Please consider What We Know Derek Chauvin.
Before he knelt on Floyd’s neck, Chauvin was the subject of 18 prior complaints filed against him with the Minneapolis Police Department’s Internal Affairs.
Only two of the 18 complaints were “closed with discipline,” according to a MPD internal affairs public summary. In both cases, Chauvin received a letter of reprimand.
We do not know whether any of the other complaints were valid or not.
But 18 seems like quite a bit and it is certain that most valid charges are swept under the rug.
Already, the Minneapolis union signaled it wants to protect the other three officers complicit in the death of George Floyd.
Prosecutors Charge Police Inspector
On Friday, Philadelphia Inspector Joseph Bologna smashed a student on the back of the head.
Then after reviewing a cell phone video, Prosecutors Charge Police Inspector Instead of Protester.
Staff Inspector Joseph Bologna faces charges of aggravated assault, simple assault, possession of an instrument of crime and recklessly endangering another person, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner announced Friday.
Prosecutors say Bologna was captured on cell phone video striking a Temple University student in the back of his head while he was participating in a mass demonstration on Monday.
The unidentified student suffered “serious bodily injury, including a large head wound that required treatment in a hospital while under arrest, including approximately 10 staples and approximately 10 sutures,” Krasner’s office said.
Philadelphia police arrested the student protester and detained him for more than 24 hours and referred him to the district attorney for prosecution. But after prosecutors reviewed the video and other evidence, Krasner declined to charge the student and charged Inspector Bologna instead.
Police Unions Defend Nearly Anything
The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police vowed in a statement to “vigorously defend Bologna against these baseless allegations and charges.”
The police union said they were “disgusted” to learn about the charges. Bologna, a police officer for more than 30 years, was “engaged in a volatile and chaotic situation with only milliseconds to make a decision,” the union said.
Public Unions are the Problem
It is nearly impossible to get rid of bad cops and bad teachers.
It takes outright murder caught on video before police unions don’t look the other way. Even then, the union tries to protect the others involved.
The same happens with teachers who abuse kids, Bad teachers cannot be dismissed.
Bad Teachers Protected by Tenure and Unions
If you search, you can find hundreds of stories like this one: Dirty Dozen: 12 Bad Teachers Protected by Tenure and Unions.
Matthew Lang was a band director at O’Fallon Township High School in Illinois in 2007 when administrators learned he was having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old female student. But instead of being fired, Lang was able to resign, and the relationship was kept out of his file so he could seek another teaching job.
“… we are asking that all information concerning the request for his resignation not be placed in his file,” read a letter from the teacher’s union rep to the O’Fallon school board that was originally obtained by education news site EAGnews.
The district complied and even provided a letter of recommendation that called Lang “an outstanding instructor.” Lang landed a job with Alton High School near the Mississippi River and about 15 miles north of St. Louis, Mo.He worked at the school until 2010, when he was convicted of molesting another female student and sentenced to six years in prison, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Jon White was sentenced to 48 years in prison in 2008 for abusing ten students at schools in the Illinois towns of Urbana and Normal. But those victims might have been spared their ordeals if White’s past had been revealed.
He had previously worked in McLean’s school district, where he was twice suspended for viewing pornography on a school computer and for making sexually suggestive comments to a fifth-grader. Instead of being fired, the union-protected teacher was allowed to resign – with a letter of recommendation that made no mention of the incidents.
There are 10 more stories like that in the one article above.
Bust the Police Unions to Rank and Yank Bad Cops
As I started this article I was unaware of this WSJ article that came out yesterday: Bust the Police Unions to Rank and Yank Bad Cops
The police officer who killed George Floyd had been the subject of more than a dozen complaints about his conduct. In two previous incidents, Derek Chauvin had been disciplined with letters of reprimand. Tou Thao, who stood by as Floyd died, previously had a lawsuit brought against him over excessive use of force. The lawsuit was settled for $25,000. How can such men be allowed to “serve and protect”? Unions.
Public-sector unions, including police unions, will do almost anything to protect their members. These unions create a culture of impunity. Even police officers who are terminated can be reinstated, “often via secretive appeals geared to protect labor rights rather than public safety” as a 2014 piece in the Atlantic put it.
Letter by Franklin D. Roosevelt on Public Unions
Please consider a few key snips from FDR’s Letter on the Resolution of Federation of Federal Employees Against Strikes in Federal Service, August 16, 1937, emphasis mine.
All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations.
Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. It is, therefore, with a feeling of gratification that I have noted in the constitution of the National Federation of Federal Employees the provision that “under no circumstances shall this Federation engage in or support strikes against the United States Government.”
Roosevelt was discussing strikes, but public unions threaten them all the times, especially teachers’ unions. They demand money “for the kids”. The school boards are padded with teachers demanding more money “for the kids”.
Collective bargaining cannot possibly exist in such circumstances. Unions can and have shut down schools. The unions do not give a damn about the kids.
Notice I said “unions” do not give a damn. Many, if not most, teachers do care for the kids, but the union does not. The unions can, and do, protect teachers guilty of abusing kids. It is nearly impossible to get rid of a bad tenured teacher or a bad cop.
Unions also threaten to shut down mass transportation.
None of this is in the public interest.
Abolish Public Unions Entirely
Union leaders have a mandated goal of protecting bad cops, bad teachers, and corrupt politicians. Unions blackmail politicians and threaten the public they are supposed to serve.
Union leaders will do anything to stay in power, the kids and the public be damned.
The only way to deal with the situation is to “effectively” abolish public unions entirely.
The key word is effectively. What do I mean by that? Take away 100% of their power as opposed to ending their right of association.
Recommended Steps
- National right-to-work laws
- Abolishment of all prevailing wage laws
- Ending public unions ability to strike
- Ending collective bargaining by public unions
Consider Illinois’ prevailing wage laws: Prevailing wages are union wages. Municipalities and businesses have to pay prevailing wages. If they do not hire union workers, they get picketed.
