Comments

2

That anti-vaxxer group is headed by RFK jr. Bizarre.

5

Let's not jump to conclusions about the shooter in Kenosha before we have all the facts. He may have been one of the good Nazis.

7

Tolerance for people setting fires and besieging police stations will soon come to an end and you will have a thousand Kenosha incidents. Protestors can only escalate so far. Once that genie escapes the bottle, it will be very hard to put back.

8

Looks like the US is going to make an apology to Russia soon

Four U.S. service members were injured during an altercation in northeast Syria with Russian forces.

The service members suffered mild concussion-like symptoms after the incident, according to a draft Pentagon statement reviewed reviewed and reported by Politico.

Videos of the encounter posted on Twitter appear to show a Russian vehicle ramming an American vehicle as a Russian helicopter flies low over U.S. troops.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/us-troops-injured-during-altercation-with-russian-forces-in-syria-and-it-was-caught-on-video/

11

"chalk full" -- Nathalie, you have a homophone problem.

And did you read the news that there's now proof that wonder boy Aaron Coleman physically abused a recent ex-girlfriend?

13

@9 i think he’s talking about the video where an armed teenager drove from illinois drove to wisconsin, shot three protestors, one in the head, killing two and injuring another and WALKED away.

15

@7 Tell us more about this genie. Hold a flashlight under your chin while you do - makes it extra scary!

17

@13: And isn't it nice that he was allowed to drive home and be arrested with out incident instead of being shot 7 time in the back.

19

@14: I've been following the story on Jezebel and the Mary Sue for starters. He's a piece of shit.

20

@16: here you go
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/investigators-focus-on-armed-white-vigilantes-after-2-shooting-deaths-in-kenosha-protests-155557844.html

22

Here's that other video David was referring to. Scroll down to the embedded Twitter video:

https://www.foxnews.com/us/jacob-blake-struggling-police-officersshot-new-video-shows

I found it too far away to really see WTF is going on.

24

And another
https://www.tmz.com/2020/08/26/kenosha-shooting-2-dead-1-injured-jacob-blake-protest-police-blm/?fbclid=IwAR39iOHQLsbmMsZPPxllcE4TaSISnwTnL7_9bSe3Ldq1vbCoqvL0rpL6p40

27

@23: Oh baby. We can all see from here the chub you pop thinking about being able to shoot people in the street. Maybe YOU should get in your car and drive to Kenosha like this fine upstanding teen and fuck around and find out.

30

IMO it's reasonable that a person who does really terrible (and abnormal even for that age) things as a 14 year old should approach adulthood with a clean slate- most especially if they were held accountable for those 'crimes' when they committed them. But having a clean slate in adulthood does not make one entitled to holding a position of power at 19. It's totally natural that voters will care about the 'crimes' a politician committed just five years ago. Everyone saying "he was only 14" or "he was in middle school" seem to be overlooking the fact that he's only 19 and barely out of high school now and hasn't done much in between those years- it's not like he's a 30 year old with a career of adult political action that is being overshadowed by chilldhood behavior. This is a teenager who is being judged for actions he took as a younger teenager who has done nothing else really in between.

Glen Greenwald has taken this shit stance on this for a few reasons- the first is that he has a tendency to be something of a crank even though I mostly agree with his politics and respect his politics. He's also in a for-profit personality-driven career, and The Intercept is funded by Silicone Valley billionaires after all- it's not some far left media.

The second is personal. It is true that there have been currently a few cases in which liberals have attacked young men for perfectly normal sex lives, and unfortunately some people on the left have gone along with it. The most immediate example of this is the Morse case- a young rising star leftie who was attacked by establishment Dem Party liberals for simply hooking up with other young men (who he didn't know) in the college town next to the one where he is a mayor and a college lecturer. They were all adults, they were not his students, they were not his staff- just young men he met on a dating app, and he was himself in his 20s. It's sick and stinks of homophobia and Greenwald and Grim correctly defended him on this allegations. In Greenwald's case, it's personal because he has recently been attacked- often by the same people but also by fellow leftists with depressingly Victorian tendencies- for being older than his husband. It's all frustrating and infuriating, and yes I suspect that no one except people who are either online a lot or involved in lefty politics really have any idea or care that it is happening. But it matters nonetheless as it's being used to make baseless claims against lefty politicians such as Morse and Greenwald's husband (who is himself a politician in Brasil).

