The ârightâ to bear arms fetishizes guns without the due respect for their destructiveness. In Switzerland where the majority of (male?) adults are also armed, it seems to me, there is a duty to bear arms (for the protection of the State, however that is defined) with all that that entails. Perhaps the gubmint should try imposing the duty to bear arms on all adult citizens. Swiss gun culture really isnât a thing.
This former state congressmanâs sentiment is what I fear the most as the outcome from this terrible event. I worry a lot of innocent people will pay as they are seen, by those in the criminal justice system, as being guilty by skin color association. I pray that Iâll be proven wrong.
My first instinct is simply:
Thereâs a part of me that wants to have no sympathy, no sense of empathy for the police who got shot. It comes from a deep dark place of anger over the recent injustices, and a sense that police everywhere contribute to the indifference of police anywhere. But my blood canât run that cold; Iâm not that person at the end of the day. I still consider the profession suspect, but always have felt that violence is a poor tool that even in those rare cases where it is justified can often lead to worse outcomes. Iâve always believed in the inherent value of a human life.
That being said, I do believe that it is possible to make violence inevitable, and that itâs possible to make people feel like they cannot resort to anything else. The continued trend of police immunity from consequences for the worst outrages committed in the name of the law has rightly sparked frustration, and a sense of stagnation and desperation. To say police bring it on themselves is to apportion only a small fraction of the blame available. We pushed it onto them as a society when we decided to see no evil and hear no evil and to hold them blameless beyond belief. We taught them to react to black people the way we react to black people as a society. Weâve supported their most egregious behavior in the interests of our worst fears and prejudices, and in the process laid waste to the humanity of generations of black, brown, and poor people all over this country.
I donât know who did this. For all I know itâs just a weirdly timed ISIS attack. I do suspect that whoever did this is reacting to a reality that a good portion of this country is all too happy to ignore, and they continue to ignore it because it reflects poorly on them. Because they know deep down that their depraved indifference and happiness with the status quo is all it takes to crush the lives of people who are not like them.
It doesnât matter how annoyed I ever get with the police, there is no way in hell that firing back at them is ever going to make anything better. This isnât how we get to a more just sociery, itâs how we get to race war.
Firing at cops during a peaceful protest is the very essence of terrorism. It smacks of false flag ops, but I guess that depends on what is said about the shooters after the fact.
I am heartsick. It feels like as bad as things were yesterday, they got just got much, much worse.
My first reaction was:
âDamn, this will make things harder. But what did the cops expect? They literally get away with murder. Pretty much every week. People canât tolerate that for very long.â
But what you said is more eloquent and captures most of how I feel very well. Thank you for that.
I was just listening to this song yesterday, and today it suddenly felt very relevant. What allows someone to be so hopeless that they can resort to taking so many other lives in such a manner? What does a society or culture have to do to allow someone to reach such a point? How inaccessible, out of touch, and corrupt must itâs government be? How unfair must itâs laws and law enforcement be? How much intolerance must it allow to fester?
Oh please. Donât take the easy way out.
As noted above.
And a large part of this is the âus vs. themâ mentality on both sides of the fence. Urban kids grow up knowing that they canât trust the police. Yeah, most interactions arenât going to end horribly, but even the small chance that youâll end up at the coronerâs is enough to foster that sentiment. Police have more than their fair share by fostering a paramilitary culture, the âthin blue lineâ, and the oh so delightful concept of âyouâre either a cop or a perpââŚ
When you have one armed camp, itâs a dictatorship. When you have two, thereâs going to be war, and when one side has superiority of arms, youâre going to have a guerilla war.
At some point the ruling party has to realize that you canât win a war where the entire population could be your enemy, and you canât tell whoâs who. You canât dehumanize and devalue everyone. At some point (as evidenced by tonightâs events), people simply wonât bear it (particularly in an armed society).
Itâs going to take a paradigm shift in police culture as well as addressing the giant ass racist elephant in the room that nobody is really willing to deal with, to get this situation resolved. This will have been started with bullets, but ended with philosophy.
Saying I have no knowledge of who did it may be easy, but it has the benefit of being true. The ISIS bit was hyperbole about how little anyone knows about the identity of the shooters at this point. For all I know, it was Homer Simpson leading the ghost of John Brown if that makes my point clearer.
With any luck.
The thing is, the US government canât win against an insurgency. We have many examples of this. And an insurgency is what police departments have decided to create. If you treat everyone like either a cop or a perp, youâre going to have an insurgency on your hands, and nobody can really win against an insurgency. Especially when the cops donât live where they work.
Clear as daylight. Thanks for clarifying.
Is Dallas itself an area where there have been recent killings by police? Or is this a case of an area where the local management is doing it right but theyâre getting the blame for the actions of other police areas?
I really hope this is where it ends. I fear it will get worse.
Correct me if Iâm wrong (being a non-American, watching from a far, itâs quite possible), but couldnât this be seen as the 2nd amendment functioning exactly as the Right argues it should? Citizens (in this case African Americans) are being oppressed by the authorities. Isnât the intent of the 2nd amendment to allow citizens a defence against oppressive government forces? Isnât this what the NRA and the right wing want? So goddamn hypocritical how the Right is now blaming Obama, BLM, and an oppressed population, when they are using the exact tool the Right has fought so hard to create.
Not really. When gun rights were created it never ever entered the minds of the framers that black people wouldnât be slaves some day. And if the conservatives do anything well, itâs living in a fictional past.
In other words, youâre not wrong, if you keep it only to white, land owning, plantation and slave owners.
i really like what someone else mentioned on another thread, that in germany(?) police are moved around, much like our military personnel.
no one stays long in one place. thereâs no allegiance to a particular commander, no feeling that you canât speak up against someone you may have to keep working with. no prosecutor whoâs also your uncle, or judge whoâs your cousin.
iâm sure weâre more likely to get gun control than a federalized police force, but itâs still an interesting idea. someway to break the blue line.
fwiw, i also think if the police were more like bobbies, unarmed, things would be better. fewer bullies would want to be cops. weâd end the concept police as âheroesâ. theyâd become true first responders like emts, or firefighters.
this event is so likely to shove things in an even worse direction. i dont really have words for it, nor for all the killing of black men and women. itâs not clear to me how we fix all this.
Your idea is good too. Iâm mainly following the idea that if cops had to live where they worked, theyâd be more likely to see the people around them as âpart of their tribeâ.
But breaking up the tribe and making people play nice in a more random way seems to achieve more numerous goals.
Nononono, tyrrany is when the government taxes you or says where you can put your cows, not when you get murdered by agents of the state for being the wrong colour, silly.
While recognizing that we donât know who did it or why, if this is in response to Philando Castile and Alton Sterling (and everyone who came before), it would be a lot like a superpower nation throwing a worldwide military temper-tantrum in the wake of a devastating terrorist attack when the sympathies of much of the world were already with you. Not helpful, and tragically wrong.
so kind of like the u.s. and 9/11?
