You donât have to be a Marxist to have principles.
Anyway, is it just me, or does that copâs picture look like a real-life version of the cut-off skull error?
I could probably make a blog called âRhode Island Manâ, and cherry pick the most loony toons events from around the state and make it seem like the craziest place in America. A majority of people who make Florida jokes arenât from here. Florida gets a bad rap.
Hey, Iâm pretty sure hypocrisy is unavoidable. I am an employee of a company that sells illogically and absurdly expensive clothing. I know the designers, the fabric pickers, the sources for the materials, everything because my job is to reset peopleâs email passwords and to help them find lost files and such. All clothing comes from the same places, and it all involves either slavery, or something so close itâs pointless to make a distinction, unless you or someone you know are growing/synthesizing and weaving it yourself.
I try not to think about it.
I know that my work is only in the service of lining the millionaire CEOâs pockets, and to add to the wealth of the other executives on the top floor of the building. But when Iâm spending 2 and a half hours driving into work during rush hour, I canât find any other options I can take up that wouldnât bankrupt me.
I do what I do through the power of hypocrisy and amazing cognitive dissonance buffers I inherited from my fundie parents. It makes thinking about things deeply really hard.
Your remarkable self-knowledge and honesty may in time be your path to a better solution.
To me, killing another human being face to face would be more difficult and personal than making a bomb. But thatâs just my opinion. OK, there are violent racist within law enforcement, and the few caught are prosecuted, convicted and sentenced, by their own. Isnât this like any other endeavor where rogues are weeded out? Doctors police doctors etc. The sense I get from my fellow arguers here is that the overall state of policing is racist and violent. I believe most police are good people. The mayor of Baltimore backpedaled on negative police comments when her PD became less enthusiastic, and she is now trying to regain their trust.
I believe, and I have heard some black leaders say, race relations have improved since 1964.
You are naive to assume police are different from teachers, doctors, politicians or anyone else in a position of power. Such behavior is not common. Most teachers do not sexually abuse students, most doctors do not abuse drugs, most politicians do not rape interns, and most cops have never shot anyone, pulled their weapon, or abused their power. The few (cops, doctors, teachers, politicians) that do are held in contempt by their peers and society. 360 million people are being policed so the number of bad cop news stories will be large, but the ratio is actually very small. Zero % would be best but that is not reasonable in any human endeavor I can think of. The bad ones do have to be weeded out because we still need good police.
Troll or fool ⌠hmmm. Statistics on cop violence are related to this discussion. Bombmaking is violent, just not as violent and personal as killing someone face to face, in my opinion. OK there are racist violent cops, just as there are sex abusers in education, intern rapists in DC, and all sorts of power abusers, but I just do not believe the police abusers are as rampant as you seem to think. Which is why I included the statistics. Calling me a troll is getting weary, I am simply discussing as best I can.
Iâm not surprised at the guy defending the domestic terrorists in the Klavern believing this.
I built bombs when I was a child, with no intention of hurting anyone, and my friends and I detonated them without harming anyone.
Evidence suggests you (and they) are right.
Evidence suggests you are wrong. Most police are forced to be bad people by police culture and by the harsh realities of the job.
I would prefer to have no police at all, but most people donât want to take on that level of personal responsibility. Since weâre a democratic republic, I must bow to the will of the majority, and thus I guess we do need good police as you say.
I donât believe most police officers are necessarily violent or racist, but that doesnât mean that the overall state of policing isnât racist and violent. Where the system defends those who act in violent and racist ways (and there seem to be examples of this happening most weeks), this has serious effects beyond the actions of the individual police officers.
