"This evinces extreme political opinions unrelated to the problem at hand, some of which are even directly contributory to the problem itself (there is scholarship from virtually every angle in conservative. liberal, and academic sources that the nuclear family is a strong predictor of children staying out of crime)."
This, first seems like a non sequitor (the word comrade is used, therefore Communism and abolish the nuclear family? Can we just paint our enemies as communists and accuse them of whatever policy we don't like transitively?). And I'd also be curious to see a source for this - is this nuclear family as opposed to fatherless/motherless families? (that one makes sense, I know e.g. black dads being thrown in jail a lot leads to a lot of suffering) Nuclear family as opposed to two moms/two dads? Nuclear family as opposed to bigger-than-nuclear?
"Separately, the rate of state killings of citizens in the US is much less unique than incarceration rates. While it's certainly unreasonable to argue that our level of incarceration is necessary to maintain our unique prosperity, the same is not quite as obvious for shootings. There's a very straightforward argument that our 2nd Amendment uniquely protects us from government overreach, leading to a need for police to carry guns in equity with private citizens, which in turn leads to a necessarily higher rate of police shootings. I think that's a good assessment of the present situation but there are solid counterexamples of the value of gun protections like Sandy Hook."
I generally agree that the Second Amendment means that efforts to de-weaponize the American public are probably hopeless (contrast to what we did in Australia where we had our own (singular!) mass shooting and immediately did a huge successful gun buyback). But I'm not totally sure that this implies that the police always need to be armed to do their job. For the majority of crime, escalating the situation by attempting to murder a police officer with a gun is going to lead to a much worse sentence then they were otherwise going to get. I would be curious to know if this is a problem to the point where it's always necessary to answer calls with a gun immediately ready, as opposed to something less lethal like a tazer.
And yes, it's definitely worth noting that police shooting and killing people is not the only kind of unwanted negative interaction police can have with citizens (unwanted incarceration, stop and frisk, et cetera). But those can be reversed, and a killing like that of George Floyd's can't, it is permanent once enacted. So they make for powerful public flashpoints, and there's a strong moral motivator to prevent as many such acts as is reasonable. Obviously you can't reduce it to 0, and obviously countries with far higher levels of lawlessness have much higher rates. As some examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_by_country
Deaths caused by law enforcement officers per 10 million people:
Brazil: 293.2
US: 46.6
Mexico: 30.0
Australia: 1.7
(Though I will note for the record, that Australia is not excempt from systemic racism problems. Our natives, Aboriginees, have pretty much all the problems black people have in the US on steroids - greater levels of incarceration, abused by the police, terrible generational poverty and so on.)
(And one more thing about the US: I always get the argument about the second amendment preventing government overreach... but first, do other western Democracies have government overreach problems the US lacks, such that the 2A is the proven factor that must be responsible? And two, do you really think guns would stop government overreach? They have tanks, planes, drones and the most powerful military in the world. Plus, they could just legislate whatever overreach you're afraid of into law (I'm not clear on the hypothetical of choice is) - what are you going to do, shoot every congressperson?)
"Additionally, there is good evidence that using the power of the federal government to require private actors to treat people equitably across various protected class distinctions (race, gender, sexuality, etc.) has had a negative effect on real-world equity. The common example cited is the effect the Americans with Disabilities Act had on the employment rate of people with disabilities. This is similar to the concept that affirmative action in US higher education has had net negative effects on educational attainment. Further reading on this subject is available from minds like Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas and (less seriously) Charles Barkley."
I wasn't familiar with the effect of ADA on the employment rate of people with disabilities - interesting read. I don't know if it means that the ADA is *net negative* though - because it definitely means better jobs and protections for those who who do have them. I think the difference in our worldviews is that you see the unintended consequences and think 'the ADA was a mistake, then, and we shouldn't interfere in this kind of thing', whereas I think 'we just need to do an even better job in the future'. I think that non-discrimination laws are inherently a good idea, and we just need to craft better legislation and allocate more money towards appropriate efforts (and if you think we don't have enough money to, check out how much money got printed to send to big businesses just over the Coronavirus period alone!). Even the post you link to says just as much in one of the replies - some efforts provably DO reduce discrimination, so we just need to filter out the good from the bad.
