Off Topic Politics Thread

That's because the idea that we're headed for black supremacy is so comical that it merits pushback.

 

I love Terry Crews, I’m really glad he said that, because that is the whole point of BLM. It might have saved a lot of confusion if the originators of the movement had called it Black Lives Matter Too.

 

The vehicle had accelerated into protesters, hitting them. Since we're claiming that a while couple brandishing weapons at people on the sidewalk are acting in self-defense, why not someone defending themselves from a large SUV that is actively plowing into a crowd?

(Hint: neither is acceptable).

 

Surely were are not talking about the incident at Capitol Hill? (chaz)

 

With all these incidents, it's hard to tell what happened unless you were there, so who knows. The one i saw it looked like a guy slowly trying to get through a crowd.

The point is, whenever you have a gathering of angry people, you get tribalism and the possibility of a mob mentality. Its easy to understand why that couple felt unsafe.

Objectively:
- The george floyd cops are being tried for murder
- Many states are looking into reforming their police departments

At what point are the protests considered a success, or are people just going to keep smashing the place up endlessly?

I back the movement, I want equality, but it wont be long before the extended protests harm the cause more than help it.

 

.At what point are the protests considered a success, or are people just going to keep smashing the place up endlessly?

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When the Police have been defunded, then they can restore order to the streets.

 

The people were walking by their home. To believe that is a threat worthy of combating with lethal force *before the gathering has done anything to constitute a threat* is some Llap Goch School of Martial Arts nonsense.

I'm going to strongly suggest that you stop watching two minute videos and instead find a livestream of a protest if you think that they consist of people "smashing the place up endlessly". They aren't hard to find; people have been livestreaming them throughout, in part because it helps to have documentary evidence when the police start rioting.

 

I'd also strongly suggest that you learn what "Defund the Police" means. Hint: it's not "there should be no police" .

 

Got any pearls of wisdom for us on CHAZ? I notice you don't touch on that much? Are the video's too short for you........

 

It's idiotic. It's idiotic in a somewhat understandable way, when a community feels failed by the authorities in place, but it's still idiotic.

And it's also idiotic to really extrapolate out any generalizations from that to the protests writ large.

 

If you dont think that a massive, expensive looking house would be a potential target for those protestors, I honestly don't know what to say


I find it quite funny that you say ALL police are the problem, and then in the next posts say that NOT ALL of the protestors are the problem.

You are willing to tar the ENTIRE american police force with the same brush, yet can't seem to comprehend that the couple have done exactly the same thing to the BLM protestors.

Your posts are part of the very same problem.
To you POLICE = BAD
To them PROTESTORS = BAD

This identity politics only leads to further unrest

 

It's idiotic.
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Oh, in that case we will just ignore it and continue with a different narrative.
Did you see those two white folks threatening the peaceful black protest the other day, I hope they chuck the book at them.

(chilcs, ban me from this thread please! )

 

Absolutely. Want to know why? Because the police are a large, powerful and insular group with armored vehicles, assault weaponry, and the colour of law at their back. The power differential, and the differential in the number of people injured and killed, is extraordinary. When some of the protesters are idiots, property damage happens. When the police are idiots, several hundred unarmed people are killed each year, and several thousand are badly injured. And despite George Floyd's killers being prosecuted, that isn't the norm. The police have been rather vocal about their belief that they ought to be violent with impunity; witness the resignation of dozens of officers in Buffalo because their comrades were suspended for brain damaging an old man.

 

There are many thousands of good men and women, who risk their lives every single day to protect the community.

I think it sets an awful precedent for any country to treat its police forces with disdain. Change has to happen to make things more fair, but it needs to start with honest conversations which appreciate the nuances and difficulties of what both police and the black community are facing.
To say all police are bad is a really dangerous and slippery slope.

