You say Police State, I say potato. Either way let's discuss surveillance and government overreach.

Nevermind. Repetitive argument is repetitive. I need to tap out.

Minarchist wrote:

The fact that the maintenance crew was even there in the first place is indicative of a police state. Not having a plant in your yard over 12 inches high? What kind of incredibly idiotic and over-reaching rule is that? This was not an HOA violation, it's an actual city ordinance. The trampling of property rights is by all accounts a logical sign of state-y police-y type things.

I'm sorry, but what? Are you seriously insisting that cities that have regulations on what your yard looks like is indicative of a police state? I would like it if you could go into more detail on why you think that they are indicative of being in a police state.

I am almost afraid to ask how do you feel about fines for late library books and speed limits near schools and whether they are also indicative of a police state.

Those are not snarky questions. I am serious in asking them. No matter how much I try, I cannot conceive of them being indicative, in any sort of way, of being a police state.

Personally, the neighbor irritates me. However, said neighbors are well within their rights to complain about it to the city. But the government's part to play in this is to ignore the whiny, petulant neighbor. The breakdown in this case is that the city actually took them seriously.

As a home-owner, you can bet if the house next door to me had a front yard full of plants over a foot tall, I would be calling to complain about it.

mudbunny wrote:

As a home-owner, you can bet if the house next door to me had a front yard full of plants over a foot tall, I would be calling to complain about it.

That's that rational reaction that 99% of neighbors would have. You actually reminded me of a story from Oswego County. There was a property that was so bad they were worried that it would contribute to the EEE problem in the county. They've been trying to get the owner to do something since 2009 and unfortunately he died last year. The County had to convene a special session of the Board of Health to get a property declared a "public health nuisance". The back story was that the owner of the property died. If that wasn't bad enough he was dead in the house so long that his dogs started to eat him. The property has allegedly been a dump for years. Can you imagine living next to this horror show?

Here's a link to the story and a picture of the lovely estate: http://www.cnycentral.com/news/story...

The gladioli we grow in our front yard are like FOUR feet tall. Just had to mention.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

The gladioli we grow in our front yard are like FOUR feet tall. Just had to mention.

A strike force has been dispatched.

But, Bear, she had gone to court, and had gotten an extension from the judge... which was promptly ignored by the city, and her yard was destroyed. And now she has no recourse.

It's really not okay to be doing this kind of thing unless it's an emergency, and the chance of foot-high plants constituting an emergency is pretty darn slim.

Malor wrote:

But, Bear, she had gone to court, and had gotten an extension from the judge... which was promptly ignored by the city, and her yard was destroyed. And now she has no recourse.

It's really not okay to be doing this kind of thing unless it's an emergency, and the chance of foot-high plants constituting an emergency is pretty darn slim.

So if the cutting down of the plants is proof of a police state, is the court saying "I think that we should hear your arguments first and then make a decision" proof that this case can't be used as proof of a police state?

Anyone can make a mistake, but the fact that she has essentially no recourse makes it pretty police-statish.

People forcing you to keep your yard how they like means you don't really own the property.

Malor wrote:

But, Bear, she had gone to court, and had gotten an extension from the judge... which was promptly ignored by the city, and her yard was destroyed. And now she has no recourse.

Malor wrote:

Anyone can make a mistake, but the fact that she has essentially no recourse makes it pretty police-statish.

People forcing you to keep your yard how they like means you don't really own the property.

The linked article stated that she has filed a lawsuit. Given that the city violated the judges order(which really pisses off judges), she will probably win. That sounds like the correct method of redressing inappropriate actions by the government. Certainly she shouldn't be in this position, but even in a malice-/corruption-free environment there will be errors in the exercise of duties.

On the topic of ownership, no one person owns any land at the level you are after. We the people own the land as a whole, with the government as executor, and have put much of it out on semi-permanent, transferable lease. The government regulates land use/zoning, provides defense from foreign and domestic threats, provides a level of environmental protection, and prevents other citizens from arbitrarily affecting your property in serious fashions.

Malor wrote:

But, Bear, she had gone to court, and had gotten an extension from the judge... which was promptly ignored by the city, and her yard was destroyed. And now she has no recourse.

That's not what happened, Malor. Her response to the city inspector's view that she had to bring her yard into compliance was to have the police issue her a separate citation and pursue that citation through court. Her court hearing was pushed back from August to October, so the judge didn't give her any extension because he hadn't heard the case yet.

