American hero thrashed...

[exploited]

You need to lay off the drink bud.

Here is a guy being intimidated and harassed by the exact same type of cop you guys rage about, a cop who has instituted community policing and spoken out against the blue code and police brutality, a guy who took himself out of the worst possible upbringing and environment and rose to a position of prominence... and the only thing said is that his pension is too high.

This is deeply reflective of the enormous ideological damage done to our society by the oligarchs. A guy making $135k a year has invoked the wrath of everyone here besides me, yet this is a fraction of the wealth made by some of the least productive members of our society. That is some f**k up shit. We spend billions enforcing drug laws, and some guy who is going to make $3 million over the rest of his life is the problem with our government finances?

It seems to me that of all the things our governments waste money on, pensions for people who worked is the least worrisome.

I see the same sort of disdain shown towards factory workers who demand they get paid a decent salary. "Why should those uneducated scum make $80k a year??? They don't deserve it." As if compensation is determined by what you deserve lol.

We either formalize a way of making compensation fair, or we engage in solidarity with those who have the balls to stand up to their employers and demand good compensation. It is frankly pretty sad to see how people have turned on public and private unions, the same organizations that are solely responsible for the middle class in the first place.

[Saz]

[Medius]

Up front, I will say that any retribution tied to this guy speaking out against police brutality is wrong.

That said, though, a serial killer who saves a baby from a burning building is not a hero that saved a baby from a burning building. He is a serial killer who saved a baby from a burning building.

I see nothing in this story that calls this guy out as a "hero". It is certainly admirable that this guy changed his life, but even his reasons are personal motivations not altruism. A fear of incarceration. A fear of death. Wanting a better life for his child. The last being more admirable, but, I would argue, a general expectation of fatherhood. I would not classify someone who fails to do this as normal, therefore someone who does do this is not heroic. They are normal.

I would also say, that as a former police officer, he should really have a deep understanding of paying the consequences for his actions. Do you think this guy, as a police officer, let people slide because they might better themselves? Do you think he gave people the break he himself received through sheer luck of not getting caught? I doubt it. If he rose to prominence, it was because he shoved as many people in jail as he could. At best, you could say he was "atoning" for his prior actions. But as a police officer who was upholding the rule of law, he falls necessarily into a place of hypocrisy by not turning himself in for his past crimes and paying the price he forced anyone he arrested to pay. So humorously, from my perspective, the very career choice he made that others might applaud, makes me feel less sympathy for him. If he had gone into, well, pretty much any other profession, I wouldn't suggest he had a moral obligation to own up to his past crimes. But he went into a field in which he felt justified in forcing others to do something that he himself never did.

And I do find myself annoyed at someone pulling a significant pension for a job that he lied to get. In another profession, that wouldn't have been necessary. In his profession it was.

So I'll say this: It isn't wrong that he spoke out against police violence. In fact, it is laudable. It isn't wrong that he tells people about how he changes his life for the better. It is, however, stupid to do so in detail when said details involve fraud after the so-called change for the better. He should not expect to be free from all consequences of his past actions. Unless there is something that I missed in the story, I certainly wouldn't call the guy a hero. I'd say he was a guy who tried to atone for past sins and did a fairly decent job of it, though in a kind of twisted way, and for not entirely altruistic reasons.

I think the "revenge" harassment should certainly end for his expression of free speech with regards to police action. His pension, however, is a matter of law. The law that he spent a portion of his life upholding. If he lied to get his job, then it may be actually just that he lose the pension.

[Saz]

[exploited]

Saz, stop projecting your life on the rest of us. I make a decent income, my career path is just fine, and I pay my taxes. I'm just not willing to throw a person who did work hard under the bus when the issue of compensation is so ridiculously absurd elsewhere. $135k a year for work rendered is nothing compared to the outright theft by the very people you have signed up to defend legally. Corporate crime and welfare costs us billions. The War on Drugs costs us billions. The military, which you want to apparently use to indefinitely occupy Iraq, costs you guys trillions. And the problem with the government is an executive level officer making $135k a year on a pension? Outrageous.

No one here will even engage with the idea that perhaps people who organize to get a good deal deserve it. No one here will talk about how having this guy off the workforce opens up a spot for a younger person - how getting older people to stop working is a good thing. They just whine about how they are being left out, so why should this guy do really well for himself?

That is what is sick, as is your irrational hatred for boomers. Just listen to yourself. And what is especially hilarious is that I've heard you talk about weaseling your way out of paying your student loans a bunch of times, how Obama bailed you out - you really do embody hypocrisy, you know that?

What it comes down to is that you made a series of choices about where to go to school and what to do, and now are whining about the consequences, all while swearing to take it out on an entire generation you blame almost everything on. It is a classic, textbook victims complex. And just about everyone my age engages in the same bullshit.

"I had to go to school." No you didn't.

"I had to choose a profession with a glut of prospects." No you didn't.

"I had to pick an Ivy League school." No you didn't.

And worst of all is that you are sitting here bragging about how much money you make while trying to simultaneously play the victim. It is outrageous. You have no credibility at all.

[exploited]

[eynon81]

[eynon81]

[Dylan]

[exploited]