But the situation with this current kid is different- he's being attacked for legit bad behavior which he has not shown he's outgrown, and it's dumb to have a conversation about how to treat adults with bad stuff in their childhood when they are still in that phase of their lives. He has not shown he has outgrown that or done much of anything since then.

34

@28: Are you never calm?

35

Here we have footage of the cops offering water to the shooter and other vigilantes and thanking then for coming to Kenosha

https://www.tmz.com/2020/08/26/vigilante-rifle-owner-cops-kenosha-wisconsin-militia-water-shooting/?fbclid=IwAR0IqJG_xg7Q0z6jufIZWXGKoHOUN2DSye-8AsavaEzrhqMH6Jzt-abv_ks

36

Just because the cop yells that a person has a knife doesn't mean the person has a knife. They might have a wallet, or a finger, or a cane.

39

@33: That's nice, but he was still pulling this shit as of last year so.....
https://jezebel.com/scumbag-child-lied-about-how-long-its-been-since-he-abu-1844853183

41

@38: Aww look at you, once again confusing democracy with a police state.

43

@33 First off yes if you are a politician, it is normal that your past is going to be mined for info to use against you. I'd say that what he did is extremely bad, not as bad as rape or murder but still reprehensible enough to show that he was very troubled and had very serious issues. But you've side stepped the whole point that it is in his very recent past. When judging these things, we have to consider their past actions in light of adult behavior- in his case, there is nothing in the latter category. He is still a teenager, there is no behavior to compare with his past actions and no signs that he understands why what he did is so bad.

@raindrop, very frequently, but why would I go online then? I'm very frequently sober too, but when I'm in the mood to stay that way, I don't go to a bar. Anyway I don't know if you've noticed, but there's not much to be calm about right now.

@Blip, I agree with you entirely, and I think both Scahill and Grim would be wise to distance themselves from him. But when I said his politics, I was referring more to Brasil- he and his husband have been very brave in their local politics and in standing up to Bolsonaro though that might have more to do with his husband than him.

44

Also Greenwald in particular defended him by pointing out the hypocrisy of liberals celebrating Colin Powell and felons at the Democratic Convention. But this kid (and Morse) are running AGAINST those establishment figures. It real doesn't matter if liberals embrace reprehensible war criminals if they turn against Trump- it's wholly irrelevant to leftists primary challengers to those same liberals.

47

@raindrop- apologies if you were not talking to me btw. Either I've gotten the numbers mixed up or they changed due to deleted posts- I did not pay enough attention to know which.

50

@blip yes he's often a crank. I see how much time he spends on Twitter arguing with random people about random stuff and I'm just amazed he has the career he has. Any one of us SLOG commenters waste time with equal skill and precision, ha ha ha. But I guess we weren't ambitious enough to build a career on embracing controversy- Greenwald became a public figure by defending Nazi's right to free speech, and he's in his current position because Silicone Valley moguls wanted an indie media outlet. If you take a long view of his career, it's just that he's known how to court controversy and also how to spot talent. I think hes mostly used that for good, the investigative journalist careers that he's boosted have been really important, they've had an outlet in the Intercept to publish stuff that wouldn''t have made it in the Guardian or whatever, especially their reporting on ICE, the black sites around the world, the drone wars, financial shenanigans via the Panama/Paradise papers, etc. So I can't dismiss him out right. Then yes, his husband seems particularly courageous regarding his own political career- hyperlocally with animal welfare and child poverty as well as nationally involving especially brave political work in the face of genuine risk of being murdered, standing up to fascism, etc. Also his husband was key to the Snowden leaks as well, facing down feds with them in his possession. I think there's a trajectory that a certain kind of egotistical activist/journalist takes (think Hitchens before or Matt Taibbi now) in which they manage to balance their ambitions and desire to shit-stir with actual ideological stands which get corrupted with time until they end up full-blown hacks, and I always think Greenwald is on that path except that he's surrounded by better and smarter people. If someone just deleted the Twitter app from his phone, he'd probably be a lot better off, though the same can be said for most of us.

51

@6 jNothing and I mean NOTHING justifies murder by cop. Get the fuck over it. And again, Jacob Blake is ALIVE, so the cop who shot him failed in murdering him. Jacob Blake diffused a domestic violence incident and was leaving, entering his car where his children were waiting for him. Jacob Blake was unarmed. The cop had no reason to shoot him, and certainly no reason to shoot him 7 times in the back. The typical MO of saying the black man was armed and therefore deserved to be shot repeatedly in the back is bullshit.

