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What's New in Baltimore? A Frank Zappa tune from the 80's.
Just a little detail from when I had a run in with organized police activity in NYC. After a night in the filthy cages of pier 57, they left a group of us handcuffed on a bus for several hours during a hot August afternoon. I recall the officers laughing and saying something along the lines of "have a fun ride" when we left the pier. I had always assumed that we sat on the bus for hours because they we so disorganized, (we were told that they could not hand us over to the corrections dept. officers at "the tombs" without our arresting officer) but now I really wonder if it was just a way to stick it to a group of us. My friend and I on the bus were later charged with misdemeanors in addition to the other charges, while my other friends who didn't wait on the bus for hours received lesser charges...
The worst part was listening to a guy on another bus screaming that his cuffs were too tight. I still feel sick and sad to remember that after hours and hours of his screaming, I just wanted him to shut up, even though I knew he was in great pain.
Fun times!
I hope the cops of Baltimore (and everywhere else) get what is coming to them.
I hope the cops of Baltimore (and everywhere else) get what is coming to them.
Pay raises from their corporate overlords after the reminder of how close some segments of the population are from going galt?
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Pay raises from their corporate overlords after the reminder of how close some segments of the population are from going galt?
Looking into my Crystal Ball of Cynicism, I see the future of the police involved in the Baltimore incident....
I see paid time off...
I see no indictment and a happy prosecutor...
I see them being reprimanded for failing to "buckle-up" a suspect...
[tosses crystal ball over shoulder] Man, f&+@ this thing! Where is my Magic 8 ball? At least that thing allowed the possibility of progress.
"Ask Again Later" is better then reality!
EDIT: "Gray's family told the Baltimore Sun newspaper that doctors at a local hospital performed surgeries to treat three broken vertebrae and an injured voice box. He was comatose until his death on Sunday."
Hmmm, sounds self inflicted to me...
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Take a look at where most police brutality is directed and the answer becomes a lot more obvious.It is interesting how so many conservative types, always worried about government overreach and abuse of power, seem to have no problem with the most blatant example: police brutality.
To be slightly more charitable, it might also be an example of the Just World Fallacy. The police happen to people who 'deserve' it.
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You look like a dork with your notepad.
Alternate response: You look like you're really into photography.
I specifically meant spending money on defending bad workers. Sorry if I was unclear. Although, it's true, arbitration cases can cost a lot.
But, again, I don't really see how this is pertinent to the thread, so I'm inclined (but no promises) to ignore further posts on the matter.
Sorry, I was putting all those expenses just for defending the bad members, not just the day to day operations.
Obviously, if the unions are bribing people, they should be busted for that.
I'm sure it happens. I doubt it's a significant expense these days. (Unions have cleaned up a lot since the mob days.)
Whom do you expect to investigate the unions? The members of the unions? Bribery and payoffs are they way the system works. The union (or business, or rich citizen, or anyone with a bit of cash) needs something done, they find the person/politician/government official, slip them some cash/campaign donation/booze/whatever and it gets done.
I highly suggest you check out the book http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/78ndq5ty9780252078552.html Corrupt Illinois. It's specific to Illinois corruption, but is pretty good for showing how the corrupt system works.
As for the unions cleaning up, two union officials managed to scam themselves 6 figure pensions from the State of Illinois for working 1 day each as a substitute teacher. (That is their only time working for the State.)
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The fact that I have a right to life does not require you to feed me. As originally understood, if I had a "right" to demand food from you, you would effectively be my slave with your liberty and property being at least partially infringed by your duty of having to supply my food on demand. How then, do I get fed? I either grow the food myself, practice some sort of trade that will enable me to make money so I can buy food, or as a last resort depend on charity. Charity back in the day was the province of the family and the church. Government was neither seen as nor intended to be the "charity" of last resort.The great part about progress is that we can grow past earlier concepts into later concepts the evolved from them. With time, and with mankind's improved capacities thanks to technology, many things that were once true no longer are.
We accumulated knowledge, we constructed more sophisticated structures of thought and layered them on the foundations prior generations lay for us.
In other words, rights are a great ideal, but they're not based in empiricism.
This just sort of reinforces my idea of political conservatism as theorycrafting vs. play experience.
