I've worked as a cashier many times in my life. I would not say that my perspective is privileged.

That said, I will continue to argue that it is antiquated. I'm talking about from the perspective of the business as well, mind you. The notion that we have to pay someone who stands at a register for X number of hours Y salary per hour is antiquated. There are so many other ways to handle that kind of trade for labor. Per person who goes through your line, for example, or just salary.

The problem is though that like it or not, the kind of people (this is a generality, mind you) who end up working a cash register for any length of time don't often have the same kind of mentality to hold the ability to provide high value to a business. If your biggest value is your ability to scan items, there isn't a position I can hire you for in my structure where I can't find simply far too many others with more experience and skill who will provide more value. It goes back to, can you push that boulder up the hill in 4 hours, or does it take you 8? I don't want to hire two people who it takes 8, I want to hire 1 that can do what both of you can do combined. The fact that you have to compete with that other person isn't unfair, it's just rational.

I used to work for an internet retailer where we had this thing happen that we called the 50/50/50 rule. Every year we would hire a bunch of warehouse workers. The company even invested in a bussing system that would drive these individuals to and from work every day and the pay was very fair for a warehouse role of this caliber. Everyone we interviewed had to take two tests. The first test was a VERY simple math and reading test. We're talking adding and subtracting of 2 digit numbers and basic multiplication and division and simple reading. The second was a more complex test but I'd have placed it around an 8th grade level, at most. Of those we interviewed, 50% failed the first test, of those that passed that, 50% failed the second, and of those who did not, 50% didn't show up to work the first day.

Keep in mind I took the tests and scored 100% on both and this was before I ever went to college.

Like it or not, there ARE calibers of people in this world. We want to think of everyone as equal, but they're just not. Everyone should be treated equally under the law, but that doesn't make them equal. If you are someone who cannot pass a simple math and reading test, and by simple I mean like 2nd grade stuff here, then I can't hire you - not for the simplest job we have a need for.

There's a firm point with what I'm saying here: Many businesses find that it makes more sense to pay hourly to a casher because if not, the casher is a lot more likely to not show up for work, not do their job when they do, and not do it correctly when they do their job than someone in my field. Same with the kinds of people who applied during my anecdotal warehouse example. Police were called every week due to fights and illicit drug use as well.

Again, there simply ARE calibers of people and there's nothing you're going to do about that. If that's not you and you work at a register all day, then I've confidence you won't be for long and maybe that antiquated way of trading for your labor will change, as it should.

You're talking about deeper issues here though. What you really mean is that the underlying problem is the government and how they're in bed with big business.

That doesn't mean it's OK to steal. Robin Hood - you know the story of Robin Hood, ya? Stole from the rich and gave to the poor? But he didn't, not at all. Robin Hood was a friend of King Richard, the richest of all. He took back what the Sherriff stole from the people - which isn't theft. You cannot steal that in which does not belong to you.

And your claims are grand so they require grand evidence. What is an example of a large business stealing from individuals on a grand scale? Disliking your pay or disliking the cost of goods/services isn't theft, that's consensual adult human interaction. If you don't like the deal, don't consent to it. You can vote with your wallet and labor.

My point is that there are far too many people who have different views, beliefs, and levels of thinking to find a sure-fire method of ensuring all agents of the state have sufficient "training" for this and anything else they might come across that'll be in tomorrow's news.

And when placed into a delicate situation where your fundamental job is answering the call to and making arrests, full-well understanding that every perpetrator is a potential threat to themselves and those around them (as you work in these situations every day), it can become very stressful if placed into a situation such as this.

Now don't get it twisted, I'm not in any way saying these cops are in the right - they are not. What I am saying is if you had 2 years of training I don't think things would universally change much. I own firearms for example and I go shooting, and nothing is ever going to prepare me for a day if I ever needed to use one of those firearms. I don't ever want to be in such a situation. I don't want to shoot anyone, I just want to protect my family, myself, and the innocent, in that order. I couldn't imagine how awful it would be to have to make split second choices filled with anxiety, fear, and fight or flight responses in the heat of a moment such as that. Could I make a mistake? Of course! I mean, what if there's a shooting somewhere and suddenly I have to consider so many variables. Where's the shooter? Is my family in danger? Where do we go? Should I draw my weapon? If I do, could police or another armed individual think I'm the shooter? If I saw the shooter, how safe would it even be to shoot them to try to stop them? Could I hit an innocent person? What if I do? Will I go to prison for murder? What if I hit the shooter and take them out? Will I be a hero, or marked as a villain and imprisoned so I never see my family again?

I can think about these things time and again (and I have), but I know nothing I could do would fully prepare me for being in that moment.

And again, I'm not saying that any of that means the cops in this example were justified. I'm just saying I can see how impossible this task could be. Up training to 2 years and you're going to need to increase what we pay cops or many people are going to just go into other professions. What would the value of say, 2 years of training be, exactly? Does it actually reduce the level of police killings? I got this off a quick web search:

"Specialized and targeted training—such as de-escalation, procedural justice, and reality-based tactical training—can reduce police use of force, but simply increasing total training hours alone does not automatically or reliably eliminate fatal police shootings."

That's apparently from NBC News. And the data isn't being very concrete here. It says that better training provides a "measurable drop" in use of force, but it won't say by how much. Deeper searches reveal a reported 28.1% in overall use-of-force incidents, but use-of-force isn't only use of deadly force. Stats say that cops in the US kill an average of 1,150 people annually. A 28.1% reduction (let's assume that's all deadly force, but it wouldn't be), would be roughly 323.15 people. Around 300 people die each year from ladder-related falls. So not only would this reduction be negligible, but what would the cost be? Why not invest that into say, cancer research, traffic safety awareness (39,254 people died in 2024 to traffic accidents), or so many other things.

