Right. It's incredible that something like Linux is free. For a more recent example, look at Vs code. An even more recent example, look at how many open weight llms there are out there.
I definitely would not call VS Code good software, at least not overall. It's good in that it's not buggy, but it uses an absurdly high amount of system resources without any actual benefit. It is not ok that just to open a handful of small text files, it uses 1-2 GB of memory.
Yeah vs code was one of the first examples I thought of as well. It has its own set of issues for sure, but even as a former vim fanatic it’s amazing from both a default experience perspective and that of a power user.
HA! Comparing VSCode to Linux is like comparing an overweight, acne-ridden drug addict that lives in his mom's basement to an astronaut with 3 PhDs. They're barely even the same species.
You can't fault people for using a popular service that's advertised as safe.
Maybe the solution is laws requiring prominent disclosure of high-impact practices like this. How many people would use Youtube if the sign-up page said, in bold red letters:
WE CAN AND WILL DELETE USERS' ENTIRE ACCOUNT AND LIVELIHOOD AT ANY TIME.
YOU WILL HAVE NO RECOURSE OR EXPLANATION.
WE DON'T REALLY EVEN EMPLOY HUMANS FOR CUSTOMER SUPPORT.
What's your specific disagreement? If it's that I'm still uploading data to Google then it can't be much. Google's apps have been removed and a firewall blocks any third party ones from the internet that aren't from F-Droid.
When there's a lot of chaos in society, it's useful that your faction has the most guns.
Lefties go "constitution is outdated, you can't beat tanks with rifles, therefore having guns is useless". Reality isn't that black and white tho. If your faction has the most guns you might not even have to use them.
I don't know who you mean by "lefties," but I don't hear anybody staking their ideology on "the Constitution is outdated." Except, notably, the orange RINO-in-chief.
> The irony is that one of the main rails upon which the MAGA train rides is States rights.
No it's not. They just like slavery. If it was about states rights they wouldn't support sending in the military.
What I find shocking about comments like yours is the reminder that propaganda works. Someone in the republican party decided "guys, advocating for slavery openly doesn't go over well, let's tell them it's actually about states rights", and loads of people actually believed it.
“States Rights” ,as a political slogan in the US, has always been code for the dominant White population’s privilege to oppress others, originally primarily via slavery, but over time through other alternative means (mostly designed to approximate the effect of slavery without the precise legal condition.)
> Someone in the republican party decided "guys, advocating for slavery openly doesn't go over well
It was the Democratic party that historically supported slavery and opposed the civil rights movement. The "states rights" euphemism was invented by the Democratic party not the Republican party.
Huh. The most recent Democratic Presidential nominee was clear that she supported comprehensive immigration reform, seeking pathways to citizenship for immigrants in the U.S. without legal status, with a faster track for people living in the country illegally who arrived as children. So sort of not without legal status at all.
And as one might not realize given the rhetoric, border crossings in 2024 plummeted (although not reaching pre-pandemic levels) thanks to increased arrests on the US side of the border and more efforts from Mexico to control the flow of refugees.
This isn't popular. People don't want to reward illegal behavior with citizenship, the process should be relaxed for people who want to come in the future but if someone has already broken the law of the land to come here they should already be disqualified. Maintain criminality checks but increase the numbers allowed in each year. This is perfectly viable.
Have you thought about why trump's voterbase includes so many legal immigrants? immigrants who put in the immense effort to come here properly are tired of people sneaking into the country and the democratic party conflating legal and illegal immigrants and acting like the two groups are the same.
You didn't say it was popular, you said it seemed to you like Democrats were trying to reconstruct a form of slavery. That's incorrect.
I have thought about what Trump got a lot of legal immigrant votes. I believe it's because a) he lied, playing on fear in order to get people to think he could save them from a non-existent threat and b) people didn't think he was going to do what he promised to do.
