iNow

yes

Today, Andrew Yang came and had an hour long remote chat with the employees at my work. It was super chill and laid back. He was in front of his laptop in what looked to be his bedroom, and he was talking about education, and healthcare, and freedom dividends. One of the attendees asked him if he’d consider running as a 3rd party candidate and he all but said, “oh hell no. That’d just lead to trump winning. I support Joe and will do what I can to help him get elected.” Another person asked what he plans to do next in politics and he said, “I’m much less interested in being a professional politician than I a. in helping improve the important things.” It was cool. He’s super down to earth.

You're raising a valid and sound / reasonable point overall, but the qualified immunity police enjoy due to the insane power the police unions have has prevented charges from being brought in 97% of all police killings between 2013 and 2019. I think maybe one cop went to jail during all those years. We've seen a few more go to jail this year in response to protests, but the number is still somewhere around 5 total. Hope you're not vacationing in Florida, mate 😎

This is not an accurate generalization. I always have my knife with me, and have guns in the home or when hunting / camping. Just can't have either at the airport or government building.

Okay, so basically item #3 above, with the new variable if “nighttime” included, and without the addition of police presence. Got it. Have you ever considered that some people are just scared of the dark and that this has little to do with actual danger? To be clear, I’m not suggesting things are perfectly safe nor that there aren’t real dangers, just that your claims are not as rooted in facts as you seem to think. You’re own biases are coloring your stance (and, in fairness, my biases do the same to me). Also, did you notice your Gallop survey didn’t ask how the presence of police... specifically the pretense of police with martial arts training and new non-lethal toys... would affect those feelings of being unsafe at nighttime walking down the street, yet that’s the argument you’re attempting to support with your survey link? Hell, sometimes I feel unsafe walking around the woods at night; and I promise you having a cop there wouldn’t make me feel any better. 😂 Then let me address this head on. More funding isn’t required for this. They already receive tons of funding and they could use it for more training in better ways already today. It doesn’t require new revenue injections to do what you propose. Hiring a sensei from the Cobra Kai dojo down the street to train some beat cops doesn’t require a ton of extra cash. Extra money also doesn’t equate to extra accountability, nor does extra training equate to extra discipline. It may help, but you’re building castles made of sand IMO if you think this will kill this weed at the root. I say this as a firm believer in the benefits of martial arts training and discipline. You’re advocating additional expenditures to already balance sheet bloated police departments, and that IMO is well intentioned, but misguided. If we’re to spend more money, the higher ROI very clearly comes from increased social services and engagement on the mental health side of this equation.

I know. It was an analogy. I’m stunningly bad at them so it’s unsurprising you missed it. The word you’re looking for is pedantic. Just to clarify, are you saying: 1) People CAN’T safely walk down the street without police present anywhere in all of the 50 US states 2) People CAN’T safely walk down the street without police present, but only in some areas 3) People FEEL LIKE they can’t walk safely down the street without police present anywhere in all of the 50 US states 4) People FEEL LIKE they can’t walk safely down the street without police present, but only in some areas 5) Violent crime data SUGGESTS people can’t walk down the street without police present anywhere in all of the 50 US states 6) Violent crime data SUGGESTS people can’t walk down the street without police present, but only in some areas 7) Something similar to one of the items above, but police presence isn’t the relevant variable Or... Something else? Asking because you said, “There will always be a need for police, especially in the current situation where citizens CAN'T safely walk down the street...” ... and you seemed to use it to argue that fewer police or fewer physical response options for them like new martial arts techniques or additional non lethal toys would lead to some sort of dystopian hellscape where we’re defending grandmas house with a spiked baseball bat and 50-cal.

