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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Yeah, there are a lot of nations where calling Obama the n-word would get you thrown in prison. Many of those have a much higher rating of well-being than the United States.
When free speech is used to justify being a bigot, your rules need revising. The truth is that our laws on freedom of speech have only served to empower this kind of evil.
edited 13th Jan '16 9:48:08 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"The problem is that freedom of speech is a protected right precisely in order to allow people to say things that are unpopular. Nor does banning explicit hate speech do much to actually stop people from expressing those opinions. They just move on to using dog whistles. They don't talk about Scary Black Men, they talk about "thugs", but otherwise the message is exactly the same.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.You're damned no matter what you do, in terms of legislation. Not protecting speech would just allow the government to legislate the most arbitrary things as hate speech, even if in reality its just political shot throwing. See it happen all the time elsewhere.
The issue is one of societal values, not law.
@Jack: I think you underestimate the rest of the world's capacity for bigotry and racism. Most of the world is Not So Different about that.
We're often louder about it, sure, but watch the refugee crisis and you'll find plenty of Europeans freaking out about refugees and trying to hand them off to other countries like they were our rednecks trying to get Latinos out of the country. Look at Asia and you can find any number of countries playing up xenophobia towards their neighbors. Look at Australia and you'll find plenty of complaining about immigrants taking their jobs, too. Go to any of these places, and you'll find plenty of Islamophobia.
They might not be all or even most of their populations, but neither are ours. However, they're still quite good at grabbing the headlines.
edited 14th Jan '16 4:42:10 AM by Balmung
...Huh. This is getting beyond satire now.
"Yup. That tasted purple."Governor Sydner send 30 members of the National Guard to help give water to a city of 100,000+
It's like he just can't be any less concerned
Maryland police: "We are opposed to any and all changes proposed to policing"
"Any and all changes." A top police union in Maryland opposes any reforms — full stop. It's an impressive comment, especially in a state where distrust of police is particularly high after Freddie Gray died last year from a spinal cord injury he suffered while in Baltimore police custody. (Other police groups have taken a milder approach, and back some of the measures in the reform package.)
The proposals, for what it's worth, seem pretty mild. Here's how reporter Erin Cox described some of the measures, which still must get approval from the legislature and governor, over at the Sun:
The group suggested cutting in half the time officers can wait before speaking to investigators, from 10 days to five. Under the task force's proposal, victims of police brutality would have a year to file a complaint — four times longer than under current law — and be guaranteed an investigation. And in addition to opening all police trial boards to public scrutiny, the group proposed striking down a state law that prevents citizens from serving on those boards.
Separately, the task force recommended new whistle-blower protections for officers who help internal investigations or raise concerns about colleagues' conduct.
The bill would also task the Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission with creating uniform standards for hiring, training, punishing, and helping police officers. And the plan would set funding to encourage cops to live in the communities they police, as well as create community programs in which officers and kids can interact, such as athletic leagues.
Mostly, the reforms take aim at protections currently written into Maryland law and police contracts, which unions like the Fraternal Order of Police push so strongly for. But the provisions written into these contracts and laws can make it very difficult to hold cops accountable for excessive use of force, abuse, or negligence — and Maryland provides a clear example for why.
In a 2015 report, Samuel Walker, a criminal justice expert from the University of Nebraska Omaha, analyzed the Baltimore Police Department's contract with the Fraternal Order of Police and the Maryland Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights. Here were three of his findings:
The Maryland Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights permits a 10-day delay in any interrogation of a police officer involved in a matter that could require discipline. As Walker notes, this conflicts with widely accepted best practices established by the Justice Department that require police officers to be interviewed as soon as possible following a shooting or use-of-force incident that causes an injury. It also gives officers more time to possibly conspire with others, including fellow cops, to fabricate a story.
Maryland law also requires that police officers be interrogated only by another sworn officer, the state attorney general, or a designee if requested by the governor. Walker writes that this largely blocks civilian oversight, which was pitched by the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing as one way to help build community trust toward police.
Maryland law prohibits police departments from firing, demoting, suspending without pay, or cutting the salaries of officers "solely" because they're placed on state lists that track officers "who have been found or alleged to have committed acts which bear on credibility, integrity, honesty, or other characteristics that would constitute exculpatory or impeachment evidence." Walker calls this "unbelievable," writing, "A police officer who has been determined to have performance problems related to 'credibility, integrity, or honesty' should not be retained by the department."
Some specifics of the law are unique to Maryland. But the general themes presented by these findings — mainly the big protections against investigations and oversight — are typical of policing laws and contracts all around the country. These are the types of measures that make it very difficult to even investigate a police officer for potential abuse.
Good old Governor Rick Snyder (R, Tea Party) is what happened.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"The police unions are feeling more and more like the right wing version of the teachers unions, so afraid of getting shat on and screwed over again that they've completely closed ranks and will protect abusers again and again in their quest to prevent any change.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranI had that same kind of realization too- like looking at police unions and their willingness to protect "bad apples", and said to myself, so that's why people hate (teacher's) unions (note, I think there's other, worse reasons why people don't like teacher's unions).
Except that unlike teachers, police officers are licensed to use deadly force and so defending those "bad applies" (which really more often is tied to an overall bad "culture") has way worse effects.
Flint residents are still being billed for the poisoned water they were told not to use
Insert remark from Alan Grayson saying the GOP's healthcare plan is to "get sick and dick quickly" here
The police union is the only union I oppose as a whole. At least with teacher's unions, they have to deal with other people's brats for 8 hours and who knows how they were brought up. Meanwhile, it's never a safer time to be a cop.
edited 14th Jan '16 8:16:38 AM by NoName999
For many of them I think it's not for fun, it's out of fear that if they let the racist kid shooters be gotten rid of then anyone and everyone will be gotten rid of. Same way that teachers unions will protect their own out of fear that if they let the dodgy ones be gotten rid of then anyone and everyone will be gotten rid of.
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They clearly don't know how statistics work.
X3 The police also have to deal with other people's brats, and they're genrally brats of all ages instead of a group of kids of which only some will be brats.
X4 Teachers bad appeals can carry out some pretty horrific abuse to.
edited 14th Jan '16 8:21:37 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

America is pretty much the only country with explicit protection of hate speech.
The phenomenon you have described has not occurred elsewhere in the world.
Ergo, your theory does not hold the empirical test. Would you like to explain these discrepancies?