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Author Topic: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread  (Read 1286666 times)

Pnx

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #6195 on: July 07, 2013, 11:28:18 am »

Well "Army of One" is the Army's motto, but that doesn't mean the entire army is staffed by a single soldier.
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Owlbread

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #6196 on: July 07, 2013, 11:45:02 am »

Well "Army of One" is the Army's motto, but that doesn't mean the entire army is staffed by a single soldier.

I don't really know why you said that, what your objective was etc. If a police force has "Protect and Serve" as their motto, shouldn't they prioritise protecting and serving out of principle? I mean, "Army of One" you can interpret in anyway you like, "Protect and Serve" is pretty black and white.
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Scoops Novel

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #6197 on: July 07, 2013, 11:49:03 am »

Well "Army of One" is the Army's motto, but that doesn't mean the entire army is staffed by a single soldier.

I don't really know why you said that, what your objective was etc. If a police force has "Protect and Serve" as their motto, shouldn't they prioritise protecting and serving out of principle? I mean, "Army of One" you can interpret in anyway you like, "Protect and Serve" is pretty black and white.
Edit: bleqh, obviously the phrase has been butchered ever since.
« Last Edit: July 07, 2013, 11:50:46 am by Novel Scoops »
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Frumple

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #6198 on: July 07, 2013, 12:01:15 pm »

I don't really know why you said that, what your objective was etc. If a police force has "Protect and Serve" as their motto, shouldn't they prioritise protecting and serving out of principle? I mean, "Army of One" you can interpret in anyway you like, "Protect and Serve" is pretty black and white.
Pretty black and white excepting it doesn't clarify what it's protecting and serving. If it's the law instead of people, welp.
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SalmonGod

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #6199 on: July 07, 2013, 12:09:10 pm »

I don't really know why you said that, what your objective was etc. If a police force has "Protect and Serve" as their motto, shouldn't they prioritise protecting and serving out of principle? I mean, "Army of One" you can interpret in anyway you like, "Protect and Serve" is pretty black and white.
Pretty black and white excepting it doesn't clarify what it's protecting and serving. If it's the law instead of people, welp.

That's the line that gets thrown around.  Their job is to uphold the law and nothing else.  But then what is the law for?
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Leafsnail

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #6200 on: July 07, 2013, 12:26:37 pm »

Wouldn't "protecting the law", as silly as that sounds, mean "preventing crime"?
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #6201 on: July 07, 2013, 12:38:12 pm »

Crime against the state, sure. Civies, eh, if they feel like it.

I'd be shocked by these events, but I don't think it is possible for my opinions and expectations of the police to sink any lower, and NYPD are on the low end even amongst that.
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palsch

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #6202 on: July 07, 2013, 12:59:56 pm »

Here, "duty to protect," is more correctly read here as, "liability if someone gets hurt by crime on their watch."

Police have a duty to uphold the law, but you can't sue a police officer for a crime that happens when they are around just because they didn't prevent it. Even in cases of flat out negligence it's usually an internal discipline matter, not a matter of you being able to sue them. The only way that he could viably sue in this case was if he could demonstrate a "special duty" of protection in this case.

In this particular case there is a serious mismatch between the police and victim's accounts, and the two sides seem to be moving further apart over time. But even taking his original outline of events it would seem impossible for there to be lawsuit in this case.
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Dutchling

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #6203 on: July 07, 2013, 01:05:23 pm »

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Owlbread

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #6204 on: July 07, 2013, 01:24:51 pm »

I'm sorry I could go right into all the wordplay here but if I'm a police officer and I've got the official motto "To Protect and Serve" I shouldn't need to spend any time thinking over whether it's protecting "the law" or "the people". The need to protect both, the people being the priority, should be self-evident.
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SalmonGod

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #6205 on: July 07, 2013, 01:54:09 pm »

What I was getting at earlier is the entire pretense for the existence of law is to deal with the fact that people hurt each other, materially or bodily.  It codifies interactions that tend to result in harm, attempts reparations for harm done, and tries to discourage willful acts of harm.  In other words, the law is supposed to exist to protect people.  When those who act professionally on behalf of the law, especially those who are trained and equipped to face danger on behalf of the law, deny that they have any duty to protect people, it throws into question the intent and substance of the entire institution.
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Robot Parade Leader

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #6206 on: July 07, 2013, 05:27:33 pm »

http://news.yahoo.com/temporary-jobs-becoming-permanent-fixture-140133833.html

I keep hearing about how companies create jobs and are "job creators...."

Quote
"You can hire 10,000 people for 10 to 15 minutes," says Gigwalk CEO Bob Bahramipour. "When they're done, those 10,000 people just melt away."

Wow, "melt away?" Yeah, we're talking huge companies here too.

Then, of course, the large companies are not trying to invest in the U.S. They will do so overseas, namely in China. :( We're paying them for this."Since the recession ended four years ago," is what they're saying. Never ended. Still going. Large companies are recovered, everybody else is not.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2013, 01:03:36 pm by Robot Parade Leader »
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alway

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #6207 on: July 07, 2013, 10:13:43 pm »

Er, that's kinda bullshit.

