White Lives Matter To Be Listed As Hate Group

[320 Years of History]

What circumstances?

Did you find that this post adequately answered your question?

 

[320 Years of History]

The issue I have with the numbers related to the disproportionate encounters with police by blacks is that the automatic assumption by those using them is that it's due to racism and racism only.

Yes. That is the general point I was making. I'm not saying it's not due to racism; I'm saying that there remain things that I've not yet seen established and that may indicate it's not racism. Do I think racism has something to do with the observed disparity between the treatment and experience of blacks in the U.S? Yes, but I'm not at a point of attributing all of those experiences and observations to racism.

 

[Conservative65]

What circumstances?

Did you find that this post adequately answered your question?

A list would suffice.

 

[Conservative65]

The issue I have with the numbers related to the disproportionate encounters with police by blacks is that the automatic assumption by those using them is that it's due to racism and racism only.

Yes. That is the general point I was making. I'm not saying it's not due to racism; I'm saying that there remain things that I've not yet seen established and that may indicate it's not racism. Do I think racism has something to do with the observed disparity between the treatment and experience of blacks in the U.S? Yes, but I'm not at a point of attributing all of those experiences and observations to racism.

Many who use those numbers automatically ASSume it's racism and it's their first, last, and only thought. To many of them, disproportionate numbers in any category results in the claim of racism. If you try to show how other factors plays into why the numbers are so high, the go to answer oftentimes has something to do with slavery.

 

[320 Years of History]

What circumstances?

Did you find that this post adequately answered your question?

A list would suffice.

Did you miss the bulleted list at the start of the post?

 

[320 Years of History]

The issue I have with the numbers related to the disproportionate encounters with police by blacks is that the automatic assumption by those using them is that it's due to racism and racism only.

Yes. That is the general point I was making. I'm not saying it's not due to racism; I'm saying that there remain things that I've not yet seen established and that may indicate it's not racism. Do I think racism has something to do with the observed disparity between the treatment and experience of blacks in the U.S? Yes, but I'm not at a point of attributing all of those experiences and observations to racism.

Many who use those numbers automatically ASSume it's racism and it's their first, last, and only thought. To many of them, disproportionate numbers in any category results in the claim of racism. If you try to show how other factors plays into why the numbers are so high, the go to answer oftentimes has something to do with slavery.

Yes, many do.

Trust me, however. They are in good company with folks who on other issues make the same logical errors in arriving at their conclusions.

 

[AmericanFirst1]

“We are listing them because they are clearly white supremacists.”

White Lives Matter will soon be listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

SPLC said the status will be reflected in the next update of its “Hate Map,” which tracks the activities of hate groups around the country.

“I can’t speak to how many chapters will be listed, but it’s clear that the leadership of the group, the ends of the group ― it’s just a flat-out white supremacist group,” Heidi Beirich, director of the center’s Intelligence Report, told the Houston Chronicle. “The ideology behind it, the racist leaders, everything about it is racist.”

White Lives Matter made headlines earlier this month when the group sent armed protesters to an NAACP office in Houston, where they waved Confederate flags.

“We are listing them because they are clearly white supremacists,” Beirich told VICE News. “Their motto should be ‘only white lives matter.’”

Although some called for Black Lives Matter to be listed as a hate group after the shooting deaths of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, that organization doesn’t hold supremacist or separatist views and its leaders have condemned violence.

More: White Lives Matter To Be Listed As Hate Group

I agree with SPLC that White Lives Matter should be listed as a hate group based on their racist actions and rhetoric.

Be prepared for the avalanche of, "Yeah, well, Black Lives Matter is racist, too!!!"

Sent from my 5054N using Tapatalk

They are.

 

[Conservative65]

What circumstances?

Did you find that this post adequately answered your question?

A list would suffice.

Did you miss the bulleted list at the start of the post?

I addressed that on another post to which you responded.

The two bullets I saw dealt with disproportionate crime. Are there more?

 

[Dr.Traveler]

I disagree with the notion these statistics exist because of the color of their skin. That is a cop out, no pun intended. I can tell you that here where I live, the police presence is targeted primarily at the black areas of town.... because that is where the predominance of the crime exists. Is that because of skin color? Nope. It is due to socio-economic factors for sure, and we can discuss that ad nausium. But, to simply dismiss it as racism is ridiculous.