On top of that, you seem to be assuming complete synchronicity between the police, the court system, the city code enforcers and inspector, and the city maintenance department. Just how was the city's maintenance department supposed to know about the pending court case, especially when it involved a citation issued by the police and not the city inspector? I somehow doubt that the maintenance department calls the police or checks the court docket when it draws up it's weekly to-do list.

So now we're down to "police-statish". I guess if that's the standard that's applied, well, maybe we're kinda sorta in a part-time security-guard-state. Maybe a mall-cop-state. But, you know, an outdoor strip mall-cop-state, not a Mall of America level mall-cop-state. Yeah, I can get behind that as a conspiracy theory.

Well, not really.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/hWs1z.jpg)

Silent march by thousands to protest NYPD's stop-and-frisk tactics

Context (I already linked this):

Why is the NYPD After Me?

This stuff hasn't gone away, just because we've talked about it. It's getting worse, not better. Almost seven hundred thousand people were stopped on the streets in New York, last year, and searched, without probable cause other than daring to be on the street.

The fact that thousands can march in protest against the "police state" (to use your assertion) and suffer no reprisals other than (if I read the article right, less than 10 arrests) is fairly strong evidence that it is not in fact a police state. If the US actually *was* a police state, I would expect there to be violent reprisals by the police, tear gas, riot batons being used to beat numerous, numerous protestors.

So they didn't beat up the protestors in the middle of a high-profile march, and this alone convinces you that this is not a police state? When they're literally stopping people because they 'look suspicious' (aka black) on the street, and searching them?

Totally not a police state. Why, the fact that policemen are literally going through people's pockets, by the hundreds of thousands, is totally worth ignoring.

And note that they were beating the f*ck out of people not long ago. The fact that it didn't happen THIS time doesn't mean jack sh*t, mudbunny.

It doesn't get more serious than f-bombs in italics.

Jayhawker wrote:

It doesn't get more serious than f-bombs in italics.

Fanculo!

IMAGE(http://www.malor.com/gamerswithjobs/ny_protestor_1.jpg)
IMAGE(http://www.malor.com/gamerswithjobs/ny_protestor_2.jpg)

Malor wrote:

And note that they were beating the f*ck out of people not long ago. The fact that it didn't happen THIS time doesn't mean jack sh*t, mudbunny.

It does since you're trying to use it as evidence of a police state. When they were beating up people involved in OWS? That's definitely solid evidence right there. So's the fact that so many people are being stopped & searched on the street without probable cause. That thousands of people held a peaceful protest march through New York City is actually evidence against it, since in a police state, they would have been beaten up like the OWS people have been, if they weren't prevented from even organizing the march in the first place.

This stuff hasn't gone away, just because we've talked about it. It's getting worse, not better. Almost seven hundred thousand people were stopped on the streets in New York, last year, and searched, without probable cause other than daring to be on the street.

Let's see - 8 million people in the city. Generously, let's assume 7 million of them go out on the streets each day. There are 365 days in the year, and 700,000 of them were stopped and frisked; that's 1918 people a day, or .0003% of the population stopped and frisked per day. 3 people in 10,000 (actually, a bit less than that).

There are as many as 36,000 officers in the NYPD; add in other forces, like the Transit Authority, and I bet you'd get to 50,000 or so. So there's one stop and frisk per day for every 25 officers. Put another way, most officers would do a stop and frisk about once a month.

If that's a police state, well, *Mayberry* would be a police state in your analysis.

And note that they were beating the f*ck out of people not long ago. The fact that it didn't happen THIS time doesn't mean jack sh*t, mudbunny.

So, if a problem exists, it's evidence of a police state; if it's improved, that's not counter-evidence. That's fair and balanced.

Robear wrote:

So, if a problem exists, it's evidence of a police state; if it's improved, that's not counter-evidence. That's fair and balanced. :-)

To be fair to Malor, that has been the premise of this entire thread. Despite the title of the thread clearly being an invitation to discuss, Malor has no interest in discussing this. Unlike other threads in P&C which tend to lean more towards discussion and both sides presenting a point, this thread is full of pure rhetoric and bombastic pronouncements that you generally find coming from Republican party mouthpieces and Fox News.

Evidence that can be used as proof that the US is a police state is gleefully held up as holy writ, whereas evidence to the contrary is dismissed with "They didn't...that time."

And now things like municipal regulations on how your yard is kept is being held up as "proof" that the US is a police state.