You've shifted the goalposts, though. Your initial comment: "There will always be a need for police, especially in the current situation where citizens CAN'T safely walk down the street." You said, "citizens CAN'T safely walk down the street." When challenged, you submitted violent crime statistics. When challenged on those and asked what threshold of violent crime does/does not allow one to walk safely down a street, you shifted to "people FEEL unsafe." Okay, so what? Lots of racists "FEEL" unsafe when walking near a black person in the grocery store. That doesn't mean they ARE unsafe. Your original point was crap, and the updated moved goalposts version isn't much better. I agree with you that this is an unrealistic assumption. Where I think we may differ, however, is in the idea that every single cop in every single neighborhood and every single experience level needs to be armed and ready to deal with these folks at every second of every day, as opposed to specialized forces who are called in and only engaged in the rare situations where they're needed. I'm pretty sure police are not the primary thing preventing this from happening. Human nature is. Most humans are actually rather cooperative. There are clearly important exceptions, but a huge part of the reason our species has enjoyed success is our nature to help one another and our tendency to follow group norms. As I said, important (and regional) exceptions exist, but I struggle to accept your premise that police are the only thing stopping criminals from controlling others and driving us into a Mad Max dystopian hellscape. There. FTFY We seem to disagree in a fundamental way about human nature. This seems to drive most of our disagreements on the topic of policing. That's okay and you're clearly welcome to your opinion, just thought I'd point it out.

That doesn’t answer the question I asked. Violent crime rates are neither equivalent to not evidence of citizens being unable to walk safely down the street. Your hyperbole does a disservice to your otherwise reasonable points.

Wait, where is this happening exactly? I suspect the voices in your head mostly. There’s lots of opportunity to address inequality, but this is not the path... nor is this the thread. While I applaud your vigorous brother of the Marseillaise shtick, it’s totally off topic.

If I had to guess, his objective is to get himself banned so he can go tell others how bad of a forum this is / what a successful troll he is, etc. I also suspect I'll now receive his kind-hearted Jesus-guided loving words in response to this post here.

That's too bad. I appreciate correction. It helps me become better.

I don’t recall neg repping you, but responses like this really motivate me to more seriously consider doing so

I will surely be shedding copious tears into my pillow tonight thanks to your disapproval. Have you no decency, sir? On another note, for someone who picked the username “I do not care,” you sure do seem to care quite a bit about some rather trite trivial sh-tuff...

But not disgusting. Someone’s obviously just here to stir the pot and rake the muck

You mean incite, not insight. If you dislike the topic area, just ignore it. No need to impose your personal preferences on every other single member here. Many of us enjoy discussing political topics with other reasonable intelligent members. If that’s not you, just move along. Practically speaking, these topics always come up anyway, so at least by having a dedicated subforum for it we can avoid them polluting the more pure science threads where people like you may prefer to focus.

“[Time] is one of those concepts that is profoundly resistant to a simple definition." ~C. Sagan

Can we please just agree that the risk from knives is not equivalent to the risk from firearms and move on from this silly tangent? Yes. Not perfect, but much better

Yes. You’re so totally right. I’m finally busted. I’ve spent years and years setting up sock puppet accounts, one with nearly 5,000 posts and a positive rep of almost 1,600, then another with almost 22,000 posts and a positive rep of nearly 5,600... and I’ve setup these profiles ALL just so I could draw attention away from an idiot topic created by you... a user with nearly 3 whole posts... a user who joined this community like almost 2 hours ago. Damnit! Well done, Nancy Drew. Sherlock’s got nothing on you. I humbly submit to your clearly superior intellect. No offense, but go away moron. ✌️

Oh, good. I was hoping you’d just copy paste an entire website into one post with no commentary of your own. That’s so much better than actual discussion on an actual discussion forum. Bravo. Thanks for not failing to disappoint 👌

There are only two possible outcomes. Either he wins a 2nd term, or he claims it was rigged.

You only have a few minutes after submitting while you still can edit it. Also, since you're a brand new member, you may have some additional restrictions on your profile until you have more posts submitted. If it's urgent, just click the Report Post button on the top right and request a mod edit it for you

Yes, as a concept, of course it exists. The challenge is that it's roughly equivalent to the concept of awesomeness or attractiveness. There's no there there... as you agree, it differs from one person to the next. So, in a way, both you AND the OP are correct, but not as correct as me who's instead here saying... who cares?

She apparently hasn’t met the same Canadians I have. They’re a pretty unruly lot.

He launched yet another weapon of mass distraction