Liberty, Rights, and the Constitution 2

[Vertigo]

I think the cops were very professional

I'm sure the cameras filming them helped to remind them to maintain that professionalism. I wonder if that take down would have been different if there weren't two cameras filming it.

They were disrupting the flow of traffic

They were on a walkway, not in traffic.

infringing on the free movement of other citizens

Pure speculation. They weren't stopping the cars and there appeared to be ample room for pedestrians to pass by.

You seem to suggest that it is wrong when someone disobeys a lawful order from a cop to get "choke slammed."

What's at debate is whether or not this SHOULD be a lawful order. And if it's not a "choke slam" is WAY out of line!

Edited August 21, 2013 by Vertigo

[DFRESH]

What's at debate is whether or not this SHOULD be a lawful order.

This

[El-Fist]

I'm sure the cameras filming them helped to remind them to maintain that professionalism. I wonder if that take down would have been different if there weren't two cameras filming it.

I'm speculating? Your kind of painting all cops with a broad brush, aren't you? You don't know a thing about those cops. Because there are a few videos on Youtube of cops beating he hell out of someone, doesn't make them all bad. Are there bad ones? Of course. There are some damn good ones too.

Pure speculation. They weren't stopping the cars and there appeared to be ample room for pedestrians to pass by.

Were you there? Standard media twist. There is only a small clip of video. I'm sure that small clip doesn't show the whole situation.

What's at debate is whether or not this SHOULD be a lawful order. And if it's not a "choke slam" is WAY out of line!

Agree for the most part. This is up for the courts to decide. Bottom line, cops told them to move and they didn't and won a free trip to county. Let a judge decide if this was a lawful move by the police, or not. Just because some know-it-all curbside lawyer is shouting about his first amendment rights, doesn't mean he is lawfully entitled to his actions. I guess we'll see.

Edited August 21, 2013 by El-Fist

[pawnman]

This is up for the courts to decide. Bottom line, cops told them to move and they didn't and won a free trip to county. Let a judge decide if this was a lawful move by the police, or not. Still, I don't think it was excessive force. I found the guy annoying and would have probably whacked him with the club. (Kidding, but seriously.)

Oh good, we are now consenting to have every protest broken up at the discretion of the local police department at any time, but a judge will sort it out later.

Yay freedom!

[Fuzz]

You don't know a thing about those cops. Because there are a few videos on Youtube of cops beating he hell out of someone, doesn't make them all bad.

A few? You might want to do a little research into that.

[17D_guy]

I'm speculating? Your kind of painting all cops with a broad brush, aren't you? You don't know a thing about those cops. Because there are a few videos on Youtube of cops beating he hell out of someone, doesn't make them all bad. Are there bad ones? Of course. There are some damn good ones too.

Were you there? Standard media twist. There is only a small clip of video. I'm sure that small clip doesn't show the whole situation.

Agree for the most part. This is up for the courts to decide. Bottom line, cops told them to move and they didn't and won a free trip to county. Let a judge decide if this was a lawful move by the police, or not. Just because some know-it-all curbside lawyer is shouting about his first amendment rights, doesn't mean he is lawfully entitled to his actions. I guess we'll see.

Guess it's a good thing we got that whole Civil Rights thing figured out before "Obey the Law" became the mantra of the day.

Stop and frisk a good idea too?

[Vertigo]

Please review your posts and see if you can remove sarcasm and personal insults before posting them. Thx.

Well shit. That's the majority of my posts contents.

[Fuzz]

Only in today's fucked up world, could wanting to uphold your countries foundational document and principles get you labeled as an extremist:

https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-defense-department-teaching-documents-suggest-mainstream-conservative-views-extremist/

The thought police cometh (sts) on more than one issue.

[HeloDude]

Here you go liberals...you asked for more government and less liberty. How does it taste.

[17D_guy]

Here you go liberals...you asked for more government and less liberty. How does it taste.

Liberals?

[HeloDude]

Liberals?