And the killings in Kenosha were done by a white supremacist terrorist who then tried to run and hide to avoid being charged with murder after shooting people. He's been charged with first degree murder.

Cops who shoot anyone need to be fired and prosecuted. Cops who shoot and kill people need to be imprisoned. No exceptions. It is the only way to eradicate the shootings and murders of Black people by cops.

(your alternate reality realized)
Since you believe that every single person deserves to be shot (and hopefully killed) by cops no matter what the circumstances, all of the white skinned people who may or may not be criminals need to be shot and (hopefully) killed every single time police are involved. EVERY SINGLE TIME. You seem to want that, to promote it, to revel it it. So let it be. Every white skinned criminal, no matter what the crime, needs to be shot and (hopefully) killed by cops. Imagine how much terrorism would end in this country if that were to happen. Let's start with all of the Karens who call the cops for no reason. They definitely should be shot in the face or the back for being so fucking eager to call the cops. Right? That's the world you're gunning for, so let it be.

See, your narrative justifying the shooting of Black people is BAT SHIT INSANE. Your never ending spewing of racist shit is worse than all of the shit clogging up Trump's toilet requiring his 20X of flushing.

52

The alt-right Boogaloo assholes want these protests to break out into citizen-on-citizen warfare. Their goal is a race war/civil war. They've lost in the battles of ideas and public opinion, so they need it to come down to who has the most guns (because they do). Many of these dudes are in law enforcement. Don't fall for it.

53

@German Sausage, he was referring to the appearance of Colin Powell at the DNC convention (and that man did in fact sit in front of the UN and lie to start a war) and Donna Hylton who was convicted of murder and kidnapping. What Republicans are doing is likewise irrelevant as the kid in question is Democratic candidate, not a Republican.

The point is that Coleman is a primary challenge to a sitting Dem coming from the left. So it makes no sense to point out what liberals or Republicans tolerate or celebrate, he is neither a liberal nor a Republican.

54

Some light reading to go with my comment @52

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/05/27/the-boogaloo-movement-is-not-what-you-think/

55

@47: No worries EmmaLiz. In @34, I was referring to @28.a, in regard to the furious professor never being calm in spewing profanity at me just for posting a link to a video which he also linked to.

56

David dear, only cowards shoot people in the back. And the number of shots fired points to fear and/or incompetence. Or maybe drug use. Do we test officers for drugs when they discharge their weapons? If not, maybe we should. Cops tend to be a little high-strung to begin with. The last thing we need is for them to be hopped up on goofballs.

58

If Blake had had a knife, or if the police even had a credible suspicion that he did, I would have to figure they'd be shouting it from the rooftops in order to justify their having shot him. The fact that the only evidence appears to be a bystander who thought he heard a cop say something about a knife strongly argues to the contrary.

58

@49: Oh Davey. We all know your face lights up like Charlie Bucket when he found the golden ticket every time you find the slimmest of excuse for cops to extrajudicially murder or maim someone.

60

I just reread this comment thread and I realize that a lot of you probably don't know what the Coleman situation is all about. He harassed multiple girls from the ages of 12-14 which is just typical bullying, told them to kill themselves because they were so ugly, etc. It's bad behavior but yes this could be categorized as "mean girl" stuff. He also stalked some girls his age- calling their phones and the phones of their family members which is weirder than mean girl stuff. Then when he was 14, he got ahold of the naked pics of a girl his age (she'd sent them to someone else who gave them to Coleman) and he blackmailed her, telling her that if she didn't send him more naked pics, he would spread her nudes everywhere. When she refused, he did- he sent the pics to her parents, her friends, posted them online, etc. This is far beyond "mean girl" stuff or even "normal" bullying, this is the behavior of a troubled teenager.

Now I absolutely do not think that it's impossible to redeem oneself from this behavior as 14 is very young, and people do get help and recover from troubled youths. So certainly I don't think that disqualifies someone from any sort of public life as an adult- but this guy is BARELY an adult. He's only 19 now, just out of high school, still around those same social circles. What has he done in these very few years to show that he has outgrown that troubling behavior in his youth?

Well for starters, when he was 18 he was in a relationship with another young woman his age who he admits to smacking and telling her to kill herself because she broke up with him because he wanted a threesome and she didn't. This was within the last 12 months.

