On Thu, 02 Jan 2014 06:06:06 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> That being said, to use a better anology.. the US has become about as
>> much of a police state, given the revelations of the NSA, and a lot of
>> other crap going on, as.. say.. An Oreo is a kind of "soft cookie". Its
>> both, at once, depressingly inaccurate, and a tad too close to
>> plausible, given the right.. environmental conditions.
> 
> Before Jim got his tantrum, he kind of missed my point.

Meh, you think that was a tantrum - it was just me saying "you're 
unreasonable and I'm not going to engage with you any more in this 
discussion because you piss me off because you refuse to listen to what 
I'm saying and resort to hyperbole and being unreasonable, and I don't 
have time for this."

But let's try this again and see if you can understand what I'm saying 
and respond to it in a reasonable manner rather than Godwining the 
discussion.

> It's not the individual actions, or their frequency, that give a vibe of
> a police-state-like system, it's the fact that they mostly can do it
> with impunity. Most of the abuses go unpunished, either because the
> authorities are unwilling to investigate or, in the worst case, because
> nothing illegal was actually done.

Give us some statistics that *prove* that most of the abuses go 
unpunished, Warp.  Because I live here, and I hear about abuses like 
this, but they *do* get punished.  But that's not newsworthy, so it's not 
reported in the media on a wide scale.

For example, here in Salt Lake City, we had a cop who was responsible for 
killing the guy who started shooting up a mall about a mile from where I 
live a few years ago.  Our neighbor was actually there when it happened.

This guy was regarded as a hero, because he stopped this murderer from 
killing more innocent people.

A couple months later, he was arrested for abusing his position as a 
police officer.  He is no longer on the force, and as I recall, he may 
even have ended up serving time for his offense.

> For example, as far as I understand (and please correct me if I'm
> wrong),
> but at least in some states it's actually completely legal for police
> officers to lie to suspects, and this is regularly abused eg. by traffic
> cops to try to make drivers incriminate themselves (often of traffic
> violations or other crimes they haven't actually committed.)

It is legal, but it's not as common as you seem to think.  I've actually 
asked cops (and have cops in my family) about this, and they have told me 
that while they are allowed to mislead a suspect, they rarely have to do 
it.

It's funny that you use traffic stops as an example, because for most 
cops, traffic stops are a nuisance - they have to do paperwork for each 
stop, regardless of whether a ticket is issued or not.  So unless there's 
another reason - or a clear violation of traffic laws - they'd rather not 
stop someone.  For example, on a stretch of I-80 in Nebraska, there's a 
*lot* of drug trafficking that goes on.  After dark, the highway patrol 
pulls people with out of state license plates over for incredibly minor 
infractions (I've been stopped two or three times on that stretch myself 
for things like failing to signal for 150 feet before changing lanes, or 
drifting out of my lane for a moment on a fairly winding section of 
freeway).

The purpose of the stops isn't to cite for the failure to signal long 
enough, but for the cop to get a chance to see if the car smells like 
pot.  Apparently these drug runners are kinda stupid, and are often 
high.  Pulling the motorist over lets them smell the inside of the car 
(when the window opens), and if it smells like weed, then they have 
probable cause for a search.

That's not *lying* per se, it's using the law to its full potential to 
crack down on drug trafficking.  It's apparently very effective.

> Time and again you can read stories about a cop abusing or injuring
> someone, or otherwise going well beyond the limits of what the situation
> had required, and get no penalty for it. Often it's not even
> investigated at all. In the most publicized cases it might get
> investigated, but even then no punishment is enacted, or the punishment
> is really light.
> 
> It's not the acts themselves per se, it's the reaction of the government
> to them.

You seem to think this is a daily or frequent occurrence here.  I'm 
trying to tell you that it's not - it does happen, sure, and it needs to 
be dealt with, but you make it sound like every other cop is doing this, 
and that simply isn't true.  It's a rare occurrence, and it ends up in 
the news *because* it's rare.

Do you now understand?

Jim

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