Not really. Both liberalism and conservatism are theories, a way to look at the world. Either could be implemented in different ways - as an extreme example, fascism is an implementation of conservatism and communism is an implementation of liberalism. They both ended up looking remarkably similar back there in the previous century.
I mean, the names are just labels plastered over incredibly broad arrays of approaches to a vast number of subjects that sometimes interlock and sometimes don't.
In either case, it is borderline absurd to claim that conservatism is more grounded in reality than liberalism is. Do conservatives unanimously have more experience than liberals? since both camps are so broad that it is virtually impossible that one is on average more experienced in the "real world" than the other. Conservatism means different things in different countries, for different races and genders, for different time periods... There was a while there, you know, when conservative thought in Europe was that the world is flat and is the center of the universe. It wasn't because those ideas fit reality better - there existed scientific knowledge at the time to contradict that - it was because those ideas fit the conservative philosophy of the time and place better.
You look like a dork with your notepad.
Alternate response: You look like you're really into photography.
I told Brother Cobb that I was having an argument on the internet about his article about C.O. Chinn and he brightened up. "C.O. Chinn is one of my heroes!" "Yeah, me too!" I replied.
This just sort of reinforces my idea of political conservatism as theorycrafting vs. play experience.Not really. Both liberalism and conservatism are theories, a way to look at the world. Either could be implemented in different ways - as an extreme example, fascism is an implementation of conservatism and communism is an implementation of liberalism. They both ended up looking remarkably similar back there in the previous century.
I mean, the names are just labels plastered over incredibly broad arrays of approaches to a vast number of subjects that sometimes interlock and sometimes don't.
I think you're more correct in your second paragraph than you are in your first. Both "liberalism" and "conservatism" have their empirical wings as well as their theoretical and ideologically pure wings (that tend to be inhabited only by, er, "wing"-nuts).
Empirical conservatism is based on the idea that things that we do now and work should not be messed with. "Why change what works?" or "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" are good summaries. However, this is specifically based on actual things that we are actually doing now, not on some idealized "intention of the Founding Fathers" or a halcyon Golden Age that never really occurred.
Empirical liberalism is best summed up by Harry Truman's approach to problem solving: "We'll try this solution, and if it doesn't work, we'll try something else," or, more simply, "there's a first time for everything." Just because something hasn't been tried doesn't mean that it won't work -- but it also doesn't mean that it will, of course. But the manifest problems around today certainly show that what we have tried doesn't work, so we need to "try something else."
Empirical conservatism is based on the idea that things that we do now and work should not be messed with.
Doing this when its literally ON FIRE takes more than a little wishful thinking.
Sorry, I was putting all those expenses just for defending the bad members, not just the day to day operations.I specifically meant spending money on defending bad workers. Sorry if I was unclear. Although, it's true, arbitration cases can cost a lot.
But, again, I don't really see how this is pertinent to the thread, so I'm inclined (but no promises) to ignore further posts on the matter.
Yes, and as I said above, in my experiences (which don't pretend to be universal), the union doesn't spend any money putting out press releases, bribing politicians, whatever, to defend "bad" workers.
They just meet in the office, on the employer's dime, and talk stuff out.
Oh yeah, the other speaker was Judy Richardson.
IIRC, after the Mississippi Freedom Summer, she went on to work on Julian Bond's Democratic Party campaign for the Georgia legislature (don't quote me on details) [Boo! Break with the Democrats!] and ended up a documentarian. Played some role in the making of Eyes on the Prize.
Anyway, there was a table from the UMass Lowell bookstore there selling their respective latest, including "This Non-Violent..., so the subject came up during the Q&A and they were both as one about the ubiquity of guns during the CRM. [Rough paraphrase] "Everyone knew that if you were being chased by the Klan down the backroads of [I forget which] County, you made for Hartman Turnbow's farm, you'd be safe there, because he had a .12 gauge shotgun and he knew how to use it."
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Good.
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Not really. Both liberalism and conservatism are theories, a way to look at the world. Either could be implemented in different ways - as an extreme example, fascism is an implementation of conservatism and communism is an implementation of liberalism. They both ended up looking remarkably similar back there in the previous century.