Again, this is a teenager who has a pattern of doing abusive things to women and girls. He might outgrow this but he has not yet. He's still a teenager doing these things. Tell me again why this shouldn't be an issue in his political life?

Greenwald jumped the shark on this, and it's because his feelings are all wrapped up in it because of the homophobic and opportunistic attacks on both his husband and Morse- neither of whom have done a damn thing wrong. And Greenwald is 100% correct to blame some people on the left for going along with it even though those attacks originated from fascists (in his husband's case) and liberals (in Morse's). But he's let that cloud his judgement regarding this little creep.

61

@57 - You are absolutely right. Executing him rather than letting him drive off was the only reasonable response by those fine officers. The fact that they failed to kill him shows that their training in summary executions was deficient. Back to the gun range with them!

Let's explore the implications of your viewpoint. Maybe the cops should have the right to off anyone accused of any crime of violence before they get a chance to do it again?

62

@49 - It's absolutely true they had a reason to arrest him, They weren't sent there to serve the warrant, however, so do we know that they even knew of his warrant? It's a legitimate question, as cops don't check for warrants in rapidly evolving fluid situations until they have the situation under control and the subject safely detained.

Anyway, it's also perfectly plausible that having a more than valid reason to arrest him, they used excessive force to do so.

No police department I've ever heard of would allow their city to burn while sitting on concrete, displayable evidence that supports the cop(s) who shot. If a knife had been found, they would have been releasing pictures of it that very day and shouting that info from the rooftops in hopes of avoiding the unrest that has happened. The fact that they still haven't even now speaks volumes.

63

@51 - So, if the deputy who cowered outside Parkland doing nothing as students were massacred inside had instead charged in and shot the killer dead, he should have been imprisoned?

65

@57: "It's reported that Mr. Blake's sexual assault charge stems from an assault on a minor. Given that, how could the police, in good conscience, have allowed Mr. Blake to drive off with his minor children in the car?"

We have no idea whether the police knew this, but even if they did does that imply he's going to immediately assault his own kids? It's also immaterial to the situation they were called in for.

66

@59 - Surprisingly, dope testing is far from SOP. What is far more standard is that investigating/supervising officers must have some sort of articulable suspicion that the involved officers were on drugs/alcohol. But yeah, such tests should be SOP.

Also, the nature of the warrant and his kids being in the car don't justify deadly force in and of themselves. The standard is pretty universal across the US, and that is the officer or another person(s) must be in immediate danger of serious bodily injury or death before the officer(s) can use deadly force to end that danger. "Immediate" is the key word there; sometimes "imminent" is used.

It's odd how so many people think that the police have more authority to use deadly force than they actually do.

67

Also the cops don't get to decide if someone with sexual abuse charges can drive with his own kids in the car. That's up to the courts to decide. All the cops get to do is serve the warrant - which is not why they were responding to that call.

And even if they were, there were three of them and he was unarmed and there is no good reason they couldn't have just tackled him.

Here's the thing- people love to look for justifications later because it makes them feel safe to pretend the world makes sense. But the truth is, as anyone who has ever raised a defiant child knows, the cops feel insecure about their authority- they must defend it against any perceived threat. If they tell someone what to do and that person doesn't do it, they feel that they are losing control, that they are losing face. And they will therefore INSIST that the person recognize their authority. This is the motivating factor behind loads of these shootings. In many cases, it's much safer for everyone to let the person walk away, to let them have the final word, etc as it de-escalates the situation and the person does not immediately threaten any danger to anyone. Then, if necessary, they can serve a warrant or pick the person up later. I'm not saying this would take care of all or even most cases, but it would definitely decrease the problems we have with the police.

But that's not what happens. The police literally murder people just because they must save face and defend their authority, demand that their orders are followed without question, regardless of whether or not this increases or decreases risk to the public. It's the same reason cops are so much more likely to be wife and child beaters. The profession rewards the sort of personality that needs to constantly feel in control, that is terrified of losing face or being questioned. And they are defended by bootlickers who say stupid ass shit like "well if you just do what you're told..." because those people have the same feeling- they need to believe that everything makes sense, because otherwise they will feel that things are out of control and that's terrifying.

The police are not the entire justice system. Most of us want due process, courts, constitutional rights, habeas corpus, etc. They don't get to decide who can get in the car with their kids, they don't get to murder people for not following orders. It's so bizarre that EVEN STILL we have to explain this to people.

