Not a bar, but plays one on TV - 2017-02-23

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12:24 AM

@nitsua60 would that apply to, say, modern police officers' guns?

@JoelHarmon At the risk of (a) getting into politically-fraught areas, and (b) speaking well beyond my depth, yes. If you draw a firearm, you are threatening lethal force. I don't think you should be doing that unless your intent is to kill or to make someone flee. (And I don't think "make/allow someone to flee" really figures into current law enforcement practice....)

@nitsua60 so I'd say your "designed to do" is far closer to correct than "capable of doing"

@JoelHarmon I suggest you look into the guidelines for police drawing their firearms. It usually involves some phrase along the lines of "reasonable expectation the officer is facing a threat which may require deadly force."

@nitsua60 You're right, I did blunder into politics there. My intention was more that cops use them typically more as a show of force and a threat statistically way more than actually attempting to hurt someone with them. Alas, I'm blundering again and should drop the thread.

@BESW My understanding is threat level N+1; if you have a gun, they can have theirs pointed at you; if you point at them, they can shoot

@JoelHarmon NAB?

@JoelHarmon actually, maybe not. It's akin to the bear standing up and roaring and baring teeth, right?

12:29 AM

@nitsua60 perhaps later. I'm off to grab food now

@nitsua60 in a sense, yes.

@nitsua60 more or less, yeah

It's a show of force intended to change behavior. But that display only has teeth (groan!) because the threat is valid.

← 11 messages moved from RPG General Chat

:35616939 Enjoy!

12:30 AM

← 2 messages moved from RPG General Chat

@BESW I think the problem, in many jurisdictions, lies with the practice, not the policy. Of course, this is all hearsay on my part: I live in an area with one (1) police officer. Andrew, his name is. And I've got his cell-phone number, because he wants everyone to have it, and he mostly does presentations at the grade school and issues speeding tickets and helps out whenever there's a fire/rescue call. And busts kids smoking pot behind the tennis courts.

There's not much of a community-relations problem between my police force and my community, that is.

Very much so.

Though especially in America the policy is usually vague and is unique to each jurisdiction.

There's rarely anything so clear or formal as Joel's N+1 concept.

It usually boils down to "the discretion of the officer based on his/her sense of their own safety and the safety of others."

@BESW That's a new one to me, but I'm not terribly well-informed in this area.

I personally think it boils down to individuals and the community they are in

in some communities there isn't a huge issue with what the police are doing, and in others they most definitely do have some issues

Our community isn't too worried about getting shot by the police, we're just generally not confident they'll be much help.

12:40 AM

yeaaahhh......

yeesh.

I have gotten stories of some either shady or incompetent behavior on the part of the police here

not confidence inspiring that

but it is still a step or two better than people getting shot a lot

It's so weird hearing people talk about this stuff - around here, confidence in the police force is engrained at an early age.

well, the U.S.A has a really fragmented system for police

@Miniman yeah -- it's really frustrating and saddening to hear about how corrosive things have gotten between the public and the police in some parts of the USA

12:46 AM

we have some stuff that might be the same in every State/Territory, but then each State/Territory/city has a different police force, and different internal structures, and,... it's kinda a mess honestly

and it doesn't help when it at least looks like the Police just cover up or blow off mistakes made by individual members

The US police force is... not, broadly speaking, in touch with the Peelian Principles.

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IE, the kind of mistakes that would put anyone else in jail, or lose them their job, or something along those lines

@BESW I'd give you 100 stars for that one if I could -- it's something that's come to mind several times for me. it's triply frustrating because of having to deal with the whole "law and order!" crowd who JDGI on this stuff

@Miniman Is it broadly understood to be justified confidence among critical-thinking adults?

@nitsua60 No idea. It's something we're deliberately taught as kids, and I for one have never been given much reason to question it.

12:53 AM

@Miniman That second part is the important part. I, for example, am routinely given reason to question some US policing. Generally it's the corpse of a black man.

"without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws" this,.. confuses and annoys me, please tell me this doesn't mean blind acceptance of laws even if they are actually unjust

@trogdor That's exactly what it means.

that is stupid

I straight up hate that

The idea is that the police can't usurp the rest of the government.

The police, theoretically, should administer the law impartially.

