ShadowKatt wrote:The whole thing is **** stupid.
Burn wrote:I'm never clicking any of your links ever again.
Burn wrote:High Command is an arsehat.
Burn wrote:I'm never clicking any of your links ever again.
Burn wrote:High Command is an arsehat.
Agreed. However, this mess has stopped being a protest a long time ago. I understand a large part of the protesters are peaceful, but a seemingly equally large part are not. If the peaceful protesters want their voices heard and not be smeared by these thugs, vandals and murderers, they need to separate themselves from those people. If they see them amongst them while marching, kick them out, push them out, get away from them, so the police, who have the duty to respond to public disturbances, can tell the difference.High Command wrote:Alternative view: increasing police brutality to make protests against police brutality go away is a poor tactic.
Rodimus Prime wrote:However, this mess has stopped being a protest a long time ago. I understand a large part of the protesters are peaceful, but a seemingly equally large part are not.
I'm not interested in what anyone thinks about me. I made a statement and you didn't (couldn't?) refute it so you attempted a deliberately vague personal insult.AcademyofDrX wrote:Rodimus Prime wrote:However, this mess has stopped being a protest a long time ago. I understand a large part of the protesters are peaceful, but a seemingly equally large part are not.
That "seemingly equally large" line is doing more work than you think it is, and shows this comment says a lot more about you than the protestors.
Can you please highlight where in my statements I said that? Because I'm certain I did not.AcademyofDrX wrote:So your rhetoric says protests are almost always violent,
Any amount tolerated by the protesters who want to be heard. I did say that. Because by tolerating violence you condone it, and it becomes part of your message. Inaction is complicity according to your message, remember?which isn't true, but anyway that doesn't matter because any amount of violence undermines the cause.
Destroying other civilians' property is not an effective way to convey the message if they want to be heard properly. Actions will always be louder than words and those on the other side will pay attention to the loudest form of communication. The protesters need to realize that if they want to get anything accomplished, otherwise other cities will end up like Seattle.To meet your standard, Black Lives Matter protests should also be All Property Matters protests,
They need to be responsible for their own actions, juat like the police do. When the police act unjustly, which is what started this whole thing, civilians can't do the same because then they just lower themselves to the corrupt police officers' level, which is what has happened.and civilians need to be responsible for deescalation and controlling property damage even as police show themselves incapable of the same.
I don't need to be persuadable because I don't agree with your destructive method of communication, nor do I need to question my values, because obviously they don't align with yours and until you take off your blinders to what's really going on, they never will.Sorry, I believe Black Lives Matter is the more important cause, and you're not persuadable until you question your values.
AcademyofDrX wrote:(...).
-Kanrabat- wrote:Right now the BLM "protests" are just RIOTS made by anarchists and criminals. The "cause" no longer have the support of the average Joe.
There's also some place where they are doing a literal PROTECTION RACKET towards local businesses.
No matter how the cause was noble at the start and how much support it had from the public at the beginning, the BLM movement is no longer about police brutality. It's been either exposed as, or being hijacked by Marxists, criminals, and anarchists.
The original message is now lost among all that violence.
My point exactly. If the violence wasn't part of the protests, the actual problems could be discussed and maybe even solved. But the message is distorted because it is allowed to be. And you can't expect the destruction to be just ignored because that makes the people who had everything destroyed even bigger victims.AcademyofDrX wrote:"To what's really going on." Black lives matter, that's what's really going on, the rest is whataboutism. Honestly? I wish that there was less violence during the protests, because every conversation about property destruction is one less conversation about more important topics.
Yes, keep your head in the sand just because you're not hearing your own rhetoric from everyone else. Such lack of willingness to move forward is what invalidates your message. Hopefully others who actually have open minds for solutions and can make a difference will listen. You're right, there's nothing else that can be said.Unfortunately, arguments like these remind me that there will always be something else that invalidates the struggle for racial justice. I don't think there's anything valuable we have to say to each other at this point. As a site mod I can't mute you, so I'll just need to ignore you.
Burn wrote:Why do you feel the need to keep resurrecting this thread just to shove your opinion onto everyone else?
You are literally adding nothing new to the conversation, you're just regurgatating the same **** again and again.
Rodimus Prime wrote:Rioting and looting places and businesses that have nothing to do with the issues at hand is not going to make those in law enforcement address any changes needed. All they're going to do is use it as reasoning for more police and tougher treatment of those who break the law. Giving in to these thugs would be saying they condone their behavior. You think that's going to make the violence and stealing stop?
Rodimus Prime wrote: All large cities need substantive changes, not just Chicago. The police need to be reformed, but even more the people in charge of government need to be reformed. You know, the people who keep getting reelected to city council or mayor term after term and either do nothing but line their own pockets or pass laws that hinder the progress of the citizens, especially minorities. Take a look at the leadership in these cities and tell me they're not to blame.
Rodimus Prime wrote: Unless the leftists win big in November, in which case I'm sure they will begin doling out the money the rest of the country works for, and then we'll have a true revolution. Hardworking people won't take these scumbags stealing from them just to appease these dregs of society. Or if they do then they deserve their money taken from them for being stupid enough to allow ot to happen.
