http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/bradshaw-gets-1-million-for-violence-prevention-un/nXbs4/
This is getting a little scary.
It looks like the federal government is sending money to Sheriff departments if they start to confront people who hate the government.
"Senate budget leaders have awarded Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw $1 million for a new violence prevention unit"
“We want people to call us if the guy down the street says he hates the government, hates the mayor and he’s gonna shoot him,” Bradshaw said. “
How long until they just take off that last part....and it just becomes:
“We want people to call us if the guy down the street says he hates the government, hates the mayor”
The "he's gonna shoot him" part is already gone. It is entirely based upon interpretation so who is to say that their opinion is about someelse shooting someone is any less or more valid than someone elses. For example: It is the opinion of Jane Doe that John Smith is going to shoot the street light because he is unhappy with his power bill. Who can argue that Jane's opinion is any less valid than the folks down the street who say John Smith is not going to shoot the street light because he loves street lights?
Limitgov, You are right to think this is scary.
But I don't know why today you think this is "GETTING a little scary."
There are at least 4 or 5 high ranking cabinet officials in the federal government who believe this is their most important duty.
Some of them have recently purchased millions of rounds of hollow point ammunition.
And then there are at least 20 or so federal security agencies who do this kind of surveilance already- some of them employ the world's most advanced electronic surveilance techniques funded with our tax dollars. Completely in secret, unobserved, without accountability and without legal cover too.
The only thing that is new is that the newspapers found out about one small subdepartment funding because some loudmouth sheriff spoke out.
If you didn't know, things are way more scary than that article.
"The goal won’t be to arrest troubled people but to get them help before there’s violence, Bradshaw said. As a side benefit, law enforcement will have needed information to keep a close eye on things." RED ALERT
But aside from the obvious privacy infractions spelled out here "Bradshaw acknowledged the risk that anyone in a messy divorce or in a dispute with a neighbor could abuse the hotline. But, he said, he’s confident that his trained professionals will know how to sort out fact from fiction..." I think this thread would be benefitted by presenting our thoughts on how to approach this "mentally ill" violence problem. Let's first try to understand violence and hatred (I'm not sure if there is a thread out there that talks about this but I will just paste my thoughts on violence/hatred here):
Hatred is defined as an intense animosity or hostility towards an individual, group or idea. We all know what hatred looks like - and some of us know how it feels - but where it came from has been tossed around for years. Hatred is usually connected with some sort of projection of those feelings in the form of abuse (I’ll rant about violence in the next post). It is puzzling how society almost unanimously agrees that hatred is never justified (especially through violence), and yet ‘there will always be hatred.’ I mean, we aren’t in a society where people are cast off as witches if they are different from the rest of the people. But it seems nowadays we coin the presence of hatred as ‘just another part of human nature.’ I’d argue against this. I would think it has more to do with selfish rejection of ‘good’ choices (i.e. love instead of hate). I believe every person is innately good with an absolute sense of morality. Society, our parents and well our environment tends to push ‘weak’ people a certain way. Why do I call the people who stray away from their sense of morality, ‘weak’? Considering people like to fill their lives with purpose - they set high standards for themselves. And as it should happen, we don’t always meet these standards in the way we would have hoped. Now, quite a lot of people will, instead of pushing themselves harder to meet their expectations, lower the bar. They adjust their self-image. They start taking the easy way out. Tentatively, this seems like a viable solution, where society doesn’t have to know the difference. So the person we see coming out of the rough patch is actually ‘weaker’ than the person he or she could have been. What happens now is whenever these people have thoughts or feelings that don’t fit their false self-image, they feel threatened and have to constantly keep these feelings in check. These thoughts linger in their minds as much as they push them further down. Just as a writer’s thoughts flow through his pencil - one similar thought attracting another - thoughts that people fear are no different. These thoughts branch together, forming clusters of disturbed hierarchies pressing against the back of their minds. When something reminds weak people about these clusters, they will experience a sudden jolt of hatred, fear or disgust as their minds attempt to reject the prospect that the thoughts formed inside themselves. Because they cannot accept these thoughts as part of themselves, they assume that the feelings they generate are coming from whatever or whoever reminded us of them. This is known as projection. If you remember growing up and maybe you forgot to do a chore properly and your parent walks in and flips out. Then your parent later sits down with you and says “I’m sorry for lashing out at you like that, I just had a bad day at work.” It is the same principle. Anyone that seems vaguely antagonizing can cause weak people to project their own suppressed anger onto them. This anger seems to be separate from “their own” thoughts, making it easy to believe that the anger is coming from the other person. Someone with different culture, background or custom can prompt them to project so called antisocial thoughts of their own that disturbed or disgusted them, making the other person seem disturbing or threatening. Depending on the magnitude of their suppressed feelings, people who are in fact harmless or “without criminal record,” as it seems to be the case recently, can appear to be capable of vastly terrible deeds. A way to bring about sustainable change, is for everyone to own their thoughts as natural and a part of themselves and no one else, no matter how disturbing those thoughts may feel.
Violence: I heard an argument about why the criminal in the Newtown tragedy made the decision to commit a mass murder-suicide. Basically, the pundit said that instead of leaving the world as a nobody, the criminal felt the need to leave the world with a mark - some sort of twisted immortality. As I wrote in my previous take on hatred, people like this have the urge to fill their life with meaning if nothing had already satisfactorily met their standards.
The way I see it, if there is one thing that stings people just enough to commit violence, it is the feeling of powerlessness. I’ll use the term ‘weak’ again. If weak people feel they lack control over their environment and cannot influence others, then they reach a point where violence is the only remaining option. In order to influence others, there has to be mutual respect and a willingness for communication. In order to have environmental control, there has to be an understanding of customs, and ability and permission to act.
As broad as these conditions are, they are not so often met in our society. Many people are alienated from one another and have few opportunities to exert any real influence upon anyone else. This case is especially prevalent with poor or uneducated people.
But I want to address another aspect of violence that is probably just as pervasive if not connected to powerlessness. That is not why people are violent, but why so many men are violent. I mean, women are just as capable as yielding a gun or knife as men. Yet it isn’t women who are tearing through schools or temples or theaters. I’d attest this observation to the social expectations men and women must abide by, or in other words gender roles. So much of what people learn is from their environment. There seems to be this stigma where women are taught to be yielding. They are not expected to forcefully express their desires. However, men are taught to be dominant. Somehow it is effeminate if a man expresses his feelings or any tendencies for that matter in a yielding manner.
I think it is worth reiterating that mentally healthy men are those who openly express a broad spectrum of emotional and behavioral characteristics. Being healthy requires a balance of being forceful and gentle, steadfast or yielding. Unfortunately, society has wholly changed the definition of a gentleman. The acceptable range of emotions for a man to express is now narrow. They have only a few ways to display exaggerated feelings (i.e. those thought clusters mentioned in the previous post).
Basically, you have conflicted men who feel powerless yet have an urge to express control and satisfy their gender role. This can only mean trouble if society doesn’t change the values it afflicts upon our youth.