Ileana Garcia, Florida State Senator and co-founder of Latinos for Trump, just said "This is not what we voted for." She's wrong -- it was very clear to me during the campaign that Stephen Miller's goal was exactly what we're seeing now. However, I am fundamentally sympathetic to people who were fooled.
> you said it seemed to you like Democrats were trying to reconstruct a form of slavery. That's incorrect.
Uh, no? I was replying to someone who brought up slavery and i pointed out if something is similar, importing in a large underclass of exploitable cheap labor is certainly similar. Illegal immigration is not a form of slavery, not sure where you got that, but when we're already in the realm of absurd analogies it's definitely more similar by comparison.
"It kinda seems like the democratic party is more aligned with slavery these days, intentionally bringing in an underclass of workers who can't protect their rights to work for cheap for their megacorp donors."
There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state. The other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.
Just watched a vid of LAPD trampling a person with a horse, then shooting them with what looked like a baton round at a range of 5-10 feet. That is a life altering injury, administered with direct intent, while the protestor was trying to flee. Holding my breath for zero consequences for unnecessary force. Not to mention qualified immunity. LAPD doing LAPD things.
How can one argue that the police serve the people? They don't necessarily even serve local government. They get a lot of federal funding and equipment, and in riot-control mode their purpose is to brutalize protestors until people stop showing up.
I also find it rather grotesque to watch Newsom argue that state and local police are perfectly capable of handling (i.e. crippling) protestors by themselves and don't need any federal assistance to do so.
Nobody should be trampled, but for some context there was a Molotov about 10 seconds beforehand, and the first trample was a horse being spooked by some fireworks.
How can the incident (with video evidence) you describe not potentially result in criminal charges? Why hold your breath? Surely there are countless people to act on that.
We know from the BLM protests that police are rarely prosecuted for misconduct unless there's massive public outrage, i.e. you need another riot to get the injuries from the first one prosecuted.
Presidential pardon? All jan 6ers were pardoned, despite extensive video evidence of their crimes. If you're loyal to the power in place, you can do whatever you want. That's fascism 101.
What would be the point? There's almost nothing they could do that would be against the law if they're just given a pre-emptive pardon. They could put up an arena with citizens vs lions as long as it pleases Donald...
Practically? The judicial branch will do it via qualified immunity. "Not clearly established law that you can't trample people on a street with a horse."
I initially thought this was a joke or sarcasm, but not everyone has seen everything that happens (the lucky 10,000 and all that). But during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, police, especially in Portland Oregon, used brutal and indiscriminate violence against protestors [1]. Some of the most brutal and blatant cases were eventually prosecuted [2] but most were not and never will be [3,4]. There were also multiple cases of Federal officers without uniforms in unmarked vehicles grabbing people off the streets to take them to unknown locations [5]. But there were cases across the country. In buffalo, 57 officers resigned after two cops were suspended for shoving a 75-year-old to the ground and cracking his skull (better to find a new job than the slight chance of accountability, I guess) [6].
But there was countless incidents that were not high profile that went completely unpunished. The purpose was to terrify protestors. If the police beat, abduct, maim, and injure protestors, and a year or two later, a half dozen get some light punishment, are you going to risk getting your eye shot out by a rubber bullet or your arm broken by a baton to protest the police next time?
[1] “Police here routinely embrace the violent crowd-control tactics … indiscriminately attacking protesters with tear gas, flash-bang grenades, rubber bullets, and other “less lethal” munitions. The bureau has been hit with two temporary restraining orders from federal judges: one rebuking the PPB for likely violations of protesters’ rights to free speech and against excessive force; the other ordering the PPB to stop arresting journalists and legal observers for documenting police clashes with protesters.” https://archive.ph/39lib
[2] “Donovan LaBella, 30, was peacefully protesting outside the federal courthouse in Portland on July 11, 2020, when a deputy U.S. Marshal fired a “less lethal” impact munition that struck LaBella in the face, causing brain damage.” https://www.opb.org/article/2024/11/20/portland-protester-do...