I mean, the names are just labels plastered over incredibly broad arrays of approaches to a vast number of subjects that sometimes interlock and sometimes don't.
In either case, it is borderline absurd to claim that conservatism is more grounded in reality than liberalism is. Do conservatives unanimously have more experience than liberals? since both camps are so broad that it is virtually impossible that one is on average...
You've earned the following achievements: Epistemic Nihilism, Missing the Point Entirely and Interpreting Something to Mean the Opposite.
You'll notice that nowhere in my post did I mention liberalism. I'm not making this statement on some fictitious scale of left vs. right, nor am I talking about the British conservative party, or Israeli conservative party. I thought it was pretty clear from context I was talking about American politics.
Also, I'm saying that CONSERVATISM is unempirical. I'm not sure how you even misinterpreted that.
Conservatives in America, aside from being decidedly anti-science, like to make big bold claims about what will happen if we do X, Y or Z. Then, when that outcome fails to appear, they refuse to admit they were wrong and instead invent a new bugaboo. Sometimes they just keep beating a dead horse (Obamacare is bad, mmkay? What's that? You LIKE your insurance?).
Beyond that, though, progressive policies have a transparent end goal: improve the quality of life of our citizens. This is something that is testable. "Liberal" policies are based on science, social science, and math, given that the goal of government should be to work on behalf of and for the benefit of its citizens.
Conservative ideology is either purely reactionary (social conservatism, which I don't think there's a place for anymore) or based on debunked economic theories (for the most part) which are themselves unempirical (i.e. Mises, Hayek, et al). The only reasoning they can provide for these policies is nebulous ideas like natural rights.
Property rights say that if you own something legitimately no one can tell you what to do with it, and that you can transfer it to someone else.
Someone like myself might say "well, hang on, that just gives rationale to pollution. property isn't as delineated as we'd like and there are externalities. Furthermore, allowing someone to transfer their own property without regulation leads inexorably to the accumulation of wealth among a chosen few. Money is power, and power corrupts; the first priority of those in power is to stay in power. Without a check on this accumulation it leads to an oligarchy (or even aristocracy). Maybe we should enact policies that prevent that from happening."
Conservatives: "STOP TRYING TO ABRIDGE MY RIGHTS YOU COMMIE!"
Politics is a lot like systems design. Garbage in garbage out.
Good.
agreed.
This is just so wrong it's comical.
My money is on him being charged with resisting arrest.
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As he should have been, to be honest.
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If that is true then one is left with the impression that there may be at least some police officers who are functioning more like predators in the wild moving through a herd of herbivores than like law enforcement or peace officers.
I wasn't going to link this, but now I think I have to.
How do you know which ones are the good police? (Not sarcasm - honest question.)
"If they're shooting at you they're bad."
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As he should have been, to be honest."Should have been" is strong. Yes, he was in violation, but given how such things are selectively enforced...
Especially when you realize he was a strong and respected voice for non-violence in the community. Keeping those off the streets is kind of counter productive.
There was certainly no need for the kind of tactics used to pick him up. If he'd been in a crowd, sure, but he was alone with a wall of officers. You hardly need to cut him off with a Hummvee and 5 or 6 officers. Who are you cutting him off from, anyway?
I'd imagine from the reporters standing around just waiting to shove a microphone in their face and scream "Where are you taking him!?!? What has he done wrong!?!?!".
Similar "scandal" done this way but without the added risk of some officer rightfully telling them "He was breaking the curfew you f!@#ing moron", which gets spun into some story about police harassing the media or some garbage.
Police brutality is a big problem that needs to be reported on, but you have to imagine the ones just doing their jobs (as these seem to have been) must feel stuck between a rock and a hard place.
They're damned if they do (anything) and damned if they don't.
What does this tell us, that the people who are supposed to protect and serve the public generally do not.Your story actually tells us that you had two specific bad experiences with law enforcement figures. Anecdotes like that in no way indicate the general predilection of anything.
Now, by this I'm not saying the abuse of power is statistically insignificant. I suspect it's quite significant, actually. But I've not seen anything yet that has persuaded me that the MAJORITY of police officers in the United States are abusive or corrupt.
Whatever your personal experiences with police officers or other law enforcement, don't throw the baby out with the bath water, man.
