That's all great. Now stop telling everyone else how to live as an excuse to tout your superiority, fitness boy.

I want to see you bike to work in Las Vegas summers.

So, when you said, "you asked in what way subsidiarity is an American tradition", what you meant was, "you asked a question that I could derail with a non sequitur".

You asked in what way subsidiarity is an American tradition.

No, I didn't. If you insist that I did, please quote me.

How about making your own arguments? Reading de Tocqueville doesn't tell me what you took away from it or how you think it relates to our discussion.

I'm not concluding anything

OK, then.

You and people like you obviously favor other such policies as well, and even though they seem individually harmless, collectively they bring down democracies.

Baseless calumny is no substitute for an argument. If you have nothing to add but wild ad hominem attacks, lets conclude our discussion.

If your idea of a "political dictator and strongman" is someone increasing oversight of the nation's police forces, you've completely removed all meaning from those terms and are simply using them for rhetorical impact.

While body cameras clearly have benefits, they also have costs and effects that we don't know yet.

Then it is you who are jumping to conclusions. You've concluded that there are serious costs and negative effects, despite a total lack of evidence. I'm *refusing* to jump to conclusions by not assuming negative effects until they can be shown to exist.

No, what I stated is the American tradition.

Really? How do you figure, when I just gave you several historical examples of Congress doing the same thing you're objecting to?

The smoky backroom full of fat cats like Obama, Bush, congressmen, and the lobbyists and cronies that supply them with money and want power.

So, the most powerful policymakers in our country are conspiring to implement an agenda of increasing public supervision of the police? That's your conspiratorial agenda? That sounds like *doing their jobs properly* to me!

Cities are fully in charge of their police departments

Of course they aren't. Some cities, towns, and villages are very poorly managed. Your distrust for government is pretty inexplicable if you believe that every government is fully competent and in control of their duties, isn't it?

And if the "move slowly", that's their right.

No it isn't. The people have the right to decide how their government operates, and if they're unhappy with the speed, to accelerate the process or escalate up the "chain of command".

It's only an "important issue" because some people are making it such for political and financial gain.

I'm pretty sure you would have a different outlook on the importance of the issue if someone who looked like your child was on the front pages practically each and every day over questionable police-violence incidents.

People are trying to fabricate a crisis in order to push through political agendas.

How is putting cameras on police even remotely a "political agenda"? What political interest group does it serve? What smoky back room is full of fat cats whose schemes for world domination will be advanced by subjecting police officers to something approaching the same level of workplace supervision that we demand of daycare operators?

I like the idea of police wearing cameras, but you're jumping to conclusions by assuming that it has a "clear and enormous benefit".

I'm not jumping to conclusions, I'm relying upon empirical data like this:

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

Nobody knows what the long term consequences are or how this technology may be abused.

And unless a better, more tangible case against them can be presented than vague and airey fear, uncertainty, and doubt of speculative "unknown unknowns", we should expect to discover the consequences through experience shortly.

We don't know whether this is the right choice for every single community in the US either.

Is that the bar, now? Any law that is passed has to be "the right choice for every single community in the US", by the standards of every individual? That sounds like a recipe for a totally dysfunctional government. Even in a republican democracy, sometimes the majority gets to rule.

Just because something seems like a good idea to a lot of people doesn't mean it should become federal law.

I don't think anyone has been arguing that everything that "seems like a good idea to a lot of people" should become a federal law, so what point are you addressing here? A strawman?

Something should become federal law only if it cannot be implemented at the local or state level.

That's just your opinion, not the American tradition.

It's a pretty clear-cut case of federal overreach.

Can you define "overreach"? It sounds like a subjective opinion rather than anything verifiable or empirical.

The reality is that "power of the purse" simply refers to "holding the purse strings" - he who controls expenditures wields a lot of power, and Congress was given that power specifically and for reason. Its use of the power was never, in any way, limited to federal-to-federal interactions.

Enjoy having Interstate Highways with uniform laws? Uniform standards for drunk driving? You have Congressional bullying of the states using pursestring power to thank for it.

No citations — no argument.

You need citations for Congressional use of the "power of the purse"? Really? Are you some sort of tabula rasa of American history? How basic do we need to get here? Do you understand what the Constitution is? Three branches?

If it is so solid and popular, why not leave it to the communities themselves to equip their police departments as they please?

Because communities are often not as in charge of their police departments as they should be or think they are, because some move more slowly than others, and because this is an important enough issue due to recent events that it warrants quick and decisive movement.

How about because "the injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere"?

Where's the injustice here? The system is operating as it is supposed to - Congress has the power of the purse.

I would've been (much) happier, if the feds did not have this power at all. And that's my point.

Fine, but why bring that up here, then? It's basically off-topic. It's like picketing a Cincinnatti Reds game because you don't like the color fuchsia. If you want to debate whether or not Congress should have the power of the purse, fine with me, but this isn't at all the place for that debate.

That sounds more like a passive-aggressive mafia threat than a realistic possibility. "Oh, you better not do that, or else we might have to stop being so lenient with you!" Why would wearing cameras mean that "they have to charge you with something"? Why would the public tolerate a police force that operates on a mentality like that?

This is exactly why we need cameras. Individual departments and officers are unique, but in general the American public has lost its faith in its police forces, and for damned good reasons. Police have shown themselves, in too many instances lately, to behave like a well-funded, well-organized group of thugs than exemplars of honorable behavior, law and order.

Police are there to serve and protect our communities, and they serve the way we want them to serve and at our discretion. Any deviation from that order should be met with pink slips for any commanding officers or subordinates unable or unwilling to adapt to the reasonable demands of their bosses.

Where's the beef?

Objecting in principle to this specific use of federal "purse string" power is pointless - the principle stands whether or not cameras on cops do or not. Congress has been using the power of the purse to bully states into compliance virtually since the Union began.

And objecting to the specifics of this proposal is inane - the proposal of forcing cops to wear cameras is a solid and popular one. There's no associated diminution of civil liberties, and clear and enormous benefit in the goal of advancing the cause of justice.

So then why raise the ideological issue here and now? Would you really be happier if the feds didn't use the power they have (and will have regardless of this case) to force cops to wear cameras?

I kind of doubt that the Red Cross wants their brand slapped on a video that is going to be associated with feelings of rage and extreme negativity by every single viewer. No matter how it was spun, "Act now to prevent..." would come off as a thousand times worse than the very worst of those "show you pictures of starving kids in Africa before hitting you up for a donation" Sally Struthers commercials.