[3] “A Portland cop who chased down and beat a protest medic, in one of the most harrowing incidents of police violence from the city’s Black Lives Matter protests last year, will not face criminal charges.” https://archive.ph/6ErUo
[4] “[N]ot a single federal officer on the Portland streets at that time has been held individually accountable for alleged constitutional violations over claims brought by David and other protesters. In fact, courts have not had a chance to assess whether constitutional violations even occurred. That is thanks to the intervention of the Supreme Court, which in a series of rulings has created an accountability-free environment in which federal officials interacting with the public on a daily basis…can violate people’s constitutional rights with impunity.” https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/portland-prot...
[6] “the video shows Mr. Gugino stopping in front of the officers to talk, an officer yells “push him back” three times; one officer pushes his arm into Mr. Gugino’s chest, while another extends his baton toward him with both hands. Mr. Gugino flails backward, landing just out of range of the camera, with blood immediately leaking from his right ear… ‘These officers were simply following orders from Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia to clear the square’[John T. Evans, the president of the Buffalo police union]”. https://archive.ph/KYOIS
> better to find a new job than the slight chance of accountability, I guess
People have long argued for a national register of police officers who were terminated for cause, or resigned to avoid termination for cause.
Awesome.
Except, at last count, about 70-75% of the nation's police departments have forbidden its use in hiring decisions due to their collective bargaining agreement with police unions...
There is a misunderstanding compared to OP's intent. It's not that separating military and police guarantees that the police will make the police serve and protect the people. Rather, if separated, police has a better chance to serve and protect the people, compared to a situation where it's the military's job.
Consider the the separation of church and state. It's done so the government remains neutral in religious matters and does not favor or establish any religion. In reality, some churches are clearly favored. Or the review system in academia. Peer reviews are so that bullshit doesn't make it into published papers. Yet, bullshit and bias does make it into published papers.
This is just a system that is working somewhat well. With obvious, very large room for improvement. But the direction, separating military and police, is good. Just not enough.
"At stake is a fundamental component of the framework of US constitutional democracy. It begins with the principle, enshrined in law, that military forces exist to protect the country from existential threats — such as an invasion or rebellion — not to enforce the law.
Most fundamentally, the founders of the American republic understood very clearly that concentrated military power, loyal to a single man, could be used to achieve total control by that person. And they had a historical example in mind: Rome — a republic governed by the people and the Senate — was transformed into an empire ruled by an emperor as a result of the Roman army being turned against its citizens."
Well I hate to disparage a large group of people, but how often have you spoken to an American who understands this type of social-legal history of the country, and values it?
Although I know quite a lot of (what I consider) well-educated Americans, it is also the only country from which I regularly meet the type of person who doesn't care at all about how society works (also, technology, history, art, etc).
You'll probably find that HN-person is the kind of person who values this kind of argument, but HN-world is quite small.
On multiple occasions, I've met Americans who simply care about might-makes-right. It's skin-deep, as soon as you ask them why they support this or that policy, it's because they are powerful and the rest of the world is not. I've literally met Americans who thought their tax money allowed them to summon troops, more than once. (This ended up backfiring as it turns out, they did not know how to get US Marines to arrive, big shocker.)
The same kind of thinking seems to be prevalent internally. You can trample the law, because you can. You see it even in ordinary US-made popular media. What happens what a character gets in trouble with the law? Well, then of course it depends on who has the most money to hire the best lawyers.
In the current case, I suspect the government will just do whatever it wants and there will be no legal reckoning.
I meet these in my home country Finland all the time nowadays. They've probably been there all along but have been emboldened and riled up by the rise and normalization of the far-right.
My read is that this is even further along in many places in Europe.
> how often have you spoken to an American who understands this type of social-legal history of the country, and values it?
