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Comments |
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 | Monday, May 11, 2009 at 0:40:42 mst
Comment ID: #1
Name: Adam Reed
E-mail: adamreedatalumdotmitdotedu
URL: http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/areed2
According to psychological surveys, policemen and lawyers suffer from a higher incidence of psychopathy than convicted felons. A psychiatrist I knew used to joke that a cop is a psychopath who flunked out of law school - and a felon is a psychopath who flunked out of the police academy. |
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 at 5:54:24 mst
Comment ID: #2
Name: Dean Kriegel
E-mail: deankriegel(at)gmail.com
Dr. Adam Reed,
I would like to look at those psychological surveys. Would you tell me where they are published?
Dean Kriegel |
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 at 8:02:24 mst
Comment ID: #3
Name: anon
Well, it comes with the territory that no matter the situation, a 911 dispatcher's "customers" are going to be less than rational when they exercise their half of the contract, but it's still worth mentioning that that girl may not have been quite so demanding had she been raised to believe that she wasn't entitled to emergency services. In other words, she would have been open to apologizing for cursing, if only to prevent all useful communication from breaking down the way it did. The cop, as well, may not have been quite so dismissive were the emergency services infrastructure incentivized by the profit motive. Also, perhaps his indignance at being treated like an overwhelmed servant would have been less, and his need to be treated with respect not so touchy.
What I'm saying is that if non-criminal emergencies were the responsibility of private enterprise instead of government, things like this would not occur as often. Socializing emergency medical treatment is a recipe for disaster. |
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 at 10:43:09 mst
Comment ID: #4
Name: Adam Reed
E-mail: adamreedatalumdotmitdotedu
URL: http://borntoidentify.blogspot.com/
Dean,
The literature review in Sanford and Arrigo 2007 (http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=242314) would be a good starting point. |
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 at 13:15:42 mst
Comment ID: #5
Name: Damon Peichl
E-mail: dpeichl(at)hotmail.com
I have a number of problems with comment #3.
1. You suggest that the girl was being "less than rational." What facts of reality did she evade, ignore or fake?
2. How would you define the proper purpose of a government, specifically a police force? Explain why 911 services shouldn't be considered part of that purpose.
3. Should our willingness to grovel and placate a government worker ever be considered more important than the lives of our loved ones? Why or why not? |
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 at 13:59:20 mst
Comment ID: #6
Name: brian0918
E-mail: my handle, through gmail
URL: http://reality.ohio.newintellectuals.org
Damon,
Regarding 2: A government upholds and protects individual rights. They protect people from eachother. A person having a heart attack should not be calling on the government for assistance. As with environmental disasters, the government should not get involved. For criminal activity, government-run 911 has a proper role, but not for any other emergency. |
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 at 16:54:55 mst
Comment ID: #7
Name: jay
What is the connection to censorship? |
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 at 20:53:31 mst
Comment ID: #8
Name: anon
Damon,
1) She evaded the fact that emergencies cannot be most effectively resolved by becoming hysterical (cursing) and confrontational. I certainly don't consider her behavior a major breech of morality, but it didn't help the situation. Even if her father was in grave danger, and even if the 911 operator was being irrational, she should have kept her cool and used her wit to talk right past his rhetoric.
2) Certainly the police should maintain an emergency phone number, but it should be widely understood by the citizenry that that number is only to be called in the event of emergencies that are CRIMINAL in nature. Handling emergencies that are medical in nature is not a proper function of government.
3) Certainly not. In the context of today's inappropriate delineation between acceptable and unacceptable government involvement in the facets of life, that girl didn't do anything wrong. It's not her fault directly that the handling of medical emergencies has been forcibly taken over by the government. My only point was that in a free market for emergency medical service, such situations would be less likely to occur. |
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 at 21:21:52 mst
Comment ID: #9
Name: Ashley King
E-mail: atking(at)mtaonline.net
Adam,
I agree the policeman in this case reacted improperly: he couldn't focus on anything she said but the impropriety of her language.
Yet, I really don't find your comment helpful. Perhaps you are trying to be funny. I don't think it's funny to slur the police in general. |
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 at 10:34:13 mst
Comment ID: #10
Name: Officer Friday
The 911 officer responded like a beat cop (which he was), instead of an operator. Often the 911 operators are not police officers but trained operators. Usually they ignore people's rants and get to the point unless the rant becomes a distraction. A beat cop talking to an individual in person needs to keep that person calm because he doesn't know if that person represents a threat or not. He is there in person and needs to keep people calm and avoid escalation of the situation. In my opinion, the officer on the phone failed to act appropriately given the context of the job he was performing.
