Why are paramedics not given the recognition the fire-fighters and police officers have in the US?
I'm not quite sure how to take lumping "sanitation workers" and "paramedics" together, but that aside...Paramedics are really a very new role in emergency response, having come into existence around the 1960's, where police and firefighters have been around for at least 1000 years. For the past 40 years or so paramedics have been defining exactly how they fit in with hospitals, fire departments, and police agencies.A paramedic is something like a nurse or PA and they are ultimately always agents of medical doctors who direct the care they give, so perhaps they should be run by hospitals. But they are also very like firefighters, so maybe they should be part of fire departments. But it's also increasingly valuable for police to be trained as medics and for paramedics to be part of SWAT teams, riot response and the like... so perhaps they belong in police departments, too. And in fact all are true - you find paramedics in all roles, inside hospitals, fire departments and police agencies, as well as having standalone private services, roles in military and coastal rescue, etc. Furthermore, a "paramedic" is distinct from an "ambulance driver", so you have people with minimal healthcare training who perform transports of patients to hospitals and nursing homes and the like, and volunteers like the Red Cross etc with "ambulances" who are often confused with paramedics or who have some degree of basic life support (EMT) training.So it's perhaps not as clear with what agency one might give recognition, and its not always clear when a paramedic is part of what's going on. Because paramedics are currently "embedded" in so many different roles, they also do not have the organized and powerful systems of unions and structures for press relations police and fire agencies typically have, so they lack an organized "voice" to call attention to their deeds, or their fallen.But they are there, at all the fires, shootings and disasters. Paramedics died on 9/11 (43 of them, plus the firefighter/EMTs), and in general are right beside their fellow emergency responders in moving towards danger when it happens.They are among the police and firefighters, and for the most part understand when the public forgets to mention them, as they may well be police or firefighters themselves, or at the very least know that their comrades in the field understand they are a vital part of the teams being praised.And I'm sure sanitation workers deserve recognition too.
Are police jurisdictions divided by state or city in the USA?
It’s complicated.There are literally tens of thousands of police forces in the United States, many of which have overlapping jurisdictions. Forces can be as small as a few officers for a small town or thousands for a city like New York.Unlike the UK, there is no national police force in the United States (the FBI only has detectives, not officers). There are federal marshals, but they don’t have police powers (they mostly work transporting federal prisoners). Most states have at least one police force (the big exception - Hawaii - Five-O is a myth!) and so do most counties and most larger municipalities. However, some states, like Texas, have more than one law enforcement force at the state level. A state might have a regular police force and “Troopers” who mostly enforce traffic laws on state and interstate highways. In a lot of cases, jurisdiction over cities overlaps with county law enforcement. For example, Phoenix has its own police force, but the Maricopa County Sheriff’s department runs most of the courts and polices the county outside of city limits.New York used to have several different specialized police forces (Transit, Sanitation) that were, about a decade ago, rolled into the NYPD. New York’s Transit Police were, at the time, about the third largest police force in the country but only had jurisdiction over New York’s subway infrastructure and transit vehicles.This makes the police very difficult to control at any level. Getting back to Maricopa County, their former sheriff was sued for civil rights violations aimed at Hispanics. the county was dragged along for the ride and tried to get out of it by saying they had no control over the Sheriff, who was an elected official. The court didn’t buy it. Ironically, the costs of the lawsuit fell largely on the people of it’s largest population centre - Phoenix, whose police department seems to have not been involved in the violations in any significant manner.
Do conservatives even know the definition of socialism?
Public highways are one of the finest examples of Socialism in America. So are public schools, public parks and public libraries. Not to mention Social Security and Medicare. And police departments and town garbage collections and public health care and so on and so on. I doubt conservatives even have deep knowledge of Socialism. If money is taken from private enterprise, and used for the public good, that fits the definition of Socialism. So all the above examples are socialism. But conservative corrupted the definiton of socialism to "stealing of wealth from hard working person", "theft from my pocket", etc etc. The conservative definition of socialism is not an academic definition. Its a definition created for their own political propaganda.
Should the Government have a say in our diets?
While people in the US are fee to make their own choices, the consequences of this are that almost half of US teenagers are unfit for military service because of being overweight and/or physically unfit. About 1/3 of Americans are obese. few adults get enough exercise. etc. etc. The consequences are profound. Should the Government have a say in diet/ Look at it this way. The government has to pay for health care for a large portion of the population. There are also economic consequences from unfit employees (absenteeism, inability to do many jobs, etc). This means that tax dollars are supporting people who in many cases don't take care of themselves through exercise and a proper diet. The cause is partly lack of education, partly being poor and unable to afford 'good" food, and partly ignoring recommendations (low fat, exercise, avoid trans fats, etc). The government has a duty to protect citizens from themselves. This means that some practices (e.g. smoking, alcohol abuse, drugs, food safety) should be controlled to some degree. In some cases this means prohibited or regulated (e.g. some drugs, food safety such as sterilization, meat production, additives, pesticide use), and in other subject to education efforts (e.g. smoking cessation, promote exercise, encourage low fat foods). In some cases programs to encourage a better diet (e.g. milk programs in schools, regulating menus in school cafeterias, encouraging elimination of softdrink machines in schools) are going further, and while some may see these as over regulation I personally think they are a good thing. So ... yes I think the Government should have a say in diet. maybe not control, but it's certainly appropriate to encourage sensible, healthy eating.
Is this poor workplace etiquette regarding disposal of urine?
My co-worker and I work in a warehouse with no office or restroom. We've been peeing outside against the wall but lately I've been using a 2-liter bottle at my desk. It's just too cold outside. My co-worker threatened to tell the boss about it, I'm just wondering if using a 2-liter bottle is way out of line considering that we have no restroom.