Ferguson

[Timsup2nothin]

It's still bizarre to me that American towns are expected to fund stuff like this. No wonder things are in such a mess, when some towns are expected to hire police on a budget counted in bits of string, and others have so much more funding than they need they start building functioning replica AT-ATs just for something to do.

The US is can be a weird, weird country sometimes. Hyper-localist in some respects, but with this great, overbearing imperial government sitting in the middle of it. It's like somebody looked at 16th century Germany, then at the Soviet Union, and then said "Y'know what? Let's take the worst elements of both, scramble 'em up, and see what happens." The UK isn't perfect- I'm an advocate of leaving it, after all- but we've at least managed to avoid this particular kind of weirdness.

Don't get cocky, that may just be a benefit of size.

 

[Farm Boy]

Americans tend to compare ourselves to the entire continent(sometimes!), possibly out of arrogance, and if we use that comparison I think we might be doing a better job relatively speaking.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Don't get cocky, that may just be a benefit of size.

Americans tend to compare ourselves to the entire continent(sometimes!), possibly out of arrogance, and if we use that comparison I think we might be doing a better job relatively speaking.

Really good points... We give the Chinese all kinds of grief about their way of doing things, but it is very easy to forget that they are dealing with roughly 5 times our (US) population in about the same (maybe even less) useable land area.

America- "Hello... Is this China?"

China-"Yes America, what is it today?"

America- "Well we are unhappy about your human rights abuses we keep hearing about"

China- "Yep, call me back when your country is about two-thousand years older with about 1 billion more people. Then we can talk about human rights abuses... And tell your cops to calm down and start taking their meds in the meantime"

 

[Traitorfish]

Don't get cocky, that may just be a benefit of size.

Most US states are smaller than the United Kingdom, though. We would rank twelfth, apparently, by total area, and a good few of those eleven are the sort of empty Western states where a lot of the territory falls under the jurisdiction of a centralised state police force any way. I think it reflects a pretty peculiarly American impulse towards extreme localisation of government, and while that's not always a bad thing, it's been pursued in a way which doesn't always make a lot of sense, especially given that it co-exists with a tendency towards over-mighty central government.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Here's the video of Francis Pusok getting the living crap beaten out of him after he surrendered to police in California. The article I read claimed to have counted 17 kicks and 41 punches. 7 police took part in the beating, while 2 others "only" watched.

EDIT: Another article says 10 officers have been suspended, pending an investigation. The FBI has also launched an investigation.


Link to video.

 

[EgonSpengler]

It's still bizarre to me that American towns are expected to fund stuff like this.

They don't have to fund everything themselves. The armored vehicles, assault rifles, body armor and bayonets they got from the Defense Department were free.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Most US states are smaller than the United Kingdom, though. We would rank twelfth, apparently, by total area, and a good few of those eleven are the sort of empty Western states where a lot of the territory falls under the jurisdiction of a centralised state police force any way. I think it reflects a pretty peculiarly American impulse towards extreme localisation of government, and while that's not always a bad thing, it's been pursued in a way which doesn't always make a lot of sense, especially given that it co-exists with a tendency towards over-mighty central government.

I'm looking more at our federal government. We have to deal with the reality that people can have 'local' concerns that are alien to other citizens on a level that the UK just doesn't have to deal with.

As an immediate example, what is the more problematic potential disaster, twelve feet of snow in Boston or the drought? That's not the kind of problem the UK is going to encounter.

The EU gets a bit of a taste. When they are trying to reconcile the economic views from a boardroom in Bonn with the decidedly different view from a streetcorner in Greece it is somewhat like dealing with Wall Street and downtown Tupelo...only less of a contrast.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm looking more at our federal government. We have to deal with the reality that people can have 'local' concerns that are alien to other citizens on a level that the UK just doesn't have to deal with.

As an immediate example, what is the more problematic potential disaster, twelve feet of snow in Boston or the drought? That's not the kind of problem the UK is going to encounter.

Yeah, but those weren't local problems. The California drought is an issue for the state government, and California is as large as a middling European state. (It's got a population roughly that of Poland and an area roughly that of Sweden.) There are a lot of layers at which these things could operate between a nation of three hundred million and a suburb of twenty thousand. It's exactly this contrast the imperial authority of the Federal government and these weird little municipal republics that's so confusing to an outsider.

 

[Farm Boy]

That's why we're the whole continent when you want to compare. California may operate with mid stages when Alabama doesn't. Aren't ya'll basically trying to slow-roll decide if you're going to attempt Napoleon's rough concept only without the guns?

 

[Traitorfish]

Yeah, but, again, it's the bit where towns that could fit inside a third-tier football ground have their own autonomous and locally-funded police forces. At that point you may as well just give on a formal police force and rely on wandering ronin, at least guarantee yourself a bit of professionalism.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yeah, but those weren't local problems. The California drought is an issue for the state government, and California is as large as a middling European state. (It's got a population roughly that of Poland and an area roughly that of Sweden.) There are a lot of layers at which these things could operate between a nation of three hundred million and a suburb of twenty thousand. It's exactly this contrast the imperial authority of the Federal government and these weird little municipal republics that's so confusing to an outsider.