Anyway, this whole post seems a bit scattershot; what is your core thesis? I think this would have better focus if you definitively post things that BLM groups are trying to do and then debated THOSE on the merits, rather than picking random things that you historically think are bad ideas.
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Patashu wrote:
I'm not an expert in this field, but I know that Marijuana is objectively less dangerous to use than cigarettes and alcohol; the main reason why it's illegal is historical reasons, not due to evidence based reasoning (look up the War on Drugs).
Directly less dangerous doesn't mean it won't have indirect consequences. For example, one may start with using it rarely, then more frequently, then finds oneself psychologically dependent on it, and can't stop anymore. Still no direct harm probably. Now imagine getting pure marijuana becomes problematic. One has to switch to cheaper replacements, and that's where it may start slowly damaging how your body functions, up to death, or committing crimes while not fully conscious.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Making a second post since it's a different person.
"I didn't want to hijack Upthorn's submission just for the sake of pointing out parts that I took issue with. Yes, I agree issues surrounding policing aren't relegated to black people. However, people need to accept they're disproportional poor and more prone to committing crime than other groups. Leading to more confrontations with the police. Where either they or the officers involved do something which leads to them getting brutalised or killed."
It is true that black people are poorer than white people, on average (it's also true that even after adjusting for economic status, black people have a harder time climbing the economic ladder, being more likely to fall than to rise than if they were white - see page 1. Interesting!). I think that after adjusting for economic status, black people commit crimes at about the same rate as white people (don't currently have a source for this - feel free to prompt me if you'd like me to look).
Anyway, with that aside, I was curious about this still, so I googled around a bit, and found an interesting study, summarized here:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/chicago-police-department-consent-decree-black-lives-matter-resistance.html
Boiled down by the title, 'New Data Shows Police Use More Force Against Black Citizens Even Though Whites Resist More', and it goes into more detail if you're curious.
Anyway, if you agree with this, then it causally does not follow that it's entirely black people's fault that the police use more force against them than white people. If you think this is wrong or irrelevant, then let me know why - I'd be curious!
"You'll likely find wrong doing from both police and protesters in this instance. If you're going to get into calling responses war crimes. That's going to take some serious evidence. Not just conformation biases."
I think the 'war crime' reference is specifically towards using tear gas on peaceful protestors (which is not just well documented, but has happened on live TV, TO reporters!), since tear gas is banned as a weapon in wars but is allowed by the police. If you agree with that logic it's pretty open-and-shut, but I also think about things like police vans being run into crowds of protestors, which has been caught on camera, and I also find to be pretty horrific.
If you consider the plural of anecdote to be data, T. Greg Doucette has crowdsourced a compilation of over 500 documented cases of police brutality against protestors since George Floyd's death, with video evidence, available here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_police_violence_incidents_during_George_Floyd_protests
Obviously the actual argument being made here is 'well, maybe the protestors are just as bad towards the police as vice versa, so it's equitable and justified'. But if you sit down and watch these clips, they often feature peaceful protestors who did not initiate with any violent acts, which doesn't seem justifiable.
"There's good reasons not to say anything. There's plenty of forums I've stayed well clear of saying anything, because of how unreasonable in general the people who frequent these places are. The fact I'm posting on here about it means I have a great deal more respect for the average user who posts here."
I will copy from my other post where I gave my own thoughts on these kinds of messages, since my thoughts have not changed:
"To add on a bit to upthorn's post: Not literally every person has enough time and energy in their lives to be well researched and actively engage in every political issue that exists within society. While it is true that inaction in the face of oppression is to side with the oppressor, not literally every person even has any kind of weight or voice or energy left to have any sway from the issue. It's not an indictment of YOU, the reader, on an individual level - more a general structural statement, where people who have power choose to stay silent and do nothing. (Similar to how, say... to combat global warming, it would definitely be good if as many people ate vegetarian as possible - but people who don't read this and immediately go vegetarian aren't Bad People who need to be shunned, it's just not a choice they can invest time and effort in right now, and that's fine.)"
"All Lives Matter, and the only way evil can thrive is for good people to do nothing."