I wasn't trying to insinuate that I was responding specificalky to your points, even if your post got me to respond. I quoted the above parts because I agree on everything, and I would go as far as to say the elevtion system in the US needs to be revamped beyond just the fibancial aspects.Notimus Crime wrote:Rodimus Prime wrote:Rioting and looting places and businesses that have nothing to do with the issues at hand is not going to make those in law enforcement address any changes needed. All they're going to do is use it as reasoning for more police and tougher treatment of those who break the law. Giving in to these thugs would be saying they condone their behavior. You think that's going to make the violence and stealing stop?
I never argued for this. All I said is that the violence isn't going to stop until the necessary changes are made and the longer we go without substantive changes the more likely we are to see people getting angry and acting out with rioting and looting. It's an unfortunate truth that when you have civil unrest, violence committed in the name of that unrest is going to happen. It happened with the civil rights movement, and it's happening now.Rodimus Prime wrote: All large cities need substantive changes, not just Chicago. The police need to be reformed, but even more the people in charge of government need to be reformed. You know, the people who keep getting reelected to city council or mayor term after term and either do nothing but line their own pockets or pass laws that hinder the progress of the citizens, especially minorities. Take a look at the leadership in these cities and tell me they're not to blame.
I fully agree that every city needs substantive change, the only reason I was focusing on Chicago is because we were discussing an incident that occurred in Chicago. A good first step would be to get big money out of politics, incentivizing politicians to actually represent the policies of their base instead of just doing nothing or doing as little as possible so they can give off the appearance of change while not upsetting their donors. Granted that wouldn't solve all of the problems with our political system and politicians are famous liars, but it would still help.
Again I'm in agreement here, policing systems on all levels need to be dissected and either replaced or put back together differently. Obviously the wsy it is is not worling well. Just like politics, it's become corrupt and non-effective. However, I place the blame mainly on the government's that train and employ the police, as well as the upper levels of the police systems such as commissiobers, chiefs and city councils. We can only blame individual officers for their individual actions. Just because that scumbag in Minneapolis did what he did it doesn't mean ALL other officers across the country are like that and they shouldn't be punished.Rodimus Prime wrote: Unless the leftists win big in November, in which case I'm sure they will begin doling out the money the rest of the country works for, and then we'll have a true revolution. Hardworking people won't take these scumbags stealing from them just to appease these dregs of society. Or if they do then they deserve their money taken from them for being stupid enough to allow ot to happen.
I'm pretty sure I myself never advocated for cutting the funding of police in my posts (the most I said was I thought it was ridiculous that the officers either didn't have body cameras in a department with a $1.8 billion dollar budget or didn't turn them on when engaging a reportedly armed suspect), but okay I'll talk about that I guess. I myself am relatively ambivalent on defunding the police. I have heard good arguments for cutting police budgets and then re-investing that money into parts of the community that would arguably help deter future criminality in said communities, and as far as I can tell nobody is arguing we should cut their budgets so much to the point of them being ineffectual. I more argue for reframing police training more around de-escalation than instilling a "warrior" mentality in them (I'm not saying you should tell officers to never use violence but more that violence isn't always the answer), but I'm open to re-examining police budgets to figure out how much they actually need. Not even people who go even further and advocate abolishing police are arguing we should not have any policing at all, but rather that we replace the current policing institutions with other forms of public safety protection (I'm iffy on that and would need to see data on alternative models). Joe Biden has not (and probably won't) come out in favor of defunding the police.
I disagree. I believe the entire mindset of 'left vs. right' in this country is preventing the effective changes that are needed, and until both sides come to a compromise, both politicians and regular citizens, nothing will move forward. What a lot of staunch extremists on both sides don't realize thst is that they can't have it their way 100% because there are too many members of the opposition. That's why compromise is key. This is of course in terms of bringing changes through laws and reforms that politicians and citizens have to approve of.Afor the whole "DEMONRATS ARE COMING TO TAKE OUR TAX DOLLARS" That's wholly irrelevant to the conversation of Black Lives Matter.
Don't worry about it going on long enough, as long as you're making valid points in a civil way, length is irrelevant. And yes, I was trying to say that the best way to attack this problem is through financial means, because everyone (from billionaires down to the common citizen) cares about their bottom line. It's 1 way to try to bring us all together to agree in something, giving some kind of financial incentive to do so. It's unfortunate it has to come down to that, but it's reality. And my commemt regarding the election this November wasn't meant to say that I agree with what's going on now, I just think that when it comes to fiscal responsibility leftists ate a lot worse than conservatives. But that's just my opinion, and I don't want to see the tax dollars of people who actually work go to those who have done nothing to earn it.I would not be opposed to discussing Joe Biden's tax policy vs Trump's tax policy (I would have to read up on it a bit because I'm not too familiar with the nitty gritty of their tax proposals) but I really don't feel like this is the time or place for it. Unless you're talking about addressing systemic racism and the use of tax dollars in that, in which case that's a really weird way to frame it. But because this post is already long enough (I know I tend to ramble I'm sorry) I won't get into it unless that is actually what you're arguing and you clarify your position.
