The Confessional Thread

[John Wilkes Booth]

Originally Posted by The Batlord

Sounded like you were the one either intentionally or unintentionally giving it a negative connotation as a way to level an accusation against someone. Regardless, you're still oversimplifying. A career is not necessarily JUST a way to make money. There's personal fulfillment for doing a job that you find worth doing, prestige in successfully advancing in your chosen field, just the satisfaction of doing a good job, and probably other motivations that I can't think of off the top of my head. Saying that it ultimately only boils down to money just makes it sound like you lack the imagination or motivation to take anything from a job other than what you can materially gain from it.

nah i disagree

ultimately people do jobs because they need money

they need money cause it's the arbitrary medium we set for exchanging goods and services

they need goods and services cause we evolved as systems that are inclined to need & want certain things

the fulfillment and all that is a mechanism of our evolution that drives us to continue the struggle

so really you're trying to muddy the waters but you know i'm right

or maybe you don't, but either way i am

[Chula Vista]

Originally Posted by The Batlord

Then challenge it. You're just making yourself look like a wasted jackass right now.

Wasted, and you want me to try to be literate?



Jackass? Where'd that come from? You totally trying to kill my buzz?

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by John Wilkes Booth

nah i disagree

ultimately people do jobs because they need money

they need money cause it's the arbitrary medium we set for exchanging goods and services

they need goods and services cause we evolved as systems that are inclined to need & want certain things

the fulfillment and all that is a mechanism of our evolution that drives us to continue the struggle

so really you're trying to muddy the waters but you know i'm right

or maybe you don't, but either way i am

We're not talking about evolutionary psychology (seeing as how you never mentioned it, and didn't frame your argument in those terms until right now). We're just talking conscious motivation. You're moving the goal posts.

The ultimate, deep down motivation for getting a job in the first place may lie in the basic need to obtain resources, but human psychology is far more complicated than that, and defining motivations purely by how it serves survival is lazy and reductive.

[John Wilkes Booth]

for many motivations you might be right... but when it comes to a career/job i think it's pretty clear the basic role they play is to provide a person with the resources necessary to live. that is the basic reason we engage in these activities, when you get right down to it.

and any further roles they play, like the fulfillment of a job well done etc, sort of require you digging a bit deeper into evolutionary psychology to explain those motivations, which is why i took that route.

edit- not to say you might not choose a specific job for reasons other than money. but the reason you need a job in general is to provide for yourself. and if you don't actually agree with the law, then its kind of hard to imagine why you would choose to be a cop other than for pragmatic reasons relating to the need to have a job in the first place.

[fiddler]

Okay are y'all sober enough to hear what I'm going to say and not jump down my throat about it? I held off weighing in on this thread last night because it seamed like there was probably some intoxication going on.

Having a "job" is a basic need - you have to have food, a place to live, etc etc. If you have a kid, this is more so - extra food costs, clothes for school, random things they want to do, etc. A "job" is nothing more than what you do to make money - and yes in this sense I will include illegal activities such as selling drugs or prostituting or what have you. A "career" is about what you want to spend the rest of your life doing, what you see yourself doing until you retire. Being a cop or a fireman or a EMT or a Soldier or whatever, to some it's a "job". Those are the ones who last at max 10 years and then book it on outta there. Those are the ones who are out making bogus stops on black people because they're black. Those are the ones who join the Army for the college education - there's nothing wrong with that, of course, but that means the Army isn't their career.

I've wanted to be a cop since I was little, for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are pretending to arrest someone with my fake handcuffs. After 9/11, though, I got a strong sense to serve my country. The military was always an option that I had weighed, but never seriously considered. So I joined the Army, and set out to make a career of being a Soldier, but also of being an MP. And so thus far, I have. Eleven years and still going strong after 5 deployments, 2 bullets, 300+ combat patrols, thousands of times of manning a .50 cal on a Humvee. Thousands of arrests, probably less then twenty tickets, but more importantly, hundreds of people I've gotten to know and help.

Overseas, the MP plays the role of a split persona. Sometimes we're infantry, out to kick some ass. Sometimes we're defenders, sometimes we're ambassadors. I've been into villages to help rebuild houses, and I've arrested AWOL Soldiers. I've given chocolate to scared little kids because they remind me of my own son. Combat is not exactly my favorite activity in the World, but I've loved my eleven years of serving. I like to hope and think that to someone somewhere in the World, I've made a difference. And that is what being a COP is all about.

