God help America

[facthunter]

How does it digest all that information?   Nev

[old man emu]

Cast iron guts.

[willedoo]

I just heard on the wireless that the Texas shooting brings the total to 199 mass shootings so far this year in the U.S..

[onetrack]

Hey, that's just a small price to pay, to ensure the Second Amendment, and every American persons GOD-GIVEN RIGHT to own a gun, isn't infringed!!  

[Old Koreelah]

[nomadpete]

[Jerry_Atrick]

Here is an interesting take:

 

[red750]

Bizarre things (some) Americans actually believe.

 

From lizard people running the government to chocolate milk coming from brown cows, the things that some Americans believe provide endless entertainment to pollsters year after year. Some are popular conspiracy theories, while others are misinformation, pure and simple.

 

Click here for a slideshow of survey results

[Old Koreelah]

Soon after the USA took mankind to the moon, it was taken over by Republicans, who depend on the voters being ignorant.

 

 

[facthunter]

Carl Sagan has been gone for a while. (More's the Pity). You get fools like phoney A Bot saying science is just another belief. THAT shows his education was severely( & Dangerously)   lacking.  Nev

[red750]

[onetrack]

The ultimate tool to settle road rage scores!! Only in America!

[Marty_d]

Who'd want to be a traffic cop in the US.

[Bruce Tuncks]

One of the things that frightened  me about going to the us is that if the cops pull you over, one cop approaches the car and the other aims his rifle at the driver. I doubted that this actually was true, but that picture shows their ( the traffic cops ) caution might be well-placed.

[onetrack]

Years ago, an associate (Laurie) who was a truckie and an "all-things-American" lover, went to the U.S. for an extended holiday. He hired a car and roared around, having a wonderful time - until a set of red-and-blue flashing lights appeared behind him.

 

He promptly pulled over and was expecting to see a trooper appear by his window for a little chat. No-one appeared by his window, but he was suddenly aware of a voice yelling at him repeatedly, from behind the rear quarter of the car - inline with the quarter pillar, so he couldn't readily see him.

The trooper was yelling, "GET OUT OF THE CAR!! - GET OUT OF THE CAR WITH YOUR HANDS VISIBLE!!! GET OUT OF THE CAR!!!".

 

Laurie was a little confused by all this, and thought he'd been mistaken for some hood. But as he exited the car, here was this trooper training his .40 cal Smith & Wesson (held with two hands) on him, and still yelling, "GET YOUR HANDS ON THE ROOF AND LEGS APART!!".

Still a bit stunned, Laurie did as he was told. At that, the trooper approached him warily, S&W still trained on him, and he frisked Laurie thoroughly, checking up and down inside and outside his legs, all his pockets, his chest and arms area - making sure Laurie wasn't carrying anything like a weapon. When the trooper was sure, he relaxed a little, and started to ask Laurie questions.

 

After Laurie had regained his composure, he asked what he'd done wrong. "You were speeding, 10 miles an hour over", came the curt reply as he wrote out a speeding ticket.

"You treat everyone just speeding, like that? Treat them like armed jail escapees?" asked Laurie incredulously. 

"We can't take any chances, replied the trooper. "You could've been an armed escapee, for all I knew, we have to ensure all armed motorists are disarmed, before we start any discussion!"

The episode kind of made Laurie a bit less enthusiastic about America, and I don't recall him going back again for a visit.

 

The Newhall massacre apparently set the pace for this type of treatment of motorists when the troopers had to approach a car. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newhall_incident

 

 

[octave]

I can somewhat understand that in a country where many people are gun fetishists, pulling over a car may be stressful for the police. What I find hard to understand is the need to actually pull people over.  Other than random breath testing I can't remember the last time I was pulled over but it must getting on for 30 years. 

 

I know people often complain about speed cameras however they do reduce the interactions between police and motorists.  So many interactions in the US that end up in a motorist being shot start with something ultra trivial like a broken tail light etc.   I think they have this macho "respect my authority" obsession.   Here is an idea, the police spot a car with a broken tail light, report it to their equivalent of our motor registry and let them deal with it at rego time or they could cancel rego until it is inspected.  It is dumb for the police to stop people for trivial reasons and in the case of the US often leads to an escalation that benifits no one.  

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

I think it is more nuanced than the police demand a respect of their authority. I was working with a woman in Philadelphjia who's husband was (and I guess still is) a highway patrol officer. He was stereotypical in his appearacne - tall, rather broad, fair haired, and sported a Denix Lillee style moustache. Even is accent was the demeanour of what we saw on COPS (TV show that came out in Aus not nolng before I emigrated). I got to know them well, and being the curious type asked him a bit about the job to compare with what is seen on TV.