Here's the thing: the majority doesn't matter. What we are facing is a systemic problem, and the system allows these incidents to continue regardless of what the majority feels. The majority obviously isn't acting against the minority much, because when they do, the thin blue line tends to wreck their careers. The majority of cops don't need to be abusive or corrupt, they just have to tolerate those who are, and you have a big problem like the one we have now. You also can't fix it by going after individual cops, because the problem has its roots in the system itself. You need to target how the system functions in order to fix it, which means finding some way to cut the thin blue line without going too far in the other direction, where cops can't do anything for fear of retaliation. If you don't do that, you won't get meaningful change, because those cops who are bad will still be able to mostly get away with s%*% on account of the thin blue line.
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Also, DA filed charges on six cops, and it seems that the one prisoner who claimed Freddie Gray was trying to hurt himself recanted, saying that law enforcement was embellishing what he actually said. The point is slowly getting hammered home.
How do you know which ones are the good police? (Not sarcasm - honest question.)
That's the problem - most of the time you don't and can't.
As he should have been, to be honest.
I wasn't aware that an americans right to protest only went from sun to sun.
As he should have been, to be honest.I wasn't aware that an americans right to protest only went from sun to sun.
He was within his rights to protest.
He was not in his rights to break the law by being out after the curfew.
If you are protesting and you steal something, it's a crime and you can be arrested. Same as if you assault someone, or murder someone, or commit any other crime.
Breaking the curfew is a crime, which he was arrested for. And he has since been released, last I heard.
As he should have been, to be honest.I wasn't aware that an americans right to protest only went from sun to sun.He was within his rights to protest.
He was not in his rights to break the law by being out after the curfew.
And how on earth are you supposed to do one without doing the other? You cannot simply make a law to stop protests simply by making it illegal to do anything that you would have to do to protest.
If you are protesting and you steal something, it's a crime and you can be arrested. Same as if you assault someone, or murder someone, or commit any other crime.
He wasn't stealing, he wasn't murdering, he was protesting, which was made de facto illegal all too often lately.
Breaking the curfew is a crime, which he was arrested for. And he has since been released, last I heard.
The effect on free speech is chilling either way.
As he should have been, to be honest.I wasn't aware that an americans right to protest only went from sun to sun.He was within his rights to protest.
He was not in his rights to break the law by being out after the curfew.
And how on earth are you supposed to do one without doing the other? You cannot simply make a law to stop protests simply by making it illegal to do anything that you would have to do to protest.
If you are protesting and you steal something, it's a crime and you can be arrested. Same as if you assault someone, or murder someone, or commit any other crime.He wasn't stealing, he wasn't murdering, he was protesting, which was made de facto illegal all too often lately.
Breaking the curfew is a crime, which he was arrested for. And he has since been released, last I heard.The effect on free speech is chilling either way.
The effect on free speech is nil. Maybe if a bunch of people hadn't been stealing things and setting fire to places a curfew wouldn't have been necessary.
But it was. And there's no point to having it if it's not going to be enforced.
Unless you're of the opinion that protests are only able to happen after 10 PM, this does not affect anyone's right to protest.
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The effect on free speech is nil.
... WHAT?
Being gased, beaten, and disappeared off the street is the epitome of government overreach against free speech. If this isn't government infringement then infringement simply isn't possible.
Maybe if a bunch of people hadn't been stealing things and setting fire to places a curfew wouldn't have been necessary.
Treating entire segments of the population that aren't doing anything wrong like criminals because you can't bother to tell them apart is exactly how we got into this situation.
Unless you're of the opinion that protests are only able to happen after 10 PM, this does not affect anyone's right to protest.
They can happen before 10 pm. they can happen after After 10 pm. They can keep going. America is a free speech zone.
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So, what would you have done, o wise Wolf?
What is your master solution for keeping rioting under control?
Curfews have been pretty damn effective since the dawn of civilization, so it better be something good.
And "gassed and beaten"? Nothing like that happened.
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So, what would you have done, o wise Wolf?
What is your master solution for keeping rioting under control?
Curfews have been pretty damn effective since the dawn of civilization, so it better be something good.
And "gassed and beaten"? Nothing like that happened.