Yeah, socioeconomic issues are actually a bigger deal than race for crime. A lot of the protests are actually being triggered by how those areas are policed. Ferguson exposed the fact that for many poor and high crime communities the police are originally from out of town, live out of town, and hence are seen as out of towners. That's a disaster for maintaining community dialogue and makes it hard for police to get to know the folks in town well enough to recognize when something is a problem and when it isn't.

I don't have a good solution for this. Would it help the problem for the police to recruit directly from the community? Sure. Would it help if you had to live in the community to be a police officer? That I'm not sure about. Tough issue.

When I get pulled over by the cops, I don't know or care where they live.

It doesn't make much difference for me, but it does for the cop involved. A cop living in the community knows the people, knows the hot spots, and usually can communicate with folks. In small towns there are cops that go their whole careers without ever once firing a gun despite the fact they do deal with domestic disturbances, break in, car thefts, drug issues, etc. Knowing your community means you can take control of a situation just by knowing who the players are.

Cops that don't live in the community have a disadvantage in that for them, the community isn't where they live, it's where they work. That's a subtle but important difference. There's a siege mentality that's happening in poor neighborhoods. Ferguson exposed that and it goes both ways. The community sees the Police as hostile outsiders and the Police see themselves as beset on all sides. That's a bad situation and it leads to more bad situations.

 

[Conservative65]

The issue I have with the numbers related to the disproportionate encounters with police by blacks is that the automatic assumption by those using them is that it's due to racism and racism only.

Yes. That is the general point I was making. I'm not saying it's not due to racism; I'm saying that there remain things that I've not yet seen established and that may indicate it's not racism. Do I think racism has something to do with the observed disparity between the treatment and experience of blacks in the U.S? Yes, but I'm not at a point of attributing all of those experiences and observations to racism.

Many who use those numbers automatically ASSume it's racism and it's their first, last, and only thought. To many of them, disproportionate numbers in any category results in the claim of racism. If you try to show how other factors plays into why the numbers are so high, the go to answer oftentimes has something to do with slavery.

Yes, many do.

Trust me, however. They are in good company with folks who on other issues make the same logical errors in arriving at their conclusions.

That's the primary issue I have with their claim. They take the easy route because they don't have to consider other possibilities. I won't say that racism can't be a factor but it damn sure isn't the only possibility except to those I referenced.

I've provided other possibilities involving the high illegitimate birth rate among blacks, showing how it can lead to higher poverty, which has been shown, in general, to lead to higher crime rates. That's when I get the slavery excuses. In other words, they are claiming if it's not racism it's racism because the slavery excuse is also a racism excuse.

 

[Conservative65]

I disagree with the notion these statistics exist because of the color of their skin. That is a cop out, no pun intended. I can tell you that here where I live, the police presence is targeted primarily at the black areas of town.... because that is where the predominance of the crime exists. Is that because of skin color? Nope. It is due to socio-economic factors for sure, and we can discuss that ad nausium. But, to simply dismiss it as racism is ridiculous.

Yeah, socioeconomic issues are actually a bigger deal than race for crime. A lot of the protests are actually being triggered by how those areas are policed. Ferguson exposed the fact that for many poor and high crime communities the police are originally from out of town, live out of town, and hence are seen as out of towners. That's a disaster for maintaining community dialogue and makes it hard for police to get to know the folks in town well enough to recognize when something is a problem and when it isn't.

I don't have a good solution for this. Would it help the problem for the police to recruit directly from the community? Sure. Would it help if you had to live in the community to be a police officer? That I'm not sure about. Tough issue.

When I get pulled over by the cops, I don't know or care where they live.

It doesn't make much difference, but it does for the cop involved. A cop living in the community knows the people, knows the hot spots, and usually can communicate with folks. In small towns there are cops that go their whole careers without ever once firing a gun despite the fact they do deal with domestic disturbances, break in, car thefts, drug issues, etc. Knowing your community means you can take control of a situation just by knowing who the players are.

Cops that don't live in the community have a disadvantage in that for them, the community isn't where they live, it's where they work. That's a subtle but important difference. There's a siege mentality that's happening in poor neighborhoods. Ferguson exposed that and it goes both ways. The community sees the Police as hostile outsiders and the Police see themselves as beset on all sides. That's a bad situation and it leads to more bad situations.

Personally knowing people within the community can also result in situations where someone may choose not to deal with it in a manner someone not associated with the people personally can do better. It can take out the bias.

If the police are seen as hostile outsiders, is that because they are or because the people perceive them to be because they're outsiders? There is a difference.