My pure speculation, having worked around police, is that this veteran officer resented the desk duty. His bravado can work well, and even be necessary, on the street. But, it was wrong in this context. |
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 at 13:11:52 mst
Comment ID: #11
Name: Park Jennings
E-mail: ceasar911(at)yahoo.com
This reminds me of the "cleanup" scene from Pulp Fiction, where John Travolta refuses to cooperate unless he is asked "please." In an emergency situation where someone's life is in the balance, it's monumentally stupid to insist upon politeness and respect at the expense of solving the important emergency. Such an insistence upon "respect" is a common thing amongst petty authority figures, where they will refuse to cooperate and will "make life difficult" unless they are treated with what they view as their due deference. I myself have seen this in Navy petty officers (sometimes I wonder on the origins of that qualifier), traffic cops, and college administrators. I'll leave it up to those who have more knowledge about psychology to explain why such a phenomenon occurs, but I myself resent and despise it.
And for humor's sake, this reminds me of another criticism of 911: When seconds count, they're only minutes away. |
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 at 15:40:04 mst
Comment ID: #12
Name: Adam Reed
E-mail: adamreedatalumdotmitdotedu
URL: http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/areed2
Ashley,
If you follow Diana's link to The Agitator (Radley Balko's blog, http://www.theagitator.com) you will find a steady stream of news reports about police (and prosecutors') misconduct, about half a dozen incidents a day, almost all of them immediately identifiable (even to someone whose only exposure to psychopathology was in courses required of every PhD in psychology) as symptomatic of psychopathy. The high incidence of psychopathy among police and prosecutors, in a society in which an ever-broader spectrum of consensual human action is criminalized, should be of concern to every rational individual living in our culture. Please read at least a few days' record on Balko's blog - and consider the evidence. |
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 at 16:51:13 mst
Comment ID: #13
Name: Damon Peichl
E-mail: dpeichl(at)hotmail.com
anon,
1. It is not the slightest bit irrational to assume that an emergency responder would disregard "obscene" language when someone's life is at stake. The idea that someone would quibble over words while a fellow human being lay seizing on the floor (or worse - he didn't even bother to find out) is morally repugnant to me, and for good reason. Such a person judges the respect of others higher than human life. To sit there and suggest that SHE was the one being irrational is the height of moral inversion.
2. Fire emergencies are not "criminal" either. Should we have a third number for that?
Brian0918, I might be persuaded by the argument that a medical emergency is not a violation of anyone's rights and is therefore not the purview of the government, but not as a means of excusing this officer's abhorrent behavior, as anon was trying to do. He (she?) basically said that this happened *because* the police are being asked to handle non-criminal emergencies (as if things would be different if the same man was working for a private company instead.)
So I have to ask:
3. Why would a profit-seeking call center necessarily preclude situations like the one in the video? What is fundamental to the profit motive that would make people like that officer forget their irrational over-sensitivity to "bad" words? |
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 at 20:37:07 mst
Comment ID: #14
Name: Mike Hardy
E-mail: (my last name) (at) math.umn.edu
The officer's behavior was unbelievably irrational. He should get a long prison term. |
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 7:20:06 mst
Comment ID: #15
Name: C Andrew
E-mail: ca4papen(at)mindspring.com
Park,
From Heinlein's "Friday."
A public employee, having no self-respect, needs and demands a show of public respect. |
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 8:48:53 mst
Comment ID: #16
Name: anon
Damon,
1) I don't agree that losing one's head in an emergency is rational or acceptable. Trained or untrained, making the call or receiving it, it's counter-productive. I'm not saying that there's a causal connection between the girl's behavior and the officer's, I'm simply saying that if the girl loses her head for a moment (which, for two reasons, is far more understandable than the officer doing so) and this provokes the officer to lose his, her reaction should have been to recollect herself and appeal to the officer's better nature. My point was that, because of the public-ownership of emergency medical services, the incentive for either to calm down and behave rationally was lessened. The girl is under the impression that she is entitled to the service (as opposed to having to persuade another private citizen to do business with her), and the officer is under the impression that he doesn't have to try as hard to win his customer's favor since his "business" is guaranteed through tax money.
