2021-04-12 23:53:47

Here’s the link for the case.
https://youtu.be/Cf9EzNGeL7M

2021-04-13 05:47:11

Thetechguy, I recommend you take a look at Glenn Kirschner. He was a federal prosecutor for a couple of decades, and knows his stuff. Ben Shapiro may just be a right-leaning agitator who thinks he's clever, but Kirschner actually has experience prosecuting these cases. He's seen a lot.
Here's a video to digest. This isn't specifically about Floyd alone, but talks about bigger issues, specifically the fourth amendment. From there, I recommend you take a peek at some of Kirschner's videos about the Chauvin trial, because I think he's going to open your eyes quite a bit.
After all, it's really easy to tell yourself that I'm just some random left-wing hack who thinks Shapiro is an idiot for no reason. Fine. Don't believe me. Listen to this, and do some more research.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjvgMkglHcQ&t=206s

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2021-04-13 13:18:41 (edited by Pineapple Pizza 2021-04-13 13:20:05)

The police have gotten away with this long enough. An example needs to be made out of Chauvin.

I would rather listen to someone who can actually play the harmonica than someone who somehow managed to lose seven of them. Me, 2019.

2021-04-21 03:37:16

Bringing this thread back up after a week or so of quiet, because this needs to be highlighted. I didn't want to create my own thread for this, because there was already a pretty lively discussion going on in here.

Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all three counts today (second-degree murder, third-degree murder, second-degree manslaughter I believe). Justice has been served.

After the verdict was made public, president Joe Biden and vice-president Comala Harris reached out to George Floyd's family to express their condolences. Afterword, they spoke about the need for continued police reform (read: not police abolishment), and urged the senate to pass the George Floyd Police Reform Act.
Today was a great start, but it's only the beginning. I literally cried a little when I heard the verdict.

Your thoughts? Your opinions? Your concerns? What do you think of this?

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2021-04-21 04:01:48

I'm glad. I watched part of it yesterday. He deserves to be tortured and killed in prison. I'll be pissed off if they commute his sentence or some bullshit.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2021-04-21 07:24:24

@Jayde
Retributory justice is stupid and useless, so I'm not happy he's in prison because prison doesn't do shit for 90% of people.  It's just a base as hell way for society to feel like it's accomplished something in most cases, and a  fear based deterrent for those least likely to offend majorly anyway.
But I am happy that his crimes were taken seriously, and that we can now say without a doubt that he has been judged by his fellow Americans and proven by law to be a total shitbag.  More importantly though, this is hopefully the start of a trend of accountability (within reason) for police in general.
I'm also glad that the black community feels heard, it's about time.  I don't agree with many of the ways they went about this, but I do empathize with why they did, and I realize that it wasn't everyone in that community who participated in making the problem worse.
I hope this serves as a wake up call for the majority of older generation police who refuse to see a racial bias problem despite the data and a warning to powerful police unions that they no longer have as much power as they once did, but I also hope that it takes some pressure off those many police who don't deserve the constant hate and threats.  I don't have allot of confidence in either long term, but a short reprieve is still something to be celebrated.
Who knows what ripple effects this may have, but I'm looking forward to seeing most of them.

2021-04-21 11:06:52

We still have to see what his sentence will be too. I think one of those charges means he'd be in prison for 40 years or so, but again we'll see. It's a step in the right direction, but a lot more has to be done about racial bias in general. Hopefully the momentum doesn't stop.

2021-04-21 14:05:11

I completely agree re: retributive justice. Unfortunately, prison/justice/penal reform is one of those things that hasn't happened yet, and needs to. Under the circumstances, I think this is acceptable, but it is not the best-case scenario. On that, we definitely agree.
The reality of the black community reacting badly is quite simple. The vast, vast majority of them did no harm. They either stayed out of things entirely, or they protested peacefully. Yes, there were some violent protests, and that's not cool. I feel bad for innocents who suffered harm as a result of this. That having been said, I do want to point out that a lot of these groups protest in the first place because literally nothing else has worked. It's an impossible standard. If you deny them every other peaceful option, eventually they're going to start tearing shit down, and I think that is both a failure on their part and a failure on the system that's put them there.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2021-04-21 15:23:35

If you look up Larry Lawton on Youtube, you'll find all sorts of stories about how prison is bad because of this and that reason. I agree. Abuse, corruption and institutionalization happen there. You get out, don't know what to do, it freaks you out so you do something to get locked up again. Luckily, Larry broke this cycle but other people can't.

