Am I cold and heartless? ie Jerk?

MAKG1 said:
I hate to say it. That pay is OK. Not good. At least it isn't terrible.

The median is not sensitive to outliers. That's the point of using it. The mean may get skewed, but to skew the median, you're going to need half the population with inflated incomes.
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That's just it, we have enough top income people around here that they are not 'outliers'. There are more residences and yachts >$10MM than you can shake a stick at around here.
 
I never really feel any emotional connection with things I see on the news that happened to people I've never even met. Then again I often find myself completely out of sync with the emotions of others in a room.

I can tell you this though, for me personally, if someone close to me dies the last thing in the world I'd want is to have to watch on the news, have some person shove a microphone in my face and make me talk, or have to acknowledge a bunch of sympathy. I want to be alone with my thoughts, then I want to quickly move on because that person is gone and there isn't a thing in the world that's going to make me feel any better about it. This is why I hate Funerals... I've had to go to a few and wow what a horrible thing to make a grieving family go through, at least in my opinion.
 
saracelica said:
But I had no other outlet for this since several of my Facebook friends are either firefighters or are married to one. So am I jerk for feeling like this?
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How about you voice your opinion with your firefighter facebook friends and hear what they have to say. :wink2:
 
fwiw - some people run from danger. Some people run into burning buildings.

And those people who do run into burning buildings deserve respect.
 
Sleepingsquirrel said:
Elevation to hero status for every fallen , soldier, sailor, fireman, police officer,airman, I'm tired of it .
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You can be tired of it all you want, but the reality is that it beats are the crap news and 'reality' BS in TV these days. When you get inundated with the ugliness of humanity, it is nice to have reminders that there are still people out there that care about more than just themselves. A kind of renewed faith in (or hope for) humanity.

It's like the whole hero thing with Sullenberger. He did what probably at least 75% of 121 pilots would have done in that situation, but with all the bad press that pilots get in aviation accidents, it was nice to see a good news story.
 
jdennis1989 said:
2011
  • 177 Officers Killed (67 due to gunfire)
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General homicide rate among general U.S. population in 2010 (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm):

5.3 homicides/100,000 people/Year
3.6 gunfire deaths/100,000 people/Year

There were 794,300 LEOs in 2010 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_police_officers ) so using 177 and 67:

22 deaths/100,000 LEOs/Year
8.4 gunfire deaths/100,000 LEOs/Year.

Assuming those numbers are reasonably correct, then LEO's are about 4 times more likely to be killed than the average person, and about twice as likely to die by gunfire as the average person.

I don't look at what put the person in harms way as determining whether I should feel for their death - it is by its very nature not something I apply rational thinking to. I don't think one is being cold or heartless for not feeling for someone else's death. There have been billions who have died and billions more to go; I don't have that much empathy to spare. I'm not sure I can grok all the mortality that existed and will exist in this universe.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Who is on your back? I wasn't disputing your statement, just commenting that the risks are greater than just what happens to guys on the job.
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You are.

1. The OP is discussing on the job fatalities.
2. My post said that the biggest risk was heart attack, while on the job.
3. You used the same basic terms to dispute that by saying it was cancer.
4. I showed you where you were wrong.
5. Post/quote anything you want from now on, I won't be seeing it, at least for a while - I need a break.
 
Fearless Tower said:
You can be tired of it all you want, but the reality is that it beats are the crap news and 'reality' BS in TV these days. When you get inundated with the ugliness of humanity, it is nice to have reminders that there are still people out there that care about more than just themselves. A kind of renewed faith in (or hope for) humanity.

It's like the whole hero thing with Sullenberger. He did what probably at least 75% of 121 pilots would have done in that situation, but with all the bad press that pilots get in aviation accidents, it was nice to see a good news story.
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I'll bet you money he (Sullenberger) is sick and tired of it! Because he knows just what you said.
 
I think the older I get, it seems like the less I am moved when others die, perhaps that it is the realization that the reaper is close, and there in no getting away.

I do get emotional about the multi million dollar send offs that is afforded to firefighters and LEOs who get themselves killed in the line of duty.

These folks knew the risks going into their jobs, they also accepted the pay and benefits that is given to those who accept the danger as being part of their jobs.

During my time in the military, I was paid extra for hazardous duty, I gladly accepted it, however, it had no part in my decision to take the job, and neither did patriotism, the truth be known, I just wanted to do it.