 

[320 Years of History]

What circumstances?

Did you find that this post adequately answered your question?

A list would suffice.

Did you miss the bulleted list at the start of the post?

I addressed that on another post to which you responded.

The two bullets I saw dealt with disproportionate crime. Are there more?

For me there certainly are; however, I don't know which of the other questions I'd ask have been answered already (answered by rigorous research, not by folks posting in this thread) and I just don't know they have been answered.

What I'm not going to do in this venue (with people here) is air the bases of my uncertainty about the extent to which racism is or is not a factor in the observed behaviors, outcomes and experiences of blacks. I'm not because, quite frankly, I see far too little intellectual integrity and rational validity/soundness in the discussion on USMB.

My questions don't lead to a conclusion that racism is not a relevant factor, they go only to the extent to which it is or is not. The last thing I want to do is present my questions only to have them insipidly answered by some "armchair sociologist" and then twisted into some sort of inane assertion that racism plays no role at all. I'm okay with folks making the assertion that racism is no factor at all, but they are going to have to do so by performing their own rigorous research or by drawing their own very strong inferences and conclusions based upon what they find and that is contextually relevant from the body of available rigorous research in social science fields like psychology, philosophy and sociology.

 

[Conservative65]

What circumstances?

Did you find that this post adequately answered your question?

A list would suffice.

Did you miss the bulleted list at the start of the post?

I addressed that on another post to which you responded.

The two bullets I saw dealt with disproportionate crime. Are there more?

For me there certainly are; however, I don't know which of the other questions I'd ask have been answered already (answered by rigorous research, not by folks posting in this thread) and I just don't know they have been answered.

What I'm not going to do in this venue (with people here) is air the bases of my uncertainty about the extent to which racism is or is not a factor in the observed behaviors, outcomes and experiences of blacks. I'm not because, quite frankly, I see far too little intellectual integrity and rational validity/soundness in the discussion on USMB.

My questions don't lead to a conclusion that racism is not a relevant factor, they go only to the extent to which it is or is not. The last thing I want to do is present my questions only to have them insipidly answered by some "armchair sociologist" and then twisted into some sort of inane assertion that racism plays no role at all. I'm okay with folks making the assertion that racism is no factor at all, but they are going to have to do so by performing their own rigorous research or by drawing their own very strong inferences and conclusions based upon what they find and that is contextually relevant from the body of available rigorous research in social science fields like psychology, philosophy and sociology.

I do have a problem with people automatically going with the racism claim. They've done no research yet make claims as if they had.

 

[320 Years of History]

The issue I have with the numbers related to the disproportionate encounters with police by blacks is that the automatic assumption by those using them is that it's due to racism and racism only.

Yes. That is the general point I was making. I'm not saying it's not due to racism; I'm saying that there remain things that I've not yet seen established and that may indicate it's not racism. Do I think racism has something to do with the observed disparity between the treatment and experience of blacks in the U.S? Yes, but I'm not at a point of attributing all of those experiences and observations to racism.

Many who use those numbers automatically ASSume it's racism and it's their first, last, and only thought. To many of them, disproportionate numbers in any category results in the claim of racism. If you try to show how other factors plays into why the numbers are so high, the go to answer oftentimes has something to do with slavery.

Yes, many do.

Trust me, however. They are in good company with folks who on other issues make the same logical errors in arriving at their conclusions.

That's the primary issue I have with their claim. They take the easy route because they don't have to consider other possibilities. I won't say that racism can't be a factor but it damn sure isn't the only possibility except to those I referenced.

I've provided other possibilities involving the high illegitimate birth rate among blacks, showing how it can lead to higher poverty, which has been shown, in general, to lead to higher crime rates. That's when I get the slavery excuses. In other words, they are claiming if it's not racism it's racism because the slavery excuse is also a racism excuse.

Blue:
Frankly, I don't know that racism can't be a factor in any kind of interaction between individuals/groups of different races in the U.S. It's thus quite difficult for me to accept that there is a finite body of interactions in which racism has a role.

Green:
I don't see, at least not as goes the behavior noted in your sentence here, that slavery has a damn thing to do with higher crime rates. It's not challenging to accept that bastardy be causal to increased likelihoods of poverty. It's not surprising or even just slightly plausible that impoverished folks (on a group, not individual, level) are more likely to commit certain types of crime. (Make no mistake, well off folks have their own types of "more likely" crime...embezzlement, bribery, fraud, etc.)