For the record, here is why people, including me, say Black Lives Matter and not All Lives Matter:
When a friend of ours is hurting, we don't console them and pledge to make them whole by saying that it's a bad thing when it happens to everyone, not just them. We acknowledge that they've been wronged and pledge to do something to make it better in the future.
This is the same kind of thing - while it is true that the world is full of problems and forms of discrimination, when people say Black Lives Matter, they are fighting for the cause that hurts them and their friends, that they want to see fought and fixed. To hear that and say All Lives Matter is like saying that their cause is not as important as they say it is - to say that they're shouting too hard, protesting too much, that they should calm down and be reasonable and civil. But being quiet and waiting your turn historically does not get results; sometimes it takes protesting and hooting and hollering and not getting drowned out in the backdrop. Protests like this get national attention - they start a debate - they get people thinking about the issues, why people would be so fired up about this, and it actually sways people's opinion and gets legislation written and passed, and it's the actual results that are the goal.
Making a third post since it's a different person.
"Directly less dangerous doesn't mean it won't have indirect consequences. For example, one may start with using it rarely, then more frequently, then finds oneself psychologically dependent on it, and can't stop anymore. Still no direct harm probably. Now imagine getting pure marijuana becomes problematic. One has to switch to cheaper replacements, and that's where it may start slowly damaging how your body functions, up to death, or committing crimes while not fully conscious."
Sure, anything can be bad when abused. But that doesn't mean we ban, say, video games since you could use them as a crutch to neglect other more important parts of your life. To wit, you can be psychologically dependent on literally anything.
The question is more like...is taking marijuana inherently so bad that we make society better by insuring that its use is criminalized? We can assess it on a variety of factors - its physical effects, its mental effects, its physically addictive properties and so on. Alcohol can cause physical addiction, is dangerous in large quantities and reduces your inhibition - Cigarettes cause long term physical damage and are extremely physically addictive - in contrast, marijuana does not cause physically addiction and is basically incapable of killing you. It does of course cause psychological and physical effects, but they're in aggregate less harmful than these other two drugs. If you look at it objectively, if marijuana is so dangerous that it needs to be criminalized, you should criminalize alcohol and cigarettes even harder!
Source: https://www.sciencealert.com/marijuana-weed-or-alcohol-health-impact-science-evidence-2018
It's also worth noting that your 'pure marijuana idea' is not only a slippery slope, but actually what's more likely to happen when we DON'T decriminalize. What we have now is a black market where by definition anyone who sells marijuana is unregulated and can sell it however they like. If we decriminalize it, then we can also require it to be grown and sold through legal channels, and regulate what marijuana is allowed to be, and thereby ban any forms of it that are unsafe.
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I'm not saying anything about alcohol or cigarettes, nor about (de-)criminalization of them or marijuana.
I don't think it's sane to deny the problems you're describing. I don't think it's sane to keep things as they are in that area, because they don't solve any real problems right now. I just think that any verdict should be well-balanced, even if it can't affect what politicians may decide. So I added a couple relevant aspects to the general stance.
Also it would help a lot if you used the forum tag for quotes instead of just "".
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
"All Lives Matter, and the only way evil can thrive is for good people to do nothing."
For the record, here is why people, including me, say Black Lives Matter and not All Lives Matter:
When a friend of ours is hurting, we don't console them and pledge to make them whole by saying that it's a bad thing when it happens to everyone, not just them. We acknowledge that they've been wronged and pledge to do something to make it better in the future.
This is the same kind of thing - while it is true that the world is full of problems and forms of discrimination, when people say Black Lives Matter, they are fighting for the cause that hurts them and their friends, that they want to see fought and fixed. To hear that and say All Lives Matter is like saying that their cause is not as important as they say it is - to say that they're shouting too hard, protesting too much, that they should calm down and be reasonable and civil. But being quiet and waiting your turn historically does not get results; sometimes it takes protesting and hooting and hollering and not getting drowned out in the backdrop. Protests like this get national attention - they start a debate - they get people thinking about the issues, why people would be so fired up about this, and it actually sways people's opinion and gets legislation written and passed, and it's the actual results that are the goal.
