Letter to the Editor

Yeah, my bad.

Wasn’t all bad! I didn’t break anything.

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to be treated professionally, regardless of your beliefs, in line with your behavior. Potentially subdued, if justice would be served by it. Maybe tazed. Maybe dogged.

You’re clearly unarmed, so no threat. If you escalate the situation to deadly force, well you did that.

if an officer did that, well then the officer did that.

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Can’t disagree more. Wilson was potentially a victim. Brown was definitely a victim. People on this topic and the ‘traitors’ one seem to want to choose a particularly legal definition of words to validate their argument, as if one definition automatically trumps others. That’s not how words work.

Furthermore no one is saying “Wilson brought the assault upon himself for not calling in back-up”. If Wilson was assaulted and people were saying that, it would be victim blaming. But no one is saying that. Some people are saying that Brown (who is undeniably a victim) brought his fate upon himself (ascribing blame). That’s victim blaming.

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Haven’t you seen all those episodes of Cops where a caucasian drunk driving redneck fleeing the scene of domestic violence is summarily shot 6 times for resisting arrest once they finally get him?

Oh wait, that’s right, they call in backup and arrest them.

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Are we talking this:

or this:

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Because my existing merit badge avatar is far too neat. I always appreciate the effort, though!

@edthehippie do yoruself a favour and download GIMP - or better yet, steal a copy of Photoshop and use the real deal :smile:

you always were his favourite : )

Ahh, now I understand why everyone is demanding cameras on cops.

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Changed from what to what?

Only if you let them. And by “you” I mean us. There is a flag button prominently displayed on every post for a reason. There is a meta category for a reason.

Active, top-down, strong moderation (as here on BB) never hurts either.

I don’t.

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'Sup Marxists is still an open thread.

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Arg… don’t say “threads”! I just switched off my server from a stupid all-day compilation problem. No more threads until tomorrow!

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Honestly if one thing has been made clear to me by all this police brutality, it’s that someone seriously needs to commercialize Loogie Guns from Snow Crash.

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My theory is that the the term “political correct” originated in the 1970s among liberals. On the surface, it’s self-mockery. But really, it’s a mocking reference to the political approaches of organized radical left groups that articulated political strategies that they expected members to follow, particularly that they publicly express support for specified oppressed groups. And while there was plenty of reason to be critical of the sad state of old left groups in the 70s, there was a history behind that approach: the greatest, most lasting contributions of the CPUSA and other radical left groups in the US was in opposing racism and segregation, when members were required to participate in integrated political and social events, in order to facilitate the building of multiracial labor unions and other actions.

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Oh they had directly lifted this Deadspin graphic for Gamergate and put it on a tee shirt , making money off someone else’s design. I went back to reference it a day or so later and it had been changed to something referencing the source but certainly more original (and, frankly, less elegant).

I’d link to it here but have zero interest in driving any web traffic to his site.

I think it hurts. By which I mean to say, is unhelpful. The situation seems to me a schizoid culture which claims to value free expression and exchange of ideas, in principle - while simultaneously being disgusted by what the average person has to say. This tends to result in dynamics where speech is more free for some than for others. And in other, not strictly public discourse, people are still accustomed to having speech moderated. All that happens when a person allows themselves to be provoked by another’s speech is a transference of intolerance. Obviously the reactions of a censor or moralist appear, on the surface, to be of a more civilized nature. But I think it still re-enforces a culture of intolerance and exclusion, if in a more subtle way. I think the mature way to deal with such situations is to refuse to be provoked. When people realize that they can’t push people’s emotional buttons, we all benefit.

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Well, rather than explain in a long post, you can read my thoughts on this here:

but TL;DR

The mature way to deal with this is to teach people to cultivate a genuine interest in what other human beings are saying, and a civil way of expressing that, rather than provoking them.

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[quote=“SteampunkBanana, post:307, topic:47468, full:true”]
Oh they had directly lifted this Deadspin graphic for Gamergate and put it on a tee shirt , making money off someone else’s design. I went back to reference it a day or so later and it had been changed to something referencing the source but certainly more original (and, frankly, less elegant).[/quote]

Oh, nevermind! I thought you were talking about Jackhammer Jill on a shirt, as was mentioned earlier.

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This is not untrue, but the difficulty with this is that it denies the listeners/readers responsibility for their reactions and emotions, while simultaneously making them responsible for the speaker/writer. We are each only directly responsible for what we ourselves do. Placing that responsibility with the other tends to be coercive, and thus fuels bickering and resentments. Besides, people can refuse to be provoked and still teach. It could be argued that the lack of reactionary tactics is itself teaching by example.