2) I didn't say there should be multiple numbers. Prudence would dictate that there should be only one number for all emergencies so that people can easily remember it, but, when it's called, there should be a menu ("press one for the police, press two for the fire dept, etc...").
Also, since you implicated me in your response to Brian0918, I'm going to defend myself there aswell. I am not excusing the officer's behavior. He severly overreacted and had far less (but not none at all) reason to become emotional than the girl. I'm simply saying, as I explained in "1)", that such instances would be less likely to happen if it were understood by both parties beforehand that their treatment of each other can and will have an effect on getting what they want from each other.
3) If a person is raised on the idea that she is entitled to the emergency services of another person, she is not going to see the necessity of remaining calm. Why would she? They're obligated to help her regardless. Now, I understand that even in today's context, because her family pays taxes, she might have thought the same thing. The difference, however, is that in a society where emergency medical services are privatized, she will have the added consideration that how she behaves this time will affect her ability to recieve services from them the next time. The same paradigm applies to the officer, only instead of the sense of entitlement being focused on the services he receives, it's focused on the money he receives.
What I get from your question is that you believe that there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to criticize the girl. Ayn Rand says that ideas, and not emotions, are man's primary orientation to reality. Are you actually saying that how the girl behaved was appropriate? She was frantic even before she called 911. Reacting frantically is not the proper way in which to deal with emergencies. In fact, and I say this with an immense amount of irony, it is upon that fact that you are criticizing the officer's actions. You are saying that someone, at least, should be able to remain calm. I agree, but I am saying that even better would be if both did. |
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 11:08:57 mst
Comment ID: #17
Name: Damon Peichl
E-mail: dpeichl(at)hotmail.com
anon, would you be prepared today, in this comments section, to unequivocally condemn the officer's actions without deflecting any blame onto the girl and without any wishful thinking that the 911 system should be different, or any kind of qualifying statements at all? |
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 11:57:57 mst
Comment ID: #18
Name: anon
Damon,
Why would I do that? From the beginning, my one and only point has been that were the 911 system privatized, such situations would occur less often. I have never set out anywhere in this comment's section to analyze, from any angle, how best two irrational people should deal with one another. Especially not when the discussion is taking place within the context of an economic situation that forces such dealings to take place; where the option of "just don't do business with them" isn't available.
Your challenge is like asking me if I would be prepared to tell you which form of ethics I would accept - intrincisim or subjectivism - when I am saying over and over again that I reject the notion upon which both rest: that objectivity is impossible.
If you want to have that discussion, that's fine. Just don't try to pretend like I've already agreed to have it. |
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 13:02:10 mst
Comment ID: #19
Name: William H Stoddard
E-mail: whswhs(at)mindspring.com
URL: http://whswhs.livejournal.com/profile
anon,
Talking about what two irrational people should do doesn't seem to be the question actually raised by the situation. The standard of behavior is what a rational person would do, either as the person calling for help or as the person taking the call. There's hardly any point in asking "What should an irrational person do?" You could only answer that question by saying what there is good reason to do . . . and an irrational person wouldn't be acting for good reasons.
But I think there are two other constraints on the situation:
1. Even a perfectly rational person may be in an irrational situation . . . that is, they may have a job that gives them incentives for poor performance, or one that denies them protection from irrational demands, or they may be dependent on a badly run organization for the meeting of their needs, or various other things of that kind. We can ask "What should a rational person do when confronted with this kind of problem?" Sometimes the only answer is to walk out; but sometimes it's less bad to stay, and then you need to figure out how to make the best of it.
2. Even a rational person is not Platonistically rational. When your values are threatened, you will have a strong emotional reaction, and it takes time and effort to regain your cognitive balance and figure out how to respond. And in the meantime you may have acted on impulse, driven by the very intensity of your concern. A standard that says that to be rational you must never have emotional reactions strong enough to make you lose your full context is a product of the reason/emotion dichotomy. If you are engaged with life, sometimes you will lose your full context, and you need to know both how to get it back and how to deal with the consequences of having lost it.
It doesn't sound as if this was an encounter between two rational people in a difficult situation. But we can meaningfully ask what rational people would do in the place of either person. |
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 16:06:30 mst
Comment ID: #20
Name: Damon Peichl
E-mail: dpeichl(at)hotmail.com
That was the last straw. No more mister nice guy.
