God this fucking masculinity bullshit. It’s not masculine to drive big trucks that are impossible to park and maneuver. It’s masculine to provide for your community, and to care about people without fear of how you’ll be perceived.
I’m tempted to get a bumper sticker that says “The bigger the ride, the smaller the rod.”
I get the sentiment and that it’s fun to get a rise out of these kinds of people. But that’s still a type of body shaming and penis size isn’t something that determines your worth. Think about what normalizing this sentiment does to good people who happen to have a small penis
Well yeah, that’s why I’m tempted, but not going to do it. But you just know it would piss that type of person off. Not like I want to make myself a target though.
I live on google maps shortcut street. It’s about 1/4 mile long and kids used to be able to play street hockey and basketball in the street.
Now it’s treated as a drags strip by loud motorcycles, brodozers, and moms in SUVs late to drop off their kids at the preschool.
The bikes and trucks are so fucking loud that I’ve been thinking of building a noise meter with an animated dick that gets smaller the louder you are. This summer might be the year to do it.
Truly repugnant
What else are local governments going to buy with the opiate settlement money? Rehabilitative support options?
Don’t forget all the money they get from the civil asset forfeiture auctions.
They bought it? I thought they are surplus from the army?
There’s always money changing hands. If not, there’s no way to steer some into the pockets of politicians, their friends, or their owner donors.
MRAPs are army surplus. This looks like a recreational vehicle they bought for monster truck rallies.
What the fuck are the cops even gonna do with an MRAP. The vehicle is made for resisting mines and IEDs, most police will never come across that shit.
Using the 2014 Ferguson unrest as an example, they drive around in minority neighborhoods wrecking the streets, sidewalks and parks, whoop and hollar and lob CS-gas grenades willy-nilly so the whole neighborhood can’t breathe.
Cross posting my post the last time this was posted elsewhere, asking “Why Do They Need This?” The Police Problem sublemmy post
Police don’t but they often want a vehicle for SWAT related reasons, but SWAT trucks costs hundreds of thousands. Meanwhile MRAPs are “free”.
Prosper, Texas is home to 40,000 people. In 2010 their population was under 10k. They have quadrupled in size and are near the DFW area, so it’s not really a surprise they took the 1033 offer for an MRAP. That said most of these decom’d heaps of shit are loathesomely expensive. “High Cost of Free MRAPs” by Strongtowns. Most MRAPs being given out are first and second gen versions. And for those first gens, they got sent to the front lines of the GWOT and got beat to shit while newer ones were tested and approved. These old models they’re “giving out for free” have tire drum parts never used on later versions, transmissions like that of an F650 with half the reliability, and are ticking time bombs of use. Most cities often estimate maintenance costs at $5k per year, until something actually breaks and they have to get a second MRAP to cannibalize to fix the first. (Hint - that’s why you often see them picked up in pairs or more)
That’s before the optics. Petaluma, California has one and the police chief has even said “yeah it kinda has some bad optics sending police around in a former war machine”.
If your city is wanting to pick one up, it’s because someone who has zero experience with them really likes the idea of a big scary diesel monster rolling up on drug houses, and hasn’t actually considered that if they can’t pony up thousands of tax dollars every 6 months to keep the moneymonster fed, the only place it’s gonna drive is into a storage shed.
Edit: I should add that these vehicles are incredibly versatile and aren’t necessarily a bad thing for municipalities. With their ride height, sheer bulk, and high torque engines, Fire and rescue could probably make great use them in several cities. They make fantastic road clearing vehicles in the event of large accidents needing to move to the side of the road, or pushing debris out of the way. Additionally in flood prone areas they make very good rescue vehicles due to their ride height and “crew space” inside. They DO have value outside of terrorizing civilian populations, just that that’s all PDs will use them for.
So it’s a subscription service…
Yeah, cities that get them have no clue about the long term costs. A lot of those ‘free’ units are now just sitting in a fenced parking lot and are unusable.