Should black people be more concerned about being shot by a police officer of another race, or being killed by someone who looks and sounds like them?
Should trans people be more concerned about trans gender bathrooms or mental health issues that lead to them having high rates of depression and suicide?
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There's a mission statement I linked on the word "comrade" which uses such terms including references to disapproval of the "Western nuclear family." With respect to the exact scholarship on that issue, it's believed that being raised by exactly two parents through to 18, regardless of gender/sexuality, has a causative effect on higher incomes and lower crime rates which is not observed in single parents or being raised by extended families. So my take here is that the mission statement shows how BLM and other left wing protest movements have a disdain for Western capitalist culture when it either has nothing to do with or in some cases would help the issue of black lives being incarcerated.
I think there is reasonable argument to be had that our gun and speech rights reinforce each other - in America you can't be arrested for reporting the names of people on trial for rape or fined/jailed for making jokes involving Nazis (both things that have happened in the UK/EU). In regard to the efficacy of an armed US against the government (slight derail), think about how bad the US lost in Vietnam. Then multiply that by 10x for how much more spread out the US is, and 10x again for how armed US citizens are. America could never sustain itself in a geurilla war against its own citizens.
A better way to phrase the core thesis of the post might be "here are some things BLM either directly says they believe or commonly believes in their membership, and here are some issues with those beliefs that are serious enough to explain why someone would be hesitant to promote their protests even if they want to dismantle mass incarceration and police brutality."
I'm not saying anything about alcohol or cigarettes, nor about (de-)criminalization of them or marijuana.
I don't think it's sane to deny the problems you're describing. I don't think it's sane to keep things as they are in that area, because they don't solve any real problems right now. I just think that any verdict should be well-balanced, even if it can't affect what politicians may decide. So I added a couple relevant aspects to the general stance.
Also it would help a lot if you used the forum tag for quotes instead of just "".
Sure.
And I basically agree, but additionally to that think that if you weigh all the evidence, then you come to the conclusion that decriminalizing marijuana is a net good. It's not some miracle flawless perfect substance, no. But more importantly, it's not the devil.
Mitjitsu wrote:
Should black people be more concerned about being shot by a police officer of another race, or being killed by someone who looks and sounds like them?
Should trans people be more concerned about trans gender bathrooms or mental health issues that lead to them having high rates of depression and suicide?
A couple of things, here.
* Can we focus on more than one problem at once? This is basically the 'but what about starving children in Africa?' arguement. More than one thing can be bad at once - more than one thing can warrant our desire to solve it at once.
* So here's an interesting fact - the race of the police officer doesn't particularly matter. For whatever reason, both white and black officers disproportionately shoot and kill black people compared to their proportion of the population. This would indicate that it's not a 'white people hate black people!' problem, but a 'something about how the police works in the US has gone wrong, here' problem.
Source:
https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2019/the-truth-behind-racial-disparities-in-fatal-police-shootings/
“We found that the race of the officer doesn’t matter when it comes to predicting whether black or white citizens are shot," Cesario said. "If anything, black citizens are more likely to have been shot by black officers, but this is because black officers are drawn from the same population that they police. So, the more black citizens there are in a community, the more black police officers there are.”
* And yes, it is important for black people to be able to trust their local police officers, since they uphold the law and maintain the police - if you don't feel safe calling them to report a crime because you're worried that they won't take you as seriously as they would a white person, then who does that benefit? It's well known that black families have to give their sons 'the talk' on how to interact with police, because police officers are less likely to take black people seriously and more likely to use force. (source: https://news.wttw.com/2020/06/08/having-talk-how-families-prepare-black-children-police-interactions )
* Yes, it's also a worthy cause to minimize black-on-black violence, and in large part we can help combat this by reducing incarceration and economic discrimination against black people, since poverty is a large part of what causes people to turn to crime and violence. But I find it a bit of an oddly chosen phrasing to say that a black person, and not a white or black police officer, is someone who 'looks and sounds like them'. Black people aren't inherently more violent, it's more like they're in a society where they're more likely to be poor, discriminated against and in improverished neighbourhoods, and if we did that to any other minority (and in some countries we do!) we'd see similar results.
