So, cops do not enter your thought process. So?

Look. We know that criminals (few or many it may be, effective or not) ARE taken by the cops. It's the cops' job to make people follow the law and catch those that do not.

Just the idea to ask if we are afraid of criminals NOW, and make the answer apply to a scenario without cops is stupid, because cops DO have an interferance on criminals. Good or bad, they are part of how criminals are dealt with. It doesn't matter that it's not part of the thought prosess why we are not afraid of criminals.

When you remove the cops, it changes, and the answer is no longer valid in our new situation -- and defenately not for deciding if we should have this other situation at all.

Now if I read you right, you do not care about criminals and crime levels, since you will defend yourself anyway. For you, scenario B is of course better since you don't have to pay tax for something you can do yourself. It makes sense.

For most people, lesser crime is desirable and makes them feel more safe. We know that scenario A (cops) has a different impact on crime than scenario B (no cops), since cops interfere one way or the other with crime. If we insist that a persons feel of safety is affected by the amount of crime, we cannot say that the feel of safety in scenario A = scenario B.

That was my point, but of course then we must agree that people do care about crime levels in the first place.

Bah, I dunno, I'm tired. Did this make some sense at all? Still fail?

should have gotten more dirtbag cop needs to lose job

You would be the first one in line after being assaulted for no reason.

the announcer. "The manager confirms she ain't got no twenties!"

someone needs to fix the bug where threads get merged and a ton of posts I've already seen get marked as unread.

A few months ago me and my girlfriend were gonna park the car outside our apartment. But once she tried to back into the spot, the car got stuck in the snow. I was like "omg you women can't drive, you're useless" etc etc. Going forwards or backwards was impossible, the wheels just started spinning on what was surely a lot of ice under the snow.

Anyways, as a result half the car was in the middle of the road, making it impossible for anyone to pass us.

A few cars came, and I just had to tell them "sorry, can't get pass here, you have to turn around and go back".

But then a police car came. I was like "um sorry, you can't get pass here". They were like "WTF is this? Wou can't park in the middle of teh roadz!"

After I explained that the car was stuck and we were only trying to park properly, they came out and helped us push it into the parking spot. Then they wished us a good evening and drove away.

I'm sure the police saved us several hundred bucks, since we'd otherwise have to call some special service to help pull the car out.

So yeah, my happy police story. Really, I have never encountered any negative situation with the police. I always found them calm, polite and helping people.

Then again I have lived in the US (Los Angeles), and found the police to be a little more aggressive -- nothing serious, just a more general we-treat-you-like-a-dangerous-criminal-untill-we-know-otherwise-tone. No police have acted really unreasonable against me though.

For that, I have had much more uncomfortable situations with security personnel at airports, nightclubs etc. than the police.

just my 2c

EDIT: Wait, I have written in this thread before? I see one of my poasts above, but this was in a different and much longer thread, although also about the police. Were the two of them merged or something?

I've had a dentist lie to me about an old filling. I've been fortunate to never have needed major dental work. I have no respect for dentists.

My dad lives on a council estate in London and considering there is a police station nearby they hardly patrol the area. I was in one of the poshest parts of London the other week in the afternoon and 2 police cars were just driving up and down the road repeatedly despite there being huge public security cameras halfway down the street and it being a v.safe area.

I guess similar to Acism, only the rich are provided defense in statism too (-;

I'm really glad Elliot moved my post to the OP, making me look like a complete retard for starting a thread (that I didn't actually start). Wouldn't surprise me if it was intentional too.

You don't think a cop lying under OATH is worse, though? I was 17 at the time and truly shocked by the behavior. We had enough evidence to prove he was lying too, but my lawyer was an incompetent boob.

typical buckeye-smearing mods have got to go

why the new thread iyo elliot?

I've had cops forcibly take me into custody for consuming a liquid of my choice
they also were pretty ****ing clueless when doing their investigation. I was tripping balls on shrooms and watching the carpet blow like sand over their shoes, yet they did not find the huge amounts of other substances they don't like all over the place and in plain sight. They were sitting at a table with an empty baggie labeled 1/2 oz ffs.

However, the prosecutors were much lower on the moral totem pole than the cops IMO

People lie all the time, I don't know if cops are worse or not. I would imagine that, for people who are under oath a great deal, it starts to mean very little compared to the average layman.

I've had some awful experiences with cops, and some wonderful experiences, but I've had awful experiences with lots of professions (as well as some wonderful ones). My general feeling is that 90% of any profession--cops, doctors, hat salesmen, janitors--are incompetent boobs. With doctors and cops (and lawyers), the problem is their incompetence can do a great deal of harm, more so than with, say, hat salesmen and janitors.

LOL cop would have felt bad for taking a couple of tards to jail. Just stop the first car you see and get help pushing the car out. One bored cop helping you out of a silly spot does not clear them of wrongdoing.



yeah im pretty sure some stuff got moved and or merged.

You are correct here, and we should expect *more* from cops if we are going to give them the power they have. Much more. And I don't think incompetence is the same as being a fraud and a scumbag. The fact that they can go on the stand and counter a witness and have their word taken to be fact over someone else, even when it is logically impossible for their statement to be truth, bothers me a lot. We expect our mechanics to try to screw us, so we are on the lookout for it. We give cops an extra level of trust and there is plenty of evidence that shows that we shouldn't. So they do deserve more contempt even when they on average may act at a similar rate (I disagree here that it is similar, I think its far worse) of sleaziness than the rest of the population.

For more information about my situation- I was coming home from a bowling alley with 2 friends in my car in high school- was dropping one off at his house on the way to mine, then going home where the other left his car. I drove a 1991 Toyota Camry, not exactly the fastest car. I drop off the friend at his house, and turn onto another road (the intersection is at the apex of a hill). The road is 25mph and a commercial area. Late at night, there's not much traffic. A car that went straight on the light (that I'm now trailing) is flying down the road. I am getting up to speed on the road, and I see a cop car approaching me quickly from behind. I get pulled over 1/10th of a mile from the place I turned onto the road. Cop says he has been following me for a mile, and clocked me at 51. I highly doubt my car can even get going that fast. I may have been going 30, 35 tops at that point. He gives me a ticket, I go on my way. I have a witness in the car who confirms he said he followed me for a mile. In Ohio, they will suspend your license for 6 months if you are under 18 and get 2 tickets (got 1 for an accident when someone ran a red light and smashed into me, but no witnesses came forward). My dad had a legal service thing through work, so we used the free lawyer, who was horrible. He calls the cop ahead of time and he states again he followed me for a mile before pulling me over. Lawyer tells him we have proof I was only on the road for 1/10th of a mile. We get to court, with the friend who got dropped off, and my other friend as witnesses. Cop gets on the stand, and changes his story to say he was going the opposite way down the road as me, saw me blazing down the road, clocked me at 51, did a U-Turn in the 3 lane road, caught up to me and pulled me over, all within this 1/10th of a mile. My lawyer is too stupid to counter this obvious lie. Lawyer asks him if he remembers telling him a different story on the phone, cop has "no recollection".

Cop's word vs. 2 teens + evidence = case closed. Jackass cop passes us on the highway on the way home going 75 on a 55mph road.