A bunch of stuff thats insured anyway isn't nearly as valuable as our rights. They start a fire, THEN You send in the 35th airborn to protect the firemen. Someone's stealing? Arrest them. Someone's protesting, bring them coffee.
We put up with HOW many dead people for the second amendment? We can handle one out of control weenie roast for the first.
As he should have been, to be honest."Should have been" is strong. Yes, he was in violation, but given how such things are selectively enforced...
Especially when you realize he was a strong and respected voice for non-violence in the community. Keeping those off the streets is kind of counter productive.
There was certainly no need for the kind of tactics used to pick him up. If he'd been in a crowd, sure, but he was alone with a wall of officers. You hardly need to cut him off with a Hummvee and 5 or 6 officers. Who are you cutting him off from, anyway?
I'd imagine from the reporters standing around just waiting to shove a microphone in their face and scream "Where are you taking him!?!? What has he done wrong!?!?!".
Similar "scandal" done this way but without the added risk of some officer rightfully telling them "He was breaking the curfew you f%*~ing moron", which gets spun into some story about police harassing the media or some garbage.
Police brutality is a big problem that needs to be reported on, but you have to imagine the ones just doing their jobs (as these seem to have been) must feel stuck between a rock and a hard place.
They're damned if they do (anything) and damned if they don't.
okay- out past curfew. He needs to he arrested.
However, there were about a dozen smarter ways the police could have handled this, especially knowing they were on camera. Their strong-arm and unnecessary tactics are why they are in this mess. And I say this as someone who visits baltimore at least once a year.
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Yeah, you don't have a curfew breaker arrested by charging him and slamming him against a wall. Considering where he was and how he'd been behaving, that's just idiotic behavior that speaks to an ugly attitude towards protesters.
EDIT: Especially "funny" is that they were so eager for a wall to slam him against, they imported their own.
Agreed.
These cops need to be smarter. Law and order are important, but the police need to decide whether or not they want to be a public service or a brute squad.
"Not the right skin color?" Implying that there is a wrong one? How telling of you.
Not as telling as equivocation.
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So, what would you have done, o wise Wolf?
What is your master solution for keeping rioting under control?
Curfews have been pretty damn effective since the dawn of civilization, so it better be something good.
And "gassed and beaten"? Nothing like that happened.
A bunch of stuff thats insured anyway isn't nearly as valuable as our rights. They start a fire, THEN You send in the 35th airborn to protect the firemen. Someone's stealing? Arrest them. Someone's protesting, bring them coffee.
We put up with HOW many dead people for the second amendment? We can handle one out of control weenie roast for the first.
Grand ideals.
And yet, I notice you offer no practical solutions.
If it was your s*~! being stolen and burned, I'm sure your tune would change right quick.
I dunno, I like to think my rage would be constrained to the actual criminals and leave the protesters alone. But I'm not gonna be self-righteous about it. I'm pretty cloistered from all of this.
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The authoritarianism is strong in this thread.
I dunno, I like to think my rage would be constrained to the actual criminals and leave the protesters alone. But I'm not gonna be self-righteous about it. I'm pretty cloistered from all of this.
And how do you tell the difference until the crime has already happened? Especially when in some cases the two groups are made up of the same people.
Do you arrest dozens of people simultaneously, all over the city? Or just the scattered few who decide to break the curfew?
Seems like the former option is far more unpleasant for everyone involved. And logistically improbable. And likely pisses off more peopke, who then riot themselves. And isn't much consolation to the people whose businesses have been ransacked.
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There is such a thing as peaceful protesting but it hasn't been what is happening lately. Curfews were put into place to stop the RIOTING, not the protests. The protests just get screwed because they now have to stop protests at a certain time due to the curfew put into place because of the VIOLENT RIOTING. If the police don't enforce the curfew then everyone ignores it and houses, businesses, cars, etc. get trashed by the RIOTING.
2 main differences in the different groups: Protesters can get change enacted by demonstrating to the government (local or higher) that they aren't going to be ignored by having peaceful protests for however long is needed until they are heard. Rioters are people looking to cash in on misery by using an excuse of injustice as a means to lash out at the community, government, and police under a hopeful guise of mob anonymity to try to avoid responsibility for their actions. Rioters undermine a good peaceful protest.