68

The 17 year old white supremacist terrorist who shot 3 people and killed 2 of them is ALIVE. Why isn't his ass dead? Why didn't the cops shoot and kill him? Until white supremacist terrorists who murder people are murdered by police, all Black people murdered by police prove that police are just white supremacist terrorists themselves. They are taxpayer funded, government sanctioned lynch mobs.

For decades this country has defunded everything from public education to affordable housing (with countless others, gutted, for no reason other than to funnel money from those in need to those of greed). We need to defund the police back to the stone age. They do not prevent crime. They do not solve crime (2% of major crimes solved nationwide by law enforcement with a TRILLION dollar budget is not even remotely worth the cost). They cost taxpayers BILLIONS in lawsuits.

Funding for the police needs to be gutted, completely. It will be the best cost saving measure this country has ever undertaken, will make the entire country safer (especially for all non-white people) and will create a new world order where cops are no longer provided any protection whatsoever when they shoot and/or otherwise kill people. This country loves to put people and prison and use them as forced labor. Time for that population to be every single law enforcement officer that has shot and/or otherwise killed anyone. Release all of the people in prison who are serving decades for stealing $50 or a TV or selling weed and put every cop who has fired his/her weapon and/or murdered someone in prison instead and there will be a radical shift in the nature of violence in this country. Of course that would just be a start: add every ICE agent, every Border agent, every DHS agent, and every member of any white supremacist and/or militia group in the country and we might begin to exist in an era of non-violence as of yet not experienced in this country, ever.

69

@56 - The whole "shot him in the back" thing is a distraction. There are times when shooting a person in the back is not only acceptable, but necessary. The easiest example is of a cop chasing an armed suspect who is shooting back over his shoulder or from under under his arm at the pursuing officer or even at nearby bystanders (has happened more than once) hoping to distract pursuing officer.

If I'm about to arrest you, and you turn away from me to grab a previously concealed gun, I'm not about to allow you to turn back toward me with that gun without using appropriate force (which would often be deadly) to stop you. That would be crazy, or semi-suicidal. It's real life, not some honor-code western.

So, shooting in the back isn't the issue; shooting at all is the issue; that is always the issue.

72

In no realm other than white supremacist terrorism is this acceptable:

Kyle Rittenhouse 17 years old
from Antioch, IL shoots a man in the head with an AR-15 & kills him in Kenosha. He also shot 2 more people killing 2.

Evades street justice by running toward cops with an AR-15
AND the Police just let him go!

https://twitter.com/kirkacevedo/status/1298616591328804865

Video you can actually SEE instead of David's bullshit about an armed Jacob Blake.

74

Milwaukee Bucks Boycott NBA Playoff Game After Kenosha Police Shooting

The boycott after a Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, seven times in the back while his children were nearby. Video of the shooting released Sunday night has prompted nightly protests in Kenosha that turned violent last night when armed white vigilantes arrived.

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/08/26/44355036/slog-am-a-category-4-hurricane-an-rnc-naturalization-ceremony-the-teen-candidate-accused-of-revenge-porn/comments

77

@70: Just a note, the cops were not at the scene when that happened.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/kenosha-violence-juvenile-arrested-in-deadly-shooting-amid-jacob-blake-unrest-illinois-police-say

78

@71 Democracy just means the governing powers are made up by the people they govern. It does not necessarily mean "majority rule". There are all sorts of ways to be democratic. It's PoliSci 101 (elementary stuff) to group the kinds of democracy into two general categories- representative democracy (in which the governing powers are made up of representatives of people they govern) or direct democracy (in which the people themselves make up the governing powers).

Anarchism does not mean no government. It means no coercive hierarchies. I think what you mean is that anarchism means no state, but a state is not the same thing as a government. Or perhaps you mean that anarchism means no government authority ruling by force? Regardless, anarchist ideas of organizing society are democratic by definition as they require people to voluntarily agree to participation in those systems.

So if you think about it as a Venn Diagram of democracy and anarchism, yes there is a big overlap in the middle though the statist forms of democracy (which require police and rule of the majority by force against a minority) would not be part of that overlap. But these categories are not mutual exclusive- there are plenty of forms of democracy that would likewise not fit into that category.