I have a hunch that is the case with a whole lot of Firefighters and LEOs, they would do it anyway.

I agree, this over the top hero worshiping is ridicules.... but I think many people are desperately looking for a hero for some reason...Perhaps people are starting to realize what is going on in our nation is not sustainable, and are getting a little jittery, they need something or someone to hang on to.

-John
 
Corpsmaide said:
Don't bother. Some people have a lot of hate for LE, no matter what you say or do, will change that. I don't mind. It keeps the job interesting. It takes a certain type of person to run a 100 mph towards gunfire while others run 100 mph away.
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That's because law enforcement has taken on the role of 'Revenuer'.
 
Corpsmaide said:
Don't bother. Some people have a lot of hate for LE, no matter what you say or do, will change that. I don't mind. It keeps the job interesting. It takes a certain type of person to run a 100 mph towards gunfire while others run 100 mph away.
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Is your arm/shoulder ok?
 
John Baker ,as usual you bring a well reasoned opinion. How else do we get people to step into the breech. When I die I want a televised Viking funeral, everyone should have to stop to watch it.
""Thus he (Odin) established by law that all dead men should be burned, and their belongings laid with them upon the pile, and the ashes be cast into the sea or buried in the earth. Thus, said he, every one will come to Valhalla with the riches he had with him upon the pile; and he would also enjoy whatever he himself had buried in the earth. For men of consequence a mound should be raised to their memory, and for all other warriors who had been distinguished for manhood a standing stone; which custom remained long after Odin's time."

Maybe this is all any of us want.
 
You want glory? Do something big enough so you get it while you are alive. Post mortem glory is a sorry azz consolation prize.
Sleepingsquirrel said:
John Baker ,as usual you bring a well reasoned opinion. How else do we get people to step into the breech. When I die I want a televised Viking funeral, everyone should have to stop to watch it.
""Thus he (Odin) established by law that all dead men should be burned, and their belongings laid with them upon the pile, and the ashes be cast into the sea or buried in the earth. Thus, said he, every one will come to Valhalla with the riches he had with him upon the pile; and he would also enjoy whatever he himself had buried in the earth. For men of consequence a mound should be raised to their memory, and for all other warriors who had been distinguished for manhood a standing stone; which custom remained long after Odin's time."

Maybe this is all any of us want.
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Chief Parker with the LAPD probably did more to destroy the cop-community relationship than anyone. He institutionalized the whole militarization, "The citizens are the enemy" train of thought.
 
In a slightly unrelated note, but related to showing appreciation for those in uniform....

I work at a restaurant part-time. If a uniformed service member comes in, (not necessarily military, cops too) I always make it a point to get something comped off their meal. It's not much, but I figure it's appreciated. Today we had a guy in the army and his wife/girlfriend dining with us, and the manager comped half his meal at my urging (Well, I was aiming low for just comping the appetizer) but he decided that wasn't enough.
 
ClimbnSink said:
You want glory? Do something big enough so you get it while you are alive. Post mortem glory is a sorry azz consolation prize.
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I have all the glory I need thank you ! I think the post mortem glory is what we are discussing. Were these two firefighters ever recognized before their deaths? Not by many/any of us. Will they be recognized at their service for their commitment to their community , family , church,society? Yep, the over compensation for never recognizing them before they died is what this is about.
 
Sleepingsquirrel said:
I have all the glory I need thank you ! I think the post mortem glory is what we are discussing. Were these two firefighters ever recognized before their deaths? Not by many/any of us. Will they be recognized at their service for their commitment to their community , family , church,society? Yep, the over compensation for never recognizing them before they died is what this is about.
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If they were under compensated during life then they were stupid for continuing on that path.
 
bartmc said:
107 out of 800,000 or so.

Slightly more dangerous than walking around, slightly less dangerous than taking a bath.

Yawn. 99% of the cops are in it because they want to exert power over others and are too Neanderthal to be a politician.

Sorry, not getting on my knees and wiping my chin because someone rides around ****ing people off all day. It takes a special kind of sadist to want a job riding around ruining people's day…everyday.

Firefighters are a different story. My cousin is one, he just likes the work and usually people are happy to see him. He also works a second job doing construction work on his days off.
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The poster before you just did the math for you. It's more than just "slightly" more dangerous.