Why bother hiring non-union workers if you have to pay union wages in the first place?
As a direct result, municipalities and businesses must overpay for services in Illinois.
Illinois is Bankrupt
Not only do public unions protect bad cops, bad teachers, and bad employees in general, Illinois is bankrupt after giving in repeatedly to union contract demands and pension spiking.
Fundamental Problem
Lost in the wake of the death of George Floyd is the simple fact that officers like Chauvin may have long ago been weeded out had corrupt union not protected bad cops.
The California Policy Center has a nice set of articles on the Problems of Collective Bargaining.
Trump’s Scorecard
President Trump had two years with a Republican Congress to pass legislation on right-to-work, collective bargaining, national bankruptcy reform and other related items.
His scorecard is a perfect zero.
It will be interesting to see if he cowers to the unions in the next 5 months in an attempt to get re-elected.
Police Unions Love Uprisings
The unions love these uprisings. They will use it to demand more cops, higher pay, and more prisons.
Public Unions Have No Business Existing: Even FDR Admitted That
The unions are willing to hold the public hostage without police service, without fire service and without schools to get what they want.
The fact of the matter is simple: Public Unions Have No Business Existing: Even FDR Admitted That.
Addendum: Reader Response
I just received this response from a reader.
“So tell me Mish. How do you reconcile your admission with the Police unions being at the heart of the problem with your support for the Democratic party which fully supports public unions.”
My Reply
How the hell do you conclude I support the Democratic Party?
I speak out against what is wrong.
Speaking out against Trump does not make me a Democrat. Speaking out against Obama as I frequently did does me me “Radical Right” and yes, I was accused of that.
I am tired of idiots who support people and parties instead of ideas.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Check out Camden NJ a few yrs ago. Fascinating
George Floyd participated in a home invasion robbery in which a pregnant black woman was robbed and terrorized. But you won’t read about it in the NY Times. You can learn more about Floyd’s rap sheet here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=51&v=JtPfoEvNJ74&feature=emb_logo
The NY Times and other mainstream media practice selective reporting to fit their political agenda.
Oh my gosh. Day after day of nonsense & finally someone uses thought/logic to tackle the problem. Awesome.
Unions are the problem, I agree with you 100%! Till things completely collapse like they are in Illinois, it will only get worse! I agree you are not a demo-publican! I am moving to be more like you! Mother Nature is getting involved too, the 4th quadrant if I am correct of the Pacific Ring of Fire is coming back to like, and SF or LA is going to have the big one very soon! We are having lots of Quakes in the 2.5 to 5.0 range! Remember they say it always comes in threes! Cost billions and possibly trillions, I am surprised Paul Krugman did not propose this out come! Maybe Pelosi will be burnt into a rock along with other politicians holding her outrageously expensive ice cream and her $20,000 ice cream freezer sculpted into the rock for future generations to see and learn from! (Another POMPEII) Once again this is not a right or left issue! Since we cannot take care of ourselves, I guess it is left up to benevolent Aliens or God!
Two comments Mish…..
First, I know many actual policemen, and quite a few on the Chicago Police Department. These are men and women who truly try to serve the communities they protect. HOWEVER, and to a person, when they arrest anyone in a low income community, the first thing many of these perpetrators do is to file a complaint against the officer. They know that this triggers a review process and attorneys to perhaps get the charges dismissed. Politicians (ie Kim Foxx in the State Attorney Office), activists on the police accountability review board, etc seem to default to blaming the police and dropping charges. In cases where there was a rough arrest where the person resisted, they even try to get settlements which city hall often grants. Like anything, when people know how the system works, they try to take advantage of it. You throw corrupt liberal politicians in the mix….and there you go. My point, SERIOUSLY take the raw complaint number with a big grain of salt. Its like filing lawsuits….they get filed like candy as even if they dont win, there is no cost. Unless loser pays.
Second, the user comment about you responding to ideas rather than parties…..I get it. The only problem I have, call it a conundrum….is that, as an example, Ive never liked Trump the person. Couldnt care for his shennanigans, or that Apprentice show, etc before he was elected. Still dont. That being said, many of the policies he implements are great….tax cuts, judges, trade, etc, even as he tweets like an idiot. Ill vote for him and other Republicans I dont like (voted for Romney and McCain), as they represent a party with an ideology. If I voted for Biden if I liked him, and even his announced polices better, I would also be supporting the policies of Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, etc. They represent a policy pool that is insane. So like I held my nose and voted for Romney, I would hope that people look at the big picture and vote accordingly. Your local democrat representative that is a great person and really clicks with you and your local policy preferences, will still vote for Pelosi for speaker, and when push comes to shove (Obamacare) they will ALWAYS put party over their promises. Unlike republicans (see Paul Ryan), that will always put ideological purity above party….even if doing so results in the antithesis of what they are saying they want.
Thanks!
Having worked in academia in both unionized faculty and non-unionized management, oh the stories I could tell. It always amused me how often a secretarial position was closed, not because it wasn’t needed, it was the only way to get rid of incompetence. Once closed, it remained closed because the replacement would be someone else whose position was closed elsewhere in the university… likely even more incompetent.
Mish nails it! There should be no unions in public service. By representing/supporting all members, unions essentially promote mediocrity.
In many cases, the union supports illegal behavior by restricting the employer’s right to fire or punish.
Mish, public unions might be a powerful participant in the very complex issue of police abuses, for one thing they defend bad cops no matter what, but, they can still only do what the laws and court precedent allow, therefore it is reasonable to say that the unions are only doing what the newer more conservative courts ALLOW them to do.
Please look at this Lawfair article about the now entrenched policy of QUALIFIED IMMUNITY applied to police. It’s advent via the courts absolutely coincides with the rise of police abuse a a subsequent drop in civil rights cases that will never see the light of day.