To start out with, the article lumps all 'temporary' positions together. Which is stupid. A temp worker at walmart making minimum wage is not the same thing as a programmer doing contract work for above-industry-average wages. And that's what most of those skilled positions are: doing work in the short term for above-industry-average wages.

Secondly, jobs like those described from Gigwalk I've heard nothing but good reviews from. You are basically told 'go in and do action X at company Y, taking note of things like cleanliness and employee attitudes.' So you go in, do some trivial thing (get a haircut, buy a soda, you name it), fill out a quick survey, and get paid $40 for half an hour of basically doing something you may have done anyway. In short, it's a pretty great way for a college student or similarly low-on-cash individual to make a quick buck.

Quite frankly, temp work is the future. The Company is not there to support you, and people have been under that impression for too long already. If you look at what is happening to the generations from late baby boomers onwards, you see companies laying off people a couple years before retirement; people who have no way to retire or work without The Company. The shift to temp work in skilled sectors isn't a bad thing; it's simply the newer generations understanding the fact that they shouldn't sacrifice everything for The Company, because they can be laid off at a moment's notice. You go where the going is good, and temp work lets you do that.

Though as for the low-end temp work, that will only get worse. There's an oversupply of unskilled labor which is only going to get worse as jobs are increasingly lost to automation technologies and the education system fails to adequately provide higher education for vastly larger numbers of people at an affordable rate.
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Robot Parade Leader

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #6208 on: July 07, 2013, 10:28:47 pm »

Who was it who asked, "Mr. Ford, how many cars does that machine buy?"

You want a well funded customer base and you get a well funded customer base by having well paid employees....
« Last Edit: September 16, 2013, 01:02:19 pm by Robot Parade Leader »
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alway

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #6209 on: July 07, 2013, 11:10:23 pm »

Even if we give what you say the benefit of the doubt, what about the phrase, "job creator" used to justify tax breaks? If you say the company isn't there to support "you," then why are "you" (the taxpayer) supporting the company under that assumption? Companies love to say they are "job creators" to gain political favor and so they are trying to perpetuate the idea that the company is there to support "you."

Ok, sometimes skilled temp work on certain very specific instances could be good, but I tend to suspect exploitation. Look at the lawyer example in the article. They business is getting 90% off the price it was paying just a few years ago: $5,000 to $500. I guess if somehow the business unexpectedly needs a ton of very skilled workers right this second and is in a major bind, then maybe.... The problem is, the prevailing idea out there now is that everybody, everybody is a dime a dozen. They're even doing it with medical doctors at lower rates than they would otherwise pay.... I want a doctor who is used to the hospital he is operating on me in and who is very comfortable with the setting, personnel, and equipment. We are all somehow disposable no matter the skill level?

That said, "The company isn't there to support you." Yes and no; it's a loop. The customer supports the company who supports the employees who are the customers.... If that sounds circular, that's because it is, and its entirely correct. Every business wants "customers" or "sales" or "clients" or whatever they call people paying them. No business wants to pay "employees," but employees are customers. It's a logical disconnect and very short sighted on the part of companies as a whole (industrial and commercial sectors).

Who was it who asked, "Mr. Ford, how many cars does that machine buy?"

You want a well funded customer base and you get a well funded customer base by having well paid employees....
To start out with, the tax break issue is entirely separate; which is why I didn't address it. However, the proper way to address that issue is not to use anecdotes, but actual economic analyses like this one: http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/Stimulus-Impact-2008.pdf
which look at the GDP ROI of a variety of economic decisions. Things like "for every dollar of corporate tax breaks, the economy grows by $0.30, and compared to other forms of government spending, or even doing nothing, that is deplorably bad" are much more convincing than anecdotes about temp workers.

For the second paragraph, the lawyer bit is simply replacing a lawyer agency (with all its associated overhead) with a single lawyer. And from what Truean has recounted about the lawyer business of late, that probably isn't a bad thing since the lawyering agencies themselves overcharge and underpay. You'll also note that it has a highly decentralizing effect: a single lawyer could post for a job they wanted to do, find customers, and do it; all without needing to be part of a 'big law firm.' The small business could do their stuff without overpaying, the lawyer got a small side-job for a couple days, and no law firm bosses got any cut of it.

As for pay, nowhere in that article does it state doctors or similar skilled workers were paid less. Typically you're actually paid more. See, if a company need an employee 50% of the time, if they hire a contract worker for 50% of the time, they can afford to pay up to 200% the wages before it actually costs them extra; more, actually, since they don't give benefits. Contract workers also expect much higher pay. They need to cover the contract worker's expected higher pay or they simply go elsewhere; the whole point of doing skilled contract work is that it gives more flexibility.

For that last half, see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
Yeah, let me know when the massive societal change solves that one. Because until then, companies are not there to support you. The best we've got in that direction are things like minimum wage laws and unemployment benefits; very few companies even care about more than their quarterly earnings report, let alone the economy as a whole or even their own long term survival.
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