Philadelphia is ran by a Democratic mayor and their city council is made up of over 80% democrats, and together they run the city, to include the police. Liberals typically vote democrat, so I'm still not sure where the your question arrises? And as for the guys getting harassed...well, they're black, and I'm willing to bet my flight-pay that at least one of them voted democrat (odds are both did as black Americans overwhelmingly vote Democrat), though to be fair, it sounds like one of the guys was from NJ...another gem of a place. You get the government you vote in and thus deserve.

[WABoom]

Very interesting and somewhat disturbing. Disturbing because the curve will only get worse over time.

[SocialD]

Very interesting and somewhat disturbing. Disturbing because the curve will only get worse over time.

Well, the top 20% didn't earn that. We should take it and give it to the bottom 20%...

Edited October 15, 2013 by SocialD

[Fuzz]

Very interesting and somewhat disturbing. Disturbing because the curve will only get worse over time.

Well anywhere from 30-70% of those millionares and billionaires are self-made (wide percentage accounts for how you define their starting point) so either get off your ass and do something like these people did or STF.

I'm so sick and tired of people complaining about the rich, like they just woke up one morning and bam they were drowning in money. I've had the privilege of meeting some very wealthy people (no millionaires but I won't be surprised if they make it there) and these people pushed threw odds that most people would have thrown in the towel. If you read about many of the historic businessmen, they came from nothing and built empires, fact of the matter is the vast majority of America is too fucking lazy to have what it takes. To the liberals here stop before you even start with disadvantages ect ect. If George Washington Carver can teach himself to read at night after working in the Salt mines or Henry Ford can self teach himself from his rural farm home, or John D Rockefeller can come his single family home, any kid today can make it with the power of the fucking internet at his fingertips.

/rant off

Edited October 15, 2013 by Fuzz

[brabus]

To the liberals here stop before you even start with disadvantages ect ect. If George Washington Carver can teach himself to read at night after working in the Salt mines or Henry Ford can self teach himself from his rural farm home, or John D Rockefeller can come his single family home, any kid today can make it with the power of the fucking internet at his fingertips.

Shack. We have a family friend who came here on a damn raft when he was 9...needless to say poor and "disadvantaged" is an understatement. He worked his way through school and paid for 100% of college on his own (no "African American" scholarship, etc). He had zero help making it to graduation day other than his own perseverance and work ethic. He is now the CEO of his own company executing multimillion dollar contracts. If that guy can make it, anybody can (save severe mental/physical handicap). Anyone who says otherwise is just making excuses.

[M2]

There should be no punishment for success; only encouragement.

Socialist systems don't work, history has already proven that.

[nsplayr]

Fuzz, I am completely with you to a point. Let's focus on the 30-70% who are not self-made. I cannot agree that 40% of wealth being accumulated by 1% of the population was accomplished through work ethic. Through our democratic processes, the American people have attempted to establish a system of fairness, rules and regulations, within which our capitalist system can operate. Sure, there are many examples of people who legitimately accumulated/created their wealth by operating within that system, but there are not 3.1 million Fords and Rockefellers out there. What there is, is a significant number of people who accumulate wealth through control and manipulation of the system. They've crossed a threshold where they're now able to lobby regulators and policy makers to either look the other way when a law is broken, or create laws that gives you a tax advantages, unfair opportunities (Gov't contracts), or raise barriers to entry for competitors. I have a lot of free time on my airline trips, and I pick up the Wall Street Journal and other rags nearly every day I work. You could fill a 24/7 news channel just on white collar corruption. It's not going to stop, and I guarantee you'll see that number climb well beyond 40% in the future. Like I said, I am completely with you on capitalism, entrepreneurial freedom, most things conservative, etc., but within a system created by the American people, not corruption.

As one of the token liberals here, I have to almost completely agree.

The big takeaway for me from the video and studies that show the same thing is that nearly everyone, no matter their political leanings, believes that the level of inequality in America today is unfair, and were surprised, when confronted with the real numbers.