The results of the judicial precedent speak for themselves when 80% of voters say they think the US is spiraling out of control. Such a belief is self reinforcing and so if they believe it then we are in fact spiraling out of control.
This is WHY the control of judicial appointments is so critical to a free nation, when it is taken over by one or another side in ideological partisanship the result is going to be disastrous. And now we see it is with an all but immune police super state of brutality and abuse fostered by the courts and laws and only then involving unions as the instrument by which police reform becomes near impossible because of the lack of respect for citizens basic civil rights.
Saying that police unions are responsible for police excesses is like saying hospital buildings are responsible for illnesses.
The problem is that most labor contracts call for mediation/arbitration. Issues only get to the courtroom when the situation has totally failed. Mediators/arbitrators consistently go to the middle ground, so the bad cop/teacher stays on and gets ‘training.’ I’d bet Floyd’s murderer was in mediation hearings long before this happened.
That might be true, but that is as simple to change as amending a law. Just as social security has administrative law judges that decide appeals to the near universal denial of benefits we could use arbitration to assign decisions based on obvious objective fact to weed out frivolous cases, but administartive law judges to settle that which can’t reasonably be settled appropriately by arbitration. I have only gone through arbitration once with Snake Farm Insurance and my experience was that it is as corrupt and crooked as anything official I ever saw. The insurance company held up the arbitration for almost two years by failing to agree to any arbitrator my lawyer suggested. They then countered with an arbitrator that was their trained pet, had never been licensed by the state to do arbitration till the insurance company trained him up, there was nothing unbiased about him, he absolutely IGNORED the law on diminished value which is what I had sued for, the state had a new law just to address that very thing, diminished value, the arbitrator never so much as mentioned it. Instead he cited an Oregon supreme court case from 1955 where in a motor boat accident a guy with a new boat was hit by a guy with an old one and who was at fault. The supreme court ruled against the plaintiff in the case because he had not sold his boat and therefor could not establish exactly what his diminished value was. It took the legislature till about 2012 to pass a law that fixed that problem, and my attorney was the guy who wrote the law for them. To this day he said it was either corruption (probably) or incompetence of an almost unimaginable scale, but the insurance company got off without paying for all the damage to me new BMW that was hit by a careless driver and I got stuck with $891 per month payments on a car now worth $20,000, I had just made the first payment when it was rear ended.
So there is a lot that is not fair in our nation, like they say, life here is like a shit sandwich, the more bread you have the less shit you have to eat. So I do try to remain open minded about reforms and to see both sides in the needs of the society verses the rights of the individuals in it. Sometimes those just are in diametric opposition, and there is little that can be done for that. But, I say greed has more to do with denial of individual rights than all other sources of lawlessness, such as racism or religion or homophobia, it is all about the bucks and it has to stop NOW!
I have a rule to never vote for anyone that wants the job. The Greeks used a lottery among the landed people to fill the Senate with people who were farmers and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Senate chambers.
Just as in Rome, a hold out in a decision could find themselves with a knife in their back if they did not go along with the consensus so no wonder they did not want to be part of government.
Let’s bring back suffrage where only landowners or maybe taxpayers can vote. Voting should be a privilege, that’s how our Founders set it up, it wasn’t supposed to be a right where anyone could vote themselves a paycheck. It would also incentivize folks to become productive members of society.
You failed to mention Obama’s enthusiastic support from the media.
Bot-like typing detected…
Readers are familiar with Mish’s views on unions. The police do not care about mayors. They do not care about city councils. They do not care about county boards. Thru their unions and their supporters, it is the STATE LAWS which regulate the cops, and ultimately protect them from all situations. Here in Illinois, I wouldnt be surprised to find out the guy who runs Illinois (Madigan) has shepherded thru all these pro-police laws. They used to try to shoot you in the leg in the 1970s. When that was too “unpredictable,” they moved to death sentence for any threat to a cop. There is no reason to stop bad behavior when you know “daddy” is protecting you.
Trump’s Scorecard-
President Trump had two years with a Republican Congress to pass legislation on right-to-work, collective bargaining, national bankruptcy reform and other related items.
His scorecard is a perfect zero.
Obama’s Scorecard-
President Obama had eight years with a Democratic Congress and the overwhelming support of the American people and the news media to pass legislation on right-to-work, collective bargaining, national bankruptcy reform and other related items.
His scorecard is a perfect less than zero.
It was only 2 years with both senate and house for both. Voters changed their minds and put different party in power in the House and/or Senate. It is easy to block legislation if you have the Senate majority as the Republicans did for 6 years under Obama. Until we get out from under this two party system nothing will change as they are beholden to the same people who only have one choice – a duopoly that has all the power.
Mish, you might want to review the 2016 Presidential Election Map By County. Deep Blue are decades-long Democratic Machine strongholds where public unions flourish, including police and teachers unions. The politicians and public unions have a mutual protection racket going. Politicians provide the salaries, health benefits and pensions to the unions. The unions provide the votes and campaign contributions to the politicians. The politicians and unions usual cover up or downplay any controversies which may reach the public. It’s all fun and games until a George Floyd or many similar incidents occur. Those MN cops behaved as if their would be no blowback… and the mayor did jack sh-t, then the city went up. A few years ago in Chicago what was the personal downside to Rahmmy-Baby after he obstructed justice by concealing the recording of the police shooting a few years ago? We know that the cop went to prison, but what about Rahm? No bricks thrown at him. No house or business burned out. Local media did not hold him personally accountable at all. He slithered out of town after his term, he lives in New York City, where he has 24 / 7 private security paid for by Chicago taxpayers, just like former Mayor Mumbles does. The The Big City D Mayors clutch their pearls and blame Whitey Mc Whiteface in the ‘burbs, some small town rednecks and hillbillies or conveniently now, Trump. You grew up in Danville, IL and (still?) live in Marengo. Not exact political powerhouses in the state compared to Chicago and Crook County. You need to pronounce Illinois like this: “Michael Madiganistan”. There are similar areas in the country. I wouldn’t want to be a Chicago cop for any amount of pay / pension, I’m not a fan, either, but if the Mayor, Governor, protesters and media don’t like them then perhaps they can be replaced with members if the Chicago Teachers Union and SEIU, since they have been well rested for the past 4 months sitting on their@sses at home at full pay.