* Trans people don't want special trans-only bathrooms - they want to use THEIR preferred gender bathroom (a gender neutral bathroom also works!) and don't want to be judged or discriminated against for it. In that sense, they want to do the same thing you want to do - they want to pee and poop in peace.
* The source of 'mental health issues' that plague trans people is, for the most part, caused by bigotry against transgender people and obstacles in their way against transitioning. Transitioning and being accepted as your new gender identity IS what lowers the suicide rate of transgender people. It's not some weird, inexplicable mental issue about transness that makes them want to commit suicide, it's society's judgement that causes the problem.
TiKevin83 wrote:
There's a mission statement I linked on the word "comrade" which uses such terms including references to disapproval of the "Western nuclear family." ... So my take here is that the mission statement shows how BLM and other left wing protest movements have a disdain for Western capitalist culture when it either has nothing to do with or in some cases would help the issue of black lives being incarcerated.
Okay, fair.
TiKevin83 wrote:
With respect to the exact scholarship on that issue, it's believed that being raised by exactly two parents through to 18, regardless of gender/sexuality, has a causative effect on higher incomes and lower crime rates which is not observed in single parents or being raised by extended families.
Source, please?
TiKevin83 wrote:
I think there is reasonable argument to be had that our gun and speech rights reinforce each other - in America you can't be arrested for reporting the names of people on trial for rape or fined/jailed for making jokes involving Nazis (both things that have happened in the UK/EU).
I don't think these are bad things, but fair (your point is basically 'non-US countries could continue to criminalize other things, some of which I would disagree with, and that couldn't happen in the US because of the first amendment', which I find no holes in).
TiKevin83 wrote:
In regard to the efficacy of an armed US against the government (slight derail), think about how bad the US lost in Vietnam. Then multiply that by 10x for how much more spread out the US is, and 10x again for how armed US citizens are. America could never sustain itself in a geurilla war against its own citizens.
I suspect that Vietnam is a bit of a special case? It was extremely awful terrain that was very well utilized by the natives. In a more open urban environment things would be much different. The example I'd use is more like, say... the War on Iraq, where the US rolled in, made a giant mess of the place and overthrew its current government with ease. Although I'm not particularly sure of what the goals of the US oppressing its own citizens would be, and how that would go, so this is far beyond my wheelhouse to speculate on further. Point is, the US would have tanks, drones and planes and it could precision assassinate anyone who was a threat to its own interest, regardless of how many guns those people owned, if it wanted to.
TiKevin83 wrote:
A better way to phrase the core thesis of the post might be "here are some things BLM either directly says they believe or commonly believes in their membership, and here are some issues with those beliefs that are serious enough to explain why someone would be hesitant to promote their protests even if they want to dismantle mass incarceration and police brutality."
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Patashu wrote:
And I basically agree, but additionally to that think that if you weigh all the evidence, then you come to the conclusion that decriminalizing marijuana is a net good. It's not some miracle flawless perfect substance, no. But more importantly, it's not the devil.
Honest curiosity since I don't know the subject: there seem to be a lot of ideas that would help reducing the current level of harm related to smoking and drinking (and selling those substances), but are there some good ideas that would help people not to even start consuming them? If something is decriminalized, it's ought to become widely available, so that kinda automatically invites more people to at least try, just because "it's ok now". Or is it always a fight between a black market that's always there and always offers whatever is illegal, on one side, and implicitly inviting the undecided laymen into the "now legal" area, on the other side?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Honest curiosity since I don't know the subject: there seem to be a lot of ideas that would help reducing the current level of harm related to smoking and drinking (and selling those substances), but are there some good ideas that would help people not to even start consuming them? If something is decriminalized, it's ought to become widely available, so that kinda automatically invites more people to at least try, just because "it's ok now". Or is it always a fight between a black market that's always there and always offers whatever is illegal, on one side, and implicitly inviting the undecided laymen into the "now legal" area, on the other side?
Good question!
I know the answer for cigarettes, at least - making the packaging less exciting (replacing branding with mandatory medical warnings) is something that was done in Australia, and has been proven to cut down on youth usage on cigarettes. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_tobacco_packaging#Evidence
The 'Government' section in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4934164/ also has other ideas for what kidns of legislation can be applied.