People were offered the chance to create what they considered a "fair" level of income distribution, and even the most capitalist, free-market Adam Smith conservatives among them created a system much more equal than equal than what we have in our country today. Inequality hurts everyone primarily because it is fuel for political and market unrest on top of the more obvious pain of an eroding middle class, lower upward mobility and abject poverty for the lower classes.

[Fuzz]

Fuzz, I am completely with you to a point. Let's focus on the 30-70% who are not self-made. I cannot agree that 40% of wealth being accumulated by 1% of the population was accomplished through work ethic. Through our democratic processes, the American people have attempted to establish a system of fairness, rules and regulations, within which our capitalist system can operate. Sure, there are many examples of people who legitimately accumulated/created their wealth by operating within that system, but there are not 3.1 million Fords and Rockefellers out there. What there is, is a significant number of people who accumulate wealth through control and manipulation of the system. They've crossed a threshold where they're now able to lobby regulators and policy makers to either look the other way when a law is broken, or create laws that gives you a tax advantages, unfair opportunities (Gov't contracts), or raise barriers to entry for competitors. I have a lot of free time on my airline trips, and I pick up the Wall Street Journal and other rags nearly every day I work. You could fill a 24/7 news channel just on white collar corruption. It's not going to stop, and I guarantee you'll see that number climb well beyond 40% in the future. Like I said, I am completely with you on capitalism, entrepreneurial freedom, most things conservative, etc., but within a system created by the American people, not corruption.

Remember the Walmart raid with the EBT system being down the other day? The top level of society does the same thing.

I can agree there are people who have definitely taken advantage of the system, but also there aren't 3.1 million Fords is also disingenuous, just because someone inherited their wealth doesn't mean they don't put into the work to keep it. When you can be a Mark Zuckerburg and go from nothing to billionaire in no time, heck yeah the money is going to become more concentrated on a small percentage. You know what that tells me? There isn't any competition, there's no competing facebook eating into his profits and subsequently expanding the percentage of wealthy Americans (again back to my lazy comment).

Now when you start using laws, lobbying and other shady tactics to block competition, yeah I'm with you. I agree the revolving door in Washington, (anyone watch Sean Hannitys Boomtown?) and other white collar corruption is a problem, but I don't think the system is so broken it can't be fixed.

[nsplayr]

...but I don't think the system is so broken it can't be fixed.

I don't think any reasonable person is arguing that. The problem is that there is a sizable chunk of folks who don't see inequality as a problem, don't see problems in the system that results in 1% of the population realizing an increasing percentage of the nation's wealth, etc. When the get a chance to see the real numbers al la the video, many realize that the results they think is fair and the results we have now aren't nearly as similar as they thought.

We don't need some kind of radical socialist system where we're all working in the factory for an equal wage as the rest of our comrades, but what we do need is to take concrete steps to reduce inequality before it tears our country apart. Once people can at least agree that it's a problem, we can debate about the right solution (and there are lots of divergent ideas).

[Prozac]

It's hard to argue that so much of a country's wealth being controlled by so few is a good thing. You could make a strong argument that the great democratic revolutions of the past 300 years or so have been about that very situation. If the rest of the country was getting richer as well, I'd be singing a different tune. A minute section of society continues to accumulate more wealth while the rest of us see our buying power reduced across the board. That's an untenable situation in the long term.

[Homestar]

I would argue that government trying to "equalize" the wealth curve is what is causing the polarization of American politics today, coalescing around a health care regime that intends to overcharge young, healthy people in order to cover old, sick people.

Zuckerberg starts Facebook, makes billions, and creates thousands of jobs. The Waltons made billions and created hundreds of thousands of jobs. Gates made Windoze and earned billions, and created thousands of jobs and funds some pretty amazing philanthropic endeavors.

One man's largesse does not in the least take away from my (or your) earning potential. This America, land of the free. Otherwise, the American dream is dead.