This really is not any different from the old BLUE WALL OF SILENCE that we have had to deal with for generations now. The unions are just a part of that wall being made up of police itself. The real problem here is the ongoing and escalating militarization of cops. I will not go into details yet again about my own experience with this but only to remind everyone that I was working at a state park in California after my service in the air force. The rangers there were kind and did their jobs with great care, till the old head ranger retired and was replaced with a guy that was better suited to special ops than as a park ranger. He militarized these decent men and women (well, woman, only one ranger was female and she worked for the National Parks not state) and suddenly all NON COP individuals were subsequently referred to as dirt bags.
So, they have been encouraged to think of the world as an us verses them mentality in which the public is them and a disgusting lot of criminals at the best of times. Then armed to the teeth with military grade weapons that a SWAT team would envy anywhere else in the world. To that extent we have become a police state. Gone are the days when you would be pulled over by a cop and given a friendly warning for some minor infraction, they now know more about you when they approach your vehicle than the whole government knew about us just a generation ago, they rarely do anything without backup, extra force in case it is needed, and they smash your face in dirt and dog shit (has happened to me) just on the off chance you may actually be any sort of danger. They look for danger and so they see danger. And both sides of that blue wall escalate and see what they need to see, want to see. The cops create the danger that justifies their brutality.
We have to have cops, but at ANY price? They have taken their focus off of crime since they now see all of us as criminals.
It isn’t just being armed up though. My experiences are that it is the attitude change first. I have seen this where there was no background of crime, for example during gfc in Europe the whole admin and police changed tack almost overnight. There were no protests in our locality, nothing new in terms of crime, but they installed a permanent presence stance that has not left. That meant more patrols, with lights on always which never was the case before, that meant new equipment (vehicles, uniform, tasers), a change of name from municipal to local, a new police station which apparently has radio jamming set up… I tell you my ears would ring every time passing the place. Orders for bullet proof vests etc. Sounds tame almost compared to US, but this is for a peaceful town with very low crime, very rarely armed (one or two non fatal shootings in public a year). These were traffic police before, basically admin assistants.
The attitude came first there though, the rest is accessory. With that attitude came a sense of privilege, lack of manners, lack of restraint – close to complete indemnity. So corruption, abuses, etc. , and you have to read local local news to catch up on this, because it is almost always swept out of site as soon as possible. That changed everything, no one I know did not end up feeling hassled and restricted by this.
Obviously law and admin don’t much happen without enforcement, but there is a reverse to that – if you get corruptable enforcement then you get admin using it to hassle people, to break the law on them, and then admin itself gets the same sense of privilege when it deals with people, and will use the sense of trust or obedience that people had built up to just screw them around.
So that is how a community gets destroyed or taken over, people leave or aren’t themselves so much anymore, the whole scene gets owned.
It’s sad, and few know how to or are willing to confront it, because the whole system is tilted, the courts are slow or expensive in terms of time, results unpredictable, exposure to further harassment known.
All of that is supposed to translate into a new model, a prepared model, but society does not so much like living someone else’s idea continuously, and it shows because people become distant, unhappy and distrustful.
Good stuff. No doubt the unions are having a negative impact and influence on a volatile situation. Seems they started on the right track but have been corrupted by the age old human greed factor much like our politician community.
I guess we have given up on obeying laws. We can’t seem find a punishment that will detour people or we have just lost our sense of social community that we really rely on to all get along. New laws will not fix our problems, but they might give us some temporary relief and maybe a chance to recover. There is always hope!
“We can’t seem find a punishment that will detour people”
Bring back the public stocks!
There’s One Big Reason Why Police Brutality Is So Common In The US. And That’s The Police Unions.
Police unions have become increasingly rightwing as a backlash to the Obama administration and Black Lives Matter — and that’s bad news for the cities they police.
June 1, 2020, at 7:05 p.m. ET
Where did policing go wrong?
Crime has been down for decades, but incarceration is still sky-high and brutality cases keep tearing the country apart. Does policing in America need a fundamental re-think?
Matt Taibbi
Jun 2, 2020
I found the Taibbi article interesting reading, thanks for posting
I hear you Mish. I’m caught in the middle like you. Some of my family members think because I voted for Trump in California that I was somehow responsible for his failures and should be blamed for everything going wrong. These same family members were happy last year with Trump’s economic performance and market performance and changes to labor visa programs despite having voted for Hilary. They now claim they knew all along Trump would be a disaster. I’ve never registered with either party in any state because of what you state Mish – ideas over party or people. No candidate is going to perfect and the pendulum is going swing. The two party system is what got us to this place. Every profession uses Washington and their local government to rig laws in their peofession’s favor. This happens with every lobby, union and special interest group. Bernie was right about ome thing . Until we get rid of money in politics nothing will change. It’s too bad Bernie didnt win either time. We are stuck with the two party system and will swing again to the Democrats who will fail us by 2022.