Now this guy doesn't need prison, he needs to die. I'm not all opposed to the firing squad for him. I wish they would still do that. I don't know the motivation behind why he did what he did. Maybe it was racism, maybe it wasn't. I'm certain power factored into it though. Either way, we're feeding and housing this fool for the duration of his life.

They probably can't even put him in genpop because they know he'd be killed almost immediately. So they're going to have to segregate him and keep him away from others as much as they can.

Even at a dollar a bullet or more that ammo costs nowadays, I think we could spare the cost and have an end to him. Murderers need to be murdered. The only time this is not the case is crimes of passion. A father finds out his daughter was raped and finds out who it is. He goes there and kills him. It's understandable. His daughter will never be the same again. She will struggle the rest of her life and never be whole again. Justice won't be served until this guy is dead.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2021-04-21 16:26:20

Believe it or not, I'm generally not a proponent of the death penalty, even for murderers.

Regarding Larry Lawton, I've watched a few of his videos. I'm not a huge fan, but he demystifies some of the stuff that people think about prisons. Generally they don't work, and cause more harm than good. One of the things we definitely need to do is de-privatize them, that's for sure. A lot of the public image of black people, especially black men, is that they're violent, gun-toting, drug-using criminals who end up in jail, and there are tons of reasons for that, but the penal system is only part of it.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2021-04-21 16:49:16

Apparently we can't have executions in the west because its uncivilised or something.

You ain't done nothin' if you ain't been cancelled
_____
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2021-04-21 17:11:42

We work with what we have. And there is no way at present to effectively rehabilitate hardened criminals. Someone like Chauvin was worse because he was a public servant. Someone who was supposed to protect and serve, which is not done by kneeling on someone's neck for 9 and a half minutes over a phony 20 dollar bill which I don't even know if it was ever examined and found to be counterfeit. Remember him shouting, "You can't win!" You don't do that when you're protecting and serving. Also, I don't think that was meant in a sort of, "Hey buddy, you're not gonna win this, just chill out and we'll get you in the car and get this sorted out", sort of way. It was a shout, it sounded challenging to me.

Someone like that, who committed a crime, and not only took a life, but did it in front of two minors deserves death. He'll likely get it too, but his way will be painful. It won't be a quick affair.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2021-04-21 17:16:55 (edited by Quin 2021-04-21 17:18:27)

Oh yeah, you killed a man, which is wrong, so we're going to kill you. What's that you say? But that's exactly what you did? But but but but, justice! Or something.

Sarcasm aside, I strongly disagree with putting people to death, for that exact reason. Some people truly are human cancer, and do deserve to die. But how many people were put to death and then later found out to not have done anything wrong? It also just seems more like an act of revenge to me.

2021-04-21 19:33:45

Yeah that's my only real issue with the death penalty. But we have video of this one, so...

2021-04-21 19:45:53

I am glad he was found guilty of all 3 charges. I am also against the death penalty an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.  Also for religious reasons that I won't go into here. Lock him up and throw away the key.

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77

2021-04-21 20:16:47

@39: Oh sure, he certainly wasn't innocent, but I still personally disagree with it.

2021-04-21 21:12:54 (edited by defender 2021-04-21 21:43:08)

@Jayde
TL:DR:  I fear we may have traded 2 steps forward in progress for 1 step back when we didn't have to, and that we won't know for sure until it's too late to do much about it because we've boiled it down to good guys and bad guys a little too much, and minimized the fact that there is always gray area on both sides because it feels good to be part of something positive.


To make it clear, I'm not just talking about rioters here.  I'm talking about those who jumped on the idiotic defund the police bandwagon.  Those who expressed their dislike for police by hurling threats and insults at specific officers at protests who were doing nothing but standing there, and who they had no concept of as a person.  I'm talking about those who made excuses for the people breaking into businesses, sometimes small and/or black owned ones, to steel things or wreck shit, and those who were willing to throw context out the window and listen to what ever the media or their Twitter feed said about the latest police incident before the body camera footage even came out.  Those who allowed glaring racists in their own community to have free  rein to say what they wished for the quote unquote greater good.  Those who defended genuine dangerous criminals as innocents even after the truth came out.


