I'm confused about the design. If it's designed for mountain areas but is top heavy and rolls easy, isn't that a major design floor for an area where the terrain is likely to be steep from left to right in parts?
Maybe my idea of terrain in mountainous areas is wrong.
It's designed to stay on roads.
Those roads are natural choke points where bombs are often hidden on the ground, which results in a high and heavy design.
Tall but narrower than other options while having survivability in case of getting IED'd. I know HMMWVs are actually big but the MRAPs didn't all have a much larger footprint.
Fun fact though, they had to add a gunners harness because the gunners were more likely to die in a roll over. Armored plates all up over your back but you get crushed because the Specialist driving hasn't even driven anything bigger than his Civic and doesn't have enough hours dealing with actual Afghan roads.
Is it “gifted” to them, or are they paying taxpayer dollars to purchase these war machines? When they’re turning our local communities into war zones, some of us might even question whether we should reduce their funding significantly if this is what they’re squandering our money on.
Watch them cower inside of this vehicle, idling in the parking lot as a school shooter empties one magazine after another.
They pay little to nothing to get them, then they pay everything to keep, maintain, and store it. As someone else noted, looks like it's already leaking oil.
DoD hardware for police usually comes with contracts that state they have to be maintained in working order, because the DoD can just take them back if there's a military need.
Effectively, it's the PD paying to warehouse and maintain DoD equipment for them, as long as the DoD doesn't mind the stuff getting used once in a while.
It's a cover. The military is never asking for this equipment back unless they're conscripting the cops to the front line in the Rockies because of the surprise North Korean invasion.
Let's say you're a cop and you get a call: there's a hispanic gay crossdresser armed with a .50BMG sniper rifle with explosive rounds reported on the roof of the KwikeeMart, and they're threatening to shoot the Walmart across the street unless they're called by their proper pronouns, black lives/matter. This situation calls for an immediate response with at least a MRAP, and that's only because they don't have the funding for an airstrike from an A-10.
Yeah I mean they would need an MRAP to keep them safe while they wait for the shooter to finish up or run out of ammo. We've got to think of the officers and their safety.
Operating an A-10, without firing its nose gun, runs about 19k-25k and hour. A full load of rounds is 1200. They fire at a rate of 3900 rounds per minute. The rounds, depending on the exact type, cost between 90 and 175$ per round. This also doesn't include the cost of maintaining the gun which incurs a lot of maintenance because of all the heat, and forces, involved.
correct. the reality is that is fires in short bursts. the rounds are huge and include, DU and tungsten cores, incendiary loads, high explosives, and others. a one second burst of fire from the A-10's GAU 8 Avenger Gatling gun is enough to destroy anything the rounds can penetrate.
Yeah, the Phillie cops bombed an entire city block into rubble when they went after the MOVE group of fanatics. Coincidentally it was in a black neighborhood. What were the chances of that, eh?
Please, anyone who reads this, stop posting links to the mobile version of Wikipedia. It doesn’t switch automatically on PC, and I see it happen all the time. Just take the half a second to remove the “.m” from the beginning of the link, save everyone else from the pain of having to be surprised by it and taking the time to do it themselves.
Please, anyone who reads this, stop posting links to the mobile version of Wikipedia. It doesn’t switch automatically on PC, and I see it happen all the time. Just take the half a second to remove the “.m” from the beginning of the link, save everyone else from the pain of having to be surprised by it and taking the time to do it themselves.
There was a thriving black community in the Greenwood district. The whites resented "thriving" and "black" being in the same place. Read on and draw your own conclusions.
No, shilling for Russia will get you labeled as a tankie. Not wanting police to have what is essentially a light tank, will not get you labeled as a tankie. Don't try to dilute the term.
It's like when you see a post about punching Nazis, and concern trolls show up to complain about people misusing and overusing the term. They don't offer a correction, and they're not defending anyone because no specific person or group of people was called out. They just saw a negative post about Nazis and fascists, got defensive, and tried to muddy the waters. A hit dog will holler.
Also, obviously any term will be misused and overused, and I don't know every context people are talking about. But, for my part, I see complaints about people being called "tankies" way more often than people being called tankies, and in situations like the above. And it's usually accompanied by complaints that right-wingers are calling people tankies, something I don't actually see all that often. What I see more often than that is the terminally online, gatekeeping left. So, is the problem coming more from actual conservatives, or from leftists that other ostensible leftists want to dismiss out of hand?
I don't know what's in anyone's heart, the specific people they're talking about, or the contexts and personal experiences they're talking about. I'm not going to assume bad faith. But, when I see people jump in to say "tankie" is a meaningless phrase, it just sounds like the same rhetorical game when people try to say "Nazi" and "fascist" have become meaningless.
I would love to believe you. But I've been called a tankie too many times in the last few months for the brave position of... "We shouldn't be funding a genocide".
shilling for Russia will get you labeled as a tankie
I've heard it aimed at anyone who is anti-cop. I've heard it aimed at folks advocating a general strike. I've heard it hurled at Palestine protesters. I've heard it aimed at people who won't vote for Joe Biden.
That's just some stuff that you claim that you've heard. For the rest of us those are not the definitions. Tankie does not mean anti-cop at all, it's a pro-authoritarian label for authoritarian communists.
Tankie does not mean anti-cop at all, it’s a pro-authoritarian label
It's a "pro-Russia/China" label. You can be as authoritarian as you like without being a tankie. You just need to couch it as pro-NATO or pro-American.
But any suggestion that Western censorship, trade sanctions, or militant policing is bad can get you tagged as a Russian Bot or Chinese Wumao.
Nope, your last sentence is just plain wrong. Anywhere on Lemmy or Reddit or similar sites you look, it is a mainstream acceptable position to criticize any of those.
You won’t get labeled a tankie if you think the people’s police shouldn’t have one either.