12:55 AM

@BESW I get that idea, per se, but it strikes me that they could do as much harm with that as good

@nitsua60 yeah -- there are lots of reasons to question parts of US policing. the bodycount being only one

They're citizen employees of the government, subject to the same laws as everyone else.

@trogdor Peelian policing principles assume that the judiciary is doing its job in checking anything unjust that the lege puts in

And thus, questioning or challenging the laws needs to go through the proper channels.

@BESW yes, but taken to literal extreme that idea has problems

12:56 AM

@BESW i.e. legislative action or court challenge

@BESW @Shalvenay fair enough then, put in that way at least

there are advantages to the police enforcing unjust laws scrupulously -- it means that the court system has a much clearer picture of what's actually going on

I do see how an officer could, say, decide they don't need a warrant because they "know the suspect did it" and that isn't cool

but I also see other interpretations of that idea that don't sit right

Just remember that police officers have all the same recourse for challenging injust laws that everyone else does.

exactly

12:59 AM

but as long as it isn't used as an excuse to do something downright wrong I think I can see the point you are making about it at least

also, laws can be defective for reasons that are much more banal than fundamental injustices

how do you meant that exactly?

they can be badly drafted in ways that create ambiguity for the courts, or even inadvertently contradict another law

(or interact with said other law in a broken way, for that matter)

ah ok, I see

the NetJets v. IRS case, for instance, was a result of the Treasury's airline excise tax regulations not being able to sanely deal with the neither-fish-nor-fowl that is a Part 91K fractional operator under the Federal Aviation Regulations

1:05 AM

One of the weirdest things I've learned about US law enforcement, is that sheriffs are elected. Do they need to have any experience or qualifications?

@Adeptus that is jurisdiction-dependent. I suspect that there are qualifications for the post in many places, but not all

another good example of bad drafting at work is the extant circuit split over the presence or absence of a comma in the FOIA

@Adeptus Wait, what? Elected from the existing police force, or from the general public, or what? And the same question with "from" replaced by "by".

@Miniman pretty sure it is not in fact closed to the local public for voting

@Miniman elected by the general public, from a variable-by-jurisidiction pool of potential candidates

if that is what you meant by the second set of questions

1:12 AM

Yikes.

America continues to surprise and frighten me.

4

it is, again, a fractured system

@Adeptus Most states require some kind of law-enforcement-related qualification for sheriffication, but it's up to the state.

A lot of this goes back to America's origins as a group of governments which wanted to be sovereign and didn't trust each other, but needed each other to avoid being re-colonised.

(I use that phrase with the utmost irony.)

it is ironic yes

to be fair, they did have those particular problems, they just still also happened to be really ironic problems

it goes double for the colonizing part

8

A: Why are Sheriffs elected in United States?

A Sheriff in the US is also usually a county or city official, which are traditionally elected. There are exceptions, however, the Sheriff of New York City is directly appointed by the mayor. The duties of the Sheriff are relatively static, and usually uncoupled from the efforts of appointed law...

Yeah, the whole Not-So-United States thing really seems to be the determining factor in US government.

1:18 AM

actually, I take it back -- NetJets v. IRS is even more confusing than I thought, now that I'm sitting down and reading the district court ruling

some good does come of it, at least in my opinion, but it might very well be outweighed by the bad

@Miniman See also: electoral college. "Us small states don't trust you big states, and none of us educated folks trust the unwashed rabble!"

the Electoral College struck me the first time I read about it as an antiquated system

not even a political statement, I think the Electoral College should have been,... retired,.. a while ago

Actually, that one we sort of have here too.

Mmm. The dissolution of the Electoral College would be a major weakening of states' sovereign influence over the Presidential election. For better or worse.

1:22 AM

@trogdor I'd be interested to hear what you would consider the advantages of it.

@BESW I get that, but as is, the way it works seems to be that not everyone's vote counts, due mostly I think to Gerrymandering

@Miniman States get to have different laws depending on what they think is right/just/ok which is both a good and bad thing, I would say

which is a thing that works on some political levels, at the very least

@trogdor Mmmm. Maybe it's the filtering effect of the media, but I can't recall hearing about good things that have come out of having inconsistent laws.

State sovereignty has a mitigating effect on federal stupidity by allowing choices to be made on a more local scale, customised to local realities, rather than trying to come up with one-size-fits-all for half a continent and a handful of ~~colonies~~ territories.