When I was younger and a volunteer firefighter in a small rural town, we needed to replace one of our ‘grass rigs’ for fighting wildland fires. We had used it for over 35 years - and we got it second hand from our state DNR for free. We thought a Humvee truck style bed would make a fantastic grass rig. We checked in on it and the DOD straight up told us nope, you can’t have a used one - no one can get one. We use them for target practice. Perhaps they saved us from a money pit. We ended up with another used pickup from the DNR return pool.
Nah, this is lemmy, dude. No one here is going to read that logical reason why this happened and change their minds.
their post is right in line with how lemmy thinks about these though. The whole thing is about how stupid they are in terms of costs, how the people who get them like it because they look tough, and provides statements from a police chief about how it makes them look bad. The edit discussing some of the possible usefulness of them, are things you never see these being used for. I don’t understand the reason for your comment. Did you read the post?
One of the interesting things for the possible usefulness though is you never see firehouses acquiring these. They already have tools that achieve all the use cases. That’s half of fires deal, being prepared for all sorts of emergencies - not just fires.
Yeah I started typing about the equipment emergency services have that cover everything they are likely to encounter, and they use those, instead of MRAPs, because they are better specialized for their job, and far more cost effective. I ended up not feeling like finishing it.
thank god you are here, the only sane person in the ocean of insanity! 😂
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now that’s the person of logical reasoning…
No one said I was logical, you silly sexy robot.
i clearly did, just above your last comment
Cylons are not people, y’all are robots. So…
I’ve read it!
You gotta take the officers’ perspective into account. They need this as a hiding place for when there are active shooter situations at schools.
The on-board generator powers the coffee maker and popcorn machine and keeps the drinks cold. Where else will they safely get snacks and refreshments while waiting out the school shooting?
Thing is Texas cops now know they need this kind of vehicle before they’ll feel safe approaching a single school sport shooter in an unlocked classroom, and you wouldn’t want them to feel unsafe, now would you?
What is a vehicle like that even for?
Running over protesters.
Spreading managed Democracy!
Its a good job they’re pointing at it otherwise I wouldn’t have known it was there.
“The MRAP that was reutilized through the 1033 program was declared excess by the Defense Department, it was not purchased using taxpayer funds. It was transferred to Prosper Police Department as a conditional loan, and it will be returned to the DOD when Prosper PD no longer requires it,” according to the Defense Logistics Agency.
So the taxpayers did pay for it, just not only local taxpayers. It was taxpayers nationwide through the DoD budget, proving they don’t actually need everything we’re paying for. So the rest of the country is paying for some bumblefuck police department to get an MRAP.
What is the supposed justification for this department “requiring” this MRAP be “loaned” to them? DOD equipment and functionality should NEVER be utilized by police. The two are different groups for a reason. If the police need assistance at that level, they can call in the National Guard for that help. That’s why they exist. There is no reason a local police department ever needs an MRAP.
To be fair, the military never wanted these. They were a political requirement because Congress wanted a war with zero casualties. But they failed at stopping casualties and they failed at being useful military vehicles because they couldn’t drive off road reliably. So we spent hundreds of billions on these things and now we have to replace them with vehicles that actually work off road and protect soldiers.
DOD equipment and functionality should NEVER be utilized by police. The two are different groups for a reason.
“There’s a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.” - Commander Adama in Battlestar Galactica
A bit idealistic in the police serving and protecting but I agree with the sentiment.
What are the multiple purposes of this vehicle?
Just looks like a jacked up six seater truck.
Running over black people.
And left-leaning protestors.
A small cost of “freedom” - starving children, dilapidated schools, no healthcare, and a $689,000 truck
She does know that this is Texas and not funding schools is the point, right?
They cropped out the no parking line.
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ACAB is a shit hole state.
ACAB.
It’s part of the Dallas/Ft Worth metro, but that cost is something like $18 per person in the town.
Are they spending $18 per person on schools? Another $18 per person on libraries? What about hospitals?
Socialism! REEEEEEE!!! Why do you hate America???
That’s kind of my point. $18 per person is a ridiculous cost. They have a population of ~37,000 people. It would be less inexcusable if it were in Dallas (~1.3m). I mean, police stations don’t need vehicles like that at all, but it’s even more disgusting that a town that small spent money on that.
$18 utterly wasted.
Setting $18/person on fire would have been more beneficial to the community.
