An Efficient Police Department Is a Benefit of Socialism

[MineralMan]

A few days ago, a late model BMW 328 showed up parked across the street from my house. I noticed it for a couple of reasons:

1. Nobody who lives in the neighborhood owns a BMW. It's a Toyota sort of neighborhood.
2. The left front fender and grille were destroyed, and there was a deep power-pole-looking dent in the left front door. The back window was also shattered, which probably indicates some frame damage for the car.

I let it sit there, but it was visible through my front window, so I kept noticing it. It was out of context. What was a pretty much totaled BMW 328 doing there? Maybe my neighbor across the street bought it for a project car? I asked. Nope. He was curious about the car, too. He and his family drive Toyotas, exclusively. Really, most local Hmong families do, because a local Toyota dealer hired Hmong-speaking sales staff and repair people, but that's a different story.

My neighbor said he'd call the police about it. The next day, three St. Paul cops showed up and got out of their cars and stood around looking at the BMW. One of them went back to his patrol car and I could see him using his radio. They talked to my neighbor and then left.

About an hour later, a flatbed tow truck showed up, along with a very sad-looking guy in an Audi. My neighbor joined them and conversation ensued.

Anyhow, the Beemer was stolen, and the thief or thieves apparently crashed it and decided to abandon it on our street. Anyhow, the car went on the flatbed and they drove off. Was it totaled? I don't know, but it probably was. Replacing a fender and front clip, along with the door, rear window, and doing whatever frame straightening is needed will be very costly. I hope the owner had good insurance.

Still, the entire thing was handled efficiently by our local police department. Socialism at work.

[comradebillyboy]

1. What does this have to do with socialism? Basic government services aren't socialism.

Definition of socialism
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism

[MineralMan]

2. Lots of people use the word as they define it for themselves.

Surely you know that. Republicans think that anything the government does is socialism. They say so all the time.

I know the dictionary definition. Really. I'm trying to make a minor point here.

[comradebillyboy]

6. Yes, I know, but I'm old fashioned and words still have meaning.

[rampartc]

3. we know that

the congresscritters in the antisocialism caucus could use that info.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/congress-anti-socialism-caucus-chris-stewart-utah-aoc-trump-gop-democrats-a8854131.html

[comradebillyboy]

7. Indeed they abuse the language quite badly.

[hunter]

8. I'm a socialist but I don't get bent by these distinctions.

It's a rare government that evolves any kind of socialist ideal, and even rarer that some noble ideal of communism, socialism, or capitalism doesn't immediately devolve into oligarchy, kleptocracy, strong-man dictatorship, or something worse.

The U.S.A. has always been the Big-Man banana republic of the American banana republics. We are a perpetually "developing" nation with an absurdly over-sized military and nukes, and many communities living in poverty, homelessness, and despair. We have less in common with Canada and Western European social democracies than we do Latin American nations. We just happen to speak English.

Big-Man Trump wants to build a wall on our southern border because to him it's like looking in a mirror. He doesn't like the reflection because it's brown and speaks Spanish. If Trump was in prison he'd be segregated with the white gangsters. The prison conflicts of white gangsters and brown gangsters are just as stupid outside the prison wall.

There are embers of social democracy always burning in America, but every time we see flames, the regressive right rises up to suppress them.

Obama was an extremely competent President, a mild promoter of social democracy, a centrist, not a socialist, but he was brown so the regressive white right lost their shit and dumped upon us their meat-puppets Trump and Pence.

Aside from the Machiavellian Dick Cheney, all the Republican Presidents and Vice Presidents since Ronald Reagan have been vile, venal, easily manipulated meat puppets with skeletons in their closets so shameful there was never any possibility they could break out of their cages to become true leaders.

Possibly that's a good thing. The U.S.A. has always been very vulnerable to fascist and racist ideologies. The only thing that protects us is that a certain number of oligarchs have recognized that the more virulent fascist and racist ideologies are bad for business. That's where the true push-back against Trump's vile "close the border" rhetoric came from. It was bad for business in a multi-billion dollar way.

[TheBlackAdder]

4. A lot of theves park stolen cars on streets to see if it has a LoJack or other tracker installed.

.

If it sits there for a few days, they'll come back and claim it.

In my area, patrol cards have license plate scanners, which runs thousands of lookups an hour, so if there is any report of a stolen vehicle, tag mismatch, or driver warrant, the cops know immediately. The police cruise streets, and parking lots scanning cars. You might see the thing that looks like an infrared night camera mounted on the hood or trunk on both sides of the cruiser.

.

[MineralMan]

5. That's true. However, since the thieves crashed this car,

it wasn't going to be of much use to them. St. Paul has license scanners. I've seen cars equipped with them. But they don't really patrol residential streets all that much here. Instead, they rely on residents, like my neighbor, to call them about suspicious crap. I've done it myself a few times.

It has never taken more than about 5 minutes for a patrol to show up for such a suspicious activity report, either.

[fescuerescue]

9. One of my pet peaves about socialism

Is that everytime it's discussed, the discussion turns to definition of it.

We spend more energy agonizing over the perfect definition of it, than actually discussing it.

It's almost like porn. We all know what it is when we see it, but no one WANTS to agree on exact definition.

Car doesn't sound totalled though. One of the bad things about a luxury car is that it takes ALOT to total. If the car cost $50,000 they insurance company might spend $35,000 to fix it. $35k fixes alot of damage.

[GulfCoast66]

10. Fortunately we have well established ways to define word's meanings.

A dictionary being the most authoritative one.

While I agree you can argue against the meaning of a word as defined in dictionaries, it is a losing battle.

And why would anyone want to? Socialism, as it has been defined and generally understood would not be supported by even most democrats. Or even those on the left who now call themselves socialist. I just can’t understand the thinking behind such a self defeating practice.

[fescuerescue]

11. Doesn't seem to matter

Discussions about socialism are usually dictionary bakeoffs.

But yea I don't participate. I just laugh. Or if someone (annoyingly) tries to engage me on I disengage.