But I don't know if this is applicable to alcohol and marijuana (lacking the same levels of physical addiction and long term health damage that cigarettes do). And your real question is more like 'will decriminalizing a drug make people use it more, increasing the net harm on society it has'? And I think a big rebuttal to this idea is - well, people are ALREADY using it a ton. It is not actually particularly hard to get marijuana, just not technically legal - just as alcohol remained ubiquitous during the United States' prohibition era that tried to clamp down on it wholesale as a health hazard. When people want something bad enough and the government tries to keep you down, it turns into the 'cool' thing to do and goes black market.
But as for actual DATA for marijuana... I looked around and couldn't find anything definitive. It might be that legalization in the US is too new to draw any numbers from it. e.g. I found https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-what-the-numbers-show-about-the-impact-of-legalizing-marijuana-2019-04-09 which basically says 'shrug, it's inconclusive'. If anyone here has better google fu than me, then feel free.
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If the experiment with rats and heroin is real, I think the only good way to make people generally need drugs less is working hard on improving the social life in all aspects. Bonus points if people have some room for designing healthy horizontal social relationships by working together on those problems! The less fun the social life is, the harder one tries to recreate via questionable substances.
That's my personal opinion so far, but I don't know the statistics at all. Do you know if it's been proven either way by actual experiments and researches?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
If the experiment with rats and heroin is real, I think the only good way to make people generally need drugs less is working hard on improving the social life in all aspects. Bonus points if people have some room for designing healthy horizontal social relationships by working together on those problems! The less fun the social life is, the harder one tries to recreate via questionable substances.
That's my personal opinion so far, but I don't know the statistics at all. Do you know if it's been proven either way by actual experiments and researches?
This is certainly an agreeable view to have! e.g. https://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/ndarc/resources/TR.228.pdf is a long read, but from skimming it it seems to indicate that poor socio-economic conditions are a risk factor for drug usage. So these kinds of problems can often be helped just by making peoples' lives generally better rather than needing to attack drugs themselves.
I don't know what the science is for your specific claim, and I'd be curious to know too.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
I think it's important to take into account that many people don't do drugs because they feel sad or want to be socially accepted, but to experiment with the higher consciousness level and the resulting extra awareness they believe they can gain through some of them.
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I wanted to wait a while before responding to Patashu. There was a couple of sources I wanted to take a closer look at. While I don't have much of issue in terms of the evidence he's used. I do take issue with the conclusions he's wilfully drawn from them i.e. trying to shift blame to the everyday person.
Patashu wrote:
Mitjitsu wrote:
Should black people be more concerned about being shot by a police officer of another race, or being killed by someone who looks and sounds like them?
Should trans people be more concerned about trans gender bathrooms or mental health issues that lead to them having high rates of depression and suicide?
* And yes, it is important for black people to be able to trust their local police officers, since they uphold the law and maintain the police - if you don't feel safe calling them to report a crime because you're worried that they won't take you as seriously as they would a white person, then who does that benefit? It's well known that black families have to give their sons 'the talk' on how to interact with police, because police officers are less likely to take black people seriously and more likely to use force. (source: https://news.wttw.com/2020/06/08/having-talk-how-families-prepare-black-children-police-interactions )
I'm sure most of us have been stopped and questioned by the police at some point. When we haven't done anything wrong. In that situation I believe the onus is on you to know how to deal them. That way you get it over and done with quickly and don't get fined or arrested. If you don't, then either you don't have much sense; don't listen to anyone; your parents or school haven't taught you or worse your peers or other people have given you terrible advice which either leads to some altercation or getting arrested. Some of it I attribute to those ghetto Al Sharpton's online running their mouths off about how cops are gangsters; members of the KKK and are death squads for black people. If a black person chooses to believe that they're going to start acting up or evading them. Which could escalate to them getting killed.