I'm not asking you to "get on your knees and wipe your chin" as you call it. I am asking for you to have a little more respect towards them. Just because you had one bad run in with a police officer who probably gave you a ticket for speeding and you thought he was being a jerk doesn't mean all or even most as you say are. I know a lot of officers that my brother works with, and even in my profession I deal with a lot of officers than you most likely, and I can count on one hand how many are jerks.
 
Sleepingsquirrel said:
I have all the glory I need thank you ! I think the post mortem glory is what we are discussing. Were these two firefighters ever recognized before their deaths? Not by many/any of us. Will they be recognized at their service for their commitment to their community , family , church,society? Yep, the over compensation for never recognizing them before they died is what this is about.
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Very well said!
 
ClimbnSink said:
If they were under compensated during life then they were stupid for continuing on that path.
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For some people it's not about the money or the glory, it's about knowing your making a difference weither people appreciate you for it or not.
 
jdennis1989 said:
For some people it's not about the money or the glory, it's about knowing your making a difference weither people appreciate you for it or not.
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BS. We give to beggars cause it makes us feel good. Same for cops and FFs its the money or the power or the work schedule or just getting to play soldier or drive firetrucks. Nobody is as selfless as you surmise.
 
ClimbnSink said:
BS. We give to beggars cause it makes us feel good. Same for cops and FFs its the money or the power or the work schedule or just getting to play soldier or drive firetrucks. Nobody is as selfless as you surmise.
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You start a lot of posts with "BS" don't you. :nono:

"We give to beggars cause it makes us feel good." You are correct. And for some police officers and fire fighters it makes them feel good to know that they are helping others. You must live a very sad and self centered life.
 
jdennis1989 said:
I would challenge you to attend a funeral for a fallen police officer that died in the line of duty(even if you didn't know the officer). If you don't tear up just a little bit when they do the last call at the grave site, then there is something wrong with you.
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Not really. If I didn't know the cop, probably not. There are also circumstances. If he died doing something stupid... or choked on a donut running radar...

I'd be respectful and not start laughing out loud. But tears, no.
 
docmirror said:
3. You used the same basic terms to dispute that by saying it was cancer.
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I did not dispute that. I simply added to it. Cancer doesn't typically kill you on the job, it kills you years after the particular job that exposed you.

docmirror said:
5. Post/quote anything you want from now on, I won't be seeing it, at least for a while - I need a break.
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Sorry, thought you had thicker skin than that.
 
Fearless Tower said:
I did not dispute that. I simply added to it. Cancer doesn't typically kill you on the job, it kills you years after the particular job that exposed you.

To that point ,for $1.41 /hour I have a 7 REM whole body lifetime dose of ionizing radiation..
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I believe that we do what we do because we want to. We give to charity because it makes us feel good. We help others because it makes us feel good to do so, whether anyone else notices/recognizes it or not.

I think it's important to not delude ourselves in the root of good deeds. There's also nothing wrong with doing good deeds because you enjoy it.
 
Sleepingsquirrel said:
To that point ,for $1.41 /hour I have a 7 REM whole body lifetime dose of ionizing radiation..
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Not bad, but I got ya beat. ;) Of course, I was a jumper for a number of years before I wised up. After I got married, there was some concern about having kids - ya know? So I asked a MD about it, and he said men produce something like 20,000 wigglers per day, and it prolly wasn't an issue, but women are given their allotted eggs from the get-go.

Anyway, both my kids are genius level, so seems like it didn't bother me at all.
 
MAKG1 said:
I hate to say it. That pay is OK. Not good. At least it isn't terrible.

The median is not sensitive to outliers. That's the point of using it. The mean may get skewed, but to skew the median, you're going to need half the population with inflated incomes.
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We have numerous road patrol officers that make 120-130k with court and OT.
 
My wife is an RN. Deals with a lot crap, literally and figuratively, day in and day out. Watches more people die than any cop, firefighter, soldier. If she died on the job today, the hospital would not even send to me a letter of condolence.

I too grow extra weary of the hero worship. When I see the motorcade for a cop funeral all I wonder is how much is it costing the taxpayer (me).

We used to lower the Flag to half mast for the death of Presidents. Now we do it for the death of drug addicted pop stars.
 
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Jim Logajan said:
General homicide rate among general U.S. population in 2010 (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm):

5.3 homicides/100,000 people/Year
3.6 gunfire deaths/100,000 people/Year

There were 794,300 LEOs in 2010 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_police_officers ) so using 177 and 67:

22 deaths/100,000 LEOs/Year
8.4 gunfire deaths/100,000 LEOs/Year.

