<story><title>“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”</title><url>http://www.salon.com/2013/07/07/%E2%80%9Cwhy_did_you_shoot_me_i_was_reading_a_book_the_new_warrior_cop_is_out_of_control/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mikeash</author><text>Sadly, yes, it &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; the America that America wants, as far as I can tell.&lt;p&gt;I think this is where efforts to fight these problems fall down. They&amp;#x27;re almost all based on the assumption that the populace doesn&amp;#x27;t want this stuff to happen, but that the government pushes it through by abusing power, subverting democracy, etc.&lt;p&gt;But from what I see, this is not the case. Most Americans want this. Whether it&amp;#x27;s gun-wielding maniacs, drug dealers, or international terrorist masterminds, they feel &lt;i&gt;unsafe&lt;/i&gt;, and want the government to help. They &lt;i&gt;like&lt;/i&gt; heavily-armed SWAT teams available at a moment&amp;#x27;s notice. They &lt;i&gt;like&lt;/i&gt; the government spying on every communication they can get their hands on. They &lt;i&gt;like&lt;/i&gt; x-ray machines and body scanners in airports.&lt;p&gt;There is a sizable minority where sanity remains, but it is a &lt;i&gt;minority&lt;/i&gt;. I think that efforts to fight these problems need to recognize this, and realize that you have to convince the &lt;i&gt;people&lt;/i&gt; as your primary action. Fighting the government won&amp;#x27;t help, because the people will insist that these things be done, as long as the majority feels this way.&lt;p&gt;No, I don&amp;#x27;t know how....</text></item><item><author>Ovid</author><text>Is this really the America that America wants?&lt;p&gt;The article mentions one case where a judge refused to issue a search warrant for a narcotics investigation and instead the police brought representatives from the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and raided the place with a swat team to conduct an alcohol inspection. What did they find?&lt;p&gt;Two sample bottles of beer that weren&amp;#x27;t labeled as samples and a bottle of vodka in the office. The fourth circuit court of appeals upheld the search. According to the article: &lt;i&gt;So for now, in the Fourth Circuit, sending a SWAT team to make sure a bar’s beer is labeled correctly is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment.&lt;/i&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>smky80</author><text>They do not &amp;quot;like&amp;quot; it.  It&amp;#x27;s just that, to be very blunt, most people are basically peasants at heart.  They&amp;#x27;re going to go along with whatever the king says.  Twenty years ago, on that side of the line on a map, the people believed in capitalism, while on the other side the people believed in communism.  On this side of the line people believed in this god, on that side, they believe in that god.&lt;p&gt;It has nothing to do with some kind economists&amp;#x27; &amp;quot;rational utilization maximization&amp;quot; function and everything to do with basically a &amp;quot;k-nearest neighbours&amp;quot; algorithm on their social graph for assigning beliefs.&lt;p&gt;And that is precisely why control of the media is so important.</text></comment>
<story><title>“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”</title><url>http://www.salon.com/2013/07/07/%E2%80%9Cwhy_did_you_shoot_me_i_was_reading_a_book_the_new_warrior_cop_is_out_of_control/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mikeash</author><text>Sadly, yes, it &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; the America that America wants, as far as I can tell.&lt;p&gt;I think this is where efforts to fight these problems fall down. They&amp;#x27;re almost all based on the assumption that the populace doesn&amp;#x27;t want this stuff to happen, but that the government pushes it through by abusing power, subverting democracy, etc.&lt;p&gt;But from what I see, this is not the case. Most Americans want this. Whether it&amp;#x27;s gun-wielding maniacs, drug dealers, or international terrorist masterminds, they feel &lt;i&gt;unsafe&lt;/i&gt;, and want the government to help. They &lt;i&gt;like&lt;/i&gt; heavily-armed SWAT teams available at a moment&amp;#x27;s notice. They &lt;i&gt;like&lt;/i&gt; the government spying on every communication they can get their hands on. They &lt;i&gt;like&lt;/i&gt; x-ray machines and body scanners in airports.&lt;p&gt;There is a sizable minority where sanity remains, but it is a &lt;i&gt;minority&lt;/i&gt;. I think that efforts to fight these problems need to recognize this, and realize that you have to convince the &lt;i&gt;people&lt;/i&gt; as your primary action. Fighting the government won&amp;#x27;t help, because the people will insist that these things be done, as long as the majority feels this way.&lt;p&gt;No, I don&amp;#x27;t know how....</text></item><item><author>Ovid</author><text>Is this really the America that America wants?&lt;p&gt;The article mentions one case where a judge refused to issue a search warrant for a narcotics investigation and instead the police brought representatives from the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and raided the place with a swat team to conduct an alcohol inspection. What did they find?&lt;p&gt;Two sample bottles of beer that weren&amp;#x27;t labeled as samples and a bottle of vodka in the office. The fourth circuit court of appeals upheld the search. According to the article: &lt;i&gt;So for now, in the Fourth Circuit, sending a SWAT team to make sure a bar’s beer is labeled correctly is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment.&lt;/i&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stcredzero</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; Sadly, yes, it is the America that America wants, as far as I can tell.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Many young people coming out of school seem to have no conception of rights. To them, it&amp;#x27;s excusable for rights to be violated if they feel enough justified anger. They are unclear on the concept that rights apply to people and situations in ways they may not like.</text></comment>