On the "poverty" point, however, there's quite a ways to go to get from "poor people are more likely to commit certain types of crimes" to "poverty causes crime" or "poverty causes people to commit certain types of crimes." Quite simply, correlation is most definitely not causation.

In examining and concluding on the matter of poverty, crime and blacks, it'd be worth looking into what be the crime rates among poor non-blacks who live in similar circumstances as do poor blacks. It's also be worth determining what role opportunity and perceptions about successfully offending plays in the commission of crime. A person who lives in a small rural community may not have much opportunity to commit a given crime and not get caught, thus s/he just doesn't attempt the deed. On the other hand, rural environments may boost the likelihood of success for other types of crime.

 

[320 Years of History]

Did you find that this post adequately answered your question?

A list would suffice.

Did you miss the bulleted list at the start of the post?

I addressed that on another post to which you responded.

The two bullets I saw dealt with disproportionate crime. Are there more?

For me there certainly are; however, I don't know which of the other questions I'd ask have been answered already (answered by rigorous research, not by folks posting in this thread) and I just don't know they have been answered.

What I'm not going to do in this venue (with people here) is air the bases of my uncertainty about the extent to which racism is or is not a factor in the observed behaviors, outcomes and experiences of blacks. I'm not because, quite frankly, I see far too little intellectual integrity and rational validity/soundness in the discussion on USMB.

My questions don't lead to a conclusion that racism is not a relevant factor, they go only to the extent to which it is or is not. The last thing I want to do is present my questions only to have them insipidly answered by some "armchair sociologist" and then twisted into some sort of inane assertion that racism plays no role at all. I'm okay with folks making the assertion that racism is no factor at all, but they are going to have to do so by performing their own rigorous research or by drawing their own very strong inferences and conclusions based upon what they find and that is contextually relevant from the body of available rigorous research in social science fields like psychology, philosophy and sociology.

I do have a problem with people automatically going with the racism claim. They've done no research yet make claims as if they had.

I take exception with folks doing that -- leaping to conclusions -- whether racism is or is not part of the topic at hand. Don't get me wrong....There are many times when quick decisions are required, and evidence cannot be fully examined, and in such circumstances we need to come to the best conclusion we can with the resources we have. And guess what...That's where economics becomes an immensely useful topic to understand really, really well. It's the social science that deals with scarcity and choice. Though we apply it predominantly to monetary behaviors, there is also the economics of human behavior that has nothing to do directly with money matters.

That is why I shared the Voltaire quote and mentioned Pareto earlier. The fact is that in the U.S. we have folks who are getting killed and incarcerated and though we need to have more high quality information on the matter, we also must act, albeit not irrevocably, to do something to rectify the situation. We can act in accordance with conservative or liberal dogma -- and truly I don't care which -- but we must act. All I really require is that if whichever route we try doesn't work given a reasonable time period, we try something else. Because of my willingness to adopt that approach to problem solving, I prefer unwatered down implementations over "half steps" and emasculating compromises. Unfortunately, I'm among the minority in being willing to take that overall approach to policymaking and implementation.

 

[Correll]

I disagree with the notion these statistics exist because of the color of their skin. That is a cop out, no pun intended. I can tell you that here where I live, the police presence is targeted primarily at the black areas of town.... because that is where the predominance of the crime exists. Is that because of skin color? Nope. It is due to socio-economic factors for sure, and we can discuss that ad nausium. But, to simply dismiss it as racism is ridiculous.

Yeah, socioeconomic issues are actually a bigger deal than race for crime. A lot of the protests are actually being triggered by how those areas are policed. Ferguson exposed the fact that for many poor and high crime communities the police are originally from out of town, live out of town, and hence are seen as out of towners. That's a disaster for maintaining community dialogue and makes it hard for police to get to know the folks in town well enough to recognize when something is a problem and when it isn't.

I don't have a good solution for this. Would it help the problem for the police to recruit directly from the community? Sure. Would it help if you had to live in the community to be a police officer? That I'm not sure about. Tough issue.

When I get pulled over by the cops, I don't know or care where they live.

It doesn't make much difference for me, but it does for the cop involved. A cop living in the community knows the people, knows the hot spots, and usually can communicate with folks. In small towns there are cops that go their whole careers without ever once firing a gun despite the fact they do deal with domestic disturbances, break in, car thefts, drug issues, etc. Knowing your community means you can take control of a situation just by knowing who the players are.

