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US Politics Minneapolis council members say they will "end" police department after Floyd death

@Vorpal although we can say that race relations in Britain are objectively speaking not as bad as in the US (fairly low bar, if you ask me), it would be a lie to say that there is no bad here at all. One can see a shift away from absolute commitment to demilitarised police organised on Peelian principles and towards more powerful and unrestricted state security services as the nonwhite and non-Christian population in Britain has rising since the end of World War II, and I don't think it's impossible to imagine an explanation for why the white voter here allowed, or wanted, that shift to happen.

Here I need to stop you - I question whether that "white voter" actually has any real say in either of the things you mention.
And the thing you complain of - the police force becoming less "Peelian" and more like the enforcer class of an authoritarian state, correlates with another trend in the modern world: that of government becoming less and less responsive or accountable to the ordinary citizens.

Once upon a time, nations were governed by laws. Laws which set limits on the actions of the government itself, as much as on the governed. Laws which were made or amended in a public process in an official legislature made up of democratically elected representatives of the people. Everything was debated and voted on, and who argued for what was a matter of public record. And the laws that prohibited you from doing certain things also protected you from having other people do those things to you. Once upon a time.

Now? States are increasingly ruled by regulations. Detailed rules made not by any parliament, but by un-elected faceless bureaucrats, who are generally not held accountable for anything.
And they won't even tell you what all of the regulations are, either - just wait and pounce on you if you unknowingly break any of them. But only if they want to. The regulations do not apply to everyone, after all. Especially not to the Important People.

Oh, they still keep Parliament around, of course. Along with the Royal Family. But that's not where any real decisions are made. Want to tell me I'm wrong about this?

Increasing immigration from the rest of the Commonwealth, and hostility to this from part of the native population? I think that's a distraction from the real issues here.
 

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minneapolis commission decided Wednesday to take more time to review a City Council amendment to dismantle the Police Department in the wake of George Floyd's death, ending the possibility of voters deciding the issue in November.

The Charter Commission had expressed concern that the process to change the city's charter was being rushed after Floyd died following an encounter with a Minneapolis police officer. Some commissioners said they were more concerned with making the right changes, rather than making them fast.

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The proposed amendment followed widespread criticism of law enforcement over Floyd's death. It would have replaced the Police Department with a "Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention" that backers said would take a more "holistic" approach. That approach wasn't fully defined.

And to the surprise of absolutely no one...
 



And to the surprise of absolutely no one...
New Rule: Look around, and make sure no one is recording you when you murder civilians.

Problem "fixed", council can give themselves another pay raise.

That is about as much credit that I can give to these people who historically do nothing to reign in their uniformed murdering fascists.
 
New Rule: Look around, and make sure no one is recording you when you murder civilians.

Problem "fixed", council can give themselves another pay raise.

That is about as much credit that I can give to these people who historically do nothing to reign in their uniformed murdering fascists.

Lord Vetinary had the right of it.

Burying things in committee is so much more elegant, cheap and all around less fussy than the whole boot to the face and oppression bruhaha and even more vicious than the Iron Maiden.
 



And to the surprise of absolutely no one...

Probably because the optics of a city getting more George Zimmermans would have been even worse. That and a lot of businesses said that their insurance premiums would skyrocket.
 
The following is an interesting perspective of a former cop on dehumanisation in general and also Grossman's killology mentioned above.

To overly briefly summarise, the police training is seemingly designed to drill in these things:
— Breaking the law should be as painful as possible to deter crime.
— The public might try to kill you at any time.
— Police are not part of the public.
One doesn't have to agree with any particular prescription to appreciate just how messed up the status quo is.
 
One doesn't have to agree with any particular prescription to appreciate just how messed up the status quo is.

Or appreciate the irony in the premise of putting officers through extensive training/conditioning/indoctrination to make them ready to potentially kill people, by making them believe that any rando on the street will just casually attempt to kill them as if it was the easiest thing in the world for a person to do.
 
Or appreciate the irony in the premise of putting officers through extensive training/conditioning/indoctrination to make them ready to potentially kill people, by making them believe that any rando on the street will just casually attempt to kill them as if it was the easiest thing in the world for a person to do.

A lot of training was overhauled during the 70s and 80s, when murder rates were going through the roof.
 
Or appreciate the irony in the premise of putting officers through extensive training/conditioning/indoctrination to make them ready to potentially kill people, by making them believe that any rando on the street will just casually attempt to kill them as if it was the easiest thing in the world for a person to do.

There are people in this world who seem to seriously believe exactly that. They really don't grasp the emotional aversion to murder that we'd consider normal.
 
Yes, people like Lord Invictus.

Eh. Lots of Internet Tough Guys who talk big about lining people they don't like up against a wall would gulp and turn pale if someone literally did that and handed them a loaded gun.
I prefer to think so, anyway.
 
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