If you're going all in on the "Fuck the CCP! Fuck Castro! Fuck Vuvuzela!" memes, maybe. But you need to lean in hard. Never let them think your hate is less than pure.
Then you get labeled an anarkiddie
Sure. Everyone knows why we need the Good Kind of Cops.
Proceeds to scroll through Nextdoor Ring camera porch pirate posts in earnest
I’m actually mixed on Castro. Venezuela isn’t communist. Neither is the CCP (I stand with the Chinese leftward opposition). And while we’re at it, the USSR shot the Soviets and killed the Revolution at Kronstadt.
Vietnam though? I can respect Vietnam. I don’t always agree with what they do, but they’re really doing their best.
It wasn’t the anarchists who keep doing dengist bullshit
They are very real and literal instances of Communist economic theory put into practice.
And while we’re at it, the USSR shot the Soviets and killed the Revolution at Kronstadt
That's ahistorical, if for no other reason than the full cohort of Communist policymakers in Russia weren't hiding on a single naval base in four years after the October revolution.
Might as well claim the CIA killed all Latin American Communists in Bolivia during 1967.
It wasn’t the anarchists who keep doing dengist bullshit
Anarchists repeatedly tried and failed to build working power bases, all during the 1920s. From Communes in Paris to Shanghai, from Sioux Reservations to Spanish Republicans, the fascist militaries absolutely demolished anarchist movements.
Dengism, by contrast, secured the Chinese state from reconquest and expanded the Chinese economy to its modern apex.
No anarchist government can claim to have ended domestic poverty, excised foreign landlords, harnessed nuclear power, or put a flag on the moon.
Fifteen five year plans later, no other country is doing better.
Vietnam though? I can respect Vietnam.
Sure. They've been phenomenal. But they are following that same Chinese playbook. Harnessing foreign investment for domestic capital improvements and cancelling the dividends into a rising quality of life is a recipe for success.
Looks like they are ready to violently suppress the rioting MAGAts when they riot after their criminal leader is imprisoned. What's that? Those that work forces are the same that burn crosses? I guess they're ready for any counter-protestors.
I suggest anyone interested in the history of police militarization pick up Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop. There are so many tiny little towns with fully kitted out SWAT teams. Cops are taught to view themselves as soldiers in hostile territory. They go to trainings where they’re taught bullshit science to encourage them to kill.
They are soldiers in hostile territory. They're occupying indigenous land. Killing a cop isn't murder, it's warfare according to the proper rules of engagement.
The "tank" was gonna be built either way. These items are purchased through a program that allows the military to sell off surplus equipment to law enforcement. So, basically, it's a way of subsidizing the v already insane US military budget with money drawn from municipal and state taxes, while getting military hardware into the hands of cops.
What makes this even better is the military hated these things. They were forced on them and completely changed the way the military had to operate. Now the police want more of them. The big change? Being able to effectively engage with the local population. Why is our military more concerned with that than the police?
For them every black person, LGBTQ person and woman who wants to own their own body by having an abortion is a criminal. And according to right wing extremist propaganda the leftists are extremely dangerous, so I guess that would justify the purchase of military equipment.
Do you have any idea how deadly woke people are? Every time someone shouts "black lives matter" a white Karen's feelings are hurt. The only way to combat this is assault rifles and infantry vehicles.
Those pigs aren't helping anyone either. I'm just being sarcastic because that's basically the only response I can think of when reading things like this. It's a fucking disgrace. It's like people want to live in a dystopian shit show so bad, they don't know how fast to dig their own grave. It's fucking embarrassing. Yeah, awesome, let's go for extremism and get a militarized police state, because that never went wrong. Extremism always solves all our fucking problems.
Consequentially, a change in the quota can result in a "crime wave" as the number of arrests rise. It is not uncommon for surges in arrests to occur during campaign season, as police departments lobby for bigger budgets and more manpower.
Very normal for suburbs (particularly white suburbs adjacent to black urban neighborhoods) to act like they're living in a war zone, because they saw a guy in a durag smoking a scary cigarette outside of the gym.
Police don't but they often want a vehicle for SWAT related reasons, but SWAT trucks costs hundreds of thousands. Meanwhile MRAPs are "free".
Prosper, Texas is home to 40,000 people. In 2010 their population was under 10k. They have quadrupled in size and are near the DFW area, so it's not really a surprise they took the 1033 offer for an MRAP. That said most of these decom'd heaps of shit are loathesomely expensive. "High Cost of Free MRAPs" by Strongtowns. Most MRAPs being given out are first and second gen versions. And for those first gens, they got sent to the front lines of the GWOT and got beat to shit while newer ones were tested and approved. These old models they're "giving out for free" have tire drum parts never used on later versions, transmissions like that of an F650 with half the reliability, and are ticking time bombs of use. Most cities often estimate maintenance costs at $5k per year, until something actually breaks and they have to get a second MRAP to cannibalize to fix the first. (Hint - that's why you often see them picked up in pairs or more)
That's before the optics. Petaluma, California has one and the police chief has even said "yeah it kinda has some bad optics sending police around in a former war machine".
If your city is wanting to pick one up, it's because someone who has zero experience with them really likes the idea of a big scary diesel monster rolling up on drug houses, and hasn't actually considered that if they can't pony up thousands of tax dollars every 6 months to keep the moneymonster fed, the only place it's gonna drive is into a storage shed.
Edit: I should add that these vehicles are incredibly versatile and aren't necessarily a bad thing for municipalities. With their ride height, sheer bulk, and high torque engines, Fire and rescue could probably make great use them in several cities. They make fantastic road clearing vehicles in the event of large accidents needing to move to the side of the road, or pushing debris out of the way. Additionally in flood prone areas they make very good rescue vehicles due to their ride height and "crew space" inside. They DO have value outside of terrorizing civilian populations, just that that's all PDs will use them for.