And unfortunately, I do believe that is wide spread.  Though I should have clarified, that's progressives in general, not just black people, and you often don't get the luxury to choose who supports you when fighting for something so important and on such a large scale.


But like I said before, I understand the reasons why, and not all of these things are equal on the scale of harm either.  As you pointed out, reaching the breaking point is an inevitability born from decades of dismissal and ignorance on the part of whites, and the fact that society expects marginalized people to play by their rules when trying to expose that same society's failures.  I understand that we are reaping what we've sewn as a group, even if not as much on the individual level.


That doesn't mean it's okay though.  Months of forceful but peaceful protests sends a far more positive and difficult to undermine message than months of mostly peaceful protests, combined with riots, and unjustified witch hunts, and sheltering bad apples, and automatically believing any propaganda that supports your agenda.


BLM did a half assed job at keeping things from becoming toxic IMO, which isn't really surprising considering that they were actually much more militant before having to play nice guy after things exploded.  Most of what they said came down to virtue signaling in my eyes, sort of saying one thing with the cameras on, but then showing how they really felt to their allies.  I understand that they are quite decentralized, that people can be considered BLM supporters without actually being members, and that the movement expanded way beyond the actual organization, but if they had done better from the start, we might not be in such a bad position now.  Groups like the NAACP on the other hand were better, but I still don't think they did enough putting their money where their mouths were.  The media just did what they knew would get the most views, as always, and the social media sites weren't willing to go against the mob even when the hate was on par with that of far right groups, both because the biggest ones are mostly run by liberals, and because the advertisers who pull their strings felt the way the wind was blowing and wanted to be on the right side when the dust settled.


It's still hard to judge those who feel it's worth it in the end, given the shit they've slogged through for much of their lives, and I understand that taking responsibility for every mistake you've made sadly ends up making you seem weak to your enemies.  But at the same time, if you build your movement on pillars of sand like that, you open your self up to allot of valid criticism, now and in the future.  And the only real way for them to fix that now without weakening their position, is to make it impossible to criticize them at all through policy, which I worry might happen in a couple of decades.  I.E What if, in 30 years, saying that BLM definitely ended up doing some good, but was built on two shootings that both turned out to be allot less cut and dry than first thought and a not insignificant portion of their leadership were quite racist in their own right, so if they had gone with honesty and sorted out the chaff from the start they probably would have been more effective thanks to better public support...  Is considered hate speech or racism.


I'm probably being overly paranoid, but it is a possibility, and that bothers me.  The worst part is that rapped up in all of this is propaganda from the other side.  I try to base my opinions on first hand evidence as much as possible, but I'm not so confident in my position that I can't discount the possibility that some of my preconceptions are based on lies, halftruths, or out of date info.  I just can't be everywhere at once, or perfectly non biased.

2021-04-21 21:49:34

I'm with you about 85% of the way, Defender, and I agree that there are, and were, many bad apples in the BLM movement in general. I don't think it's quite as widespread as you're suggesting, but yes, it's present, and it's a problem, for sure.

One thing I will go to the hilt to oppose you on, though, is racism.
So to be really, really clear here, racism is based on oppression. If you are a member of an oppressed group, and you hate the group who oppresses you, and you show them extremely prejudicial treatment, that's prejudice, not racism. You probably aren't gonna buy that, and I'm okay with that. We agree that it's harmful, and we agree that it needs to be dialed back in some arenas, but it's...not racism, dude. In our society, a white person can be racist, but a black person, by definition, cannot be racist, except against other blacks. This is because racism deals with the oppressor and those who are being oppressed, and I think we have pretty clear ideas on who's who there. This might seem like a hair-split, but I'm making it for one large reason.
A lot of folks, especially white folks but not -just white folks, will play the "yeah but some blacks are racist against whites" card to try and make things seem equal, or closer to equal, and that just doesn't fly. If you want to argue that some blacks hate and demonize and malign white people, I won't argue, because you're dead right. It happens. The same way some women truly seem to hate, demonize and malign men. Yup, it happens. But the idea of "reverse racism" or "reverse sexism"...it just doesn't wash. I'm picking on the terms because people have a bad habit of drawing a false sense of equivalency here.
As a white person, I have every right to be upset when a black person does something atrocious. What I don't have any right to do is to claim that my whiteness means that I understand racism the way a black person would, because that is simply not the case.