When someone calls for emergency help, of anyone, police or not, with the phrase "Hey, send some f*cking help! My father fell and I think he might be dying!!" What kind of MONSTER would respond with "No. I refuse to help you until you apologize for using words I don't like." A fellow human being's LIFE is in danger, @sshole. Worry about whether someone paid you proper deference AFTER that person's life is out of danger.
Further, what kind of hideous creature, when confronted with the above situation, would defend the monster by directing their comments at his victim; suggesting that the caller should have realized that she "provoked" the situation and that she should apologize for her words? Are you *kidding* me!??
This is fundamentally no different than the opinion that terrorists would leave us alone if only we would stop "provoking" them, or the opinion that women are "provoking" a rapist by wearing skimpy clothing.
It reminds me of the typical response from C.A.I.R. whenever they are asked to condemn a suicide bombing. They *always* respond with "I condemn terrorist acts ON BOTH SIDES" as if somehow the suicide bombing "balances out" some horrendous crime on the other side rather than being a horrendous crime on its own. They are simply incapable of denouncing a Muslim terrorist act for what it is without qualifying their statements and blaming the victims.
It doesn't matter what the girl said. It matters that the monster didn't send help. Period. I don't even care whether the police should or should not be answering non-criminal calls or whatever. That's completely irrelevant to the situation. He could have been a neighbor, and my outrage would be just as strong. This isn't about what we WISH reality were, it's about the proper context of today, and what actually happened. It's about how little that man values his fellow human beings, and from my perspective, he has no value for us at all. He has no business carrying a badge.
I can't bear to read posts in defense of this jerk; and that *is* what anon is doing. Every mention of how "irrational" the girl was or how the system shouldn't be the way it is represents a defense of this horrible man who values his ability to go through his day without hearing one of an arbitrary list of unapproved words more than the lives of his fellow human beings. Anon just doesn't want to accept the logical implications of his (her??) position.
I need a shower. |
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 17:15:10 mst
Comment ID: #21
Name: anon
Damon,
Watch the video again. Your entire point is off base. The girl never told the officer what the emergency was. I'm not saying, and I never have said, that just because someone used the f-word the officer was justified in hanging up. I'm just saying that if you're going to admonish the officer for not reacting appropriately when he is confronted with a situation, you should also admonish the girl. The proper response of the girl to the officer's innappropriate reaction (to say nothing of her own reaction to the situation itself, absent the officer) should have been to say - frantically even - "my dad's having a seizure!"
That would have, perhaps, brought the officer back down to earth and made him do his job. Instead, she calls back a 2nd time with a confrontational tone, and then a 3rd time, this time concerned more with speaking her mind to the officer than of getting her father help.
Or maybe you think that 911 operators should just dispatch an ambulance everytime someone calls in and says "send me an ambulance." If that is the case, why even have operators? Why not just have so that when you call 911, you just order the police, fire dept, or EMS w/o talking to anyone. It's a fact that, given it's "free" nature, people abuse 911.
As for your point about how I shouldn't look at the big picture, and just take this instance of the mixed-economy for granted: of what good is that? You are aware that this blog is primarily meant for the discussion of philosophy, are you not?
You're talking quite a bit about how to deal with reality how it is, and not how it should be. Fine. How it is is that 911 is staffed by people who have no economic incentive to behave rationally, and, even if they are able to retain a personal incentive to, it is continually tested by callers who have no economic incentive to behave rationally themselves. That's the reality. That's what you should be prepared to encounter when you call government-911. Of what use is it, when it occurs, to become beligerent with them?
That's one solution. The short-term solution. The long-term solution is to advocate for the privatization of emergency services. Neither is fool proof, but both help. Allowing yourself to become irrational when confronted with irrationality, or trying to pretend that an irrational situation is only that way because of the actors involved, help in neither the short-term nor the long-term respectively.
(Also, note the relative calm that I have shown in this discussion, and the frantic, confrontational tone, when pushed, that you've shown. I sensed it from the beginning, and I made a special effort to remain calm so that I could make an indefatigable point (which I've done) before I knew you'd explode. If only that girl had taken the same approach). |
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 18:36:10 mst
Comment ID: #22
Name: Adam Reed
E-mail: adamreedatalumdotmitdotedu
URL: http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/areed2
Anon,
The officer never asked, never gave the panicked girl a chance even to say ""my dad's having a seizure!" - he just hung up, time after time.