But anyway, back up to your more interesting question up above because while I don't believe anarchist societies can ever work, that doesn't mean the alternative is majority enforcement and control. In reality, you are hitting on a much more interesting topic at the heart of liberalism, and that's the social contract. So people mostly submit to being governed because they believe they get something out of it- even if individuals break the law here and there, for the most part society functions because we all mostly believe that it's in our benefit for there to be some sort of order. But what happens when the scales are tipped and a large enough number of people no longer feel that they have anything to gain from following the rule of law nor anything to lose from disobeying it? You are hung up on a question of majority/minority- but this is an irrelevant distraction as history has shown time and again. There are plenty of times in the past in which minorities have ruled over majorities, and there are plenty of times when minorities have toppled majorities. So the situation has nothing to do with majority rule, and anyway even if it did, that has nothing to do with democracy which does not necessarily require a majority anyway.

What it does have to do with is the particular distribution of power between people who benefit and people who don't plus whatever the tipping point is- how big the group that does not benefit can be before it causes the people who do benefit to lose those benefits. Then how do those in power respond? They have two options. They can either double down on rule by force- through all the classic authoritarian means, many of which can be achieved democratically- or they respond by giving up some power or offering concessions to those people in revolt in order to restore the rule by consent- their feeling that they will benefit from following the rule of law or that they'd lose something by disobeying it.

To speak more clearly, this is what I mean. We currently have a system in which over 2 million people are already imprisoned, more if you count the immigrant detention centers. Who knows how many who are here illegally, then there's the underclass in poverty, then there's massive soaring unemployment- what are we up to now 30 million?

OK so we're also at a point where a sizeable minority of people no longer see the benefit of the rule of law- they are burning shit down all around the country. There's only so many people we can continue to throw in prison. Are we going to start gunning them down in the streets? There's currently not democratic means to do that, but there are democratic means to round them up, arrest them, detain those that aren't citizens or declare them a new form of terrorist to keep them locked up indefinitely, etc and all that is happening. But at what point does the system tip and there's no longer any way to rule by force under any sort of democratic means?

The options aren't democracy or anarchism. The options are conceding power by giving into their demands so that they buy into the system again or restoring power by authoritarian force. Which is what I think you are describing in your first description and I'm only disagreeing that this must have anything to do with majority rule. The ruling force (achieved through democratic means or not) does not need to be a majority of the people nor does it need majority support. It simply needs a monopoly on resources of power- wealth, police, weapons, prisons, etc.

79

@76 There was no indication that he would have done any of that. Cops do not get to murder people just because they individually think they might be a risk to someone else later. There's no department of pre-crime.

84

76 - All those possible outcomes you mentioned do not matter when determining justification. Justification of deadly force is based only on the "immediate" threat readily apparent to the officer at the time he/she uses deadly force, in the moment the officer fires.

So yeah, if they don't physically stop him from entering the car, and he isn't directly threatening his kids with immediate serious bodily injury or death that is readily apparent to the officer at the moment of decision...you let him drive off. Simply driving away with his own kids does not meet that standard of threat. It may suck to you, but that's the way it is. They should have pounced on him before he got to that truck door, with hands, baton, tasers or mace.

The cops can try following him to his destination and then attempt to take him into custody again. If they do, circumstances might change into a one necessitating deadly force, but cops cannot use deadly force due to some unwanted outcome that may or may not happen later. "Maybe he has a bomb hidden in the car and intends to detonate it at the kids' school." See?

85

@79 - Precisely.
And so much more concisely put than what I managed.

86

From Ibram X Kendi:

Have you ever wondered how so many people could allow Black people to be publicly lynched week after week, year after year in the 19th century and 20th century? Have you ever wondered how so many people could blame the thousands of victims of lynchings for their own deaths?

Have you ever wondered how so many people feared the murdered and felt safe around the murderers? Have you ever wondered how decade after decade legislatures and governors and presidents and courts refused to deploy their power to stop the lynchings?

No one should have to wonder anymore. Open your eyes to police violence. See how so many people keep responding. By treating police shooters as victims. By blaming Black victims for being shot in the back. By being outraged about Black rage. By bringing out National Guards to protect property and not people.

The responses remain the same. Political cowardice. Fear of the people with bullet holes in their backs. More and more and more political cowardice. Witness the racist past as the racist present. What will the future say about us?

(My response: the future will say nothing about us because humanity will cease to exist before any of this is resolved. And free of its worst parasite, earth will hopefully recover, never to be infested by this parasite ever again).