Cops that don't live in the community have a disadvantage in that for them, the community isn't where they live, it's where they work. That's a subtle but important difference. There's a siege mentality that's happening in poor neighborhoods. Ferguson exposed that and it goes both ways. The community sees the Police as hostile outsiders and the Police see themselves as beset on all sides. That's a bad situation and it leads to more bad situations.

THe problem isn't one of perception.


If the community sees themselves as the enemies of the police, then they ARE THE ENEMIES OF THE POLICE.

Throw in moronic political leadership that want's the cops to fix social problems and the cops ARE BESET ON ALL SIDES.


Forcing cops to live in shitholes won't change any of that, it will just put cop's lives and families in danger.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

I disagree with the notion these statistics exist because of the color of their skin. That is a cop out, no pun intended. I can tell you that here where I live, the police presence is targeted primarily at the black areas of town.... because that is where the predominance of the crime exists. Is that because of skin color? Nope. It is due to socio-economic factors for sure, and we can discuss that ad nausium. But, to simply dismiss it as racism is ridiculous.

Yeah, socioeconomic issues are actually a bigger deal than race for crime. A lot of the protests are actually being triggered by how those areas are policed. Ferguson exposed the fact that for many poor and high crime communities the police are originally from out of town, live out of town, and hence are seen as out of towners. That's a disaster for maintaining community dialogue and makes it hard for police to get to know the folks in town well enough to recognize when something is a problem and when it isn't.

I don't have a good solution for this. Would it help the problem for the police to recruit directly from the community? Sure. Would it help if you had to live in the community to be a police officer? That I'm not sure about. Tough issue.

When I get pulled over by the cops, I don't know or care where they live.

It doesn't make much difference, but it does for the cop involved. A cop living in the community knows the people, knows the hot spots, and usually can communicate with folks. In small towns there are cops that go their whole careers without ever once firing a gun despite the fact they do deal with domestic disturbances, break in, car thefts, drug issues, etc. Knowing your community means you can take control of a situation just by knowing who the players are.

Cops that don't live in the community have a disadvantage in that for them, the community isn't where they live, it's where they work. That's a subtle but important difference. There's a siege mentality that's happening in poor neighborhoods. Ferguson exposed that and it goes both ways. The community sees the Police as hostile outsiders and the Police see themselves as beset on all sides. That's a bad situation and it leads to more bad situations.

Personally knowing people within the community can also result in situations where someone may choose not to deal with it in a manner someone not associated with the people personally can do better. It can take out the bias.

If the police are seen as hostile outsiders, is that because they are or because the people perceive them to be because they're outsiders? There is a difference.

No, you're right, there is a difference. But to your earlier point first: Someone from outside is likely to be less biased, but you're likely to see more mercy from someone that knows you. For example: If you're under 18 and you do something stupid (which we all have done) a cop from the community might put the fear of God in you to teach you a lesson, but not take things far enough that you'd face permanent consequences for being 18 and stupid. There are easy examples, like petty theft, misdemeanor possession, traffic tickets, etc.

What you see in a lot of the poor inner city situations is that everything is enforced to the fullest extent. Tickets are always written and enforced. Crimes fully prosecuted. The law allows for that, but it can make the folks in the community wonder if they're really being watched out for or if they're being shaken down. In some communities the hostility comes from really aggressive enforcement of minor offenses, and some communities just don't want outsiders around.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

If the community sees themselves as the enemies of the police, then they ARE THE ENEMIES OF THE POLICE.

How you get to that point matters a lot. Some of these communities are experiencing the kind of aggressive policing most of us never experience. The broken windows theory (Broken windows theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) is pretty controversial and it advocates a kind of aggressive policing that can get pretty oppressive. If I get a warning about a busted tail light chances are I'll come out of it understanding the officer is warning me for my safety. If the officer writes me a ticket, part of me wonders if I've just been given a shake down. If everyone I know is getting written tickets it feels less like policing and more like robbery.

I'd also add: It's tougher to demonize a cop when your kids play with his kids, when you pass his house as you drive to work, when you go to church with him, etc. It's also easier for a cop to tell the difference between a person that made a mistake and deserves a warning and a habitual offender that deserves to get put away if he knows the community.

 

[Conservative65]

I disagree with the notion these statistics exist because of the color of their skin. That is a cop out, no pun intended. I can tell you that here where I live, the police presence is targeted primarily at the black areas of town.... because that is where the predominance of the crime exists. Is that because of skin color? Nope. It is due to socio-economic factors for sure, and we can discuss that ad nausium. But, to simply dismiss it as racism is ridiculous.