This is not about who-else-is-to-blame. Even "rational-vs-irrational" are categories too broad to do justice to this incident. An existential danger to a human life, the life of a person whom the police officer was being paid to protect, was treated by that officer with the depraved indifference of a psychopath. Even those of us who would prefer that police not be involved in taking emergency calls - a point on which I would agree with you - should be afraid for our liberties and our lives, when this kind of depraved, psychopathic indifference to our liberties and our lives is not considered a disqualification for becoming, or remaining, a law-enforcement officer. |
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 21:34:21 mst
Comment ID: #23
Name: anon
Mr. Reed,
Hanging up time after time was wrong. But, given that, the girl was wrong to not just say "my dad's having a seizure!" the moment he answered again. If you and Damon are going to argue that within the (admittedly) irrational context of the police being tasked with handling medical emergencies, people (ie: the officer) should nonetheless behave rationally (and I agree... I've only ever said that the chances of the opposite happening would be lessened were EMS privatized), then why not also argue that within the context of calling EMS and having it's staff behave irrationally, the girl should have behaved more rationally (ie: not become more concerned w/ defeating the officer than w/ getting her dad help)?
I don't know enough about psychology to agree or disagree that that officer's behavior proves that he's a psychopath. He may be. I only know that whatever his problems are, they were exacerbated (if not created) by the socialized nature of EMS.
Also, couldn't one make the case that the officer was attempting to establish dominance in order to scare the girl into calming down and giving him vital information? I've seen plenty of episodes of cops where this tactic is used on the street. It may have been dumb to try over the phone (don't know, not an expert), but if that were the case, it would mitigate his guilt to the level of "the wrong place at the wrong time."
What I'm asking is: if a man enters a clydesdale in the Kentucky Derby and he finishes last, whom do you blame? (And also: what else, except a tax-funded protection against failure, would allow a man to make such a brash decision?) |
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 23:11:57 mst
Comment ID: #24
Name: Mike Hardy
E-mail: (my last name) (at) math.umn.edu
> Also, couldn't one make the case
> that the officer was attempting
> to establish dominance in order
> to scare the girl into calming
> down and giving him vital
> information?
No. He should have __asked__ for the information, forcefully and explicitly. His behavior was irrational. Nothing better can be said of it. He behavior was a crime. |
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 23:34:54 mst
Comment ID: #25
Name: Adam Reed
E-mail: adamreedatalumdotmitdotedu
URL: http://borntoidentify.blogspot.com/
Anon,
The belief that "to establish dominance" would work "to scare the girl into calming down and giving him vital information" doesn't have any actual psychological evidence going for it. So to hold such a belief would have been arbitrary, and perhaps delusional. Since the officer did not take the obvious course for obtaining information - ask the caller why she was asking for that ambulance - I suspect that this is something invented from thin air, as an excuse for the obviously inexcusable. |
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 23:51:50 mst
Comment ID: #26
Name: BrianS
Call 1:
C: What the F..."
O: 911
C: I need an ambulance at [Address]
O: Okay. Well, first of all, you do not need to swear over 9-1-1 and slow down.
C: OK. Send me a f.... ambulance.
O - HANGS UP
Call 2:
O: 911
C: Are you going to send me an ambulance?
O: Are you going to swear again, you stupid a..?
C: Are we going to have a f... problem?
O: No, you are not going to get one!
C: Do you want to f... lose your job?
O - HANGS UP
Call 3:
O: 911
C: I just want to know what's your name because you're getting sued.
O: Good
C: What is it?
O: Good. Good for you, cause you're a buffoon!
C: Send the f... ambulance!
O - HANGS UP
After more than 6 minutes(!), the cop decided to request an ambulance anyway. And. afterwards, he claims "I couldn't get through her comments." In other words, on top of his criminally negligent irrational behavior, he lies in an attempt to cover it up.
This officer is a piece of slime who deserves jail for endangering the father's life. What's more, the teenager who was put through this deserves the greatest of sympathy. What she most certainly *doesn't* deserve are attempts to blame *her* - to try to make her complicit in the officer's crime. That is AS irrational - AS unjust - as the actions of the officer. |
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| Thursday, May 14, 2009 at 6:29:25 mst
Comment ID: #27
Name: Damon Peichl
E-mail: dpeichl(at)hotmail.com
actually, anon, I am trying to argue that human life is more valuable than fragile "virgin" ears. You, apparently, are arguing the opposite. |
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| Saturday, May 16, 2009 at 12:59:49 mst
Comment ID: #28
Name: Anthony
"Further, what kind of hideous creature, when confronted with the above situation, would defend the monster by directing their comments at his victim"
The victim being...the father, who lies on the floor seizing while his daughter and a cop argue over the phone?