I really hope the protestors have been heard, and the positive changes happen. They

 

Not all police as individuals are bad, I agree. The police as an institution however are rotten to the core. And the solution is to do what Camden NJ did several years back with their thoroughly rotten police force: they disbanded it, rehiring only the good officers on the new force. They also reoriented its mission. It worked:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/12/camden-policing-reforms-313750

 

Not getting involved in anyone’s debate, but I saw an interesting placard being carried at a recent rally. I can’t remember the exact wording but it was something like :-
“Don’t criticise a peaceful rally based on the behaviour of a few that behave badly, unless you are prepared to apply the same standards to the police force”.

There are wrong’uns on both sides.

 

Hmmm, it will be interesting to see the results. LA are looking into replacing the police with a 'non-violent commubity program'.

In my opinion, they should be asking for MORE funding for the police, not less. More money for training, education and officer selection. Miney to investigate all of the facts, and work out exactly why all the violence is occurring. The american police spend less time training than most other police forces, in a more dangerous country.

Chaz has already shown a microcosm of what happens in america when you simply trust people with guns to behave - a lot of people get murdered.

 

Police departments already have absolutely enormous budgets, and the "more money for training" card has been played for more than 50 years. Seriously. After the Watts riots in 1965 (and those were real-by-god riots), the recommendation for the police? Better training and more investment in police and community relations. After every single time the police get so out of control a commission or some such is formed, that is the conclusion. And it has done sweet **** all, and it will continue to do sweet **** all.

We don't need to investigate the facts: the facts have been investigated over and over and over and over. The problem is that the police have near-impunity for their actions, and a mentality summed up in an oft-repeated police mantra: "it's better to be judged by twelve than carried by six". In other words, it's better to kill someone and take your chances with the legal system.

What the police need is to be shrunk dramatically, and in many cases whole police departments need to be disbanded and re-formed. The same organization should not be in charge of handling people having mental health issues and also have access to mine-resistant armoured personnel carriers. The police have suffered such profound mission creep, and have cultivated such a toxic internal culture, that you aren't going to train it out of them. Imagine being told for twenty years that you are a warrior and the only thing standing between civilization and its complete collapse, and that the only people you can trust are your brothers in blue, and then you have an eight-hour seminar telling you that you should stop beating civilians and also you should turn in any brothers in blue who act illegally. You think that's going to change anything? Of course not. It's madness to believe it is.

Absolutely, they should get rid of the gun issue in the US, too. But here's the thing: gun violence in the US has fallen dramatically. All violence in the US has fallen dramatically. Even violence against police has fallen dramatically.

Well, almost all. The one type of violence that hasn't? Police violence. I'm sure that sounds like hyperbole. I'm sure it sounds like it cannot possibly be true. But it is. Here's a scholar from the right-wing American Enterprise Institute who, after setting out to examine the numbers, concluded that the police are (in his words) "engaged in a 20-year-long riot against the republic" (there's a whole thread, it's worth reading):






The police have responded in this fashion because they have been given weapons of war, and been told to think of themselves like soldiers, yet they have been given none of the training that soldiers receive regarding use of force. The solution isn't to give them military training, though. It's to get rid of all the yahoos who think they're ****ing Rambo.

 

That 'share of deaths' statistic is literally meaningless on its own. . He even says himself it includes war deaths, and there is less war going on now. Without a really in-depth analysis of American deaths, that graph is just a pretty picture.

But if I take your general point that 'Police are all white supremacist and unsalvageable', you would think that American society was a horrendous place.

This simply not true, the very fact people are allowed to be out protesting in the first place - in the middle of a pandemic no less - shows that America is by no means a white supremacist totalitarian regime.

Again, I mostly agree with the sentiment of what you're saying. But it just needs to be thought about very carefully. Police are an essential cog in a well-functioning society, and a bit of fear of doing the wrong thing is actually an essential thing to keep law & order.

The massive, massive majority of interactions between police and the community are peaceful. Defunding the police is likely throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Another question I would ask, honestly, how much are the community doing to prevent these sort of things happening. I fear that at this point it has become a catch-22 situation. Are people genuinely complying and trying to defuse situations, or has the 'f*ck the police' mentality exacerbated the issue massively? I've no idea, as I'm white and not dealing with these issues myself. But it's another thing worth thinking about