This was supposedly a staunch conservative stance once upon a time. The last decade clearly shifted such mentality towards one not dissimilar to Russia. I guess the cold war never true ended.
> Well I hate to disparage a large group of people, but how often have you spoken to an American who understands this type of social-legal history of the country, and values it?
Quite often, and the answer is not many. It's why I've returned to a frankly elitist worldview, because this seems to be a historical pattern when power is diffused too widely. The lesson of our age may be that the Chinese political system, which seeks to restrit political competition within a small, carefully-selected group, is fitter than the American experiment.
You think the lesson that the president of a democratic country is amassing power and becoming less Democratic is to just go all the way and remove democracy?
I'll additionally note that China has famously not handled some of its major protests well and uh, calls in the military.
> China has famously not handled some of its major protests well and uh, calls in the military
Agreed. I'm saying if we're accepting this as precedent, a Presidential republic is not a stable system. We either reject the military being called in to quell protests. Or we accept it as precedent and revise our system of government to remove that power from the madness of crowds.
Why won't the Chinese system just collapse eventually? You have a small elite who perhaps currently are well-selected (besides the point) but what is preventing that elite from leaving the reins to someone who is not so good? With the added effect that the incompetent ruler will call upon the reputation for competence built up by previous rulers?
Seems like it's just cultural norms all the way down. If people want to take advantage of the system, they can break these norms while pretending to be what they used to be.
The political system that brought us Wolf Warrior Diplomacy? Being an authoritarian uniparty doesn’t make them immune to seeking political capital one way or another, and they’ve dipped into the “encouraging jingoistic nationalism” part of that playbook plenty.
> military forces exist to protect the country from existential threats — such as an invasion or rebellion — not to enforce the law.
serious question: are Countries such as Italy, France etc not a democracy?
All of them are, verbatim from wikipedia, "a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population.". Ditto for spain Guardia Civil, and many of the countries listed in that same wiki page: Algeria, Netherlands, Poland, Argentina, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, Chile, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, ...
Having police not separated from military doesn't invalidate the democracy, it just makes it easier to subvert democracy at some point.
The spanish Guardia Civil is a very good example of a police force tied too deeply with the military. In 1981 some parts of the force attempted an actual coup, with one guy entering the parliament and shooting in the air (or ceiling).
The continuity of the Guardia Civil after Franco's dictatorship is one of many vestiges that has not been removed due to fears of creating an instability leading to some coup and a reversal to fascism. IMHO this may have been justified the years immediately after Franco's death, but should have been addressed at some point. See the 1981 coup as for why "appeasing" the oppressors usually doesn't work out, or even works out for the oppressors.
Gendarmerie are simply policemen with a military status which give them some duty (like I think they cannot strike) and some benefits (earlier retirement) but they are still really a police force in reality. I don't think it would look good to send actual army to fight citizens, and I don't think the army would appreciate it either (it might have been done already, no idea)
What you say is true, but I'd add that Gendarms/Guardia Civil/Carabinieri etc.; tend to hang around carrying big guns, are responsible to the country as a whole (rather than the local community), are under the relevant defence ministry (while also reporting to the interior ministry).
In my experience they don't act at all like normal cops, and sometimes can be in conflict with them. The only interactions I ever hear of with citizens is if they beat the shit out of someone. You're not going to be going to them for a lost phone or a cat in a tree.
I don't know about the other forces mentioned here, but the French Gendarmerie are pretty much "regular police" as far as the people are concerned. The main difference with "actual regular police" is that they tend to operate in sparsely populated areas instead of large cities.
But they absolutely will do traffic police on highways, intervene to reason with a loud neighbor, etc. They'll also routinely show up during large protests in big cities.
The "big-gun carrying" Gendarmerie is a special unit, the GIGN, probably akin to US' SWAT teams. They'll intervene when "very dangerous" people are involved, think hostage situations or the like. "Regular police" also has a similar outfit.