So why does all this detail matter?
Simple, really. I think it's really easy to lay judgment and draw similarities between situations when you're outside of it (and yes, I speak for myself here too). In America, if you're black, there's a very good chance that you personally know somebody who's had a bad run-in with a cop; maybe it didn't result in shots fired or a jail sentence, but it's probably happened. So when you see folks hurling insults at cops who themselves might be innocent, you've got to consider the bigger picture. Is it cool? No, not really. I feel for those cops, because some of them truly are in a broken system they can't fix, and want no part of the bad apples in their own ranks. But am I going to condemn those angry black people as loudly as I condemn the "all lives matter" crowd? Or as loudly as I condemn the white rioters on January 6th, or whatever else? Again, no. They just don't add up. We aren't trying to pretend that a black person rioting and looting is totally okay, because it is absolutely, categorically -not okay. But maybe it's less bad than you might think, if you consider all of the factors involved.

Serious, comprehensive police reform absolutely has to happen. No questions asked. The good cops won't suffer for it, since they're already trying their best anyway. The bad cops will be shown the door, and hopefully the lethal force that cops need to use will calm down. Look, here's the dirty truth of it. The trust between law enforcement and the black community is broken right now. There is some blame to be laid at the feet of said black community members, but a far greater amount of it belongs at the feet of those who swore to serve and protect. When you take on a position of leadership, you have to be the bigger person, stop yourself from throwing the first punch or drawing the first weapon or making the first verbal jab. You have to put your biases and your frustration and your anger aside. No qualified immunity bullshit shield to hide behind. No crooked cop buddies to protect you. Accountability is long, long overdue. And frankly, until America in particular gets this accountability, and keeps it, I won't blame people for mistrusting cops. They bear the larger responsibility because, while those they have been policing aren't always blameless, it is their responsibility to do the job better than they have been, generally speaking. That's where I stand on this.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2021-04-21 23:11:29

No, I hate that argument, it's like moving the goalposts to get it to fit your definition. Anyone can be racist against anyone else. It has nothing to do with the presence or absence of oppression.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2021-04-22 03:09:51

Actually, dude, that is one of the primary determinants between prejudice and racism. Again, it may seem like a hair-split, but lots of people try and use it to pretend like white people in America know what it's like for the black people who have experienced racism. And they absolutely haven't got a clue. You may have been targeted by a black person because you're white, subjected to harm because of it. That is not cool, ever, for any reason. But that doesn't mean you, or I, or any other non-oppressed person in this case, knows what it's like.
If you want to relate it to something more along our own lines, imagine someone who has no power in their house for a day or two waking up in the night, not having a light to flick on, and tripping over their own feet in the dark on their way to the can. Now imagine that person saying, "God, now I know what it's like for you blind people all the time". Uh, no, bro. You haven't got a fucking clue.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2021-04-22 04:51:42

And here we go again with people using different definitions

I would rather listen to someone who can actually play the harmonica than someone who somehow managed to lose seven of them. Me, 2019.

2021-04-22 05:18:44

I'm gonna hope you trust the dude who literally studied systems of oppression, advocacy and privilege as part of his training, vs. a layperson who doesn't like being told that as a white person, we really can't be targeted by racism in our part of the world. Discrimination, hatred, animus, violence? Absolutely, and again, they're not okay. But racism? No, not so much.
If you want a handle on the difference, look at it this way. When a white person experiences bad treatment due to the colour of their skin, from a black person, it's generally an isolated incident. It rarely represents the "norm", and it's sure as hell not the mainstream. Most systems in Canada and America are going to be more helpful to the white person than not. Now, flip that on its ear. A black person experiencing the exact same thing from a white person? Well, not every white person is a closeted racist bigot of course, not by far...but I'd argue that this sort of oppression is the norm. A lot of it's unconscious...stuff like how a cop will follow a black customer around in a store because they were "suspicious", or how a routine, nonviolent traffic stop turns nasty when a Kansas cop approaches the black driver with their gun drawn. Unfortunately, whether you want to admit it or not, racial violence and smaller, quieter systemic racism is not a bug; it's a feature. It affects blacks, and does not affect whites in nearly the same way and not to anywhere near the same extent.
So the reason we refer to one as racism while the other isn't is because one is systemic, built-in, and indicative of a larger problem. The other never is. Racially motivated acts against white people by blacks are the exception. Racially motivated actions against black people by whites, at all levels, is more the norm. We're getting better about this, year by year, but the progress is very slow and very grudging.
The fact that people were even in doubt about Chauvin's guilt is testament to that. Reverse the races for a moment. Floyd is white, Chauvin is black, and a black officer killed a white man. How do you think this would have been covered, especially by the right wing, who has a serious problem admitting racism for what it is?