In fairness to Malor the original premise of this thread was as a splinter thread to another police state thread. I created it because I felt like both sides were fairly entrenched and I wanted to discuss what you can do if you feel the way Malor, I and others do. Read the first few posts and you'll see that the tone is one of talking about steps a person can take to either protest what's happening or get out of the way of the police state. That was the original thread premise. The title was later changed when everyone from the old thread migrated over here to argue the very premise of this thread even though it was created to be different from the other thread.

I don't disagree with your assessment that people like Malor and myself see either police state activities or the acquiescence of the population in multiple places, some that seem relatively benign. And I don't disagree that there's a tendency to want to demonstrate evidence whenever it's seemingly provided.

I would argue that the same works the other direction. There are people who believe there is no way the US is a police state unless we're literally Nazi Germany and that any talk of it at any level (including the drone strikes on US civilians overseas) is patently ridiculous. There is no middle ground at that point, to be honest. There's nothing to discuss. The hijacked thread should probably be closed down, honestly.

DSGamer wrote:

In fairness to Malor the original premise of this thread was as a splinter thread to another police state thread. I created it because I felt like both sides were fairly entrenched and I wanted to discuss what you can do if you feel the way Malor, I and others do. Read the first few posts and you'll see that the tone is one of talking about steps a person can take to either protest what's happening or get out of the way of the police state. That was the original thread premise. The title was later changed when everyone from the old thread migrated over here to argue the very premise of the thread.

My apologies. It has been long enough that the thread has morphed to this that I forgot about the original premise of the thread. However, in fairness to those who feel like I do, there has been very little attempt to drag this thread back to the original premise. (Note, there is more than enough blame to share all around for this.)

I don't disagree with your assessment that people like Malor and myself see either police state activities or the acquiescence of the population in multiple places. And I don't disagree that there's a tendency to want to demonstrate evidence.

The thing to me is that, from my point of view (and I tend to believe that most western countries are trending towards surveillance states, not police states), everything that could be used as evidence towards a police state is accepted, including municipal regulations towards lawn care, whereas things that would not be permitted to happen in a police state (by comparison to other police states around the world) are dismissed with "well they haven't done it yet."

I would argue that the same works the other direction. There are people who believe there is no way the US is a police state, that any talk of it at any level (including the drone strikes on US civilians overseas) is patently ridiculous.

As I mentioned above, most of those (like myself) who feel that the US is not a police state (note, I am from Canada, FWIW) are more than willing to accept that the US has turned into a surveillance state. As I mentioned above, with the explosion of electronics technologies, I think that the state that most governments naturally trend towards is surveillance and information collection, but that does not make it a police state. We are more than willing to admit that there are times when the govt acts with more force than was necessary, however we don't accept the premise that each and every single case of it is evidence of the existence of a police state.

I am also kinda fuzzy on how the actions that a government takes on its citizens outside its own borders are evidence of a police state. There are *lots* of things about that which are curious and interesting to discuss, but, like above, I am not convinced that it is a police state.

There is no middle ground at that point, to be honest. There's nothing to discuss.

For me, the difference is that I am willing to accept your arguments on things being indicative of a police state. I don't agree with the conclusions that are being drawn from them, but I am willing to accept them. Your side (and I am using your in the general, and not applying this particular viewpoint to anyone in particular) does not offer us the same courtesy.

I tend to agree with you though that this thread has probably run its course.

Why,we can continue to use this thread to chronicle the evidence of ongoing perpetuation of the police state -- or lack thereof, depending on how you see it

mudbunny wrote:

For me, the difference is that I am willing to accept your arguments on things being indicative of a police state. I don't agree with the conclusions that are being drawn from them, but I am willing to accept them. Your side (and I am using your in the general, and not applying this particular viewpoint to anyone in particular) does not offer us the same courtesy.

I tend to agree with you though that this thread has probably run its course.

I don't know if that's entirely true. The fact that we were "followed" here from another thread to me was the original lack of courtesy and one which gave this thread no hope of succeeding. While I've been admittedly unwilling to budge from my perspective that the US is a police state or at least is becoming one, I'm open-minded to the fact that there are degrees of abuse. The US is infinitely more free than many nations in the world. I just don't think that's a very high bar to clear, that's all.

I think there's more of an opportunity here for discussion than you think. But not in this thread and not now. And not with people snarkily and sarcastically sneering at each other constantly. I've PMed with a number of people on GWJ about this very issue and I feel like I've had some productive discussions. But this thread isn't the place any longer. Maybe GWJ P&C forums aren't the place any longer, honestly.