I am almost always in agreement with you C_O but not this time on a couple of matters. One is that the two party system is poisoning our way of life. I say there is nothing worse than the two party system except for all other systems with more parties, and I only need to point to the EU and it’s hundreds of parties that can never get a majority in their parliamentary systems that require coalitions in which nobody gets what they need and everyone ends up disappointed. That is a recipe for disaster and sure enough it gave us two world wars and a Holocaust. Our founders set the nation up as a two party system for a couple of very important reasons, one was that it was the only way to guarantee one or the other got a majority and thus a legitimate right to govern. The other unfortunately was that they set it up that way as a guarantee to slave states that abolition would not force them to give up slavery, and they acquiesced because without that guarantee the southern slave colonies would not have joined the Union, and without a united nation we could never have survived long. So it was a sort of indecent compromise with the devil that would have to be left till later to be sorted, and it finally was in our Civil War, mostly but not entirely. Many in the south still do not accept their crushing defeat and accept their role in a United States.
The other issue I have with your post is the Sanders part. Yes he says we have to change our political system to rid it of money from large corporate donors, and he is right about that, but he is hardly the only one calling for this end of corporate bribery. Ending Citizens United is the goal of a lot of Americans – some even in the GOP though that corporate slush fund is their bread and butter – even they know it is killing this nation.
Who ever heard of a dirty trickster politician being right about one thing and a nasty provocateur liar about everything else. Surely that cannot happen in America right? Sanders is a communist (well to be more accurate a Marxist) who has no qualms about the ends justifying the means.
There is one way to generate progress and prosperity in the USA and Sanders is against it. When capitalism fails the MAJORITY of the people and it certainly has, to the point where our future is now in jeopardy as tangible as the TV in your living room showing you the destruction in our nation, the answer is justice, in policing, courtrooms, and economic justice. It is not about race and I deplore anyone that makes this economic issue about race, because not all blacks are left out or poor and dispossessed, it is an insult to black people that have applied themselves and risen out of poverty and anger to say that being black is what is holding so many back. It is an insult to all who are poor and part of a structural poverty and disenfranchised majority of Americans. I need economic justice as much as any black man does, I need justice that is promised and denied and it pisses me off that all one seems to need to do is loot and burn and kill to get attention to that denied justice. So that solutions for African American (mostly males) will leave out those that are supposedly entitled just because of the color of their skin, even though they are just as economically disadvantaged and without rights. We have to end such structural poverty without killing the incentives that make capitalism work.
In short you do not kill capitalism because of it’s flaws, you improve it, you make it work again as it has in the past. We all know socialism can work for a short while and in some ways is fairer, but it is ALWAYS temporary. It always fails eventually. Capitalism can be renewed and made more fair, socialism’s only advantage is that it is basically bad for EVERYONE more or less equally.
And I often agree with you but a little correction required on the party system. There was no party system. No less a seer than Geo Washington warned about having political parties. How naive. As soon as he left office two parties developed – could have been more – and here we are. It is also no coincidence that the parties essentially signaled the end of Electoral College as it was designed. We’re stuck with that today too.
I do believe the founders did try to have multiple parties but those were frustrated into non existence. Washington could get away with saying that because the new free American people under the long debated articles of confederation really did try to draft him as a king. He was not elected so much as coronated and only his refusal to accept a state of nobility stopped us from having elected kings to this day. My point was that rule via coalitions where the government has no majority but only a plurality is one that simply cannot last in this country, the only way to assure a majority is with two parties, and even then that failed up in 2000 when the Florida vote was tied and the electoral college outcome depended upon who won FL. Antonin Scalia litterally appointed George Bush president. The GOP was happy but even then they were the minority party and the democrats SHOULD have learned that you might be the majority demographically, but you might as well not be if you don’t get off your dead butt and vote.
If you speak out against the tribes, they will banish you.
I’d like to add when police and fire unions are in a juristiction where they have a choice between Dem and Repub they are far more likely to support the Repub candidate. But, that being said, one could make a case the public union problem is non-partisan. And like I said local politicians cower in fear of the power of the police and fire unions. In local off-cycle elections mostly just a few old people vote whom are very pro police and fire…
Police unions are affiliated with the AFL which no one can argue is 100% Democratic. That does not mean on occasion the individual union may endorse a republican if they feel it is in their best interest to do so, but that does not address the issue of where the power of police unions come from which is the real issue. The police unions power comes from their affiliations, and the political clout that comes with those affiliations. To deny that the Democrats are responsible for the power that Police unions now wield is ethically dishonest.
I changed the word idiots” to “fools”
I believe it is more accurate
Edit – so meany people here anbd on Twitter quoted me on that I had to change it back.
“… from Greek idiotes “layman, person lacking professional skill” (opposed to writer, soldier, skilled workman), literally “private person” (as opposed to one taking part in public affairs), used patronizingly for “ignorant person” “
Etymonline.
I’m starting to favor ‘chuckleheads’
Minneapolis’ Third Precinct served as ‘playground’ for renegade cops
Even before George Floyd was killed, the south Minneapolis precinct had a reputation for being home to police officers who played by their own rules.
What’s new? Shit rises to the top as usual. Witness Obomba, Trump, Clinton, etc.
It’s not that public unions are bad, if the leadership is bad, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a public union or not. They’ll protect bad actors in the end.
But so what?
Thank God there’s the stock market. It’s a solution to all life’s problems.
I have lived in California for 47 years and can say that most police here are useless. The police no longer protect and serve, they are another revenue source for the government. The liberals are busy in some cities working to remove their funding. Its quite amazing that the protesters seem to ignore that most of the abuse is happening in liberal cities and states.
I lived as a tech guy in both northern and southern CA and agree. But I don’t think cops per se are profit centers, even with all their bogus excessive fine collecting. Speaking of which, in Westwood I tried to feed the expired meter of a stranger to prevent them from having to pay a parking violation, ahead of a meter maid. I was threatened with arrest. Later I found out she, the meter maid, was right, you cannot feed a parking meter for a stranger. I am not sure if they changed the law since then, this was a while ago. Shows how parking violations are just another way of collecting money; if street parking was just for parking and not revenue raising they’d have privatized it already, IMO.