Can you give some examples of this? Your statistic that âIn 2010, 930 people were killed by cops while 56 cops were killedâ seems insane to me. Nine hundred and thirty people killed by cops in a single year? In the UK during the same year, the Guardian was talking about a serious problem as 333 people had died in or following police custody over the past 11 years (without any successful prosecutions of police officers during that time). Apparently a lot of the cop deaths are due to traffic accidents, which is logical due to the amount of time spent on the road - so even that statistic doesnât capture the one-sidedness of the risk. In fact, the study specifically raises the issue of the poor conviction rate of officers, noting that of 8,300 credible reports of misconduct involving almost 11,000 officers, only about 383 of those officers were ultimately sentenced to spend any time incarcerated (and for much lower sentences than the general public would be given):
When we examine the same data on a state-by-state basis the results gave us some interesting information. For example, here are the five states with the lowest prosecution rates for law enforcement officers in the US (AVG 32%) and their relative Police Misconduct Rate ranking from lowest to highest:
Washington DC 05% (10th)
Washington 16% (27th)
Vermont 18% (38th)
West Virginia 20% (48th)
Oregon 20% (42th)
And here are the five states with the worst law enforcement conviction rates (AVG 37%) with relative rankings:
Alaska 14% (46th)
Washington 17% (27th)
Connecticut 18% (41th)
Colorado 19% (40th)
Georgia 19% (29th)
New Mexico 19% (45th)
There appears to be a correlation between higher misconduct rates and ineffective prosecution of criminal police misconduct charges when we see how the states with the worst prosecution rates rank in the lower 50th percentile for misconduct (with the exception of Washington DC, however DCâs transparency index is the worst in the nation so that localityâs low misconduct rate may be a result of under-reporting).
A major part of the problem is that unless there is incredibly public pressure, they really arenât brought to justice. As @jsroberts, there is a huge disparity between cops seeing incarceration for crimes they commit when the general public sees much longer sentences. The thin blue line is real and is a part of the problem. Itâs not that ALL cops are racists or violent, is that the racists and violent ones often get protection, making those who protect them complicit in their crimes.
No one disagrees with that. Doesnât mean itâs as not still a major problem.
Good that you have changed your position to believing that there are violent racist cops.
As for your complaints, apologists are usually trolls or fools. If it isnât you then it is just what you do. Be offended or not, it doesnât matter.
Fair enough. Now that you have explained that I am a troll or fool because I am an apologist, it all makes sense. I thought this was simply a discussion where not everyone has the exact same opinion about an issue. So you can call me TROLL from now on.
Your support for the Klan is more than an âopinionâ, it is a full ideology.
But donât most orgs. have a similar bias against outside pressure? Those on the front lines be it police, operating room, foot soldier, pilots, ems, all have the attitude that a split second decision is not something to be criticized by a desk jockey and will absolutely circle the wagons to stand against what they see as ill informed persecution. That is my theory anyway. How many here have been personally involved in a misconduct case as opposed to seeing one in the media? I am a retired state leo and in 35 years, mostly small town depts., have only seen a few cases of abuse . Am not including corruption (bribery, drugs, etc.) But then many city cops would say small town cops are Barney Fifes not subject to the real pressures of urban policing.
I do not see racism as a major problem. A lot of the drama and insanity stops when the cameras go away. The people screaming at each are seen later having a cup of coffee. Example -Ferguson. Do you really believe the residents of a small town would burn and loot home town businesses, owned by their neighbors, then group together to help get the burned out business back? Makes more sense if the damage was done by outsiders.
I do not support the klan, period. If some here believe me an ideologue, so be it. I can no more convince you of my desire to discuss things as I see them, than I can convince you to believe in Santa Claus. Can you admit that my life experience is unique? I certainly grant you the same.
Taking your teacher example (as itâs another public servant) if a teach molests a student, we shit can their asses - even before they are even sent to trial usually. There isnât much debate about it. Other teachers donât sit around and defend rapists. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that some cops do indeed sit around and defend racists cops. Unless there is intense public pressure, many crimes by cops get swept under the rug. You might not have done it, or known anyone who did it in your experienceâmaybe you worked in places that were majority white areas with little crime that doesnât cause racism to drift to the surface in such a concrete way as weâve seen in Ferguson, etc? But there are thousands of law enforcement out there in communities all across the country, who indeed will defend their colleagues even in cases where itâs pretty obvious whatâs going on.
And there is the problem right there. Iâm sure you mean in talking about police corruption, but youâre glossing over how racist attitudes are often ingrained in our society in ways that gloss over the realityâŚ
Do you know what a riot actually is? Itâs not some bad apples gone astray, or outsiders destroying stuff, itâs a political statement. See for example, Walter Mosley talking about watts - the same could be said for Ferguson, or the wave of riots after the murder of Dr. King:
JB Weld and half a dozen rivets. That badge is now armor.
Some heathen Chinee once said you can make an opponent fight you harder, and solidify their position, or you can convert them to your cause⌠depending on how you treat them.
