BLM Policy Goals

bramzzoinks said:

I was wondering when a leftist would go all politically correct on that term. 

I prefer the term "statist."  Thanks in advance. Also, what you're saying is that you intended to be an *****.

Steve said:

bramzzoinks said:

Looks like BLM almost got two more scalps in Brooklyn but the shooter missed. 

Why has no one mentioned he who shall not be named's repeated use of the term "scalp" in the context of the racist nature of the term?

Because it was very obvious.

So, Zoinks, how would your respond to BLM.  Perhaps with a heartfelt "You people need to respect the police.  They are there to protect you."?  I think that would be well-received.

I would say stop saying things that inspire violence against police and make it impossible for police to do their jobs. No one is going to like the increase in violence and crime that is inevitably going to occur due to your actions. You may all be mostly too young to remember the 70's but it was not a pleasant time and you really do not want a return to that environment. But that is exactly what you are leading us to.

An analyst upgrades the stock of Papa John's because in a world where BLM makes it impossible for police to do an effective job people are too scared to go out to eat:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-20/analyst-upgrades-papa-john-s-because-growing-civil-unrest-means-more-pizza-deliveries

bramzzoinks said:

An analyst upgrades the stock of Papa John's because in a world where BLM makes it impossible for police to do an effective job people are too scared to go out to eat:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-20/analyst-upgrades-papa-john-s-because-growing-civil-unrest-means-more-pizza-deliveries

I'm surprised that you care whether black people eat or not.

dave23 said:

bramzzoinks said:

An analyst upgrades the stock of Papa John's because in a world where BLM makes it impossible for police to do an effective job people are too scared to go out to eat:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-20/analyst-upgrades-papa-john-s-because-growing-civil-unrest-means-more-pizza-deliveries

I'm surprised that you care whether black people eat or not.

The article isn't about race.  What the "expert" is quoted as saying in the article:  "After speaking with several large operators and industry contacts, we believe the recent decline in casual dining restaurant segment fundamentals—traffic down 3-5 percent the past several weeks—may be the result of consumers eating more at home amid the current political/social backdrop, which we believe could last through the November election."

Seems like the "expert" has concluded that people who normally would go out to something like an Applebees are being scared by rants from clowns like Trump, Giuliani and Christie.  Instead, they stay home and order crappy pizza.  Or something like that.

The theory is that a bread-stick riot will break out at the local Olive Garden, so we'd rather order in.

dave23 said:

The theory is that a bread-stick riot will break out at the local Olive Garden, so we'd rather order in.

"Bread Lines Matter".

They do. Which is why policies, emanating from Sanders and now too much being embraced widely by Democrats, which risk turning the U.S. into Venezuela are so bad.

bramzzoinks said:

They do. Which is why policies, emanating from Sanders and now too much being embraced widely by Democrats, which risk turning the U.S. into Venezuela are so bad.

Stop with the hyperbole.  Sanders and the Democrats will not turn the U.S. into Venezuela.  It just isn't possible.

bramzzoinks said:

They do. Which is why policies, emanating from Sanders and now too much being embraced widely by Democrats, which risk turning the U.S. into Venezuela are so bad.

No, this is your thread to reprint nonsense from bigots about African-American protestors.  You have some other threads for the "Democrats will turn us into Venezuela" rant, I believe.

I'm surprised this had to be explained to you.

I am sure the people of the pretty prosperous nation of Venezuela thought the same thing when Chavez became president.

bramzzoinks said:

I am sure the people of the pretty prosperous nation of Venezuela thought the same thing when Chavez became president.

You guys promised economic destruction when Obama got elected.

bramzzoinks said:

I would say stop saying things that inspire violence against police and make it impossible for police to do their jobs. No one is going to like the increase in violence and crime that is inevitably going to occur due to your actions. You may all be mostly too young to remember the 70's but it was not a pleasant time and you really do not want a return to that environment. But that is exactly what you are leading us to.

I was a teen in the 70s so my memory may not be all that reliable, but my impression was that it was a pretty bland decade compared to the 60s.  (At least on the homefront.  The Viet Nam War was another matter.)

Much of nyc was no go zones both for people and vehicles due to crime. 

bramzzoinks said:

Much of nyc was no go zones both for people and vehicles due to crime. 

Yogi Berra law enforcement.

That was when the Bronx was burning. 

I had so many windows broken and car radios stolen. 

I didn't live here then.

Zoinks is IMO incorrect on this thread.  To me, here's where things are.  The police aren't all bad.  The BLM isn't all bad.  It's a tad more complex than that.  

Now, there is no question that the BLM is has a legitimate gripe.  The justice system isn't color blind.  The police by and large are not color blind.  

That being said, these psychopaths that are targeting police are making things way worse.  How does one expect the average LEO to react to this.  They are going to assume they are a target.  They are that much more likely to hastily use their monopoly on violence.

But what of the profiling that tom mentions?  I would agree that racial profiling goes on.  But here's the thing.  This is predictable human behavior.  I'm not saying its right.  I'm just saying that it is an absolute certainty that it will happen.  It's human nature.  Human's discriminate.  