I totally agree with your analysis of police unions. Most people in law enforcement are good and are there for the right reasons, but there are more than a few bad apples who are thugs who want to practice their thuggery under the color of law as police officers. For the good of everyone involved, these people need to be purged from the ranks of law enforcement. It’s a shame the frustration of good people has been channeled by Antifa and other fomenters of mindless violence toward a non-issue, racism, when it should have been channeled to the issue you have raised.
youtube. com/ watch?v=7Ooa7wOKHhg
(remove spaces to view link, I hate the ‘preview’ feature of Mishtalk so I introduced spaces)
Tough video to watch. A young white kid in an Arizona hotel who was showing an air pellet rifle to somebody, had the cops called, and when instructed to keep his hands up by the white cop in military helmet (Swat team), did so, when requested to crawl to the officer (apparently against police procedure), did so, said officer who was a potential psychopath (had obscenities on the butt of his rifle apparently) and who repeatedly told him in an angry voice he might be shot if he failed to obey the officer, said kid briefly reached in the back of his pants and was shot five times. Officer claimed Post-Tramatic Stress and was acquitted of murder, reinstated to the AZ force, and allowed to retire with a pension.
A Republican or a Democrat will be elected as the next president. Mish is a never Trumper and therefore he will help elect a Democrat. Whether he identifies as a Democrat does not matter at all. He is for Biden, a man clearly suffering from dementia.
Who would put up with the public abuse, were it not for the pensions. As it stands there is little interest in the job and the ranks will go unfilled. Maybe we should just pay $15 an hour, give them a gun and cross your fingers.
Also why NYC pays pedophile teachers to sit in empty rooms and collect paychecks. What a sick perverted world.
The Police in my city (Sunnyvale, CA) are outstanding citizens and deserve pensions etc… I will gladly pay more taxes to pay for better police. The outreach to the community is fantastic from both our police and fire depts. There are quarterly events for children etc…, excellent organization of farmers markets. Also, I don’t see why a good policeman should be paid less than a good engineer, do you? Whenever there is a mess in the city, they clean it up pronto.
Does Sunnyvale have any crime? It is mostly Asian and Indian and the job of a cop is easy. Until you get some cops who overreach you dont have a problem.
Why should ANYBODY be paid less than an engineer? I mean garbage men are sanitation engineer’s right? They keep the city clean. Surely what they do is worth $150-200k/year. Burger flippers hour easily be worth $0/hr, yes?
Do you know how much cops in CA make? San Mateo, maybe 20 miles north of Sunnyvale was advertising for police recruits last year. Starting salary was $115-$165k, depending on experience. Then benefits get added on. And early retirement at age 55 at 90-100% of the last years salary. I am sure that Sunnyvale is in the same ballpark.
Don’t shed any crocodile tears for the compensation of police or firemen. They do VERY WELL in CA!
The unions do a lot in promoting the thin blue line mentality, but the problem runs even deeper than that.
I would expect public perception of cops to keep deteriorating like it has for decades. They will be militarized to an even greater extent, plus their primary role is to generate revenue. They do can do this the ordinary way by giving out more tickets and citations, or the underhanded way with civil asset forfeiture.
Aside from shaking people down for money, they often come under pressure to make more arrests to show they are being “productive”. This aggressive and uneven policing can only alienate people further.
A lot of the blame can be assigned well above the average policeman’s pay grade, but they have been willing participants too. As designed, the job attracts bullies and you have to wonder about anyone willing to sign up for an obvious boondoggle like the War on Drugs.
Maybe in your area police have to recruit from brain dead thugs like you. But in our area, police are exemplary citizens. Shake people for money? You mean citations for going 65mph in a 40mph area? Issuing citations for grown healthy men parking in disabled and expecting mothers area?
I’m all for police issuing citations ALL DAY LONG , 5 TIMES PER DAY for idiots, as necessary.
Didn’t expect to strike a nerve with that post but I guess I did. Pointing out revenue generation makes one a thug?
I think we can all agree that the issue of American policing runs deeper than speeding motorists and people using the wrong parking spaces.
I support unions as well.
I’ve investigated the possibility of suing my wife’s employer for certain things, and turns out due to arbitration clauses we basically have no rights, and employer holds all the cards.
Also – the CEOs currently make 1000’s times more money than regular workers. Engineers at my organization with 30 years of experience hold a title of “Technical Leader” and have pretty good salaries by Silicon Valley tech standards, but make 200 times less than our CEO. How do you reconcile that without collective bargaining?
The management will just buy back stocks and rewards themselves all the time.
There’s a difference between private unions and public unions. It’s possible to support private unions while simultaneously calling for the destruction of public unions.
Please read FDR’s 1937 letter.
And who will support the interests of workers in the public sector?
“In today’s public sector, good pay, generous benefits, and job security make possible a stable middle-class existence for nearly everyone from janitors to jailors. In the private economy, meanwhile, cutthroat competition, increased income inequality, and layoffs squeeze the middle class. “
Right, in 1991 I worked as an ADVANCED MEDICAL SUPPORT ASSISTANT (WARD CLERK) on the surgery floor of the San Diego VA Medical Center on the campus of UCSD in La Jolla. My salary was $16k per year, my take home was so dismal that by the time I paid rent for a bedroom in a shared condo that I could not even afford a bus pass and had to walk to work. I survived off of Trader Joe’s 5 for a dollar avocados. I actually was reprimanded for something that was NOT my fault and when the Director of Nursing told me I had no choice but to sign the reprimand I refused, I was told I would be fired if I did not sign so I walked out and never went back. NOBODY was representing my interests even though we did have a union. Without the right to strike a union is about as helpful as titties on a bull.
Public sector has outsourced a lot of job to private sector, because “zero wages are the cornerstone of American Economics”
“but make 200 times less than our CEO. How do you reconcile that without collective bargaining?”
End the Fed.
“Tech Workers” are paid for productive work they do.