You know that thing has gotta be a hangar queen that measures efficiency in gallons per mile. I guess the towncs educators are gonna have to tighten their belts some more.
This is probably more dangerous for them then a normal car. The features that make a MRAP good at surviving an IED also make them top heavy and easy to roll. I'm fairly sure they are more likely to have a reckless driver behind the wheel then have a roadside bomb.
I have a feeling this will sit in a garage most days. It will only come out for July 4th parades and to drive through some brown persons house "accidentally" during a welfare check.
OBVIOUSLY it's so that next time there's a SCHOOL SHOOTING they can rock up in STYLE while they wait for the Shooter to run out of Bullets or Bodies whichever happens first!
I've never wanted to blow something up so bad in my life. I mean, I don't want anyone to get hurt and I wouldnt actually do this since its stupid, but the desire is very strong.
My extremely rural county of 60k population has one for some reason. The best part is, the one time there was actually an armed and dangerous individual on the run, they called in aid from a major city an hour away. They did however parade around with it and strongly consider actually pulling at the tractor pull with it
It's absolutely wannabe soldier types being jealous of the military toys and begging to have have them paid for by the cities.
You don't look to your neighbor anymore to keep up with the Jones' you now know of and look at hyper specialized interests and tools.
Similar to how people have entire production centers in their houses revolving around resin crafting and 3D printing. Now everyone can get the cancer they were so jealous of.
My extremely rural county of 60k population has one for some reason.
The reason is that it's decommissioned from the military and police forces get a massive discount on buying equipment decommissioned from the military.
The fun thing is a lot of smaller departments find out after they get something like this, they can't afford to actually use or maintain them. Shit be expensive yo.
Unless they come equipped with cameras around their perimeters, anyone could sneak up to one and plant a couple bricks of semtex with remote detonators in strategic places and that safety gets real sketchy
I would not recommend trying that. Instead just dig a ditch across where they'd have to drive this thing. And keep the area around the ditch muddy. And suddenly it's a stationary gun emplacement.
Since i do not and cannot source semtex, i couldnt tell how long it would take to set it up. I can only speculate using the basic mechanical knowledge ive gained from 40+ years in the workforce and compare those timings with the physics required to rig up such things. Tl;dr: Just guessing
I mean, in any revolution within the US, it would be cops trying to play soldier vs the citizens in the initial moves.
Folks like to think the army, or the marines are what we would be fighting. Maybe eventually, after things get far enough along, but the first steps in seizing control is removing the police because they're the ones that will be guarding property and responding to attacks against politicians and/or oligarchs.
Of course the cops want to play soldier. There's enough of them in place because they're infiltrators from extremist groups. Often the most rabid racist groups. It's no secret at all that their plan is to be in place to seize control themselves.
I don't buy into the literal acab bullshit, only the systemic version. But that system is bad, and part of what's making it worse is this kind of thing. Those assholes right there? Those are the guys you'll want to be watching if shit gets real.
Which is funny because part of the reason to have civilian police is that they don't report to the military and ideally would side with the civilians against a tyrannical government.
They get to be abhorrently expensive. Newark NJ got 2 Vietnam era helicopters (one for parts only) and in 5 years spent 1.13 million just keeping it around to fly for 4 hours every other Friday/Saturday.
Where i live it's awfully common to use large vehicles like this to rescue people in flood waters. They have boats too for the deeper sections but trucks like this can roll through a neighborhood nonstop to search and rescue people.
But don't you see it makes perfect sense? Now they can wait outside schools with an active shooter in safety! Wouldn't want any officers getting hurt when children are getting shot now would we?
Storing it 10 hours north of the border (assuming it can reach highway speeds and only needs to stop for gas twice) might not be the strategic move you think it is
They would probably fly in some military defense first. The local law enforcement and other state law enforcement would mostly likely just provide reinforcement to their effort. Here’s hoping Claudia can keep the cartels in check, right?
Yeah, I’m sure you attended police academy, or served in the military, right? If you had, one of the first things they would tell you is to not have social media.
I did, yeah. About 75% of males around here do, nothing special about it. Also, while we do it we genuinely get better training in the use of force than most American police.
And yes, they do talk about the responsibility of what you share. When I was in the army, not so much, as social media wasn't really a thing yet and phone cameras weren't much of thing. My brother, though, went a few years after, they covered it in much more detail.
Edit technically I'm still in the army, as I'm in the reserves.
Like they do more than 90% of males here. ~7% go to civil service.
"Lucky you". You Americans and your military fetishes. Exactly what's the problem here, preventing you from discerning your police from your military or even really knowing the difference.
Oh, so you aren’t even American? You don’t live in America. So what is your problem with police in Texas? This post specifically addresses police in Texas and the new vehicles they received.
A lot of police departments are just... gifted this shit by the military industrial complex.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militarization_of_police
They don't have a need for it, but it looks cool parked at the county fair.
The problem is, once they have it, they reach for reasons to use it.
DOD doesn't want to pay upkeep and it was designed for roadside bombs in remote mountains not Iranian drones.
Might as well give it to the cops, in case one of their supporters accidentally hits it while trying to bomb a women's shelter or something.
They're specifically not to be used on roads because they don't fit, rollover if sneezed at and destroy our roads but fuck it they're police right?
What are you talking about, that would fit perfectly parked in the bike lane
I dunno, it might have to “monster truck” its way over all the other motor vehicles already parked in the bike lane.
I'm confused about the design. If it's designed for mountain areas but is top heavy and rolls easy, isn't that a major design floor for an area where the terrain is likely to be steep from left to right in parts?
Maybe my idea of terrain in mountainous areas is wrong.
It's designed to stay on roads.
Those roads are natural choke points where bombs are often hidden on the ground, which results in a high and heavy design.