"[The officer's] behavior was a crime."
It was gross negligence, but I don't think that in itself is a crime unless someone dies (or at least gets injured?) as a result. The cop's behavior was despicable, but I'm not sure how to make it into a crime.
"Prudence would dictate that there should be only one number for all emergencies so that people can easily remember it, but, when it's called, there should be a menu ('press one for the police, press two for the fire dept, etc...')."
There should be only one number for all emergencies, and it should ring to a service run by (or subcontracted out by) the phone company, not the government. |
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| Saturday, May 16, 2009 at 13:05:28 mst
Comment ID: #29
Name: Anthony
"There should be only one number for all emergencies, and it should ring to a service run by (or subcontracted out by) the phone company, not the government."
Which is not to say that private company should be the one to actually respond. Think OnStar or Vonage Emergency Response Center or ADT. |
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| Saturday, May 16, 2009 at 13:25:53 mst
Comment ID: #30
Name: William H Stoddard
E-mail: whswhs(at)mindspring.com
URL: http://whswhs.livejournal.com/profile
Anthony,
Having only one emergency number connected to a service run by THE phone company probably would not work in a laissez-faire capitalist economy, because there likely wouldn't be THE phone company. Having a single monopoly phone company wasn't a product of competition in the market; in the first decade of the twentieth century, AT&T in fact faced declining market share, because a lot of local business went to small phone companies that didn't have the overhead of maintaining long distance lines and thus could charge less. This led AT&T management to rethink their commitment to competitive markets and start lobbying for government-imposed monopoly, to eliminate "wasteful duplication."
And with the increasing shift toward cell phones, to the point where a substantial number of people apparently don't even have landlines, the idea of THE phone company is again ceasing to be meaningful.
You could probably work out comparable ideas in the context of a competitive telecom industry, though. |
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| Saturday, May 16, 2009 at 18:14:22 mst
Comment ID: #31
Name: Anthony
"Having only one emergency number connected to a service run by THE phone company probably would not work in a laissez-faire capitalist economy, because there likely wouldn't be THE phone company."
I noticed that someone might think I was making that assumption, which is why I added "(or subcontracted out by)", but I guess I was still unclear. I don't see how having multiple phone companies makes any substantive difference to what I said. Each phone company could run their own service, or they could subcontract it out to a service that handles calls from a bunch of phone companies, or they could mix and match, or whatever.
Again, this is already something that is being done by private companies such as Vonage, OnStar, ADT, etc. There's no reason it ought to be handled by the government. The government only ought to be involved when there is a need to use (retaliatory) force, and 911 call centers don't need to use force. |
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| Saturday, May 16, 2009 at 18:15:08 mst
Comment ID: #32
Name: Anthony
"Having only one emergency number connected to a service run by THE phone company probably would not work in a laissez-faire capitalist economy, because there likely wouldn't be THE phone company."
I noticed that someone might think I was making that assumption, which is why I added "(or subcontracted out by)", but I guess I was still unclear. I don't see how having multiple phone companies makes any substantive difference to what I said. Each phone company could run their own service, or they could subcontract it out to a service that handles calls from a bunch of phone companies, or they could mix and match, or whatever.
Again, this is already something that is being done by private companies such as Vonage, OnStar, ADT, etc. There's no reason it ought to be handled by the government. The government only ought to be involved when there is a need to use (retaliatory) force, and 911 call centers don't need to use force. |
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| Monday, June 22, 2009 at 7:40:33 mst
Comment ID: #33
Name: Dean Kriegel
E-mail: deankriegel(at)gmail.com
Dr. Reed,
Your opening "According to psychological surveys..." seems to indicate that you have knowledge of psychological surveys that support your statement. I was unable to find any psychological surveys that backed up your statement. I was hoping you could provide reference to the actual psychological surveys you made reference to. I have a long standing interest in psychology as it applies to the work of law enforcement, and to the best of my knowledge no such psychological surveys exist.
Quote from Dr. Reed:
"According to psychological surveys, policemen and lawyers suffer from a higher incidence of psychopathy than convicted felons. A psychiatrist I knew used to joke that a cop is a psychopath who flunked out of law school - and a felon is a psychopath who flunked out of the police academy." |
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