I had never heard of the Babylon Bee until this thread, but they pretty much nailed it right here: Athlete So Oppressed By America That She's Representing America In The Olympics
Look, this is not a hill I'm gonna die on. I may be wrong. I do recall the Pinkertons. I also recall that the very start of the police was to hunt down escaped slaves. I also think that Jocko Willink (and others like him) needs to be put in control of police training no matter which way it goes. But here's the thing- I don't cause shit. I don't go around stealing or starting fights. But even I have had abysmal interactions with the police. I've also had the misfortune to try to befriend one and found out what a rotten human being he really was. I've heard and seen police actions time and time again that were so wrong. And don't get me started on corrections officers. My mind is open to there being good cops. I trust Rip if he says the WF police have acted decently. But I've never personally interacted with a police officer who wasn't a total asshat. I see that as a function of who they serve-who hired them. They don't actually answer to us citizens. They answer to the politicians. And I think changing that might be a good way to reign in their power.
It's automatically a fraught thing. Pretending that someone has the right to control another's behavior. We shouldn't do it lightly. It should only be done for the protection of rights. Right now we have way too many wolves with that power and not enough sheep dogs. I'm not sure this is going to change under current voting circumstances because a lot of these people voting don't actually have a dog in the fight. I don't really give a shit what illegal immigrants and college students think. They aren't forming ties in my community. They aren't buying property and starting businesses and generally putting down roots here. But they get a say in this shit anyway. There's no way to hold people accountable under these circumstances. Never mind the enormous amounts of money in politics which dictates what the politicians do which then dictates what the cops do. We've all seen this as this pandemic has gone on. If the cops were privatized would Atlas Gym be fighting its legal battle? Would LA restaurants have had to watch as they closed up while the rich were hosting all kinds of parties?
More and more private police is taking a role, whether we agree with it or not. Unions and pensions are where the money is going which means that department after department is closing and shifting the burden. Camden, Sacramento, Millbrea. Good luck getting a cop to respond to a burglary call. Same here. The other day when I went to the corner store the lady had closed it up because some shit went down and she got hurt. She was waiting on the cops while still bleeding because the ambulance wouldn't come till the cops cleared them and the cops hadn't shown up yet even though the precinct is in walking distance. I had to drive down to the precinct (cuz it's hot and I'm lazy) and bitch at them to come see about it. Yet, the neighborhood association pays a security company to patrol the neighborhood. Guess whose patrol car I see more often? I see no way in which my current safety situation is improved by the police. Or hers. This scenario is repeated in neighborhoods everywhere. More and more it's the private firms taking care of people's needs. When Whole Foods came to Jackson (not that I'm a fan but it was a big deal to win the contract) guess where they went? To the Highland Village area where the security is. South Jackson which relies on the police hasn't seen a new grocery store in over a decade and the ones that were there have left. It's practically a wasteland of payday loan places and small corner stores with short Indian men behind glass. So no, I'm not sure that privatization is the answer but I don't think "holding politicians accountable" is possible even with civic engagement. I don't think we can out-money the corporations to pull the political loyalty back to us.
I had never heard of the Babylon Bee until this thread, but they pretty much nailed it right here: Athlete So Oppressed By America That She's Representing America In The Olympics
You don't need the Babylon Bee when you have actual reality.
https://media.gab.com/system/media_a...2cabf96c04.mp4
https://i.imgur.com/PQ6UyRA.jpeg
Teacher Bullies Student
https://media.patriots.win/post/y45dtYQN.png
https://media.patriots.win/post/5nJNJBBB.png
https://i.imgur.com/aKIskmT.jpeg
So the answer would be: Yes, the police are armed.
In hindsight, I've been using the wrong term, you're not living in a Police State, you're living in a Nanny State. However, there are a lot of overlap between the two, so sometimes it's hard at first look to see the difference. I guess the biggest difference, is the Nanny State promises to protect you from yourself, where the Police State just tells you what to do.
Not covid-related, but Dr Kendrick's latest blog post includes reference to a new open access paper by Katherine Flegal that may be of interest to some.
The obesity wars and the education of a researcher: A personal account
"We also found that overweight was associated with slightly but significantly fewer deaths than normal weight. A quick glance at the literature suggested that our findings about overweight were not particularly unusual. We were unprepared for the firestorm that followed."
Probably Dr Gold's most important speech to date a must listen. At the end there is a sit down discussion. About 36 minutes in Dr Gold describes in detail her arrest by the FBI.
Dr. Gold: Awaken
Agreed that many people think NZ is a nanny state (though I think the term is rather vague). I'm not sure how much overlap there is between a police state and a nanny state, but of course that gets down to semantics.
To me police state makes me think of examples like 1984, Nazi Germany, Pinochet Chile etc. I would characterize as the use of force to retain power. IMO, the ideas of some in the US about re-education camps for Trump supporters would be an example of Police State action.
To me a nanny state is a consequence of the welfare state (which New Zealand absolutely is). Well intentioned bureaucrats look at the health budget and costs and start putting more and more guidance and restriction on things like tobacco, alcohol and healthy food (at silly types of exercise). I would characterize as the "we know better than you (or the public is too stupid to make good decisions without our help)".
[QUOTE=cmdrfunk;1817434]We're just full on soviet russia at this point.
1. https://media.patriots.win/post/ENOBhShJ.png
2. NSA Whistleblower Reveals To Tucker Carlson That Biden Admin Spying On His Communications | ZeroHedge
[quote]
"Yesterday we heard from a whistleblower within the US government, who reached out to warn us that the NSA (National Security Agency) has been monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air," said Carlson.
"The whistleblower, who is in a position to know, repeated back to us information about a story that we are working on, that could have only come directly from my texts and emails. There's no other possible source for that information, period. The NSA captured that information without our knowledge, and did it for political reasons.
The Biden administration is spying on is. We have confirmed that. This morning we filed a FOIA request asking for all information that the NSA and other agencies have gathered about this show."
Folk have been wire tapping your communications since the phone line was introduced.
Friends of the State are free to commit whatever crimes without penalty.
Enemies of the State (you) are spied on and hunted down.
A Brief History of Surveillance in America
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History
| Smithsonian Magazine