We live in a country that has about 8,000 homicides a year. The vast majority of these occur in America's ghetto's.  These occur in places like Chicago.  Chicago is about 32% white.  At the same time 96% of the murders in Chicago are committed by non-whites.  This is a pattern that repeats itself over city centers(LA, NYC, Detroit, Philadelphia, etc.)

And what of these city centers?  How are they created?  These people live in perpetual poverty where the family has been destroyed.  Children are born to parents who don't work. They attend failing schools and live in squalor. These places were created and are ruled by American Liberalism.  It's an example of a well intended system gone horribly wrong.

Don't think for a moment there is a LEO out there who does not understand these statistics.  Now, this does not excuse any of these incidents.  

And here's the other side. The Law and Order Right in this country has created a prison system that jails more people than any other place in the world. The majority of which are in jail for non-violent crimes. 

So, the drug war is a huge element in all this.  We harass and imprison a population, and yes this affects non-whites way more than whites, for victim-less crimes.  This further perpetuates the cycle of poverty and violence in these communities.  All in the name of prohibition. 

What does enforcing victim-less crimes do to the relationship between the police and the people?  It has transformed the police from a group that protects and serves its citizens into an enforcement arm of the state.   As one of my favorite characters of all time, 'Bunny Colvin' put it: "Soldiering and Policing ain't the same thing."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA5za4VsskM

That, in a nutshell, is the problem IMO.  I think I've probably done my job pissing everyone off too

I don't think you'll find anyone on MOL, and precious few even outside MOL, defending the murder of police. I suppose the shooters could claim they are putting in practice the second amendment folks' rhetoric about fighting tyranny, but I've never found that a justifiable argument.

As for as your observation of the large number of homicides in predominantly black communities, that is absolutely a problem. In fact, activists will tell you that police both over and under police black communities. Over police, in that if you are black, you are far more likely to be stopped by the cops, and to have excessive force used against you (though, at least according to a recent study, not more likely to kill you once you're stopped, small silver lining though that may be).

But under-policed, in that violent crime in their neighborhoods gets far less resource and attention than the same in white neighborhoods. See this article for a longer version of this point of view.

You are on to something when you cite residential segregation, though (that's how I interpret your talking about "city centers", though heavily segregated neighborhoods are not restricted to our inner cities). You are wrong, however to call it "an example of a well intended system gone horribly wrong." The ghetto is a result of deliberate policy.

One of the best recent pieces I've read covering this is Coat's The Case for Reparations. Whether or not you agree with the remedy (reparations), the article does a good job covering the history of how white America deliberately created the impoverished black ghetto.

Is this a failure of liberalism? Certainly. It does not good to point out that conservatives have been worse. I mean, that's true, but we shouldn't let political liberals off the hook so easily. If we don't look our past squarely in the eye, we can't learn from it.

Some lessons have been learned. The Democratic party is very different post Civil Rights Act than prior. It's a lot more aware and responsive to issues around race than the party that built the ghetto. There are many people of color in in the leadership and in the rank and file of the party.

Still, though, as you may have noticed, even very liberal communities can get very conservative when the topic of housing comes up. You can't solve our problems with race (including around policing) without integration, but you can't have integration at scale when people are so resistant to things like having affordable housing, etc in their neighborhoods. And sorry to disappoint you, but integration likely requires focused effort by the government - the state spent a lot of time, money, and effort to create the ghetto, and dismantling it will require a similar investment.

Getting rid of the absurd prohibition on drugs would make things much much better in a whole host of ways.

Not shooting Black people because they are Black people would also be visionary.

Well stated @PVW. Coates also makes interesting points about police legitimacy in this piece

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/the-near-certainty-of-anti-police-violence/490541/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Ta-nehisiCoates+%28The+Atlantic+%7C+Ta-Nehisi+Coates%29

And here's a this week's example of 'over policing' from sunny, crazy as hell Florida:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article90905442.html

flimbro said:

Well stated @PVW. 

Yes. And thank you both for the links. My predictable human behavior appreciates the prods.

bramzzoinks said:

Getting rid of the absurd prohibition on drugs would make things much much better in a whole host of ways.

Something else we agree on, in the midst of many we don't.

Though maybe more of an Education item, here's a related Atlantic link, which I'm just getting around to reading after Elizabeth Aaron, the Columbia High principal, tweeted it yesterday. (The anecdotal opening is about a CHS teacher.)

The Long-Term Effects of Social-Justice Education on Black Students

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help"

If you want to rail against something that is really to blame rail against the bureaucracy. Once kids get enmeshed in the system, be it school social services, family services, family court etc it is all over. The spiral downward begins.

bramzzoinks said:

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help"

If you want to rail against something that is really to blame rail against the bureaucracy. Once kids get enmeshed in the system, be it school social services, family services, family court etc it is all over. The spiral downward begins.

So what do  you suggest we do with children who end up in a very bad family situation which is dangerous or abusive? 

I do not know. But the bureaucracy as currently constituted will just make a bad situation worse.