F is for Fascism (Ferguson MO)

[Strickland33]

My favorite bit of political theory is Max Weber's definition of "the state." The state, according to Weber, is "a human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory."

 

[PhDeac]

Junebug would have a fit if IRS accountants had the power over white men’s money that LEOs have over black men’s lives.

 

[PhDeac]

LEO threaten the lives of innocent people. LEOs take the lives of innocent people.

 

[WFFaithful]

Even putting the race baiting aside, this is a pretty dumb statement. Of course IRS accountants shouldn’t have the same authority over people’s money as LEOs have over people’s lives. It’s a rare case that money threatens the safety and life of innocent people.

Interesting comment given that Republicans are forcing people to return to work in a pandemic.

 

[TownieDeac]

What does this even mean? It's callous to point out that the number of people killed by LEOs is small?

Yes.

If your dad died of an extremely rare cancer and I said to you, this isn't a problem, only 10 people die every year from this cancer, you'd probably not enjoy that.

It sounds like hollow rhetoric from the all lives matter/protect life contingent.

 

[TownieDeac]

I personally don't want to live in a society where LEOs don't have the right to shoot a suspect who is a threat to their life or the life of other, innocent civilians and there are no other safe means of apprehension. If that means 1,100 suspects are killed a year, I can live with that.

What's the Dwight Schrute quote? Better 1000 innocent men go to jail than one guilty man walk free!

 

[MHBDemon]

Three points:

First. The quote about 1000 people going free pertains to trial, not police interacting with criminals in the street. A wrongful conviction doesn't result in an LEO dying, whereas hesitation in the street could.

Second. You're assuming that the 1,100 killed were killed unjustifiably. I don't believe that is remotely the case. We hear about Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, etc., but those are the extreme outliers. That's why we hear about them. The media focus on them creates a false impression that the police unjustifiably kill people every day. That just isn't the case.

Third. Is one too many? Yes, it is. But we have a human system that will never be error free in this regard unless we de-arm the police. I don't know the number of police killings that are unjustified, but I would hazard a guess it is well below 10%. Even assuming 10% is the right number we are talking about 110 unjustifiable deaths per year in a country of 330 million people. That number isn't perfect, but I think it is getting pretty close to as low as we could ever get in a human enterprise under the constraints we are dealing with.

What is your criteria for justified/unjustified? and maybe you should educate yourself more on the subject before pulling a number out of your ass.

 

[MHBDemon]

Is that a defense for your ignorance?

 

[TownieDeac]

Maybe not, but I also wouldn't expect the government to allocate billions of dollars in federal funds to address this particular type of cancer.

It actually is a big problem that we can't get good funding for rare cancers bc they aren't profitable for drug companies.

 

[MHBDemon]

Sorry you don't get to flash your legalese bullshit all the time and then say "aren't we on a sports message board?" when called on making up a bullshit number.

We differ on the criteria by which we judge justified/unjustified. The law is racist both in its intent and application, therefore flawed in using it as a means to determine whether a police officer was justified.

1 in every 4 people killed by police have a mental illness. Are those all justified?

 

[WFFaithful]

Maybe not, but I also wouldn't expect the government to allocate billions of dollars in federal funds to address this particular type of cancer.

Do the same types of police behavior that lead to unjustified killings not also affect other aspects of policing?

 

[Deacon923]

The 80,000+ Covid-19 deaths we have had in the last ~3 months puts the ~1,100 annual non-suicide killings by police into perspective, particularly when you consider that the ~1,100 number includes justifiable killings. That’s not to say we couldn’t save innocent lives with reform efforts—we could, and we should continue those efforts—but we could probably save almost the same number of lives by outlawing turning right on red.

LOL what an incredibly bad take.

 

[Strickland33]

More white people are killed by cops than any other race.

Is that okay with you?

 

[MHBDemon]

More white people are killed by cops than any other race.

Not too bright this guy.

 

[Deacon923]

LOL what an incredibly bad take.

And the hits just kept on coming in the intervening two pages.

Americans are not inherently more violent or dangerous than other nationalities (although we do have a lot more guns). Police forces in other wealthy countries with similar crime rates kill a tiny fraction of the number of Americans killed by police, in absolute numbers, per capita, or whatever other metric you want to use. The number killed is bad enough, that doesn't even capture the number wounded by police bullets, or beat up by police batons. Let's not even get into the incarceration rate. State sponsored violence, especially when it's targeted at a specific subsection of the populace, has huge impacts that go well beyond the people who are actually injured or hurt. It drives a wedge between the government and the population, reduces societal trust and cohesion, reduces the willingness of people to cooperate with the police, drives a culture of grievance and resentment. On the positive side of the ledger , though, Junebug would not want to live in a society where LEOs can't shoot people on the reg.

 

[MHBDemon]

Do the same types of police behavior that lead to unjustified killings not also affect other aspects of policing?

This is a great point. The scope shouldn’t be limited to death by police shootings. What about taser deaths? Deaths at the hands of COs in prisons and jails...violence that leaves people wheelchair bound or with PTSD. What about the trauma of police breaking into your home and simply drawing a weapon on you or your family.

 

[JuiceCrewAllStar]

an important piece of the conversation is that while killing is most extreme expression of police violence, there is so much more than the 1,100 cases per year

it's very telling that law enforcement, generally speaking, is so strongly against any accountability measures despite the fact that they have the legal right to end someone's life

 

[JuiceCrewAllStar]

we need to demilitarize the police while we take away all the guns

 

[RJKarl]

Like Trump, Chickenbug's theme song must be.



Chickenbug doesn't care if a few innocent people are gunned down? Or shot? Or wrongly arrested? After all the Originalists thought slavery was OK.

 

[deactherunner]

I would expect the death rate would more or less track the encounter rate, so, yes.

Even if the encounter rate is also racist?