 Then, a few days ago, there was a shooting in Atlanta. Now, this one is a little bit more complicated, because, you know, while the offense, somebody falling asleep at the wheel of his car in a parking lot at Wendy's, intoxicated, then resisting arrest, but then it starts out seemingly pedestrian. But then, during the resisting arrest, he grabs the taser of the cop, runs, shoots the taser as the cop, the cop shoots him dead. So while it still seems to me an excess of force given again the threat that the police phased, it's a little bit more questionable now. And now you have to put yourself, and generally, when it comes to police, put yourself in the shoes of the police. And particularly, the kind of police we see in the streets today. They look like average people, not particularly fit, not particularly striking physically, not particularly well-trained. He didn't actually tase the cop. It didn't actually, I don't think it hit the cop. He fired the taser at the cop. Average people, and yet, and they carry a gun, they carry tasers. Anytime they get into an altercation with a criminal, let's say a resisting arrest where the fists or hands are being used, that criminal could, or that person who they're trying to arrest could grab the gun. Their lives are in constant peril. They deal in violence. They deal with criminals. It's a scary job. It's a difficult job. It's a physical job. And they deal with all kinds of bad people, people in distress, people who are intoxicated, people who are high on drugs, people who are mentally ill, schizophrenic, they deal with the biggest problems that we face out there in terms of human interaction. And they have to find ways to deal with these people, calm the situation, arrest people often. Often they don't know if somebody's armed or not. They might face a knife or a gun or some other weapon. They don't know how strong their weapon might be. Maybe he's an expert in martial arts or boxing or whatever. I mean, it is partially to judge the police. One has to put oneself in their shoes and the difficulty and the fear and the challenge that that job must represent. And then, on top of that, consider the fact that when you look at the police, when you look at policemen out there, many of them are overweight, older, out of shape. I don't think they can really run. They don't seem particularly strong. So they're relative to average young criminal. They can't compete physically. And when you see these interactions, when you see these videos, it's also clear that they're not well trained. They don't have the skills to fight in a sense, to pacify an opponent. Many of their opponents are stronger, faster, more agile. And they don't have the basic skills of how to deal with situations like that. Not the psychological skills of how to deal with somebody in these kind of situations psychologically. And not the physical skills of pacifying a violent opponent. And that's pretty horrific. We put them in situations that are incredibly difficult, incredibly violent. And yet, we do not require them to be up to the challenge of those situations. Whether it's in the standards by which we accept people into the police force. Or whether it's the training we give them. Compare the police to the military. Now granted, the military face, if you will, better equipped opponents, more sophisticated weaponry. But in terms of hand-to-hand combat, it's much more likely that police are going to engage in hand-to-hand combat than any military personnel is ever going to. And yet, think about the kind of training, the kind of training you get in basic training and more advanced courses that the military gets. Think of kind of just the physical effort, physical stress that soldiers are put under. Think about them on a training they get, on how to use weapons, on how to use, and if they're in special forces, if they're more likely to be in hand-to-hand combat, think about all the hand-to-hand combat they learn. Whether it's martial arts, Kav Maga, or whatever the technique happens to be. But they know how to pacify an enemy. They know how to kill, but also to pacify an enemy quickly and efficiently. They no need to necessarily put a knee on somebody's neck for eight minutes for policemen. So I don't quite understand if you want police reform and I sympathize with police reform. It strikes me that the number one reform should be to raise the quality of our police, to raise the quality of who becomes a cop in terms of their physical capabilities, require as part of the job that they stay fit, that they stay in shape, that they pass some strength training programs or some physical fitness programs. Otherwise they're out. It's a physical job. Now I know they have unions and once you have unions you can't fire anybody which is a big problem in the police. So do away with police unions. That would be a good reform. Make police unions illegal. It's not clear what purpose they serve. I'm not sure public employees should ever have unions. Any public employee, the incentive structures they are so perverse, so distorted. I don't think they should have pensions in the conventional sense. 