How does one tell the difference between a police state and a non-police state w/ occasional abuses of authority and real disagreements about the limits of power?

It seems that we have at least two different ways of making this distinction. One view is that a police state does not have any checks of the exercise of authority. Under this view, evidence of civillian oversight of police behavior is presented as proof that it is not a police state.

Another view is that a police state is a system where abuse of power is possible. In this view, any example of police overreaching is presented as proof that it is a police state.

I don't know if these two views need to be brought together, but there is enough evidence to support them both being valid. For some people, there is no guarantee of due process and a trial before a jury of their peers. On the other hand, the vast majority of the time, the authorities in the United States are limited in their exercise of power.

So perhaps a better question to ask is: do the examples of police and government excess we have seen since the September 11th attacks constitute a troubling anomaly in an otherwise working system or do they indicate a signficant change in policy and a society-wide acceptence of more authority with fewer civilian checks on the power of the government?

Personally, I'm on the fence. I'm a child of the cold-war and I remember that we're the good-guys because the other side sends political prisoners to the gulag. I read the Gulag Archipelago and other samizdat writings and felt safe living in a land where due process was everyone's right. Now, I see that we've established our own offshore gulags. ATT and other communications providers are providing the government with access to personal communications without warrants, kind of like the Stazi's network of informants.

OTOH, I've also been to hear a FISA judge talk about the NSL process. The EFF won the strong crypto case establishing the right for citizens to use cryptography the government can't break. TOR is legal and was developed in part by the US gov't. In any human system, perfection is impossible. If the balance between freedom and control has swung to the control side of the spectrum recently, there is no overwhelming reason to believe that our society can't correct this.

Watergate demonstrated that our executive can't act with impunity. Iran-Contra demonstrated that our intelligence agencies can't act with impunity. It is not unreasonable to think that we are due for a scandal that will adjust our law-enforcement's current trend of acting with impunity as well. For an example: look at what is going on in Seattle with the federal DOJ intervening in the local police force after allegation of systematic abuse of force by the police were upheld by a federal investigation (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...) There are, of course, examples of unchecked police authority, but the mechanisms to balance them are in place nation-wide. It is possible that we just need a Pentagon Papers type leak or a Woodward and Bernstein type investigation to swing the balance. OTOH, perhaps we are more like Myanmar than we are like Sweden.

My .02 cents is that the US is a nation with a system of checks and balances. Currently, there are too few checks and balances on poice authority, but the system is in place. There are examples of excesses and examples of executive branch policies that reject all checks and balances, but as disturbing as these are and as closely as these need to be watched; we are still more like Sweden than we are like Myanmar.

Oso wrote:

My .02 cents is that the US is a nation with a system of checks and balances. Currently, there are too few checks and balances on poice authority, but the system is in place. There are examples of excesses and examples of executive branch policies that reject all checks and balances, but as disturbing as these are and as closely as these need to be watched; we are still more like Sweden than we are like Myanmar.

I would agree with this.

However, I think this is the most important thing you said just now.

Oso wrote:

So perhaps a better question to ask is: do the examples of police and government excess we have seen since the September 11th attacks constitute a troubling anomaly in an otherwise working system or do they indicate a signficant change in policy and a society-wide acceptence of more authority with fewer civilian checks on the power of the government?

To me that is the more significant indicator. The speed with which things have deteriorated since 9/11 and the fact that there hasn't been much to check the government's new powers since then. I wasn't worried about the US being a police state in August of 2011. I appreciate trying to engage in constructive discourse as opposed to just snark.

DS wrote:

I wasn't worried about the US being a police state in August of 2011.

But then again, Amadou Diallo and countless others would probably disagree, from beyond the grave.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:
DS wrote:

I wasn't worried about the US being a police state in August of 2011.

But then again, Amadou Diallo and countless others would probably disagree, from beyond the grave.

I think that, if we look close enough at something, we can always find "evidence" for our own particular point of view. However, if we are being truly honest, we need to take a couple of steps back and ask ourselves if the evidence is, as mentioned above, evidence of systemic and deliberate manipulations and machinations by those in power, or whether they are things that can be simply attributed to local corruption and/or incompetence (to name a couple of possibilities.)

In other words, are the trees we are seeing indicative of a forest, or simply some trees in a park?