MATV begs to differ. We always had the technology. We just wanted a cheap solution to stop taking so many casualties.
Correct, they move slow but they are quite explosion survivable past the original design.
You have correctly identified one of many reasons the military hated these.
Tall but narrower than other options while having survivability in case of getting IED'd. I know HMMWVs are actually big but the MRAPs didn't all have a much larger footprint.
Fun fact though, they had to add a gunners harness because the gunners were more likely to die in a roll over. Armored plates all up over your back but you get crushed because the Specialist driving hasn't even driven anything bigger than his Civic and doesn't have enough hours dealing with actual Afghan roads.
Hey, you can easily get them up to 50mph on an airfield runway and feel the death rattle telling you to slow down. It's basically all operator error.
Is it “gifted” to them, or are they paying taxpayer dollars to purchase these war machines? When they’re turning our local communities into war zones, some of us might even question whether we should reduce their funding significantly if this is what they’re squandering our money on.
Watch them cower inside of this vehicle, idling in the parking lot as a school shooter empties one magazine after another.
They pay little to nothing to get them, then they pay everything to keep, maintain, and store it. As someone else noted, looks like it's already leaking oil.
They pay very little for it. Essentially shipping.
Hmm, can’t decide if that’s better or worse.
Title of
your sex tapeour government's entire domestic agenda...When all you have is a hammer, etc.
I feel like these should be used as a sort of honey pot. If your police department buys one of these, fire everyone and start over from scratch.
I think these are handed down for cheap/free by the military. Not that a police department needs these types of vehicles.
Precisely this. If the military donates it, they can get budget to get a new one.
DoD hardware for police usually comes with contracts that state they have to be maintained in working order, because the DoD can just take them back if there's a military need.
Effectively, it's the PD paying to warehouse and maintain DoD equipment for them, as long as the DoD doesn't mind the stuff getting used once in a while.
The military will never want these back. In fact most of the stuff they give police is extremely obsolete from a military perspective.
Honestly this seems kinda sensible.
It's a cover. The military is never asking for this equipment back unless they're conscripting the cops to the front line in the Rockies because of the surprise North Korean invasion.
I mean, I'd be pretty excited to get to drive one.
Let's say you're a cop and you get a call: there's a hispanic gay crossdresser armed with a .50BMG sniper rifle with explosive rounds reported on the roof of the KwikeeMart, and they're threatening to shoot the Walmart across the street unless they're called by their proper pronouns, black lives/matter. This situation calls for an immediate response with at least a MRAP, and that's only because they don't have the funding for an airstrike from an A-10.
Yeah I mean they would need an MRAP to keep them safe while they wait for the shooter to finish up or run out of ammo. We've got to think of the officers and their safety.
Fun fact. That MRAP does not protect against .50 cal rounds.
Sounds like they are in desperate need of an M1A2 Abrams then
All the better reason for the government to fund the airstrike option.
F-35's coming to a local police department near you!
FTFY
Haven't seized enough cash to fund an airstrike from an A-10.
Operating an A-10, without firing its nose gun, runs about 19k-25k and hour. A full load of rounds is 1200. They fire at a rate of 3900 rounds per minute. The rounds, depending on the exact type, cost between 90 and 175$ per round. This also doesn't include the cost of maintaining the gun which incurs a lot of maintenance because of all the heat, and forces, involved.
For real? Shooting the entire load of ammo is done in like 20 seconds? SO all those brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr memes should be more like brrr?
correct. the reality is that is fires in short bursts. the rounds are huge and include, DU and tungsten cores, incendiary loads, high explosives, and others. a one second burst of fire from the A-10's GAU 8 Avenger Gatling gun is enough to destroy anything the rounds can penetrate.
When a pirate is flying it, it goes Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
In that case, I'd like to have one A10 airstrike of loan forfait please.
Pretty please?
I mean, we can't exactly shoot loan forfaiting. We can shoot the financial industry executives though.
...yet
Didn't police actually bomb parts of a town? But that might be from my limited knowledge about history
Yeah, the Phillie cops bombed an entire city block into rubble when they went after the MOVE group of fanatics. Coincidentally it was in a black neighborhood. What were the chances of that, eh?
Maybe not exactly what you had in mind, but the Battle of Blair Mountain ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain ) is an excellent example of the dynamic between police, capital class, and labor.
Edit: fixing my stupid link; thanks for the heads-up!
Please, anyone who reads this, stop posting links to the mobile version of Wikipedia. It doesn’t switch automatically on PC, and I see it happen all the time. Just take the half a second to remove the “.m” from the beginning of the link, save everyone else from the pain of having to be surprised by it and taking the time to do it themselves.
I totally missed that. I completely agree and apologize for the oversight.
All good, it's a really common mistake.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing
Please, anyone who reads this, stop posting links to the mobile version of Wikipedia. It doesn’t switch automatically on PC, and I see it happen all the time. Just take the half a second to remove the “.m” from the beginning of the link, save everyone else from the pain of having to be surprised by it and taking the time to do it themselves.
Tulsa, I believe they bombed the black communities while attempting an ethic genocide.
You're a bit mixed up there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre
There was a thriving black community in the Greenwood district. The whites resented "thriving" and "black" being in the same place. Read on and draw your own conclusions.
Slightly too big to fit through a school hallway. Just big enough to wait outside in the parking lot. We'll take it - TX police
Illegally parked, no less
Intra-uterine devices?
Lol yeah, i like how no one else realizes it’s supposed to be IED (Improvised Explosive Device)
They meant what they said. It's Texas- they seem far more afraid of women's issues than explosives.
You know, i hadn’t considered that, but that makes a lot of sense actually!
It's Texas. They're terrified of the demon birth control.
Patrick tends to later his wry social commentary - that is 100% on purpose.