Thank you for the correction. Indeed the main force of the French Gendarmerie (Gendarmerie Départementale) is much more like a "regular" police force than I described.
The unit I was confusing with the Gendarmerie as a whole was the Mobile Gendarmerie, whose role is more similar to the the Guardia Civil and Carabinieri.
I wouldn't have included GIGN, since I they appear to be much smaller and have a more "special”/"tactical" role.
I'll also note that the the Gendarmerie don't appear to be sending a team to the AWC (the olympics of smashing through the ceiling and shooting you in your bed) in two weeks, whereas the Guardia Civil and Carabinieri will. This may be a geopolitical thing though.
Seeing Gens D'Armes on the street was somewhat common. The Gens D'Armes are akin to 'heavy' police and are a show of force. The Gens D'Armes were pretty common to see in the subways, airports, and/or just on patrol. They were Gens D'Armes stations in the city just how there were also regular police stations. Gens D'Armes patrols were a bit distinct from other police patrols, almost always larger groups, around 5 to 7 people with long-guns and plate carriers. Meanwhile regular police had much lighter weapons, no body armor, and very rarely were in groups of more than 2 or 3.
Times have changed. Nowadays, the gendarmes only show up when protests are expected to turn into rioting (so basically most of them). You don't see them around Paris in day to day life. We now have actual military patrolling the streets, "Operation Sentinelle". They're supposed to show some muscle to discourage terrorism. They are actual military, with actual military weapons. This has been going on for multiple years, I don't remember when it started.
However, regular police now wear bulletproof vests, too, even when randomly patrolling the streets. Since some years ago, we now have "municipal police", basically police which answer to the mayor [0], as opposed to the state, with somewhat fewer powers. But even they walk around with bullet-proof vests.
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[0] In France, "the police" usually means "Police Nationale", which answers to the Prefect, who represents the State in the local Jurisdiction (département) – they are not elected, but appointed by the Interior Ministry. The "Municial police" answers to the City, but they're not allowed to conduct all the operations that the National Police do. The City means the Mayor, who's elected by the local population.
> The Gens D'Armes are akin to 'heavy' police and are a show of force
I've only seen that when they show up as support for or operating in a similar role as CRS† (crowd control, security for major events) which indeed would be Gendarmerie Mobile but that's a far cry from the range of operational responsibilities of Gendarmerie as a whole.
Turns out this is probably what city dwellers in France would only see of Gendarmerie, because Police Nationale and Municipale (city) typically have much more presence in cities than countryside, and the other way around for Gendarmerie.
That is not universally true. A Gendarmerie is literally a military force with law enforcement duties and many are exactly that.
In the Netherlands, the Royal Marechaussee are literal soldiers who perform military police duties and also many civilian policing duties, but all of them are soldiers first.
> A Gendarmerie is literally a military force with law enforcement duties
The second part is a huge differentiator from "normal" military. A police force even if administratively under the military has one crucial differentiator: their daily duties and training revolve almost exclusively around policing civilians from the same country. Military training and tactics are overwhelmingly aimed at dealing with foreign enemy combatants, mainly other military forces.
The methods give away the intentions and expected outcome. The US already has a very "militarized" police force. You send actual military only if you want to inflict the maximum amount of damage, and with that threat overwhelmingly scare the country into compliance.
> their daily duties and training revolve almost exclusively around policing mainly civilians, citizens of the same country.
That is the part that is not universally true. There are plenty of Gendarmeries who are soldiers first, with combat training and ethos, who also perform policing duties, the Marechaussee included.
Fair enough, but Wikipedia confirms that they all have civilian law enforcement and police duties so clearly their training, tactics, and experience revolve heavily around dealing with civilians.
I'll still take that over "soldiers only", even more with US's very active military where the soldiers routinely see active combat. Both the theory and practice shapes their "soldier vs. enemy combatant" world view. That's a hammer if I've ever seen one.