If you leave the California drought entirely in the hands of the state government what prevents the state government from adopting a solution that discontinues providing food to the rest of the country?

You are correct that there are a lot of levels to navigate, and I can understand it being baffling from your perspective, but again, it is a matter of scaling. As you say, a 'state' government in the US sometimes has to manage issues that few countries in the world confront (throw the economic output of the UK in with the population of Poland and the size of Sweden), without any sort of federal authority.

The federal government has to deal with maintaining some sort of fairness across a spectrum of states from California to states that have about the same population as my town, and less industry. Figuring out how a federal program is going to impact citizens in NYC and Morgan City Louisiana and unincorporated areas of northwestern Nevada and not screw anyone is a tough trick.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

They don't have to fund everything themselves. The armored vehicles, assault rifles, body armor and bayonets they got from the Defense Department were free.

They were only free on the condition that they find some way to use them within one year.

Otherwise, the Federal Government may take the equipment back to give to another local law enforcement agency elsewhere.

That is the kind of cost-saving measure that the US Congress considers appropriate.

(Cutting production of such equipment down to the levels that the military leaders actually request would be crazy, as military contractors constantly remind them that they run factories in almost every congressional district and cutting production would mean downsizing and lead to unemployment among the congressman's constituents.)


That is why you see MRAPs showing up in the middle of the night at the doorsteps of houses where the cops suspect that a teen could be selling weed out. If they didn't use them then, they could loose the thing before the back robberies and terrorists attacks that could happen decades later.

The vehicles do so much damage to the roadways that using them frivolously costs local governments more than the vehicles are worth, but that doesn't matter because infrastructure spending does not come out of funds earmarked for the police department.


If the Feds don't give them and let them keep the toys they want for free, then they have to fund them through Civil Asset Forfeiture.

(Of course, since that funding is less predictable some police chiefs opt not to use those funds on any "must have"s, instead allocating those funds for "like to have"s such as a new margarita machine for the office.)

A lot of cops like to let drug dealers and gun runners pass through unmolested while they are carrying their contraband, so that they can catch them when they are coming back with cash. It is more convenient to sue a pile of money than a pile of stuff that they could not legally sell off for money.


Congress is not the best at predicting unintended consequences of measures meant to help cops fight the drug wars.

 

[Cutlass]

Yeah, but those weren't local problems. The California drought is an issue for the state government, and California is as large as a middling European state. (It's got a population roughly that of Poland and an area roughly that of Sweden.) There are a lot of layers at which these things could operate between a nation of three hundred million and a suburb of twenty thousand. It's exactly this contrast the imperial authority of the Federal government and these weird little municipal republics that's so confusing to an outsider.

Localism is confusing to the locals as well. The thing is, it really makes no sense, because it's so inconsistent. There is no unifying theme or theory to it. It's largely a matter of historical accident. But it's not all historical, in that there are a lot of people currently who favor one degree or another of localism. And it becomes even worse in that there are contrary, often conflicting, motives for wanting it. And many of the reasons some people want localism are deeply in conflict with reasons why other people want it. That is, if people with opposing goals want the same policies, then who is right in terms of who would get what they want from that policy?

And localism varies in intensity all over the country. These Midwesterners who make such a big deal of it have a cute little version of it. Like kittens and puppies version of localism. Around here it's more the mistreated pitbull version of localism. Hell, they let counties have governments! That's barely local at all. Here the politics in the state is all 169 cities and towns this, 169 cities and towns that. In an area hardly larger than some counties in Western states. That's like 165 school districts for a population the size of Chicago.

 

[Farm Boy]

Our school district growing up usually served about 600ish students K-12. We probably had about a dozen that size in county and 2 significantly larger. How local do you want it? Village, township(includes public library access and cemetery access and road access(outside of village streets, county roads, and state highways(you learn plow budgets in a hurry in winter))), school district, community college taxing district, county, Federal soil conservation district, state alone, state in conjunction, etc? They all apply and are ''local'' to varying degrees? They don't always get along man. Our school board is about to waste a crapton of money overcomplying with the Federal ADA. It's not going to be free.

 

[Cutlass]

I'm not saying there's any one answer to all situations. But that's really the point: There isn't really a rhyme or reason to it. It just is.

 

[Farm Boy]

The only pattern is slow consolidation of power, that I can tell. It's not entirely welcome. Sometimes it's horrible. Springfield is Chicago's sometimes cannibal monster.

 

[Flying Pig]

Our school district growing up usually served about 600ish students K-12. We probably had about a dozen that size in county and 2 significantly larger. How local do you want it? Village, township(includes public library access and cemetery access and road access(outside of village streets, county roads, and state highways(you learn plow budgets in a hurry in winter))), school district, community college taxing district, county, Federal soil conservation district, state alone, state in conjunction, etc? They all apply and are ''local'' to varying degrees? They don't always get along man. Our school board is about to waste a crapton of money overcomplying with the Federal ADA. It's not going to be free.

The British system tends to have a lot of comparatively powerless governments overlapping - you might have the Parish Council in charge of running the recreation ground, which is beneath the County Council which is ultimately responsible for rubbish collections, education and most local administration, alongside the county (or larger) police force and the local magistrates. Most actual lawmaking, though, is done either in Westminster, Cardiff or Edinburgh.