or a homeowner putting everything they have into a home, only to see it burn to the ground have the right to feel hurt. It boggles my mind that you can't even discuss the matter with some people, and if you do, you're automatically labeled a fascist or *political name here*.

It's strange to me that people can't feel sorrow for both the loss of life and the loss of "stuff". It all comes down to the same thing...hurting innocent people and destroying lives.



Police services and whatever the hell they're doing in the US definitely needs a complete overhaul. First of all, they're hiring the wrong people. It feels like all they do is recruit the kids from the local high school football team who aren't cut out for college, and simply put different uniforms on them. And their unions are too powerful....but we DO need to keep unions around. All workers need rights as workers and a good process to protect those rights. At the same time, how do you control the power of unions (and the potential to buy a huge block of votes) while still making sure unions can do the function they were created to perform?

I just don't know anymore. As soon as we think we have one thing figured out, it's like opening a closet door and being buried by an avalanche of junk that is the next problem (or connections/fallout from the first problem). I have no idea anymore how to fix anything in society. It really feels beyond repair at this point. Too much power and wealth concentrated with too few people, a lack of education among many, and living in survival mode where many don't have the luxury to look beyond their own nose and vote/act in a way to help others. It's all such a mess.


Anyways, enough of my crazy ramblings. The whole thing is just too big for a simple mind like mine to figure out.

 

[DrakeAndJosh]

I don’t think the defund the police slogan is really that problematic. Look at a typical city budget, policing is overwhelmingly the largest expense the majority of the time, to an insane amount. Instead of spending billions on policing, reinvest that money on the things that cops are overwhelmingly dealing with yet unequipped to handle (homelessness, drug issues, mental health). Hire social workers, invest in housing, invest in drug rehabilitation. Of course there’s still a place for emergency response units, detectives, traffic cops, but I really don’t see a need for beat cops, whose main purpose seems to be harassing BIPOC, homeless people, mentally ill people, and drug addicts.

The answer isn’t spending more money on training and body cameras. It’s a complete overhaul of the entire system.

 

[DrakeAndJosh]

Also, as Canadians, we really need to stop comparing ourselves to America. Police brutality is a massive issue in Canada, it’s just only reported in the MSM when there are prominent issues happening in the states.

 

[Qward]

Chadwick Boseman passed away.
This year sucks....

 

[TheDebater]

Chadwick Boseman passed away.
This year sucks....

Was very sad to hear that. I am a huge fan of the Black Panther movie and especially Mr. Boseman's acting in that role, he played it wonderfully. I was really looking forward to the sequel, I assume it has not been filmed yet?

 

[DrEasy]

Demilitarize the police would have been such a smarter slogan. But if police are still receiving War on Drugs money, this would be a good time to defund that I'd think.

Interesting that one successful example of defunding the police was I think in New Jersey where they apparently managed to obliterate the police union in the process and rebuild back from scratch getting community buy-in and becoming much more trusted by everyone. No bubbas were rehired. Would be interesting to see that model held up more and if anti-police union sentiments took hold on either side.

Yes, and "Demilitarize everyone" would be even better. Just reduce the overall temperature in the USA. I know it's not gonna happen though...

 

[Icelevel]

Chadwick Boseman passed away.
This year sucks....

What? Man that is sad. 43 years old. I loved black panther. Was all excited about the kind of positive impact it could have. But also introduced me to Chadwick the actor and really dug him.
Rip

 

[Upgrayedd]

Spend some time on Twitter and you'll begin to think that 99% of the public is comprised of the two extremes. It's really refreshing to see some of the discussion on here. Good job, everyone.

Have to second this, strangely here on the Sens forum is the only place in my world where I'm seeing sensible and reasoned discussion on the 2 big matters at hand currently, alot of logical and critical thinking which is refreshing!

 

[Upgrayedd]

I don’t think the defund the police slogan is really that problematic. Look at a typical city budget, policing is overwhelmingly the largest expense the majority of the time, to an insane amount. Instead of spending billions on policing, reinvest that money on the things that cops are overwhelmingly dealing with yet unequipped to handle (homelessness, drug issues, mental health). Hire social workers, invest in housing, invest in drug rehabilitation. Of course there’s still a place for emergency response units, detectives, traffic cops, but I really don’t see a need for beat cops, whose main purpose seems to be harassing BIPOC, homeless people, mentally ill people, and drug addicts.

The answer isn’t spending more money on training and body cameras. It’s a complete overhaul of the entire system.

Have to agree...i think the move is to very slowly move some police funding directly into areas that will help reduce the vast majority of issues that they are called in for, also you slowly transistion those jobs to these other fields....mainly looking at mental health, education, housing and drugs...at last check these 3 or 4 things made up like 75%ish of all their calls. I think also making handguns illegal would help both the police and your average citizen immensely!

 

[Knave]

I don’t think the defund the police slogan is really that problematic. Look at a typical city budget, policing is overwhelmingly the largest expense the majority of the time, to an insane amount. Instead of spending billions on policing, reinvest that money on the things that cops are overwhelmingly dealing with yet unequipped to handle (homelessness, drug issues, mental health). Hire social workers, invest in housing, invest in drug rehabilitation. Of course there’s still a place for emergency response units, detectives, traffic cops, but I really don’t see a need for beat cops, whose main purpose seems to be harassing BIPOC, homeless people, mentally ill people, and drug addicts.

The answer isn’t spending more money on training and body cameras. It’s a complete overhaul of the entire system.

Social services is already double policing. Defund the police is a slogan by people who don't know what they're talking about and whose solutions would not solve anything. It's an idealist's thoughts laid bare and idealism doesn't work in the real world.

And just to be clear - you will find that policing is nowhere close to the largest budget item in many major American cities. I checked a few just to be sure. Housing services (public housing), social services, whatever they label it as is a bigger share in many of them and cutting policing won't make much of a dent in building new homes and providing all these services that people seem to think it will.

It seems most American cities fall between 10-25% of their budget going to police. The majority fall around 15% so 12% one city, 17% another. Ottawa is at 9.5%.

There's not as much to cut as people think there is. The social service budgets are already usually very large and comparable (if not much larger like say NYC).

 

[DrakeAndJosh]

Social services is already double policing. Defund the police is a slogan by people who don't know what they're talking about and whose solutions would not solve anything. It's an idealist's thoughts laid bare and idealism doesn't work in the real world.

And just to be clear - you will find that policing is nowhere close to the largest budget item in many major American cities. I checked a few just to be sure. Housing services (public housing), social services, whatever they label it as is a bigger share in many of them and cutting policing won't make much of a dent in building new homes and providing all these services that people seem to think it will.

It seems most American cities fall between 10-25% of their budget going to police. The majority fall around 15% so 12% one city, 17% another. Ottawa is at 9.5%.

There's not as much to cut as people think there is. The social service budgets are already usually very large and comparable (if not much larger like say NYC).

as an example of what property taxes actually go towards, here’s a breakdown for Toronto.



There’s plenty to cut if there’s less need for officers. Get rid of beat cops, have unarmed social workers respond to mental health and drug calls. That’s probably over half of what police are dealing with now, and as has been shown time and time again, they’re not good at doing it. That’s not their fault, these are complicated issues that cops aren’t properly trained to deal with.
It’s not idealistic to think we can eradicate poverty and better support mentally ill and drug addicted people. It should actually be the number one priority of our society.

There’s several studies that estimate the cost to ending homeless in Canada to be less than 50 billion over ten years. This isn’t that much, and if it were done, there would be far less need for the bloated police budgets we have now.