Executives, in financial dystopias, are handed money by The Fed, by way of asset pumping, in exchange for doing exactly nothing.
Which is why, if the idiot Fed welfare queens passed of as Executives in America today, were also being compensated commensurately with the productive work they did, far and away most of them, would have to pay for the privilege of coming to work every day.
“Suing,” ambulance chasers, unions with privileges, politicians and the rest of such nonsense, will NEVER result in better conditions for productive people. As all those leeches, just like most “executives” (and all and every person who ever did makework pretending to “work on Wall Street”, or in a “Fund”) will have to get paid out of the value created by productives.
Instead, just End the Fed, and with it stock market bailouts and pumping. And stop abusing court systems by dragging them into “noncompete”, “IP” and other nonsense. Such that, if a worker is not paid his worth, he can set up competitive shop across the street tomorrow. Entirely unimpeded, as is the universal right of free people.
“Negro problem,?” Douglass thundered. “There is no Negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have… honor enough
patriotism enough, to live up to their own Constitution…. We Negroes love our country. We fought for it. We ask only that we be treated as well as those who fought against it.”
Frederick Douglas
Black people are treated better than any other ethnic group in the country.
“… we unexpectedly observed a social judgment bias favoring blacks over whites. …”
“In Tom Wolfe’s 1987 Great American Novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, the Ed Koch-like mayor of New York City grudgingly admits to himself that much of his workweek is devoted to handing out “plaques for blacks,” as Hizzoner’s obnoxious but insightful aide calls them.”
Most Mish readers would really enjoy the Douglass autobiography. Even if you know how to calibrate autobiographies, he comes across as one of the greats. Too, his books are filled with interesting historical, “I didn’t know that!” stuff.
You only have the first half of the corrupting influence of police unions.
Their reach goes into every elected office in their state. The mayor’s office, the city councils, the DA, the municipal and county judges all seek an endorsement of “police organizations” when seeking their office. And, apparently in Minneapolis, even the coroner’s office.
When coupled with “qualified immunity”, there is no more accountability for abusing a citizen’s civil rights.
A sure signal of police corruption is the “Thin Blue Line” motif. It truly is a gang signal, and departments that allow it to be displayed on uniforms and equipment exhibit the most thuggish behavior. (Once you see it in that light, it can’t be denied.)
“I am tired of idiots who support people and parties instead of ideas.”
THIS.
The truth is the Police and Teachers unions did not acquire their considerable political power within a vacuum. They did it with the concentrated efforts of their political allies. Now try to deny the political ties of the Democratic party and unions if you want, but it does nothing to support your credibility.
Did you mean to reply to this comment? Do you think I sympathize with the Democrats? Please clarify.
And you think those unions have no impact on Republicans? One party is both the same.
Not historically.
I was a delegate to our State’s Republican Convention one year, a 20-30 years ago. I was surprised to find that a significant portion of the delegates were wearing NEA pins. Public unions have had a great influence in both parties for a long time.
You are a hero Mish. This is your best post ever. I can literally add nothing that would improve it.
Abolish public unions NOW!
“So tell me Mish. How do you reconcile your admission with the Police unions being at the heart of the problem with your support for the Democratic party which fully supports public unions.”
How the hell do you conclude I support the Democratic Party?
I speak out against what is wrong.
Speaking out against Trump does not make me a Democrat.
Speaking out against Obama as I frequently did does me me “Radical Right” and yes I was accused of that.
I am tired of idiots who support people and parties instead of ideas.
“I speak out against what is wrong.
I am tired of idiots who support people and parties instead of ideas.”
This is why I love your blog. Hang in there, you are fighting the good fight against nearly inexhaustible ignorance and misinformation.
I have gone back and re-read your article and you will forgive me for being stupid but I cannot see a single place in which you have linked the Police and Teachers unions to the Democratic party. Are you denying the link? Are you denying that it is their influence on the State and Federal level which has allowed the police unions from gaining the power to ignore the laws that pertain to the rest of us? Do you really expect anyone to believe that police unions could have gained the power to allow officers to literally get away with murder without the political quid pro quo between unions and the Democratic party?
Police unions are not wrong because Democrats support them. They are simply wrong. The fact that Democrats support them is an entirely different problem. Note that just because he voted for Trump, that doesn’t make Mish a Republican. As time approached for the election, I thought he would end up with Johnson, but he decided on Trump instead. Come November, he may vote for Biden, and he may vote for Jorgensen, but at this point, I don’t think he will vote for Trump.
I don’t know why people feel the need to put Mish in a box. He has his own views, and they are consistent.
NO one is saying that Unions are wrong because Democrats support them. What I am saying is the support of the Democratic party gives police unions a huge amount of power and clout in their local and State government. Do you deny that?
It’s not just teachers and police; it’s federal employees in all departments. Work for the courts, and turn out to be incompetent? You might be forced to sit in your office all day doing nothing until you give up and quit, or retire. Work for the VA and don’t do anything? They can hire more people to do the actual work to make up for the people who do little, or they can close wings of the hospital since they don’t have enough (working) employees to keep the whole place open.
Back when America still retained some trappings of a civilized country, near all policing was done by deputized civilians.
You can’t expect full-time, salaried people to put their lives on the line day in, day out; the way cops are sometimes asked to do; without giving them a bit more leeway than civilians would be afforded wrt how they respond to a tense situation. Which, over the course of many altercations, will inevitably lead to some of them, at least after the fact, turning out to have involved excessive force.
Cops go into most situations with very little information about the guy they are confronting’s motivations. They don’t know, a priori, that a protester is not carrying a knife up his sleeve (or even wearing a bomb belt). So that even if they have nothing but the best intentions, simple self preservation may still lead them to strike someone a bit harder than what they would have, if they knew all the facts beforehand.