I agree that we shouldn't punish all officers for the death of George Floyd, and don't think it's proper to fault them for the current injustices in policing. Sure they are the enforcers that carry it out, but they are not the root of the problem. Individual officers should only really be criticized if they personally engage in police brutality or otherwise abuse the power they wield (as should be the case with all government officials). If I could guess why officers are so often vilified before they do anything it's because they're a more immediate and easy to target/relate to symbol of the system and it probably feels better to vent your anger on a person than impotently yelling at a governor's office or waiting until the next local or state elections. Or they misunderstood the meaning of ACAB and think it actually means every individual cop is bad instead of meaning that the system too often protects bad cops and encourages that sort of behavior with their training so in effect every cop is bad. I admit it can be a bit of a misleading slogan at face value but it's probably more catchy than "TSOPICAEBAVBIC" (The System Of Policing Is Corrupt And Encourages Bad And Violent Behavior In Cops). I don't know maybe I'm just bad at acronyms.Rodimus Prime wrote:Again I'm in agreement here, policing systems on all levels need to be dissected and either replaced or put back together differently. Obviously the wsy it is is not worling well. Just like politics, it's become corrupt and non-effective. However, I place the blame mainly on the government's that train and employ the police, as well as the upper levels of the police systems such as commissiobers, chiefs and city councils. We can only blame individual officers for their individual actions. Just because that scumbag in Minneapolis did what he did it doesn't mean ALL other officers across the country are like that and they shouldn't be punished.Notimus Crime wrote:Rodimus Prime wrote: Unless the leftists win big in November, in which case I'm sure they will begin doling out the money the rest of the country works for, and then we'll have a true revolution. Hardworking people won't take these scumbags stealing from them just to appease these dregs of society. Or if they do then they deserve their money taken from them for being stupid enough to allow ot to happen.
I'm pretty sure I myself never advocated for cutting the funding of police in my posts (the most I said was I thought it was ridiculous that the officers either didn't have body cameras in a department with a $1.8 billion dollar budget or didn't turn them on when engaging a reportedly armed suspect), but okay I'll talk about that I guess. I myself am relatively ambivalent on defunding the police. I have heard good arguments for cutting police budgets and then re-investing that money into parts of the community that would arguably help deter future criminality in said communities, and as far as I can tell nobody is arguing we should cut their budgets so much to the point of them being ineffectual. I more argue for reframing police training more around de-escalation than instilling a "warrior" mentality in them (I'm not saying you should tell officers to never use violence but more that violence isn't always the answer), but I'm open to re-examining police budgets to figure out how much they actually need. Not even people who go even further and advocate abolishing police are arguing we should not have any policing at all, but rather that we replace the current policing institutions with other forms of public safety protection (I'm iffy on that and would need to see data on alternative models). Joe Biden has not (and probably won't) come out in favor of defunding the police.
Okay that makes a lot more sense to me than what you originally wrote. I am in agreeance that too many people are unwilling to compromise and that's a big reason why big change is so hard to accomplish. My thoughts on that is that it's good to go into it with your more radical position, and then bargain down to a more agreeable solution. Don't entirely concede to your opponent but convince them on a more agreeable version of the policy you want. This helps to influence the country in the direction you want and opens the door to expanding the resulting policy to be more of what you want later without totally losing out on getting anything accomplished.I disagree. I believe the entire mindset of 'left vs. right' in this country is preventing the effective changes that are needed, and until both sides come to a compromise, both politicians and regular citizens, nothing will move forward. What a lot of staunch extremists on both sides don't realize thst is that they can't have it their way 100% because there are too many members of the opposition. That's why compromise is key. This is of course in terms of bringing changes through laws and reforms that politicians and citizens have to approve of.Afor the whole "DEMONRATS ARE COMING TO TAKE OUR TAX DOLLARS" That's wholly irrelevant to the conversation of Black Lives Matter.
Don't worry about it going on long enough, as long as you're making valid points in a civil way, length is irrelevant. And yes, I was trying to say that the best way to attack this problem is through financial means, because everyone (from billionaires down to the common citizen) cares about their bottom line. It's 1 way to try to bring us all together to agree in something, giving some kind of financial incentive to do so. It's unfortunate it has to come down to that, but it's reality. And my commemt regarding the election this November wasn't meant to say that I agree with what's going on now, I just think that when it comes to fiscal responsibility leftists ate a lot worse than conservatives. But that's just my opinion, and I don't want to see the tax dollars of people who actually work go to those who have done nothing to earn it.I would not be opposed to discussing Joe Biden's tax policy vs Trump's tax policy (I would have to read up on it a bit because I'm not too familiar with the nitty gritty of their tax proposals) but I really don't feel like this is the time or place for it. Unless you're talking about addressing systemic racism and the use of tax dollars in that, in which case that's a really weird way to frame it. But because this post is already long enough (I know I tend to ramble I'm sorry) I won't get into it unless that is actually what you're arguing and you clarify your position.
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