Patashu wrote:
* Yes, it's also a worthy cause to minimize black-on-black violence, and in large part we can help combat this by reducing incarceration and economic discrimination against black people, since poverty is a large part of what causes people to turn to crime and violence. But I find it a bit of an oddly chosen phrasing to say that a black person, and not a white or black police officer, is someone who 'looks and sounds like them'. Black people aren't inherently more violent, it's more like they're in a society where they're more likely to be poor, discriminated against and in improverished neighbourhoods, and if we did that to any other minority (and in some countries we do!) we'd see similar results.
I don't see how reducing incarceration is going to reduce crime. That's like saying if we abolish all laws then crime will be eradicated. Economic discrimination requires explanation. That kind of coded language requires explaining how they're being economically discriminated against. Only works if people are already on board with your lines of thinking. I suspect the reason you didn't go into more depth on that is any outcome you do find will likely either be hard to prove or have an innocent explanation for. You'll find crime being committed at all levels of society. Poorer people tend to engage in violent low level crime; middle class tend engage in organised crime; rich tend to engage in corruption knowing that they're for all intents and purposes are above the law. Fundamentally you're using the argument that poverty causes crime, which was the prevailing orthodoxy in the 60's. However, I think it may very well be the other other way round, because if an area is highly prone to theft and violence, then whose going to setup a business there, thus employ people?
Patashu wrote:
* Trans people don't want special trans-only bathrooms - they want to use THEIR preferred gender bathroom (a gender neutral bathroom also works!) and don't want to be judged or discriminated against for it. In that sense, they want to do the same thing you want to do - they want to pee and poop in peace.
The main issue caused here is women who're not trans, but cross dressers hiding in bathrooms so they can sexually assault other women. Fundamentally I don't like the idea of governments getting involved here dictating what's what. I went to a newly opened restaurant recently and noticed they had a half dozen individual cubical's. Makes me wonder if that debate had an influence here.
Patashu wrote:
* The source of 'mental health issues' that plague trans people is, for the most part, caused by bigotry against transgender people and obstacles in their way against transitioning. Transitioning and being accepted as your new gender identity IS what lowers the suicide rate of transgender people. It's not some weird, inexplicable mental issue about transness that makes them want to commit suicide, it's society's judgement that causes the problem.
This to me amounts to "it's your fault they feel that way". Much of the time it was likely a bad and unnecessary decision to go trans that may lead to them feeling depressed or suicidal. Seeking good and confidential advice or counselling may have been a better decision.
I'm sure most of us have been stopped and questioned by the police at some point. When we haven't done anything wrong. In that situation I believe the onus is on you to know how to deal them. That way you get it over and done with quickly and don't get fined or arrested. If you don't, then either you don't have much sense; don't listen to anyone; your parents or school haven't taught you or worse your peers or other people have given you terrible advice which either leads to some altercation or getting arrested. Some of it I attribute to those ghetto Al Sharpton's online running their mouths off about how cops are gangsters; members of the KKK and are death squads for black people. If a black person chooses to believe that they're going to start acting up or evading them. Which could escalate to them getting killed.
Breonna Taylor was literally killed in her sleep, how are you supposed to act "differently" if you're not even conscious? And there are tons of times when people act appropriately, yet still get shot by the police.
The main issue caused here is women who're not trans, but cross dressers hiding in bathrooms so they can sexually assault other women. Fundamentally I don't like the idea of governments getting involved here dictating what's what. I went to a newly opened restaurant recently and noticed they had a half dozen individual cubical's. Makes me wonder if that debate had an influence here.
I have yet to see any evidence of this actually happening, the people that typically perform assaults in bathrooms don't care about any sorts of laws. They don't come up with fake gender identities in order to assault women. They simply try to force women one way or another, there's no need for them to hide behind an identity.
Patashu wrote:
* The source of 'mental health issues' that plague trans people is, for the most part, caused by bigotry against transgender people and obstacles in their way against transitioning. Transitioning and being accepted as your new gender identity IS what lowers the suicide rate of transgender people. It's not some weird, inexplicable mental issue about transness that makes them want to commit suicide, it's society's judgement that causes the problem.
This to me amounts to "it's your fault they feel that way". Much of the time it was likely a bad and unnecessary decision to go trans that may lead to them feeling depressed or suicidal. Seeking good and confidential advice or counselling may have been a better decision.