I’m not excusing Chauvin, nor anyone else, as I’m sure there are cops who out there who do not have the best of intentions. But rather pointing out that trying to sort people, any people, cops as well as Presidents, into “good” and “bad”; is childishness with no place outside of fairytales. Instead, the goal needs to be designing “systems” which are tolerant of “bad” behavior. Which primarily resolves to minimizing the scope anyone, good or bad, has for coercing anyone else outside of in direct self defense.
Deputizing civilians, without (or with bare minimum) pay, did, and will, accomplish that. At least way better than any state security apparatus, staffed with people with privileged access to the use of force, ever will.
The amount of arbitrary nonsense you are able to rally a volunteer posse of deputies into taking time off from work to enforce, is only the tiniest fraction of what you can force someone to do as part of “their job.” So you’ll cut down the number of altercations, and specifically the number of less than genuinely and immediately serious ones. While at the same time ensuring there are no “unions” nor other entrenched special interests involved. As each altercation is one civilian versus another.
It’s only denizens of “The Swamp”, who thrive by maintaining the illusion that there are, a-priori, “good” (always themselves and those cheering for their political party, conveniently) and “bad” (just as conveniently, those who oppose them…) actors. Whether Dear Leaders, Cops, this or that. The Founders recognized this, which is why their focus was on limiting government, period. Not on finding some “good” Dear Leader to hand unlimited powers to, instead of a “bad” one.
Or, to put it more succcinctly: If government does something bad, the solution is to reduce government powers until they, whether they be “good” or “bad”, are no longer in a position to do that anymore.
Yes, abolish all professional police forces and create civilian police drawn from the community in which they live. Glad to see this idea gaining traction.
You might be underestimating the job of cops.
Underestimating what other people do seems to come with the modern world, where we depend on millions of people’s work, none of which we even know exists, let alone appreciate, or know what it takes to do.
On the other hand, yeah, using the same system to enforce what kind of grocery bag we use as to enforce against murder cheapens the latter function while over-promoting the former.
“You might be underestimating the job of cops.”
I don’t think I am. I have no illusions that a ragtag posse of volunteers would be nearly as good at “police work” as professional cops are.
Rather, the problem is: Because of the existence of a “standing army” of cops at the beck and call of every politician and ambulance chaser on the make; it is a lot easier to insert them into an awful lot more areas; than what would be the case if all police involvement required volunteer participation.
Hence, the structure of a standing police force, in and of itself flies directly in the face of facilitating limited government.
It’s no different from why The Founders wanted an armed citizenry; and independent, volunteer, militias. As opposed to an unarmed population and a standing army. Just imagine trying to get a bunch of volunteer militiamen to head over to Iraq, to build bomb craters with their own bombs which they themselves paid for….
Civilian policing would be similarly self limiting, to a much greater extent than a professional police force will ever be.
Despite there being little doubt that the current, fully professional, US Marine Corps are much better at being war fighters, than a citizen militia of office workers and store clerks who happen to have some some guns and grenades stashed away in their garages.
It’s a much more difficult and longer-term project to change the mindset and behavior of individual cops than it is to change public policy and enforcement priorities. The union needs to go and the cultural shift in departments needs to happen, but the fruits of those changes might take years or more to see assuming things are put in place and problem officers shown the door over time. We can do something like make a policy choice to end the ‘War on Drugs’ right now (I’m surprised that’s not being more explicitly demanded by protestors, actually) and a lot of the points of contact between problem cops and citizens wouldn’t ever happen in the first place. Stuff like qualified immunity, use of force guidelines, no-knock warrants, and asset forfeiture all still need to be dealt with on their own but a lot the problems related to those issues are downstream of the drug war itself.
The other thing is that a lot of these localities need to look at themselves in the mirror and think about how many stupid business regulations they have that bring cops into contact with people just trying to make a buck (and as always burden minority communities more than others). The fact that Eric Garner even had an interaction with a cop, let alone got killed, for selling loose cigarettes is unbelievable.
Either way, each of these things is easier than depending on changing human nature.
The War on Drugs is properly called The War on People. End it now!
Honestly- Because the pay is to low and the job is to dangerous so most educated people that want to earn a decent salary will not go into law enforcement. Police unions don’t help the situation. Lots of, but not all, cops are just plain bullies. I hate to make these comments but they are true. My two cents anyway.
The statist law enforcement regime draws violent psychopaths like moths to flame.
In my state the average cop salary is $74K, higher in the metro areas. That’s a lot better than most people do. It looks like Mississippi has the lowest police salaries at $33K, which is still far from poverty in a low cost state. They also usually get pensions. Like a lot of our other structural problems, throwing more money at it won’t fix it.
There is a persistent rumor that police aren’t supposed to score too high on cognitive exams, in fact applicants can be rejected for doing so. I don’t know if it’s true but I’ve heard this for many years. If it is true it would explain a lot, both in the behavior we see and in what the government actually wants from them.
Anyone who has ever had a union job knows the base salary is just the beginning. Most union jobs have huge overtime bonuses that can easily boost yearly salary and pension benifits by 1.5x to 2x base salaries…..
Low pay? Most cops today make $150 / $200K a year with benefits considered. Plus 20 yr full retirement at their highest salary….
City of Chicago doesn’t even require polygraph tests for recruits. That’s why they hire gang members.
I didn’t know that. No wonder Chicago is in such bad shape.
Sorry but this is bullshit. Most cops make well in excess of $100K with Cadillac benefits and retirement in 20 years at their highest salary. They get tons of overtime at 1.5X and 2X regular pay.
To be fair, police officers have no say whether and how complaints against them are settled. That decision is made by risk management officials and often are settle for purely monetary reasons. If it costs $100k to defend and possibly lose, but only $25k to make it go away, then it’s usually $25k.
Good point.
True that. The city settles and your reputation is smeared. Financial decision. Cottage industry for lawyers.