Oh, me? Nah. Now, that car, damn that's radical. Imma gonna enlist! :D
No, really, why do you think they post these?
because they believe those boots will never be on their necks, that's why
I'm sure they do. But radicalized to do what? Wave a sign? Write an angry letter? Vote?
Besides, excessively strident opposition to the police MRAP will get you labeled a tankie.
No, shilling for Russia will get you labeled as a tankie. Not wanting police to have what is essentially a light tank, will not get you labeled as a tankie. Don't try to dilute the term.
Seriously.
It's like when you see a post about punching Nazis, and concern trolls show up to complain about people misusing and overusing the term. They don't offer a correction, and they're not defending anyone because no specific person or group of people was called out. They just saw a negative post about Nazis and fascists, got defensive, and tried to muddy the waters. A hit dog will holler.
Also, obviously any term will be misused and overused, and I don't know every context people are talking about. But, for my part, I see complaints about people being called "tankies" way more often than people being called tankies, and in situations like the above. And it's usually accompanied by complaints that right-wingers are calling people tankies, something I don't actually see all that often. What I see more often than that is the terminally online, gatekeeping left. So, is the problem coming more from actual conservatives, or from leftists that other ostensible leftists want to dismiss out of hand?
I don't know what's in anyone's heart, the specific people they're talking about, or the contexts and personal experiences they're talking about. I'm not going to assume bad faith. But, when I see people jump in to say "tankie" is a meaningless phrase, it just sounds like the same rhetorical game when people try to say "Nazi" and "fascist" have become meaningless.
I would love to believe you. But I've been called a tankie too many times in the last few months for the brave position of... "We shouldn't be funding a genocide".
Who the fuck cares if some random person calls you a tankie?
I don't particularly care. But it does show how diluted it is already when Biden stans are using it to "other" anyone who won't fall in line.
I've heard it aimed at anyone who is anti-cop. I've heard it aimed at folks advocating a general strike. I've heard it hurled at Palestine protesters. I've heard it aimed at people who won't vote for Joe Biden.
Way too late for that.
I'm going to need you to stop being so online.
Someone that thinks "tankies" are a thing that most people talk about or have even heard of outside of "online" needs to go listen to the bees buzz.
That's just some stuff that you claim that you've heard. For the rest of us those are not the definitions. Tankie does not mean anti-cop at all, it's a pro-authoritarian label for authoritarian communists.
It's a "pro-Russia/China" label. You can be as authoritarian as you like without being a tankie. You just need to couch it as pro-NATO or pro-American.
But any suggestion that Western censorship, trade sanctions, or militant policing is bad can get you tagged as a Russian Bot or Chinese Wumao.
Nope, your last sentence is just plain wrong. Anywhere on Lemmy or Reddit or similar sites you look, it is a mainstream acceptable position to criticize any of those.
Wish that were true.
This is literally a thread on an anti-communist instance complaining that militant policing is bad...
You won’t get labeled a tankie if you think the people’s police shouldn’t have one either. Then you get labeled an anarkiddie
If you're going all in on the "Fuck the CCP! Fuck Castro! Fuck Vuvuzela!" memes, maybe. But you need to lean in hard. Never let them think your hate is less than pure.
Sure. Everyone knows why we need the Good Kind of Cops.
Proceeds to scroll through Nextdoor Ring camera porch pirate posts in earnest
I’m actually mixed on Castro. Venezuela isn’t communist. Neither is the CCP (I stand with the Chinese leftward opposition). And while we’re at it, the USSR shot the Soviets and killed the Revolution at Kronstadt.
Vietnam though? I can respect Vietnam. I don’t always agree with what they do, but they’re really doing their best.
It wasn’t the anarchists who keep doing dengist bullshit
They are very real and literal instances of Communist economic theory put into practice.
That's ahistorical, if for no other reason than the full cohort of Communist policymakers in Russia weren't hiding on a single naval base in four years after the October revolution.
Might as well claim the CIA killed all Latin American Communists in Bolivia during 1967.
Anarchists repeatedly tried and failed to build working power bases, all during the 1920s. From Communes in Paris to Shanghai, from Sioux Reservations to Spanish Republicans, the fascist militaries absolutely demolished anarchist movements.
Dengism, by contrast, secured the Chinese state from reconquest and expanded the Chinese economy to its modern apex.
No anarchist government can claim to have ended domestic poverty, excised foreign landlords, harnessed nuclear power, or put a flag on the moon.
Fifteen five year plans later, no other country is doing better.
Sure. They've been phenomenal. But they are following that same Chinese playbook. Harnessing foreign investment for domestic capital improvements and cancelling the dividends into a rising quality of life is a recipe for success.
This is textbook Marxism.
This is a little town on the north outskirts of the Dallas metro area with a population of about 38,000. The reasons they need it are innumerable. /s
In case the Mean Green were to turn liberal and rise up!
Protect from IUDs?! intrauterine devices?? They sure are taking birth control seriously in Prosper boys..
Improvised Uterine Device? Medically-assisted abortions are gone but the police still need protection from coat hangers.
I mean those gentleman need an MRAP to keep all the ladies off of them. You never know when an IUD is going to get you.
Is this a typo? I can't find what IUD could mean otherwise.
Seems like some sort of understated pun with IEDs and DUIs. Just guessing.
Let's not pretend the average cop isn't too stupid to understand "I"mprovised "E"xplosive "D"evice.
It wasn't some "witty pun on IED and DUI". It was an idiot cop not knowing the proper acronym, nothing more.
Thank you adderbox76
How did you get DUI out of all that
how could he possibly just see a three letter acronym and change the order HE MUTHT BE INTHANE
Hmm, how indeed. Maybe try some trick like holding the word in front of a mirror and see what happens?