[Vertigo]

Here you go liberals...you asked for more government and less liberty. How does it taste.

Results of the "War on Drugs".

Is that a liberal war?

[pawnman]

It's hard to argue that so much of a country's wealth being controlled by so few is a good thing. You could make a strong argument that the great democratic revolutions of the past 300 years or so have been about that very situation. If the rest of the country was getting richer as well, I'd be singing a different tune. A minute section of society continues to accumulate more wealth while the rest of us see our buying power reduced across the board. That's an untenable situation in the long term.

Perhaps. I think where many disagree isn't that people below the top 1% should be able to earn more, it's that the way to make it more equitable isn't to strip wealth away from people who have earned it and their families so you can satisfy some desire to be "fair".

[WABoom]

Well anywhere from 30-70% of those millionares and billionaires are self-made (wide percentage accounts for how you define their starting point) so either get off your ass and do something like these people did or STF.

I'm so sick and tired of people complaining about the rich, like they just woke up one morning and bam they were drowning in money. I've had the privilege of meeting some very wealthy people (no millionaires but I won't be surprised if they make it there) and these people pushed threw odds that most people would have thrown in the towel. If you read about many of the historic businessmen, they came from nothing and built empires, fact of the matter is the vast majority of America is too ######ing lazy to have what it takes. To the liberals here stop before you even start with disadvantages ect ect. If George Washington Carver can teach himself to read at night after working in the Salt mines or Henry Ford can self teach himself from his rural farm home, or John D Rockefeller can come his single family home, any kid today can make it with the power of the ######ing internet at his fingertips.

/rant off

Was I complaining about the rich? I said it was interesting and the way our economy is set up, along with the tax code, the upper echelons WILL continue to get richer and the inequality will grow. It is simple math, not an argument on how to climb the economic ladder. I will say that if you are lucky enough to get off your ass and become part of the 1%, those odds are pretty astronomical and good on ya. I work hard every day and have no illusion that I will ever reach that status, nor do I want to, but to just tell folks to get off their asses is juvenile and unrealistic. Can it happen, sure, but damn man there is a reason there are so few of them, because the chances of it happening are slim to none without being born into money, having connections, or being lucky enough to get into an Ivy League school and make connections. Not an all inclusive list of how to succeed, but that is how a lot of them got to where they are. Please don't post examples of self made billionaires, because I will just post those that succeeded in the manner I mentioned. There are a lot of people in this country that could get off there ass, but lets not kid ourselves that some dude on the street could just become a billionaire because he decided to. Rant over because I can't be bothered to argue with people that think they are above the majority of hard working Americans who point out facts and get told to STFU and get off our asses. Just because you can point to some self made millionaires means nothing to me. It's not the norm and cannot be the norm, it's not economically viable.

Not Editing for grammar, I couldn't give a shit to be honest.

The Waltons made billions and created hundreds of thousands of jobs.

And destroyed many jobs at the same time too.

Well, the top 20% didn't earn that. We should take it and give it to the bottom 20%...

Did I say that???

Edited October 15, 2013 by WABoom

[WABoom]

There should be no punishment for success; only encouragement.

Socialist systems don't work, history has already proven that.

M2-How is our system working out right now? Honest question. I think the way our system started out was the way to go, but over time corporations have gotten so big and seem to be all inter-connected that it skews the system. I agree that we should encourage success and 100% socialist systems don't work. Would a hybrid system be better? I don't know, but what is happening in this country is disturbing which is why I posted the video. It wasn't a commentary on wealth re-distribution, just a break down of where the money actually resides. What the means, I will let others judge. But I will say this final point. That curve can only get so bad and distorted before a crisis will bring it down. Reading a book (The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy) about societies and generational cycles. Seems based on history a Crisis Period is right around the corner. Our politicians are all corrupt, the system is not made for you and I and something has to give. Our social safety net is beyond broken and if no one has the balls to fix that part of our economy, I fear a severe recession/depression is imminent.

Edited October 15, 2013 by WABoom