No, we don't always agree with the laws. But if you 're like me, you probably didn't become a cop for the power trip of enforcing the law. You became a cop for the hope to make a difference. To try and make the World a better place to live in. And some of us honestly can say that we have and that we will continue to do so. Right now, being a cop isn't exactly the most readily liked position, because of the actions of a select few. I remember growing up playing street hockey and the local police/sheriff's deputies came cruising through the neighborhood and they'd stop and play with us. We as a country need to go back to that. I wish that every single cop in this country would go out into their community, leave their gun, their pepper spray, their tazer, their baton in their cruiser and go have fun with the community that they are supposed to protect and serve.

I don't agree that marijuana should be illegal. But society does, and so, I will do my job and enforce that law. That doesn't mean I might be more lenient because of it, sure, I might. But a lot of that too comes from how you approach me. If you're a douchebag about it, guess what? You're probably going to get what the law says you should get. If you're cool with me, I'm going to be cool with you. On the flip side of the same coin, if you wanted help, I would personally take you to an addiction counselor or program because that is my career. See the difference?

Just some food for your brains.

[RoxyRollah]

SHUT THE **** UP^ kei kei kei... ok I am actually gonna read what you wrote now.

[DwnWthVwls]

Originally Posted by John Wilkes Booth

nah i disagree

ultimately people do jobs because they need money

they need money cause it's the arbitrary medium we set for exchanging goods and services

they need goods and services cause we evolved as systems that are inclined to need & want certain things

the fulfillment and all that is a mechanism of our evolution that drives us to continue the struggle

so really you're trying to muddy the waters but you know i'm right

or maybe you don't, but either way i am

I'm on my 5th major at college because I want to make money doing something I genuinely enjoy, I don't want a job just to make money. If I didn't need money I'd have searched just as long to find something to dedicate my life to because doing nothing is not fulfilling for me. I want to work.

I currently work for ACME (a grocery store) and that definitely fits what you're saying about a job.

[RoxyRollah]

Originally Posted by fiddler

Okay are y'all sober enough to hear what I'm going to say and not jump down my throat about it? I held off weighing in on this thread last night because it seamed like there was probably some intoxication going on.

Having a "job" is a basic need - you have to have food, a place to live, etc etc. If you have a kid, this is more so - extra food costs, clothes for school, random things they want to do, etc. A "job" is nothing more than what you do to make money - and yes in this sense I will include illegal activities such as selling drugs or prostituting or what have you. A "career" is about what you want to spend the rest of your life doing, what you see yourself doing until you retire. Being a cop or a fireman or a EMT or a Soldier or whatever, to some it's a "job". Those are the ones who last at max 10 years and then book it on outta there. Those are the ones who are out making bogus stops on black people because they're black. Those are the ones who join the Army for the college education - there's nothing wrong with that, of course, but that means the Army isn't their career.

I've wanted to be a cop since I was little, for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are pretending to arrest someone with my fake handcuffs. After 9/11, though, I got a strong sense to serve my country. The military was always an option that I had weighed, but never seriously considered. So I joined the Army, and set out to make a career of being a Soldier, but also of being an MP. And so thus far, I have. Eleven years and still going strong after 5 deployments, 2 bullets, 300+ combat patrols, thousands of times of manning a .50 cal on a Humvee. Thousands of arrests, probably less then twenty tickets, but more importantly, hundreds of people I've gotten to know and help.

Overseas, the MP plays the role of a split persona. Sometimes we're infantry, out to kick some ass. Sometimes we're defenders, sometimes we're ambassadors. I've been into villages to help rebuild houses, and I've arrested AWOL Soldiers. I've given chocolate to scared little kids because they remind me of my own son. Combat is not exactly my favorite activity in the World, but I've loved my eleven years of serving. I like to hope and think that to someone somewhere in the World, I've made a difference. And that is what being a COP is all about.