87

Trump is responsible for radicalizing these teenage white supremacist terrorists:

The Kenosha Shooting Suspect Was In The Front Row Of A Trump Rally In January
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/kenosha-suspect-kyle-rittenhouse-trump-rally

88

@68, 70, etc. - Well said. Here's hoping that little white boy bitch shooter gets convicted and put into a very dark hole for life.

89

@76 - Sure, anyone suspected of a crime should just be shot on sight so they can't go and do all the things in that ridiculous little fantasy of yours. No need for judges, juries, courts or any of that. Think of the $$ we could save!!! You really are quite the authoritarian pig, aren't you?

90

@84 - but what about the big bad police? You don't want them to look like they are not in control of the people do you? Or to have their little feelings hurt? You're just so mean.

97

Well here's the dictionary definition from Google:
a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority.

Here's Webster:
a political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups

Here's wiki:
the state of a society being freely constituted without authorities or a governing body. It may also refer to a society or group of people that entirely rejects a set hierarchy. In practical terms, anarchy can refer to the curtailment or abolition of traditional forms of government and institutions. It can also designate a nation or any inhabited place that has no system of government or central rule. Anarchy is primarily advocated by individual anarchists who propose replacing government with voluntary institutions.

I don't mean to nit pick as I don't really care that much since I think anarchism is mostly not functional or desirable and that conversation bores and frustrates me. But it doesn't mean anything goes or that there is no organization unless you are also a primitivist anarchist like the unabomber. Anarchists usually believe in organizational structures which are voluntary and therefore democratic, not that no cooperation exists at all. I'm calling this some form of government since it involves decision making and planning- not just you do whatever you want which is how I took your words. It's just that there is no authority or coercion.

But like I said, I don't really give a fuck about anarchism- my point is that it's ridiculous to say this is not democratic when it requires voluntary cooperation to exist in the first place and rejects any rule.

And moving on to your majority rule thing, again this has nothing whatsoever to do with democracy. Democracy requires participation of the governed in the government. It does not require there to be a majority in place, and historically in fact this has not existed. You must be aware of the history of democracy at all surely? Parliamentary representation of people instead of rule by royal decree- there were some famous wars fought over this, surely you've heard of it. At no point was there an expectation that the democratic institutions would do the will of the majority of the people who in fact were not included. In more recent years we have included more and more people in that representative democracy but yet again they do not enact the whims of the majority or else our system would look very different. Only some things are put to a vote, most interests represented are private minority interests. Would we still have military presence around the world if it was up to the majority of people? Would we have gay marriage? Would the police get billions (billions!) in funding in some cities? Would Breonna Taylors murders be arrested? Majority rule is not a feature of democracy neither as a definition in theory nor as a practice in reality.

You don't know if the majority of people support the demands of the protesters because it is not put to a vote in the first place. There will be no referendum on these things because our democracy does not function that way. You have no idea what the majority of people want- neither do I as that is irrelevant to our system.

And besides, under any system, there is a tipping point as I said in which the discontent (the number of people who no longer feel that they benefit from the status quo and have nothing to lose from rising up against it) becomes a destabilizing force to the power structure. Which side has the most people (the power structure vs the uprising) is irrelevant- what matters is who controls the most resources to either cause a big enough disruption or else to fortify against that disruption. This bullshit about majority rule is a fairy tale, a distraction. At some point, it will be in the interests of the people in power (the ones who make money from the status quo) to appease the protesters and offer concessions because otherwise their own interests are threatened. That is what is happening with all the sportsball strikes right now- they are trying to force this situation. It does not matter that there aren't very many professional ball players. It matters how much they can control resources to destabilize a profitable system. This is how demands are made.

You can wish all you like that everything were simply put to a vote and then people obey whatever the majority say but in the first place this is not how our system works and in the second place, if you attempted such a thing, you'd be right back where you started if the results did not come out in a way that quells the discontent and keeps it from spilling over into the streets. The only democratic way you can do that is by making a system work well enough for enough people that they buy into it- feel that they have something to lose by breaking the law.
This idea is not just unmoored from reality and very basic polisci and centuries of history, it's also just childish.