@Miniman there are consistent Federal laws though

@BESW exactly the point I was struggling to find in my brain

@BESW That makes sense, I guess - we have state governments as well, but with much more limited scope.

1:27 AM

we have waaaaay too many people with diverse opinions and local realities for me to think that ONLY having one set of laws for everyone is a good idea

it is good that we have federal laws, but those wouldn't be able to cover certain specific details very well if that was what they were trying to do

@trogdor exactly -- a small, highly urbanized state (say New Jersey) needs somewhat different laws re: game, parks, and the environment than a large, rural state such as Montana

yeah, and I do like that we have some much more general rules, killing people is illegal on a Federal level, that is good

less commonsense, more specifically tailored laws can't realistically exist on a federal level, while the things that most likely should be laws everywhere can

@trogdor depends on what they're tailored to

It's a deeply flawed system, but it's not entirely without merit.

I still stress that it isn't perfect, but I would see definite problems with absolutely no State Sovereignty

@Shalvenay yeah, that is fair

1:33 AM

So how does this apply to Guam? Is there a particular state whose laws you follow, or do you have your own?

Hahahahah.

we do actually have our own laws

So, Guam is overseen directly by the US Congress, to whom we send a single non-voting delegate (everybody else gets at least two who can vote).

we only need a few basic federal laws about cars (safety and emissions standards so that we don't have 50 different models of cars for 50 states, some basic laws regarding truth-in-sales, import/export laws, and laws against car theft ofc), but 95% of the laws and regs about planes are federal (state laws usually only come into play with questions like "can you land here?" and "can you build an airport here?")

Congress has, in its infinite derpdom, seen fit to allow us to have a local government and court system instead of the military governor we had through the '50s.

Congress can dissolve our local government and courts at any time they so desire and replace it with whatever they prefer.

1:36 AM

yeah, it isn't a right, it's a privilege, but we do still technically have our own laws

This is because a hundred years ago a horribly-racist-even-for-his-time Congressman pushed through something called the Insular Cases--which even he said should be temporary.

It's a Supreme Court ruling from 1901 saying that the US territories are inhabited by "alien races" who differ "in religion, customs, laws, methods of taxation and modes of thought" so much that "the administration of government and justice, according to Anglo-Saxon principles, may for a time be impossible."

Wow.

yep

Because of this, it's not un-Constitutional for the Federal government to make "large concessions" (ie, not giving those "alien races" full rights as citizens) "for a time, that, ultimately, our own theories may be carried out, and the blessings of a free government under the Constitution extended to them."

not to mention the option that they ignored, which was "how about they just maybe govern themselves?"

1:40 AM

A few years ago the Supreme Court upheld the Insular Cases as still applicable to all territories, including Guam, Puerto Rico, and American Samoa.

I am not saying that would be a good idea now ( we would definitely need time to prepare for such an outcome, and I don't know how much time that would take) but the fact that it was never considered at any time in the past,.. or even now at least by Congress,.... is disturbing

The sheer ridiculousness of insisting that the Chamorro people aren't yet assimilated into America to be full citizens under the Constitution is perhaps best demonstrated by pointing at the fact our straw poll for the presidential election regularly gets more voter turnout than any State's actual presidential election.

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yeah, and our votes count even less than theirs technically do

We could also mention that Guam and American Samoa have some of the highest per-capita military enlistment numbers in the country.

yep

1:48 AM

(Heck, Guam enthusiastically celebrates Thanksgiving for reasons I could never quite understand.)

well I think I get why honestly

Television.

it is a food holiday

well that too

but,.... food is a big deal here

Thanksgiving became a thing on Guam concurrent with the television becoming a common household appliance (and more imported food being available in stores off-base).

yes, there are conotations to Thanksgiving that Guam shouldn't be happy with, but,... neither should the rest of the US honestly

1:53 AM

Anyway, @Miniman: Guam has a governor, legislature, court system, etc. We have a non-voting Congressperson who is the only federal figure we can vote for (can't vote for president, don't have anybody in the senate). Our local government can make and repeal its own laws just like a big-boy state, but our constitution had to be approved by Congress and Congress can rip it up whenever they like.

And just for perspective, this is what it looks like when Congress is deciding what to do with us.

@BESW LOLWUT

I hope he got laughed off the floor for that remark

He later claimed he was joking.