Yeah, socioeconomic issues are actually a bigger deal than race for crime. A lot of the protests are actually being triggered by how those areas are policed. Ferguson exposed the fact that for many poor and high crime communities the police are originally from out of town, live out of town, and hence are seen as out of towners. That's a disaster for maintaining community dialogue and makes it hard for police to get to know the folks in town well enough to recognize when something is a problem and when it isn't.

I don't have a good solution for this. Would it help the problem for the police to recruit directly from the community? Sure. Would it help if you had to live in the community to be a police officer? That I'm not sure about. Tough issue.

When I get pulled over by the cops, I don't know or care where they live.

It doesn't make much difference, but it does for the cop involved. A cop living in the community knows the people, knows the hot spots, and usually can communicate with folks. In small towns there are cops that go their whole careers without ever once firing a gun despite the fact they do deal with domestic disturbances, break in, car thefts, drug issues, etc. Knowing your community means you can take control of a situation just by knowing who the players are.

Cops that don't live in the community have a disadvantage in that for them, the community isn't where they live, it's where they work. That's a subtle but important difference. There's a siege mentality that's happening in poor neighborhoods. Ferguson exposed that and it goes both ways. The community sees the Police as hostile outsiders and the Police see themselves as beset on all sides. That's a bad situation and it leads to more bad situations.

Personally knowing people within the community can also result in situations where someone may choose not to deal with it in a manner someone not associated with the people personally can do better. It can take out the bias.

If the police are seen as hostile outsiders, is that because they are or because the people perceive them to be because they're outsiders? There is a difference.

No, you're right, there is a difference. But to your earlier point first: Someone from outside is likely to be less biased, but you're likely to see more mercy from someone that knows you. For example: If you're under 18 and you do something stupid (which we all have done) a cop from the community might put the fear of God in you to teach you a lesson, but not take things far enough that you'd face permanent consequences for being 18 and stupid. There are easy examples, like petty theft, misdemeanor possession, traffic tickets, etc.

What you see in a lot of the poor inner city situations is that everything is enforced to the fullest extent. Tickets are always written and enforced. Crimes fully prosecuted. The law allows for that, but it can make the folks in the community wonder if they're really being watched out for or if they're being shaken down. In some communities the hostility comes from really aggressive enforcement of minor offenses, and some communities just don't want outsiders around.

Sometimes showing mercy involves letting someone get by with something that if addressed as it needs to be can prevent something worse down the road.

Petty theft is an easy example? How many young offenders, even those less than 18, later became adult criminals. In a national study that tracked over 400,000 released prisoner, over 75% were back in prison within 5 years of their release. That was after having done time. Your answer is to "put the fear of God" in them. How. By talking to them? If time in prison and the conditions they deal with there isn't enough, a talking to isn't going to get the job done.

"for being 18 and stupid". 18 is an ADULT. 18 is an age at which people can vote. The problem is we don't want to hold people capable of making the choice of who makes the laws in the country accountable for the crimes they commit then wonder why they continue to commit crimes.

If people follow the law, they don't have to worry about who is around. The problem is when they don't, their anger stems from someone telling them they broke the law.

 

[Conservative65]

If the community sees themselves as the enemies of the police, then they ARE THE ENEMIES OF THE POLICE.

How you get to that point matters a lot. Some of these communities are experiencing the kind of aggressive policing most of us never experience. The broken windows theory (Broken windows theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) is pretty controversial and it advocates a kind of aggressive policing that can get pretty oppressive. If I get a warning about a busted tail light chances are I'll come out of it understanding the officer is warning me for my safety. If the officer writes me a ticket, part of me wonders if I've just been given a shake down. If everyone I know is getting written tickets it feels less like policing and more like robbery.

I'd also add: It's tougher to demonize a cop when your kids play with his kids, when you pass his house as you drive to work, when you go to church with him, etc. It's also easier for a cop to tell the difference between a person that made a mistake and deserves a warning and a habitual offender that deserves to get put away if he knows the community.

It's also easier for that cop to let things go when they shouldn't be let go because he/she knows the people personally.

In my State, when someone that joins the Highway Patrol finishes the academy, they are not assigned to the county in which they lived in order to avoid the POTENTIAL of favoritism. I want to say, having had friends in that line of work, there had to be a county in between where they lived when joining the force and the county in which they were assigned. It may have been a distance requirement away from it. There was something that prevented it.