The only alternative to building a system in which most people feel that they gain something from participation is to respond with force and rule of law. Which yes, appears to be what you are advocating. That's fine if you want to take that stance- I'd rather you be honest about it. But yes, you are talking about authoritarianism. The police should round people up or else shoot them for the uprising. Fine if you believe that. Tell us how it would be done. Let's say you are in charge and you have the power, free reign, to end the uprisings. What would you do? Arrest all the looters? And put them where? Shoot them all? What do you think would result from this? How many prisons will you build? How much would you increase the power of the police? We already have over two million people in prison, the highest incarceration rate in the world. Or would you just have private security forces everywhere? There are plenty of examples of this the world over all throughout history. We don't have to make childish or theoretical assessments of what this looks like. If you'd like to increase the power of the state and the police to enforce the rule of law even in a situation in which thousands of people are involved in uprisings in nearly every city in this country, then fine- say so. But yes, you are in fact calling for a police state and you shouldn't lie to yourself about that, it makes you sound foolish.

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Also yes presupposing that a person will not commit a crime until they do is the bedrock of our justice system, it's the supposition behind innocent until proven guilty as well as the concept of reasonable doubt, etc.The police could conclude that Blake would not follow their orders, that he would not submit to arrest (on what grounds? we don't know yet what they were trying to arrest him for in the first place). They had absolutely no reason to suspect him of any of the ludicrous things you claim. So what if he got in his car and drove away? A car with a license plate that they can clearly read. Go back with a warrant, add resisting arrest to his charge. Follow him in their car. Tackle him on the way there. You are really advocating for a system in which the police get to murder someone because he does not following their orders? Or because they suspect something for which they have no authority and no evidence? Do they have the right to search his car in that moment? I don't know- I'll take your word for it even. I don't see how you leap from there to the right to kill him if he refuses. Yes you are advocating for a police state. If you claim you are not, you are either lying to yourself (which opens us up to questions about your mental or emotional state, how you are protecting yourself from fear or cognitive dissonance, what you are getting out of the bootlicking) or you are lying to us (perhaps because it's not quite yet acceptable to just come out and say "I'm a fascist" or "I want a police state" and you are trying to ease into it). I really can't see another option.

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Fascinating. Well in the first place, that's some massive revisionist history. The Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s was extremely hated at the time, the vast majority of people did not support them. It was violent as well, people attacked, cops set on protesters, people like yourself saying why didn't people just follow the rules, etc. They eventually built up the momentum of passing legislation through the process you describe after decades of disobedience exactly like the sort you are condemning today- it's not like they just set about abiding by laws until people in Congress decided to change them from the kindness of their hearts. Do you think rioting is a new thing? Are you very young? Or did you just believe your kindergarten teacher when she told you that MLK said "I have a dream" and suddenly hearts melted and all was rainbows? Over 100 cities erupted in riots simultaneously after his death, went on for a full week. From 64 to 71 alone, there were about 1000 riots across cities in the US, most of them due to racial unrest.

So perhaps you are basing your worldview upon false information?

But setting that aside and returning to the current moment. You are talking about getting a majority of congress to pass legislation. Democracy is about more than the legislative branch, and social change is about more than legislation. Even within your narrowly defined approach, you are talking about a majority of representation- of the representatives available to us that serves the interests of very few people. But Im not even going to nitpick at that because Im more interested in what you didn't say.

Since we don't live in the theory in your head nor in a child's view of how the world SHOULD work but rather in reality, I ask you again what to do about the very basic and fundamental situation (discussed as I said in detail in any introduction to political science and likewise full of common examples throughout history and around the world including the one I just mentioned above) of what to do when people in great enough numbers to disrupt a system no longer consent to be governed under the current rules and with the current representation.

Your response here is to say that's not democratic, but that's only by your extremely narrow definition of democracy (which appears to be, majority rule by people currently elected to the legislative branch), and since I'm curious about your response, sure I'll play along. OK, so this is not democratic. What do you do about it?

As I stated again, there are only two options. Either you suppress the uprising by force which requires a much larger police state and prison system than we currently have- rounding people up, detaining them, figuring out what to charge them with- and it will involve shooting them in the streets as well since they'll fight back. IN short, a suspension of due process similar to like what we already do to enforce other rules that are failing. And this will be an on going thing of course as it's not like the discontent that caused the uprising in the first place will go away- we can look around the world to see how this plays out.

Or you offer concessions to attempt to quell the discontent in the first place in order to reinstate people's consent to be governed which by the way is EXACTLY why the Civil Rights Act was passed in the first place, with it's majority of legislators eventually passing it. It was a concession to end the instability, disruption and violence of the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s.


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