* when used domestically, it's under the Minister of Justice and Security
* there's also no Dutch equivalent of the U.S. presidency with unilateral executive control over the military
I'd argue this kind of danger is something you get more in presidential systems. Not that we all shouldn't be wary of military forces within our civilian populations.
Yes, sorry, I was answering only regarding the French gendarmerie, which I thought was made clear by the fact it's a French word but it turns out to be used more broadly.
In Portugal, the Guarda Civil are cops in rural areas. I have no special insight into their training or hierarchy, but I can tell you that in practice they interact with the population like cops, not like soldiers. E.g. you wouldn't report shoplifting to the army, but you can report to the Guarda Civil.
So I don't think your comment makes any sense, at least in Portugal.
I haven't lived there in almost 15 years. I stand corrected. In fact I'm closer in time to having lived in Spain than in Portugal, that must be the origin of my confusion.
In any case, I hope you agree my description of the GNR was accurate in substance.
If the US has laws that forbid that, and other nations have laws that establish that, then the US military being used for police activities is threatening to democracy - or at least to the rule of law - in a way that it is not threatening in other countries.
Other countries can do that if they want. It may or may not be a threat to them. But in the US, it's absolutely a threat to democracy, because it's already the executive deploying the military against the law.
> serious question: are Countries such as Italy, France etc not a democracy?
They are, but not in the the "framework of US constitutional democracy." A system for which we have more evidence of stability than either of Italy or France's modern republics. (Note, too, les gendarmes' heritage: imperial France. Also, gendarmes aren't usually deployed overseas. They are, in a sense, more similar to the FBI than the U.S. Marines.)
I have always found confusing the existence of the gendarmes. They are indeed a vestigial force of the XIXth century, and should be transformed into a regular police force.
On the contrary, they are more relevant than ever in today's era of peacekeeping and anti-terrorism activities. They are fundamental to the stabilisation of the Balkans, for example. They fill the gap between full war and "normal" (punctual) criminality.
Those are bad too. Anyone that grew up in a country with a gendarmerie knows they are the most violent, unpleasant and fascist (personally, not like "all cops are fascist") people you’ll ever meet.
Some of the cases you mention involve "military" police who are under the authority of the Ministry of the Interior, instead of the Ministry of Defense. Many also are not the only police force, in Chile the investigative duties fall to the non-military PDI.
IMO as Chilean, it's a pretty bad thing democratically, for both historical (dictatorship) and more recent reasons. Still, there is a clear difference between when the police with deep ties to the army enforce the law and when actual troops do it.
While copper Gutiérrez and grunt Herrera both technically have the rank of corporal, one mostly writes tickets, deals with noise complaints, and has riot training, while the other only knows how to march and shoot an assault rifle.
The actually important thing is that this is testing the waters. Trump will use the troops for flimsier and flimsier reasons.
NOTE: Chilean police are semi-routinely brutal; this is not an endorsement.
Heard a rumor this morning that organizers have realized the bad optics in that, and have put out word to wave US flags today. It'll be interesting to see if they're obeyed.
Socal is majority latino today and was originally mexican land. There is no invasion. A reversion to historical norms if anything. People carrying flags to trigger conservative bigots does not an invasion make.
America is a melting pot, many people are proud of their heritage. If seeing a Mexican flag triggers you, I'm wondering if you hold American values, or something else?
(I've the feeling that during civil uprising in dictatorship or democracy, the police tends to serve and protect the hand that feeds them, rather than the oppressed people.)
We must have a different definition of "thug" because the "thugs" in my high school didn't become police. They became the people who shoot 11 people in a weekend, steal cars at 15, and commit disproportionate amounts of - especially violent - crime.
Thug: a violent, aggressive person, especially one who is a criminal
The problem here is you've taken the last part as the whole.