Assuming those numbers are reasonably correct, then LEO's are about 4 times more likely to be killed than the average person, and about twice as likely to die by gunfire as the average person.

I don't look at what put the person in harms way as determining whether I should feel for their death - it is by its very nature not something I apply rational thinking to. I don't think one is being cold or heartless for not feeling for someone else's death. There have been billions who have died and billions more to go; I don't have that much empathy to spare. I'm not sure I can grok all the mortality that existed and will exist in this universe.
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I might restrict the denominator to those citizens who own firearms, in which case the death rate for cops is about the same as for Joe civilian. They are far more likely to die from cardiovascular illness or tumors in their old age.

I might query what lead to said firefighters getting killed, given that there are oodles of them who manage not to. I suspect there are issues of judgement, that is acknowledged and taught might lead to other firefighters not getting killed, which would be far more valuable than spanky funerals on TV.
 
Superman was first conceived in 1933 during some very tough times for Americans. Within just a few years he was embraced by millions, people desperately needed a hero, even if it was fictional.

I have a hunch the same psychology is behind this FF, sports stars, Hollywood stars, etc. hero worshiping, we are in tough times... we want heroes, someone to lead us out of the mess we are in, even if it is just a brief mental escape..

-John
 
jdennis1989 said:
For some people it's not about the money or the glory, it's about knowing your making a difference weither people appreciate you for it or not.
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True. I have an LEO friend who was a highly paid electrical engineer at a major chip fab, well into 6 figures.

He was bored, wanted excitement, wanted his job to be different every day. He's been a cop now for over 10 years. 5 figure pay but he loves his ever changing job.
 
For me, I can't lump firefighters and cops in the same category.

Firefighters are all in helpful, they protect & serve. Lots of respect from me.

Around here, cops are mostly tax collectors. Almost all the general public interactions are meter maids and traffic things. When we had our car burglarized, we called and they said to go on the website and report it so they can track it. No, they don't come out and investigate burglaries, they're too busy. Plenty out there writing tickets though. Protect & serve is no longer part of the equation.
 
Actions demonstrate where true priorities are. What they say matters little while what they do speaks volumes.

So what do they DO? Does a parked car typically get ticketed within 15 seconds of the meter going off? If so then that's the priority demonstrated by actions. Clearly resources are pumped into parking enforcement to the degree that 99.999% of all violators are caught.

Why? Is parking time limits that important to society or is it the money stream? Obviously it's the latter and that is insulting to any critical thinking citizen.

So, we gonna pedistalize parking cops too? Or just real cops? Or admit the whole thing is pretty screwed up?
 
Captain said:
Actions demonstrate where true priorities are. What they say matters little while what they do speaks volumes.

So what do they DO? Does a parked car typically get ticketed within 15 seconds of the meter going off? If so then that's the priority demonstrated by actions. Clearly resources are pumped into parking enforcement to the degree that 99.999% of all violators are caught.

Why? Is parking time limits that important to society or is it the money stream? Obviously it's the latter and that is insulting to any critical thinking citizen.

So, we gonna pedistalize parking cops too? Or just real cops? Or admit the whole thing is pretty screwed up?
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Yeah I regularly have to travel through a certain city where the City police are nothing more than revenue collectors. All they do is stop people for running red lights. That's it. They don't respond to actual police calls - those are handled by the Sheriff's department. I've had the "pleasure" of encountering them a couple times (in both positive and negative situations). Both times they were unprofessional pricks. I have complete disdain for them. In fact I respect parking cops more than these douchenozzles, because at least they give no pretense of being real cops.

And I generally get along great with cops. In fact I look like a cop.

But I don't put anybody on a pedestal. I have more respect for firefighters than street cleaners, but I don't think a firefighter has any more inherent right to sorrow when he gets burned up in a building than the street cleaner that gets run over by a garbage truck.

For that matter, if I got whacked in combat, I don't really care or expect people to go out of their way to mourn my loss. I wasn't drafted. I was there by choice. I knew the risks.
 
Sac Arrow said:
For that matter, if I got whacked in combat, I don't really care or expect people to go out of their way to mourn my loss. I wasn't drafted. I was there by choice. I knew the risks.
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I agree. I did my time in the military and realized my service could result in being a casualty.
 
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