Testing New Blogger. Did I ask for a different format and new features? I don't think so.
Briefly then, attending a protest about the death of George Floyd is a statement that you believe the racism of the police is a culture wide problem. There isn't another logical reason that holds up. If it was just sadness, there would be memorial services instead. Sometimes groups try to turn memorial services into protests, but that's a different story. If it was anger about police violence and callousness in general, we would have seen something similar around the deaths of Justine Diamond of Daniel Shaver. (Memory hole.) If we thought this was about military police practices, as a lot of libertarians are attentive to, this would not be the tragedy to protest. If we thought it was just one of those unfortunate things that sometimes happens in a country of 300,000,000 people we wouldn't be protesting. We protest because we believe that this is a general problem that is being ignored.
Yet people don't usually protest for logical reasons. They protest to make emotional and social statements. Nice people are trying to say things like Not everyone is like that. Most people don't mean you any harm. See? I'm a good person who doesn't mean you any harm. We know your life is hard, we wish it weren't. We want to get rid of racism.
What if the premise is flawed from the start? What if there is not a general problem of police racism that needs our constant attention? One strong bit of evidence that this may be the case is that it is assumed so strongly that one is not allowed to discuss it with facts and logic. The people who know, they know, and will not even hear contrary information. I ran across a famous sports broadcaster yesterday saying "If you don't agree you are complicit." Well, that's nice and open-minded, isn't it? He knows, like many other public figures at the moment, and if you don't see it too then you are morally faulty and complicit.
Yet where could such a discussion take place? Where does one go where anger would not overwhelm the venue immediately?
Similar observations lead me to believe there is a fundamental difference between now and fifty years ago. The complaint is not that The Man has too much power but that The Man distributes the benefits to the wrong people. It's in the zeitgeist. The system is rigged. Some people think it's rigged against them too, in a different way. Other people think it's rigged but would share control of the levers, or at least appear to share it. With certain people.
ReplyDeleteOne way out would be to, as somebody once said, 'make the pie higher.' Until you get to that point anger is going to overwhelm discussion everywhere. The difficultly is getting people to believe it will happen. Pre-corona it looked possible, even with Trump, but there is and was no way he can make a 'shared sacrifice' position work like Obama did. It's not in his genes, and now the Democrats aren't even trying to talk like that anymore.
In simple terms, We are hosed! If a simple arrest can result in death in one of the most liberal, caring, socially justiced cities in the country, there is no hope.
ReplyDeleteSatisfying the left on bad police outcomes is like dealing with Islamic terrorism. With terrorism, the state can prevent hundreds of attacks and keep 99.99% of the country safe but it takes only one successful suicide bomber to blow things up ... literally.
Law enforcement conducts tens of thousands of successful arrests without incident, keeping millions of citizens safe, but one cop (or even a dozen cops in a country of 320 million) make a mistake (or even go rogue) and the country blows up. There was no other way this was going to end. Too many SJWs with a hair-trigger -- "SEE!?!? COPS HATE BLACK PEOPLE!!!"
It would be nice if we had perfection, but we're human so you know how that's gonna turn out. [SIGH]
There was a social media trend yesterday of posting plain black squares to your Instagram account, Facebook account, what have you. The idea was that it was a way for people (white people I'm assuming) to listen to black voices. I'm guessing they didn't mean listen to Glen Loury and John McWhorter's recent episode of Blogginheads TV, since Glen suggests that maybe, just maybe, the black community has some responsibility in this situation.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I didn't participate mainly because I rarely post on social media generally, but also because I consider the entire argument to be based on faulty premises. I could say so, but then I get all my woke acquaintances (who turned out to be more numerous than I expected) scolding me for not listening to black voices (again, Glen Loury would probably be considered the wrong black voice to listen, too).
Your mention of the sportscaster saying, "If you don't agree, you're complicit." has me wondering how long it is until folks on social media start questioning why I and other like minded individuals aren't joining in on the public display of virtue. I'm guessing when it does happen, I can create a detailed and nuanced argument to explain myself, but I'm betting others will just hear that I don't agree, so I must be complicit.
If only 1% of cops are racist, incidents will happen. How can one not view 1% as a victory? On the other hand, many cops are not so bright and they all seem to be on a power trip where they want instant obedience and have no patience at all. In this case lots of incidents will happen. If all young black men call cops pigs and many engage in illegal activity, they are going to get a lot of attention from police. This is not racism. The idea that racism causes them to be criminals is backwards. I have black friends and neighbors who stayed away from gangs and are middle class. try it.
ReplyDelete"They're gonna overlook all the good. They'll overlook every last good cop in the country. But they'll remember YOU. Because you're a bad cop." -- Joe Friday
ReplyDelete“If only 1% of cops are racist, incidents will happen. How can one not view 1% as a victory?”
ReplyDeleteOne of the good things that Six Sigma taught me is that 99% is nowhere near good enough. That’s unsafe drinking water for about 15 minutes a day. That’s 200,000 wrong prescriptions a year. There are some jobs and places where 99% just isn’t good enough. My take is that racism and racist actions by police officers is one of them. Are we doing better than 20 years ago, 40 years ago, 100 years ago? For sure.
I will say, I do think Qualified Immunity and demilitarization would be very helpful long term, regardless of if they make people feel better in the short-term.
"If you don't agree you are complicit."
ReplyDeleteBecause even honest doubts about the party line are TOTALLY a scientifically-proven impossibility. </sarcasm.
"Briefly then, attending a protest about the death of George Floyd is a statement that you believe the racism of the police is a culture wide problem."
ReplyDeleteNailed it. It sure looks like it is from here.
Well, that's the problem then, that people from outside the US, and people in one region of the US looking at another, think it's true, and are just sure.
ReplyDeleteAnd they are just wrong.
When you are tempted to respond to contradict me, please have one of the First Nations people, or minorities from Toronto, answer on your behalf.
it's me again.
ReplyDeletethe prosecution should be dropped.
you're autism is on fire.