 

The issue with guns is definitely the cause if the tetchiness of US policemen. At the PA police academy and whenever they did range training, they were taught and reinforced that the gun is the last resort - but if their life is in danger, don't be afraid to use it. The, by Aussie standards, extreme authoritarian approach is to a) ensure those pulled over know that they are being covered and b) to ensure the police officers reduce the risk of them getting killed. Once situations are established as safe, they are often no more authoritarian than ours.

 

We have to remember that police is most parts of Australia are much less likely to come up against the same sort of situations as the US, and there are generally more tell tale signs - of which erratic driving is one - to take more care - but OME would be much better placed than me to opine on that. In areas where violent crime is not so entrenched, the approach by police is more sanguine. I got pulled over by the policeman the back blocks of Bismark, North Dakota for rolling through a stop sign on a T intersection (I was in a hurry to make a flight).  From watching COPS, I knew not to get out of the car, but thought I would chance it anyway. As I opened the door, I notice his demeanour change very quickly and crouch a little while he reached for his holster. After presenting my licence, he let me out of the car, we had a cordial chat while he checked everything and then sent me on my way.

[Old Koreelah]

My limited time in the US convinced me to avoid the place in future.

Too much mental illness in a nation where anyone is likely to have a firearm near at hand.

[octave]

33 minutes ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

I think it is more nuanced than the police demand a respect of their authority

I do fully understand the anxiety that must come with pulling over a car where the driver may very well be armed.  My point is that many of the incidents that have heard about seem to lead to confrontation and sometimes the shooting, often of an unarmed motorist who probably should not be the subject of a traffic stop.  It often seems like the police in the US are driving around looking for minor infringements and then allowing them to escalate

 

By contrast, I recall pulling up at a red light next to a police car and the policeman wound down his window and signaled me to wind down my window.   He called out "One of your headlights is out, get it fixed mate"  No need for a traffic stop and no need to tell me to put my hands where they can be seen.    My point about authoritarianism is about how they seem to need to treat minor infringements as a big deal.

 

This is the kind of thing. This man was pulled over because he had no rear number plate although he did have a temporary registration in the back window as the car had just been  purchased, which is legal.  The police did not notice this.  Numerous times during this interaction the motorist inquired as to why he had been stopped.   As far as I can see the motorist was civil and had the question about the nature of the stop been answered this would have been sorted out efficiently and amicably.

 

 

Army officer pepper-sprayed by Windsor police, not owed apology, police say

[facthunter]

I was keen to go and live in Oregon years ago. Not so anymore but SfM could have changed that here and Trump there. Nev

[spacesailor]

A friend of mine went to Texas & joined the highway patrol.

His first week , he witnessed a driver shot because he was laughing at being pulled over .

It was a tourist , who did not know how nasty their police can get .

Pulled over because he was driving a hippy van ( vw combie ).

spacesailor

[Jerry_Atrick]

3 hours ago, Old Koreelah said:

My limited time in the US convinced me to avoid the place in future.

Too much mental illness in a nation where anyone is likely to have a firearm near at hand.

Sadly, not just the US.. Threee of my team have kids and at least in one family suffers a chronic mental helath issue. As does one of my direct reports.

 

The other thing to think about is culture. Switzerland has almost one gun per household but murders and violence is a lot lower; they are not gung-ho and have a media that is blood-thirst and brings out the worst in their people.

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

4 hours ago, octave said:

It often seems like the police in the US are driving around looking for minor infringements and then allowing them to escalate

I had not quite understtod your original post...

 

The highway patrol officer I knew (who actually worked in Malvern County or something like that, south of Philadephia) indicated a very different style of policing; and they are more like Aussie police you describe. But, they often use minor infringements when they smell a rat as an excuse to investigate further. Although, after living here, an initial observation was how much more adversarial Victorian police were to road traffic infringements that they are in London.

 

One of the issues in the US is that the level of aggression and adversity is higher as a whole. I got picked up by a taxi at SF aiport and he accidentally touched a car in front of him on the way out. No damage was done, but the palava made by the driver of the car in front as if he had just unjustly lost liberty or something. The US was always hot-headed and influenced by wild westerns.

 

5 hours ago, facthunter said:

I was keen to go and live in Oregon years ago. Not so anymore but SfM could have changed that here and Trump there. Nev

Sadly, I was not so keen. I have many good friends in Oregon and was offered work there. I wish I took it.. would own 5% of a company owned by this billionaire I am meeting next week, if I did.

 

2 hours ago, spacesailor said:

His first week , he witnessed a driver shot because he was laughing at being pulled over .

That is really nuts.. but sadly, there are police like it. Bit did they go around looking for trouble (yes, I am sure some do, as some do everywhere).

[red750]

More of the same...

 

[spacesailor]

Much better than , we're the horse rider's put their  " pistoler ' in their belt ! Aimed at their crotch.

spacesailor