Looks like they are ready to violently suppress the rioting MAGAts when they riot after their criminal leader is imprisoned. What's that? Those that work forces are the same that burn crosses? I guess they're ready for any counter-protestors.
IUD?
Intra-Uterine Device??
How much of a threat is female birth control to these people??
insert joke about police officers and domestic violence here
Militarization of police.
Can't use military on U.S. soil against its citizens? Turn police into the military to be used against its citizens.
Also: does the US have less troops on the ground around the world than they usually do? Gotta find a new market for the military industrial complex.
Don't worry.. terrorism will never end and wars will always find a way to creep back into our lives.
POV your local police department turns into an occupying military force. This is beyond dystopian. 2024 ❌ 1984 ✅
Prosper, Texas.
Population: 37,746
Crime rate per 1000 residents: 9.54
https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/tx/prosper
Nearby Dallas' crime rate? 46.06 per 1000 residents.
Is it me or is this not exactly justified?
I suggest anyone interested in the history of police militarization pick up Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop. There are so many tiny little towns with fully kitted out SWAT teams. Cops are taught to view themselves as soldiers in hostile territory. They go to trainings where they’re taught bullshit science to encourage them to kill.
They are soldiers in hostile territory. They're occupying indigenous land. Killing a cop isn't murder, it's warfare according to the proper rules of engagement.
Not even in Dallas. But hey, at least some small town got to employ people to build this tank, and not call it socialism.
The "tank" was gonna be built either way. These items are purchased through a program that allows the military to sell off surplus equipment to law enforcement. So, basically, it's a way of subsidizing the v already insane US military budget with money drawn from municipal and state taxes, while getting military hardware into the hands of cops.
I think law enforcement is lacking long range potential and will need HIMAS equipment as well.
What makes this even better is the military hated these things. They were forced on them and completely changed the way the military had to operate. Now the police want more of them. The big change? Being able to effectively engage with the local population. Why is our military more concerned with that than the police?
It's even stupider than that.
It's either military surplus or reconditioned units that are offered for resale to stateside PD's to "pacify" civilian unrest.
It depends through which glasses you look.
For them every black person, LGBTQ person and woman who wants to own their own body by having an abortion is a criminal. And according to right wing extremist propaganda the leftists are extremely dangerous, so I guess that would justify the purchase of military equipment.
Do you have any idea how deadly woke people are? Every time someone shouts "black lives matter" a white Karen's feelings are hurt. The only way to combat this is assault rifles and infantry vehicles.
I get the sentiment but this kind of hyperbole helps nobody
Those pigs aren't helping anyone either. I'm just being sarcastic because that's basically the only response I can think of when reading things like this. It's a fucking disgrace. It's like people want to live in a dystopian shit show so bad, they don't know how fast to dig their own grave. It's fucking embarrassing. Yeah, awesome, let's go for extremism and get a militarized police state, because that never went wrong. Extremism always solves all our fucking problems.
Wait...you think that if someone gets murdered, but they don't arrest anyone, this doesn't go into the crime rate?
You man someone had an accident? This is a safe place to live, we've never had anything like that happen here.
So you really think that is how it works? Wow.
https://youtu.be/Jpmc3VeJZXg
http://www.crime-free-association.org/about_crime_free.htm
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon_freezing_deaths
https://youtu.be/lyRkoKTh6cs
https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvg7ba/instead-of-helping-homeless-people-cities-are-bussing-them-out-of-town
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town
What is this gishgallop? Care to summarize why these links support your claim that if there is no arrest, it's not reported as a crime?
Do you think cops who are buying that sort of shit are reluctant to arrest people?
They might prefer other methods of "executing" justice
Common for agencies to have internal ticket and arrest quotas for their officers and to promote based on number of arrests by officer.
Consequentially, a change in the quota can result in a "crime wave" as the number of arrests rise. It is not uncommon for surges in arrests to occur during campaign season, as police departments lobby for bigger budgets and more manpower.
Now check the stats for crimes involving IUDs (or IEDs)
Very normal for suburbs (particularly white suburbs adjacent to black urban neighborhoods) to act like they're living in a war zone, because they saw a guy in a durag smoking a scary cigarette outside of the gym.
I recently lived in Denton and frequently traveled to Prosper for various reasons.
It's a little rich person town in the middle of nowhere. They definitely don't need this.
Police don't but they often want a vehicle for SWAT related reasons, but SWAT trucks costs hundreds of thousands. Meanwhile MRAPs are "free".
Prosper, Texas is home to 40,000 people. In 2010 their population was under 10k. They have quadrupled in size and are near the DFW area, so it's not really a surprise they took the 1033 offer for an MRAP. That said most of these decom'd heaps of shit are loathesomely expensive. "High Cost of Free MRAPs" by Strongtowns. Most MRAPs being given out are first and second gen versions. And for those first gens, they got sent to the front lines of the GWOT and got beat to shit while newer ones were tested and approved. These old models they're "giving out for free" have tire drum parts never used on later versions, transmissions like that of an F650 with half the reliability, and are ticking time bombs of use. Most cities often estimate maintenance costs at $5k per year, until something actually breaks and they have to get a second MRAP to cannibalize to fix the first. (Hint - that's why you often see them picked up in pairs or more)
That's before the optics. Petaluma, California has one and the police chief has even said "yeah it kinda has some bad optics sending police around in a former war machine".
If your city is wanting to pick one up, it's because someone who has zero experience with them really likes the idea of a big scary diesel monster rolling up on drug houses, and hasn't actually considered that if they can't pony up thousands of tax dollars every 6 months to keep the moneymonster fed, the only place it's gonna drive is into a storage shed.