I'd suggest that this is more of a scathing indictment of US politics in general than related to Guam in particular.

Well, yes.

Though that particular hearing was about dumping 8,000 marines on Guam, who'd been kicked off of a Japanese base for misbehavior, because Guam has no political clout to complain about it.

Ouch.

2:05 AM

but it is still related to us though, that is why it hurts so much, not to say it is related to us by being our fault, but that it effects us directly

The military gets to do pretty much whatever it likes with us.

yeah, what is the percentage of the island taken up by millitary bases, 30%?

During that particular incident the military was asking Japan to pay for the relocation, and added Guamanian infrastructure costs to the bill just so they'd have something to take out during negotiations.

(my point being, even 30% is actually a lot to just take like that)

But the anticipation of massive infrastructure renovation, and a gross overestimation of how many marines we'd actually get (overestimated for similar reasons), caused our economy to bubble and then burst.

2 hours later…

4:10 AM

... In conclusion, I apologize for inadvertently bringing politics into the stack. Without intending to expand on that, I'd like to offer some points of information/clarification (and one thought question I couldn't resist).

@BESW Regrettably, the source I have for the N+1 idea is my own personal rule of thumb, probably based off of something I heard/read when I was a kid/teen. A cursory search seems to indicate there's no clear standard, so it's probably the jurisdiction I was in at the time.

It's not something I've examined in a long time, not having many brushes with the law.

@Adeptus Thought question: It's likely that wherever you live, your politicians are elected. Do they need to have any experience or qualifications?

@nitsua60 your original statement was "to my thinking, any being that uses instruments capable of doing--nay, designed to do--lethal damage better be out to kill the party, or at least drive them off at fear for their lives.".
In poking at that, my first reaction was to think about examples of people who have potentially lethal instruments at their disposal but wouldn't immediately use it to solve any/all problems, and I then thought of the police. I then blurted it out without considering political aspects.

The assumption there is a generally non-violent populace and a police officer who prefers using the minimal amount of force in any given situation. Despite inflammatory news stories, I think these are overwhelmingly statistically true.

However, on reflection and in context of murderhoboing parties rather than peaceable civilians, police probably would end up feeling the need to defend themselves from the party.

@JoelHarmon -- I would use "designed to do" and skip "capable of doing" -- I've sat in the engineer's seat of a (parked) ET44AC locomotive, and that certainly qualifies as an instrument capable of doing lethal damage when in motion! (being oh ~190 tons and capable of doing Interstate speeds with ease)

Shalv, I think you used similar phrasing in chat. I would stick with "capable of doing", because I don't feel the need to defend my life from anyone capable of taking it. In any given two-lane road, the opposing traffic is more than capable of being lethal. However, nobody should react to that as if the other driver is actually trying to kill them.

and again, for that particular phrasing, I was just restating nitsua's original comment for context here

yeah

4:27 AM

Even simpler, I suppose, you can drown in a very small amount of water. Turns out this whole "living" thing is actually pretty hazardous.

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4:39 AM

@JoelHarmon [shoots his bathtub, claims self-defense]

lol

(BURNINATES thatched roof, claims nothing)

(pays reasonable fee)

And now, a bowl of kittens.

ooh, unrelated note, the site I am using to learn code has just referenced Ada Lovelace

mostly just put her name in a line of code, but whatever works

Nice.

Also unrelated: "Pile of Pandering" would be a good name for a boy band collaborative album.

@JoelHarmon Good point. But, they aren't put in charge of enforcing laws, potentially at gunpoint...

8 hours later…

12:33 PM

@BESW That rather reminded me of the song Title of the Song

3 hours later…

3:03 PM

@JoelHarmon Certainly--no worries. I didn't mind engaging on the topic, but I just suggested the NAB since a currently-charged political topic seemed like it might be worth split-streaming.

8 hours later…

10:45 PM

@nitsua60 NAB was certainly the right call there. However, I wished to express regret that I brought politics into this stack at all. It makes some people uncomfortable and tends to be divisive.

Besides, it's best done in person, with some choice beverages in hand.

And with that, I'm off.

11:27 PM

@JoelHarmon Didn't bother me, but thanks anyway. Have a nice evening.

11:42 PM

This community's very aware of the line between discussion and debate, and we're usually pretty good at staying on the non-confrontational side of some very hairy topics.

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Feb '1723

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