We look at situations like this - which are egregious, don't get me wrong - and we ask ourselves as if we ARE the collective, "what could WE do?" But there isn't a collective, and there is no "we", there is only what can YOU do. One thing I do is not put myself in situations where police may be involved. Now that doesn't mean this woman deserved what happened, I'm not saying that at all, nor do I believe that, but as terrible as this kind of thing is, rationally as I said, there's often not much that can be done about it, and watch, nothing will be done about it.

People will scream about it for a while, politicians and talk about what we're going to do about it, things may even be put into place around it, but it won't change anything, and if it does, it'll be so negligible that the next time it happens even AFTER the proposed changes are put in place, it'll seem like nothing was ever done at all.

Now this I would agree with 100%.

Wouldn't that depend though?

It is the responsibility of the police to make arrests, not prove guilt or innocence - that is the job of the courts. The police gathered what information they could, rightly concluded that someone had committed theft and attempted to make an arrest. This means that if they can use their bodies to stop the perpetrator from escaping that arrest, they should.

The question then falls on the idea of, was the car already going 30MPH and an officer jumped in front of it not giving them enough time to stop, and that was seen as an act of violence? That then would have been two poor decisions on behalf of that officer. First, jumping in front of the car, and two, in assuming the car's not stopping to be an act of aggression upon them that warranted a returned act of agression.

If someone came into my home, robbed me and my family then ran out to their car and I was standing at the end of my driveway by the time the car started moving (I own firearms) and they clearly held no intention of not running me over, I would shoot to kill and I would be completely justified in doing so. Not because they robbed me (though that can actually be warranted too, it just depends), but because they made an attempt on my life, or at the very least, on my physical well-being.

No man should be made to accept another's attempts to strip them of their life or well-being. I should not be made to suffer a broken body because the only way to have stopped that would be to have taken the life of the assailant who had no qualms with crushing my body.

Also regarding what you posted, many states are wholly nonsensical in the vast majority of their laws. What is rational is that if someone were to enter your property, you are justified in analyzing the threat as rationally as you can, given the circumstance, and acting accordingly. If you shoot the 8 year old running across your yard, you're in the wrong and just murdered a child, but there are many different situations that can arise. If someone walks into my home (I have young children) and I see that they are carrying a knife or firearm, I'm not going to speak with them, warn them, or otherwise give them an "egress", I am going to shoot to kill, period, the state be damned.

The 3 seconds it might take me to ask questions and wait for a response could be all it takes before my toddler is shot dead. I don't have that time, I don't know this person, I don't know their intentions, and this is the single most horrific and pivotal moment of likely my entire life - the notion that I should be held more accountable for how I react than the individual who entered my home armed is utter nonsense. NOBODY matters to me as much as my children, and that should be a universality across the whole of humanity. If you don't believe that, you're doing "human" wrong.

There is no system, there are just people. And is it justified to hurt people over theft? Of course it is.

All legality ends in killing when taken to its end result. If you get a speeding ticket, what happens if you don't pay it? You get a warrant for your arrest. What happens when you're stopped for speeding again and the officer, noticing your warrant, goes to arrest you but you, believing the state has no business apprehending you for something you never agreed not to do on roads nobody actually owns (which is a legitimate and objective claim, mind you), resist that arrest?

One of three things can occur:

1. You are arrested, which means that another human being placed their hands upon you and did things to you that you do not consent to. If your neighbor did this to you you would consider it both insane and immoral, and you would be wholly justified in that consideration.
2. You escape arrest, but you will most likely be arrested in the future.
3. Your resistance utilized some level of force which was reciprocated by the officer, and you were shot and killed.

And what do you think happens if you do successfully resist arrest? Now you have a warrant for your arrest not only for speeding, but also for resisting arrest. And what do you think would happen if say, you successfully resisted arrest say, 5 times? Do you think the state is going to just throw its hands up and say, "well, we tried but that bugger got away so what can we do!?" No, of course not. Eventually the criminal escalation will be so great that you would be seen as a violator of the law wholly need of processing, which means violence used against you to ensure your capture. What happens then when those escalated officers draw weapons on you and demand your surrender and you try to escape a sixth time? They throw up their hands?

Of course not, they open fire.

ALL criminal acts eventually lead to death unless you succumb to the will of the authoritarian structure or you're successfully captured and processed, it just depends where along that line you are.

Is it rationally justified to open fire on someone for stealing from a Walmart? Of course not. But it would have been justified to arrest the woman and punish her to the fullest extent of the law, barring that the law is just, and by just, keep in mind, simply being that in which violates the will of another through a logical order of operations. I.E: Murder, rape, theft, fraud, etc.

An officer who shoots at a car to prevent someone from getting away with petty theft at a Walmart should be tried and convicted of murder, but the woman who stole from that Walmart should be tried and convicted of theft, at least barring that the Walmart wanted to press charges at all.

It's not justified. That's an objective statement. You do not need to give any creed to people who make objectively incorrect claims. You just disregard them.

No amount of training will prevent this sort of thing, ever. There is nothing anyone can do to stop travesties like this from happening. We can likely limit it, some of it, but not outright stop it from happening.

No amount of training will prevent this sort of thing, ever. There is nothing anyone can do to stop travesties like this from happening. We can likely limit it, some of it, but not outright stop it from happening.

The role of police is - in theory - meant to make arrests based on the notion that someone may be guilty of a criminal act. It isn't for the police to prove guilt or innocence, that's for the courts. Now that being said, the police in all forms in this modern age are fundamentally nothing more than thugs of the state.

Freedom of association is both moral and good.