Edit: I should add that these vehicles are incredibly versatile and aren't necessarily a bad thing for municipalities. With their ride height, sheer bulk, and high torque engines, Fire and rescue could probably make great use them in several cities. They make fantastic road clearing vehicles in the event of large accidents needing to move to the side of the road, or pushing debris out of the way. Additionally in flood prone areas they make very good rescue vehicles due to their ride height and "crew space" inside. They DO have value outside of terrorizing civilian populations, just that that's all PDs will use them for.
“Storage shed, you say” - Local Sheriff
Thank you for the extra information.
Intra-uterine devices?
It's Texas, you never know when someone might be in danger of wanting to have some level of control over their own body.
I think it's a typo friend
That was the joke, yes
They will drive this beast right up your vagina.
Looks like it already has an oil leak
It’s just so damn full of fossil fuel, it’s bursting at the seams.
It's military. If it wasn't leaking oil, it wouldn't work.
You know that thing has gotta be a hangar queen that measures efficiency in gallons per mile. I guess the towncs educators are gonna have to tighten their belts some more.
This is probably more dangerous for them then a normal car. The features that make a MRAP good at surviving an IED also make them top heavy and easy to roll. I'm fairly sure they are more likely to have a reckless driver behind the wheel then have a roadside bomb.
I have a feeling this will sit in a garage most days. It will only come out for July 4th parades and to drive through some brown persons house "accidentally" during a welfare check.
Don't forget about running over protesters. Way better than your average SUV.
https://youtu.be/vBz2tE7d-iQ
Yup. Have fun driving to that emergency at (checks notes) 35 mph.
"Yippy Dippy Doooo!!!! We can hide in here as the kids get killed in Uvalde!!!!" - Texas Cops
Citizens: votes them all back in. Excellent work!
I think I get where you're going with this, but law enforcement isn't hired by the public, except maybe the Sheriff, depending on where you are...
All the electable positions that were involved were re-elected.
The Pedestrian & Protester Pulverizer 9000™️
.. to hide in while your children are being shot at.
Iud's are baby killers. They stop cop sperm from impregnating their victims.
The female body just has a way of shutting impregnation down in the case of cop rape. Its in the Bible.
OBVIOUSLY it's so that next time there's a SCHOOL SHOOTING they can rock up in STYLE while they wait for the Shooter to run out of Bullets or Bodies whichever happens first!
After they take 40 minutes to go a 5 minute drive in this thing... Next time the excuse will be, "our equipment wasn't there yet!"
Someone spent their civil forfeiture money at the military surplus store.
I've never wanted to blow something up so bad in my life. I mean, I don't want anyone to get hurt and I wouldnt actually do this since its stupid, but the desire is very strong.
I believe it's one part gas to one part oil. I could check with my mixologist friend. He made a lot of cocktails during the winter on fire.
I've always subscribed to the styrofoam dissolved in gasoline until no more can be dissolved school of cocktail mixing
He spent the winter on fire? Did he survive?
I'm sure he didn't have any trouble staying warm.
Well, give a man a match, he'll be warm for a moment. Set a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Serve gas and tar mixers for an impression that lingers.
I like that it pissed itself.
An acorn probably fell nearby.
If you need this type of vehicle as police, you're the issue, not the people around.
Mobile oppression palace?
I love how they are displaying their parking skills
To counter those vicious abortists
My extremely rural county of 60k population has one for some reason. The best part is, the one time there was actually an armed and dangerous individual on the run, they called in aid from a major city an hour away. They did however parade around with it and strongly consider actually pulling at the tractor pull with it
It's absolutely wannabe soldier types being jealous of the military toys and begging to have have them paid for by the cities.
You don't look to your neighbor anymore to keep up with the Jones' you now know of and look at hyper specialized interests and tools.
Similar to how people have entire production centers in their houses revolving around resin crafting and 3D printing. Now everyone can get the cancer they were so jealous of.
Definitely bad in this case.
The reason is that it's decommissioned from the military and police forces get a massive discount on buying equipment decommissioned from the military.
The fun thing is a lot of smaller departments find out after they get something like this, they can't afford to actually use or maintain them. Shit be expensive yo.
NO PARKING
Slaps hood. "You can kill so many dogs with this baby"
IUD
SIS
Stay in School
Cuz it's the best
I understand it's a pun on Texas' crippling fear about giving women birth control options.
Sitting in it while a school shooter blasts some kids.
Bulldozing the whole school to make sure they get the shooter.
Improvised Uterine Devices
All that’ll be available there soon
Genital compensation of course
In another five years, every suburban dad will be driving one so they can feel safer
Unless they come equipped with cameras around their perimeters, anyone could sneak up to one and plant a couple bricks of semtex with remote detonators in strategic places and that safety gets real sketchy
Do you normally carry semtex around?
Not normally, but radicalization is not normal
But it's Mine Resistant (part of the acronym of its name)
Resistance is not immunity
I would not recommend trying that. Instead just dig a ditch across where they'd have to drive this thing. And keep the area around the ditch muddy. And suddenly it's a stationary gun emplacement.
That would take too much advance prep and time.
More than sourcing the exact right kind of explosives to breach the armor without the FBI knowing?
Also, obligatory hello to the NSA who's reading this right now.
Since i do not and cannot source semtex, i couldnt tell how long it would take to set it up. I can only speculate using the basic mechanical knowledge ive gained from 40+ years in the workforce and compare those timings with the physics required to rig up such things. Tl;dr: Just guessing
I mean, in any revolution within the US, it would be cops trying to play soldier vs the citizens in the initial moves.
Folks like to think the army, or the marines are what we would be fighting. Maybe eventually, after things get far enough along, but the first steps in seizing control is removing the police because they're the ones that will be guarding property and responding to attacks against politicians and/or oligarchs.
Of course the cops want to play soldier. There's enough of them in place because they're infiltrators from extremist groups. Often the most rabid racist groups. It's no secret at all that their plan is to be in place to seize control themselves.