401Ks are fine. But pensions, the fine benefit pensions, again open everything up to corruption but we'll put that aside for another show. But all governments shouldn't be supportive of these unions. And certainly it's dubious whether police should have a union. I wouldn't make all unions illegal. That is a violation of rights. They have a right to contract. They have a right to be representative if they want. But don't give them any special favors. The government should not be providing the police with any special favors. Or unions, sorry, unions with any special favors. But there has to be some standard by which you don't qualify, you get fired. And if you get old, you get a desk job. Or you get some job that does not require the physical aspect of the job. I guess maybe detectives, some detectives do more about brain, more about investigation and about the physicality. But the cop on the beat is going to have to be physical. And then you got to give them training. Training in some kind of martial art so that they can easily subdue a suspect without getting into big fights and without having four policemen subdue one guy and without having the suspect be able to take your taser, take your gun. And in third, you've got to have real, in depth, substantial, significant, psychological training that allows these, allows cops to calm the situation down. To deal with suspects in ways that don't bring about massive escalation. There's a lot of work to be done in policing. There's a lot of work to be done in policing. And we've ramped up the number of police dramatically over the last 50 years. We'll talk about that. A lot of it has to do with the war on drugs. We've given them big weapons. We've given them incredibly additional duties and responsibilities. And yet we haven't trained them. We haven't provided them with the training necessary to cope in these kind of situations. To handle the kind of weapons. They haven't handled the duties that they now have as policemen. I mean, just think of these if these cops really could handle themselves physically. A lot of these situations would never get to where they are. And maybe people would fear a little bit more. They should fear police. But they fear a little bit more. Not the police, but resisting arrest. I mean, resisting arrest is stupid on so many levels. But, I mean, maybe people wouldn't think they could get away with it. Even when drunk and full of drugs. So instead of the kind of pathetic police reforms like Trump signed and no chocolates, no this, except in certain situations which is meaningless or the kind of police reforms that the House and Senate want to pass. All, you know, little things that mean nothing that do nothing. What we need is significant reform. I mean, not only I think make the police departments liable. I don't think you should make the individual policemen liable, but police department, civilly liable. And that's a good reform. Take away their immunity. But we need to rethink policing. What are they therefore? And therefore to deal with violent criminals as a priority. That's the main thing I rely on police for is to protect me from murderers, to protect me from thieves, to protect me from people beating me up. That's their primary function, the protection of individual rights. And if that's the case then we need to give them the tools to make that possible. And the tools is not just a gun. You see when you don't train police and how to use their hands, when you don't train police and how to de-escalate the situation, how to calm things down, how to deal with people psychologically then all they have is their gun. They have nothing else. They can't subdue them physically because they're too weak or too untrained or don't know what to do. They're too afraid because the bad guy could grab their gun and do something. So they instinctively go to their strength and their strength is their gun. And if their strength is their gun then they're going to use it. It's hard to blame them for doing it. Because they're in a really, really scary situation. And I challenge any one of you or any one of the many demonstrators to try to put themselves in the shoes of a policeman with somebody resisting arrest in their face. And what they did to George Floyd is just unthinkable, right? It's clearly, and I've seen other videos where the police are just it's just horrific. The disregard for human life and sometimes just at the slightest little hint of possibly maybe there's a threat they'll shoot. So some of it is clear cut horrific disaster. You know these people are homicidal. But often it's ambiguous because often the threats are real. And it's a real challenge for them. Particularly again given they don't have the capacity, the ability the training to deal with it. Good martial art training. Good psychological training would get rid of at least half of these problems if not more. And they deserve their training as a police. And we deserve that they get it. Because they are our servants. They are there to protect us. And I want my protectors. I want my bodyguard. I want the people who are protecting me to be really, really good at what they do. And if we have to pay them more and we'll need to pay them more. I doubt we need more of them. We'll get to the one drugs in a minute. But it's not an issue of more of them. It's the issue of better. Much better. So I think we need real police reform. Police reform would have to entail real changes to who we hire as police. And then the kind and intensity of training. Imagine police going through basic training. Imagine police going through your weapons training. Imagine police going through some kind of martial arts training. Imagine they had to pass a yearly physical. Not the kind of joke of a yearly physical they get today. But a real yearly physical where they can show that they can handle somebody trying to resist the rest. I mean, policing would be completely different. I respect for police would be completely different. And we'll get to a big element of that which is victimless crimes. But let's just assume they're out there to protect us from violence. Which is what their job is. Their primary job is. Okay, we have a few questions