Transition regret is extremely uncommon. As a trans person, my only real complaints are with how society treats people like me and with how annoying the process is. Ultimately a more fluid view of gender altogether would eliminate most regrets.
EDIT: Given how much gatekeeping is involved in the process of transitioning, typically only the most sure actually go through with it to begin with.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Breonna Taylor's story seems to be more of an argument against no knock warrants. She and her boyfriend thought the plainclothes police that forcably entered into their home were intruders and shot at them, then the officers fired back.
Correction: Her boyfriend, and only her boyfriend thought the police that entered were home intruders and shot at them. Then the officers returned fire but only managed to hit Breonna because she was still asleep.
Also:
the no-knock warrant was not for Breonna Taylor's apartment.
The person the warrant was for was already in police custody.
Breonna's boyfriend was initially charged for her murder, and attempted murder of the police who illegally entered his home, and the charges were only dropped because of the massive public outcry that it was clearly self-defense.
I'll agree that, like, the first two points here seem like they may have been legit mistakes/miscommunication that are just a massive argument for no-knock warrants.
I do believe that there is a chance that, for a white person, the police may have responded to gunfire by announcing themselves rather than firing back without a word, but I don't have a huge amount of certainty about that.
Whether or not the events played out as they did because of issues related to race, the fact that the police completely lied about what happened on the incident report is a massive argument.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
" Economic discrimination requires explanation"
You asked. Many of these massacres were white people being triggered by black people gaining status and wealth. WARNING some of these descriptions might be disturbing. https://listverse.com/2019/10/23/10-of-the-worst-massacres-of-african-americans-disturbing-images/
The US since the Emancipation Proclamation has had groups of people deliberately putting down African Americans. After being freed there was a deal to give former slaves wealth in the form of unoccupied land, but instead it was mostly rescinded then given to white people, with many blacks forced to leave the land. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_acres_and_a_mule
More recently In WW2, blacks did not get the same benefits their fellow soldiers did. Millions were denied access to education and other benefits like lower mortgage rates. https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-benefits.
The real question should be how can we stop this discrimination? Not whether it exists. Because it is clear as day. If you have eyes and ears and listen to people and read their stories and what happened through history it should be OBVIOUS.
These are historical grievances that already have had laws and practices in place to prevent them. They have next to no relevance in the here and now. Other than those who see it as an excuse to burn. loot and riot.
Those are historical examples, because they're explaining how we got here to this place now. Arguing in that way is ridiculously dishonest. You can't just say "economic discrimination requires explanation" and then when someone gives you the context you're asking for go, "lol but that's in the past and it doesn't matter." Yes, it matters.
There are not "laws and practices in place to prevent them." While the Civil Rights Act exists, it's being poked at (for instance, voting provisions recently struck down in court which resulted in the immediate disenfranchisement of black communities). And it's not always enforced. (Not to mention, that society is more than just the government acting on the citizens, it also includes discrimination from citizen to citizen.)
Moreover, there are clear patterns of policing which proves that the police target black people. For instance, there are studies which show that the police pull over black people disproportionately, but only during the daytime.
Finally, poverty is a generational phenomenon. Your grandfather gaining the ability to purchase a home and land absolutely is correlated with your current financial situation. It decides what schools you have access to, which help inform what options you have for a career. You can determine the success of a student with high confidence by using only their zip code.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Funny how you've accused me of being dismissive, but have more or less done the same thing to me, but I digress. However, there was one bold assumption you made I take issue with.
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
The assumption is that our system of governance is fair and just, and good things happen to people who deserve good things, so if bad things are happening to you then you must be somehow bad.
I don't think it's just or fair. The fundamental reason I hate government as a whole is because it's a zero sum game. One group of people see it as vehicle to transfer wealth, power and property to themselves. The others want to use it to entrench their position in society (often unfairly at the expense of keeping other people down). If only poor people get to run government the former will happen; if only rich people get to run the government the latter will end up happening. There's a reason why wealthy people, unions and special interest groups are so heavily invested in politics and that's because government has the ability to dish out so many favors. As much as I don't like the people in government; the people who're trying to instigate race riots I have an even greater dislike for.