No, we don't always agree with the laws. But if you 're like me, you probably didn't become a cop for the power trip of enforcing the law. You became a cop for the hope to make a difference. To try and make the World a better place to live in. And some of us honestly can say that we have and that we will continue to do so. Right now, being a cop isn't exactly the most readily liked position, because of the actions of a select few. I remember growing up playing street hockey and the local police/sheriff's deputies came cruising through the neighborhood and they'd stop and play with us. We as a country need to go back to that. I wish that every single cop in this country would go out into their community, leave their gun, their pepper spray, their tazer, their baton in their cruiser and go have fun with the community that they are supposed to protect and serve.

I don't agree that marijuana should be illegal. But society does, and so, I will do my job and enforce that law. That doesn't mean I might be more lenient because of it, sure, I might. But a lot of that too comes from how you approach me. If you're a douchebag about it, guess what? You're probably going to get what the law says you should get. If you're cool with me, I'm going to be cool with you. On the flip side of the same coin, if you wanted help, I would personally take you to an addiction counselor or program because that is my career. See the difference?

Just some food for your brains.

Ok, so I dig that 70% of people more than likely join the police force in hopes of making the world a better place. I respect that, and personally, I haven't ever been a dick to the police, even when having my face rearranged a second time. But ok, like that story I told you and Exo and some other people the other day is a prime example of people taking their job to the extreme and not reading in between the lines. I am just gonna use that as a format for what I am gonna say.

So right, shotgun in my face and sitting in my car, do you think I was anything but polite to the police? Honestly. When they started screaming where are the drugs and I just held my hand out the window and turned it over to them was it really necessary to pull me outta the car and bounce my head off the car? Nope. Like I said to you guys in plug, there is absolutely nothing threatening about me. Like nothing. I have even made the extra effort to be kind, and respectful, by addressing cops by their rank ect all my life.

Now that is the only time I have ever had a bad experience with the police.(Make no mistake, I have had some very serious run ins with the police. And have walked away from them by the skin of my teeth.) I have also had some minor run ins with them as well.

That particular day I got popped, I didn't want to be breaking the law. I got my ass beat into submission. And I was literally in fear for my life and or safety if I didn't do what was asked of me.

So here you have someone that is broken, right, it's written all over their face their brokenness, and in the way they talk and act, how on God's green earth are you gonna take a bruised, beaten, and bleeding woman to jail after beating her up even more, and then capping it off with a felony jacket. WHEN SHE HAS NO RECORD MIND YOU.

So because of that day, because I was delt a **** hand, a very very **** hand, I am forced to register myself as a felon, and carry a shame with me whenever I apply anywhere for anything or try to do anything.( I am no slouch btw that record doesn't hold me back from anything today but I had to pay handsomely for that. Both monetarily and psychologically).
So,from the moment I went down I had to learn how to survive in this country no longer being an upstanding member of society. For example by me checking into probation, every month I am crammed in an office with some of the worst people I have ever met in my life but me being the person I am and friendly like I am I talk to people, and made some connections I shouldn't have, and did somethings I shouldn't have and learned alot about being a criminal. But the most important thing I learned is that very few people set out to be criminals. Albeit you have the percentage that are for lack of a better term gangsters. That's what they do is crime, it runs in their family it's passed down, prison becomes a right of passage, and no doubt they need to ****ing be there. But the other handful of people are really good decent people, just dealt a **** hand and for whatever reason they chose to make a bad decision.
In my opinion police create criminals, and criminals create police. I was a victim of circumstance right, and it's the been the hardest thing I have ever done in my life crawling back from being what society deemed as a criminal, to not carry fear inside me (which totally never leaves you I still have my release papers in my glove box in my car because I'll be damned if I sit in jail on a clerical error and I was arrested 11 years ago.) If the police weren't doing a sting that day, and it was a patrol officer that busted me I might not have had that happen to me, and my life might be completely different. But because it was what it was and it was a task force of officers and fired up good ole boy ones at that, I was ****ed from the start and from that day on I am never really sure if the cop I encounter is looking at me or my jacket, you feel me?

That my friend has nothing to do with law makers, that has to do with the people we entrust to keep us safe, and keep order, being so regimented, hardened to the job, or whatever not making a human judgement call. And that's bull****. And that should be addressed, I dunno if that means giving you sensitivity training, and maybe giving even more power to law enforcement, I dunno. And I am not sure this is even a good response to what you wrote, I was just kinda thinking.

[Janszoon]

The policing debate has been moved here.

[DwnWthVwls]

Thanks again Jans.