I do think that what happened to the man is a horrible tragedy and really hope that those responsible are brought to justice, but violent protesting that destroyed property, injured a couple dozen police officers who probably have 0 to do with the case and are just as innocent as any peaceful protester, and undermined the way protests are viewed by the general public was a really stupid way to try to enact change.
A peaceful protest would have accomplished the same result without being hurtful to innocent people, innocent people's property, and to the view society has of protests.
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There is such a thing as peaceful protesting but it hasn't been what is happening lately. Curfews were put into place to stop the RIOTING, not the protests. The protests just get screwed because they now have to stop protests at a certain time due to the curfew put into place because of the VIOLENT RIOTING. If the police don't enforce the curfew then everyone ignores it and houses, businesses, cars, etc. get trashed by the RIOTING.
2 main differences in the different groups: Protesters can get change enacted by demonstrating to the government (local or higher) that they aren't going to be ignored by having peaceful protests for however long is needed until they are heard. Rioters are people looking to cash in on misery by using an excuse of injustice as a means to lash out at the community, government, and police under a hopeful guise of mob anonymity to try to avoid responsibility for their actions. Rioters undermine a good peaceful protest.
I do think that what happened to the man is a horrible tragedy and really hope that those responsible are brought to justice, but violent protesting that destroyed property, injured a couple dozen police officers who probably have 0 to do with the case and are just as innocent as any peaceful protester, and undermined the way protests are viewed by the general public was a really stupid way to try to enact change.
A peaceful protest would have accomplished the same result without being hurtful to innocent people, innocent people's property, and to the view society has of protests.
So what you are saying is that the protesters image and credibility were destroyed by a few violent individuals?
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You've earned the following achievements: Epistemic Nihilism, Missing the Point Entirely and Interpreting Something to Mean the Opposite.
You'll notice that nowhere in my post did I mention liberalism. I'm not making this statement on some fictitious scale of left vs. right, nor am I talking about the British conservative party, or Israeli conservative party. I thought it was pretty clear from context I was talking about American politics.
Also, I'm saying that CONSERVATISM is unempirical. I'm not sure how you even misinterpreted that.
That's quite a list of achievements I've garnered!
Well, add "mildly illiterate" to that list, if you will. When reading your post I somehow thought that you have written "liberalism" where you actually wrote "conservatism". Hence the whole interpreting something to mean the opposite thing. I literally thought I read the opposite of what you actually wrote. Apologies.
I think you're more correct in your second paragraph than you are in your first. Both "liberalism" and "conservatism" have their empirical wings as well as their theoretical and ideologically pure wings (that tend to be inhabited only by, er, "wing"-nuts).
I do not quite agree with this. I find that more often than not the "empirical" wing of each school of thought is much more busy with justifying the theoretical wing than with trying to understand reality to its fullest. If the methods are empirical, you shouldn't expect them to line so well with the political views of the party they represent.
I'll demonstrate with a phenomenon that I find bitterly funny in Israel.
Conservative theory: Israel will always be belaguarded by enemies seeking to destroy it because it's the land of the Jews and the bible says so.
Conservative "empiricism": Iran is an extremely deadly foe hellbent on destroying Israel - it is an existential threat and everything within the country's power should be done to stop that threat, and that just happens to be a very good excuse to strengthen the military and keep fighting Arabs.
Liberal theory: the Israeli occupation of Gaza is morally wrong, and Israel is not better (and quite possibly worse) than it's numerous Arab enemies. That aside with the tools avilable Israel should do its best to integrate into western, American-European society
Liberal "empiricism": Europe and America are getting sick to the guts of Israel and are beginning to make steps towards an economical and cultural boycott. This is an existential threat and everything within the country's power should be done to stop that threat, which just happens to be stopping the occupation and striking peace with the Palestinians.
The "empiricism" in this case is just interpreting reality through colored lenses to reach a predetermined conclusion. Is Iran more dangerous to Israel than a potential western embargo? I don't know. I can't know, since nobody is interested in actually giving me all the information - rather, just about all the news outlats choose whichever threat seems worse to them according to their ideology and present it as the serious one among the two (while ridiculing the other). That's not empiricism.