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Techdirt reports
Two law enforcement agencies will be returning their Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) [vehicles] to Uncle Sam, with the announcements arriving almost simultaneously.
Davis, Calif., city officials have directed the police department to return a surplus U.S. military armored vehicle to the federal government after residents, citing images seen during protests in Ferguson, Mo., expressed fears of militarization.
The Davis Police Department now has 60 days to get rid of a $689,000 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicle, which police acquired through a U.S. Defense Department program, and must consider other rescue vehicle options.
[...]
Over in San Jose, CA, it's a completely different story. Rather than having an MRAP pried from law enforcement's clutches by city reps, the San Jose Police Department gave it up voluntarily to protect its relationship with the people it serves.
San Jose police spokeswoman Sgt. Heather Randol told KCBS the decision was made based on concerns for potential damage to the department's image and community relationships.
"We want to keep their trust. We don't want them to feel we are going off on another path with our police department," she said. "We want them to feel comfortable about the tools that we use."
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday September 04 2014, @07:35PM
You're being US centric. Many countries have improved during that time period. Not every country believes in sticking half of its population in prison.
As for the "Baby boomers" being excessively narcissistic, many of them are, but by no means all of them. And that's been true in every generation. What's different now is that the bulge of the population is getting older, and attitudes have a tendency to change and become more selfish as one ages. I know that it's true of myself, even though I dislike noticing it. Back in the 1960's one group cried "Never trust anyone over 30!". They weren't being totally irrational. Goals change as one gets older. The healthy change is to be more centered around ones family and secondarily ones community. That's what we've evolved to do. Unfortunately, modern life is designed to make that difficult. Mobility means that one doesn't have a community or manageable size in any real sense. We are evolved for communities were we recognize every member, and can have some idea how trustworthy they are. These days such communities are not feasible. Someone once said most people are more dedicated to their bridge club than to their country. This makes a certain amount of sense, because at least one knows the people in the bridge club.
Ever wonder why Facebook was so popular? It's because it emulates that kind of a community. To the extent that it diverges from that, it will be weaker. (And it *must* fail, because the primitive communities provided emergency support.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.