here that relate to this and I want to get to the one drugs. Has unionization of police resulted in lower standards and lower quality officers? How do we deunionize the government public entity? I don't have stats. I don't have evidence. I don't know. I suspect the answer is yes. The union has no incentive to raise standards. I mean the only reason to raise standards would be to be able to have fewer cops and therefore to raise wages. So maybe that's the counter. But they also have a strong incentive not to allow the firing of existing cops. Not a set standard for existing cops. Maybe set high standards for entering but not existing. So how do we deunionize the government public entity? I mean I don't know. I don't know what the status of public unions are. But remember what Reagan did with the air traffic control which were federal employees. I have no idea why they're federal employees. I don't know why it's not privatized. But who are federal employees and he basically fired them all and rehired them without a union. So I don't know what the best way to do that is what the best way to deunionize the police. But I think it is essential given how many how often unions put pressure on police department not fire not fire bad cops not fire cops that have crossed the line. It strikes me as these police these unions are doing more harm than good for us. And again the police are our servant we are the customer in a sense. And if they're not living up to our expectations then change is necessary. So I suspect that unionization has resulted in lower standards particularly of existing cops and lower quality officers. But I don't have proof of that and I haven't seen the empirical evidence. Let's see don't you agree USA is a history of crime. Let me just finish cops. Would a cop be just becoming a reactive report taker in this environment in the environment where we prosecuted everyone who shot somebody at what point does it become an immoral sacrifice to chase a violent criminal knowing it may cost you and your family do you have a duty. I mean this cop in Atlanta is being charged with murder so we're going to see him. But yes if we set the standard so high that a cop any cop to chew somebody any cop that uses is gone any cop that engages any kind of violence against somebody who's a threat to him is then prosecuted. Then we make policing impossible and we provide an incentive to cops to stay away to not engage not to do their job. That is the penalty for doing their job is so high then they might as well give parking tickets and stay away from the violence so I think there's a real danger here. There is something called the Ferguson effect and I don't know if it's real or not but some conservatives have claimed that after Ferguson because of what was done to those policemen even though by every account they were justified in what they did they would have been better trained maybe there would have been a better outcome but given the circumstances given that Michael Brown reached for a gun reached for the cops gun the cop was under current standards the cop was completely justified in defending himself but the way it was dealt with the way he was treated the way the cops were treated that after Ferguson cops there was a clear reduction in the willingness of cops to engage with violent criminals I do not know again if that is true or not I'm just reporting what some people have said they call it the Ferguson effect but yes, you could imagine that happening. It makes sense that that would happen just based on incentives on people's incentives somebody says if you notice Floyd has a full head of hair on mules and the CCTV footage but on the ground under the cop knee I'm not sure why that matters no I haven't noticed any of that and I'm not sure is there some conspiracy here is it all doctored footage is that the case really people actually saw it with their own eyes conspiracy theories about everything guys everything nothing is free from conspiracy theories by the way I yelled there so I'm wondering if there was a clipping sound so let me know if the sound is still good and if there's no clipping let's see what are your thoughts on mandatory use of police body cameras as help to reduce rights violations and use of excessive force I like it I like using bodycams I like bringing things into the light I think secrecy is a bad thing I think just the fact that today we've got people with cameras that shoot these episodes and we know that 10 years ago that didn't exist and who knows what was going on with police back then that has I think been a good thing not a bad thing so I think the more visibility we have into policing the more visibility into their actions I think it's good for the police I think it's good for us what we need today what I called a new intellectual would be any man or woman who is willing to think meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason by the intellect not by feelings wishes wins or mystic revelations any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of the stare cynicism and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist brought the super chat and I noticed yesterday when I appealed for support for the show many of you step forward and actually supported the show for the first time so I'll do it again maybe we'll get some more today if you like what you're hearing if you appreciate what I'm doing then I appreciate your support those of you who don't yet support the show please take this opportunity go to uranbrookshow.com slash support or go to subscribestar.com uranbrookshow and make a kind of a monthly contribution to keep this going I'm not sure when the next