There were plenty of thugs as you say that have no social inhibition and get imprisoned. But there are numerous others that got along well enough and covered for each other they kept themselves away from punishment. There were cruel bullies in my school while committing vicious acts had enough of a following they could depend on them to blame the victims as the entity that started the fight. This type of person is well suited for the thin blue line.
The ones that are smart behave well enough to graduate, and then go work as police, ICE, prison guards etc. Basically anywhere you can beat people and get away with it because "qualified immunity" or "the camera suddenly turned off right then" or...
I've been a part of a local right-wing militia several years ago. Out of ~20 people involved, we had two active cops and one retired. And the stories they told made it abundantly clear that most of their PD (Seattle) is like-minded.
So when push comes to shove, they will absolutely be on the side of the feds if Trump goes all in.
> There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state. The other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.
It’s not just that the military has become both, the police have too. Arming your police to the level of US police is just crazy.
And their training reflects this. I've served in the army, but not in the US. Some units did get crowd control training, but it was very unusual and specific for their deployments (they were going to Kosovo). Preparing these units for crowd control required weeks of training.
Crowd control is pretty much the opposite of modern warfare, with large number of troops marching shoulder to shoulder forming shield walls, even having supporting cavalry.
Probably very specific, but I was in two non-US militaries and all combat corps were trained in Aid to the Civil Power, including public order, and were regularly refreshed.
Quite the opposite. It was passed in 1878 because of the backlash against Reconstruction, shortly after federal troops were withdrawn from the South in 1877, and was intended to prevent something like Reconstruction from happening again.
> It was passed in 1878 because of the backlash against Reconstruction, shortly after federal troops were withdrawn from the South in 1877, and was intended to prevent Reconstruction from happening again
You're right. Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest it was a product of Reconstruction. It was absolutely part of the process of post-civil war renormalisation.
Nowhere in any western country, Heck, I've visited a bit of Africa and tons of south east Asia and a bit of South America and this ain't true neither for any of countries I visited.
Recent anecdote from Popehat, about the 1992 riots in Los Angeles:
> /4 So “cover me” to the LAPD means “if someone pops up with a gun and shoots at me, shoot at them.” Apparently to the Marines it means “lay down a curtain of suppressive fire using your rifles.” Hilarity ensued.
But, again, Ken White seems to be having trouble seeing it in retrospect. Is that not weird? The tweet is phrased to suggest that the Marines are using unusual terminology. They aren't.
"Apparently..." would have been the perfect way to describe my reaction. I didn't realize that "cover me" meant "lay down suppressing fire" to Marines. I guess it makes sense, but that's not the meaning I would have expected. So I would probably have been just as confused as the cops in the story. I wouldn't be surprised if most cops would have been similarly confused.
So yeah in conclusion, I don't really understand the point you're trying to make.
The police are not serving the people except if you use using "clearly the patriot act is good it has patriot in the name" type reasoning to define what that looks like. They're just serving your state and local government instead of the feds. They only serve the people in so far as doing so advances the interests of their employer. And that overlap is less than a lot of people make it out to be, especially when you look at specific issues.
But it's still reversed - it's as if you said "the successful tend to become those who persevere". Are you perhaps translating the grammar from another language?
This is a popular quote from Battlestar Galactica:
Commander William Adama: Yeah, but I'm not going to be your policeman. There's a reason why you separate military and the police. One fights the enemy of the state. The other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.
There's an entire division of the military that is literally police. They serve a similar function to their civilian counterparts. There's also intelligence and logistics units.
2/7 is an infantry battalion. They have no training or experience policing.
I was a member of an infantry battalion once tasked with doing policing in a foreign country. Let me just say that the outcome was exactly what you’d expect. We were very effective at responding with overwhelming force to attacks by an insurgency but pretty ineffective at keeping the peace.
Yes!! I used an app called Waistline 2 years ago to keep myself on a brutal diet. I did < 1500 calories per day for 2 months. Lost 9kg. Came out with the same insight: the hassle of meticulously keeping track helps with the restraint.