I don't buy into the literal acab bullshit, only the systemic version. But that system is bad, and part of what's making it worse is this kind of thing. Those assholes right there? Those are the guys you'll want to be watching if shit gets real.
Which is funny because part of the reason to have civilian police is that they don't report to the military and ideally would side with the civilians against a tyrannical government.
Funnily enough, cops would probably not know a tyrannical government until it knocked
ondown their door....parking policy enforcement.
well we know texas hates birth control. now they can obliterate it with superior force
Wait! You're saying that your police department doesn't get blown up by multiple IEDs every week? How odd.
::: spoiler :::
Americans have free access to drones, better build a cope cage.
It says no parking in the fire lane, assholes.
Yeah, it would seem that the reason they own this is so that they can block the fire lane.
I'm not sure that thing has enough fuel to get out of the fire lane.
They’re gonna say they’re allowed to park there for emergency purposes. But taking dick pics with your buddies is not an emergency.
All "in the line of duty".... Or some such nonsense.
Not only is it ridiculous and likely unnecessary, but also consider they'll need to budget maintenance costs for this.
They get to be abhorrently expensive. Newark NJ got 2 Vietnam era helicopters (one for parts only) and in 5 years spent 1.13 million just keeping it around to fly for 4 hours every other Friday/Saturday.
Decom stuff is a maintenance moneypit
Don't worry. They'll take it out of the budget they don't use to pay for lawsuits.
The budget formerly known as “the education budget.”
Who needs an education budget? Just let more kids get killed and the cops can take it all.
For real
It's the Evil Unimog
Protect and oppress
They're not compensating for something; they're compensating for everything.
Since nobody has offered te correct answer, I will:
It’s because increasingly so, the enemy is becoming you.
The only thing that can stop a bad guy with an MRAP, is a good guy with an MRAP.
Now if only we could find some bad guys with an MRAP...
There a 2 right in this picture
What is an IUD? Did they misspell IED?
No, they said what they said. IUD, Illegal Unwanted Darkskins
/s because that's way too fucking plausible, fuck me I think I need to wash my soul
I think they meant IUD as in intrauterine device, because this is Texas and women are supposed to give birth, not avoid pregnancy
btw that response sounded a little rude, meant in jest though!
play on words
noun
A pun, or similar humorous use of language such as a double entendre.
:)
it was clearly marked no parking
hypocrites
this is needed and justified to compensate for small brains and small penises
The ONLY reason you'd need something like this is maybe hurricane prone areas to get around flooded parts of the city
You mean like a boat? Like they use already?
Where i live it's awfully common to use large vehicles like this to rescue people in flood waters. They have boats too for the deeper sections but trucks like this can roll through a neighborhood nonstop to search and rescue people.
But don't you see it makes perfect sense? Now they can wait outside schools with an active shooter in safety! Wouldn't want any officers getting hurt when children are getting shot now would we?
Why is it doing a Carolina squat?
This is how they celebrate? They point at a thing?
Getting ready for The Civil War: Round 2 I see.
Clearly to hand out speeding tickets /s
I WANNA PLAY WITH THE MRAP!! But I'd... Like maybe not run over brown people with it, and instead use it as a force for good...?
Edit: or just fun.
Good morning, I hate America and wish for its total annihilation.
Fo asking IDs.
In case they gotta go against the government?
... freetime use, I suppose.
They need it to make us live in Judge Dredd's world.
Just get an Abrams M1 for fucks sake!
Cops are too stupid to drive a tank.
A sign of things to come.
Well if you go by their recent risk of floodings, well, floodings
Uh, sure. The police should walk around on pointe shoes, in pink ballet tutus and with bouquets of fresh flowers.
Oh, you know. In case these criminal groups ever cross the border and try to endanger the citizens of Texas:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/mexico-drug-cartel-video-jalisco-new-generation-weapons-military-cjng-a9626246.html
Storing it 10 hours north of the border (assuming it can reach highway speeds and only needs to stop for gas twice) might not be the strategic move you think it is
Any closer and the cartels might steal it, though.
So either keep it safe and too far away to be useful or keep it where its useful but will get stolen? Might as well not have one then
They would probably fly in some military defense first. The local law enforcement and other state law enforcement would mostly likely just provide reinforcement to their effort. Here’s hoping Claudia can keep the cartels in check, right?
Yeah so this vehicle is completely useless to the police, agreed.
So you're saying the cartels are already in Texas but this exists in case they ever cross the border into Texas?
This is one of the funniest things I've ever read. Also one of the dumbest things I've ever read coincidentally. But funny!
The article is dumb? You should visit Mexico. Tell the federales that you hate the police.
Americans genuinely don't understand the difference between police and the military rofl
Yeah, I’m sure you attended police academy, or served in the military, right? If you had, one of the first things they would tell you is to not have social media.
I did, yeah. About 75% of males around here do, nothing special about it. Also, while we do it we genuinely get better training in the use of force than most American police.
And yes, they do talk about the responsibility of what you share. When I was in the army, not so much, as social media wasn't really a thing yet and phone cameras weren't much of thing. My brother, though, went a few years after, they covered it in much more detail.
Edit technically I'm still in the army, as I'm in the reserves.
Lucky you. They deemed you physically unscathed enough to serve.
Like they do more than 90% of males here. ~7% go to civil service.
"Lucky you". You Americans and your military fetishes. Exactly what's the problem here, preventing you from discerning your police from your military or even really knowing the difference.
Oh, so you aren’t even American? You don’t live in America. So what is your problem with police in Texas? This post specifically addresses police in Texas and the new vehicles they received.
"You're not even American, and think you have the right to laugh at the American military-industrial complex?!"
What's wrong with an overmilitarised and undereducated police force...?
What's wrong with people genuinely not being able to name the difference in roles between the military and the police?
We can figure this out together, I'm sure.