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2021-04-22 06:52:30

No, I don't buy it. You can't just go around and start saying racism is now only applicable when the group of people being targeted are being oppressed by the group doing the targeting. The idea that a black person cannot be racist is completely and utterly silly. Same with anyone else.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2021-04-22 07:28:45

GCW, that's what I'm telling you. I'm sorry that it's inconvenient, but facts don't care about your feelings on this.

Racism, by its nature, is a system of oppression. Blacks don't oppress whites here in America; ergo, blacks can't be racist.
Can they be racially prejudicial? yes, absolutely.
Can they be discriminatory, hateful and violent for no good reason? Absolutely, dude.
But racism is a term that speaks to an oppressing group wielding racial prejudice against an oppressed group. That is its very definition.

My advice: if you accept that the problem itself is real, please don't fight with me on terminology. All it's going to do is make you look resistant when that's probably not what you're after. It's going to muddy things up. If you truly accept that there's a racism problem in America, then please do those of us who know what we're talking about the benefit of trusting us when we are very clearly trying to fight the same fight, and for many of the same reasons, as you are. I promise you that we're not doing this in order to make white people look bad, or to put every single black person on a pedestal where they're free from reprisal when they leverage their own biases and racial animus.

instead, we're doing this because the systemic nature of this racism needs to be acknowledged, and we need to stop allowing folks to pretend that racism against blacks is equal to racial prejudice against whites, that they're two relatively equal symptoms of the same problem. They are problems of two entirely different magnitudes and scopes.

The main reason for this is pretty complicated, but I'll boil it down to the best of my ability.
Many whites - and I used to be this way - want the race issue to just go away. Everyone's treated the same. Everyone has equal rights. Race literally does not matter, to anyone, for any reason. This is called colour-blindness in academic terms. The problem with colour-blindness is that, while it sounds good on the surface, it fails to account for the centuries of harm that has been done to black people in America, and the generational impact of that harm. It wants to slap a band-aid on a wound that requires reconstructive surgery. "Yeah, I know stuff used to be awful...but we did it. You're free now. You're equal now. So...we cool?"

Folks like me object to this ideology  because, while it does provide a solution, it does so in a way that does not account for most of the harm that has come before. Someone will publish a study suggesting that blacks are worse at the whole nuclear family thing, but if you're colour-blind, you won't interpret the full extent of the data; you won't acknowledge all the homes that were broken due to racial violence, the war on drugs, excessive force from law enforcement, systemic oppression from the government on down which leads to poverty, income inequality and poor health outcomes. You'll simply read the data, conclude that blacks tend to have more broken homes/crime/recidivism/violence/whatever else, and call it good; you'll cite it as just a fact, not racism, when in fact your very ignorance of the factors which led to the skewing of that data constitutes the very systemic racism I'm talking about.

It's an extremely complicated issue, and a colour-blind philosophy simply fails to account for those variables. In hundreds of years, we will be able to ignore (or mostly ignore) those variables, I hope, but we're nowhere near that yet.

So how does that matter? Because words matter. Framing matters. To call racial violence against whites in America racism does a disservice to the hundreds of years of racism that blacks have experienced at the hands of whites. In more common parlance, it's saying, "Yeah, well this bad thing happened to us too". It's drawing false equality where none exists, and this is used - trust me, I've seen this literally hundreds of times - to promote colour-blindness. I hope by now that you can see how this becomes problematic.

Again, no one is saying that white people can't be targeted for racial reasons. No one is saying that all black people are protected forever against being blamed for wrongful action. That's not what any of us are saying. Instead, let's just call it what it is. There is a functional difference between racially attacking a member of an oppressed group based on race, and racially attacking a member of the oppressing group based on race. Both are wrong, but only one of them is racism.

I urge you to do some research into the concepts of colour-blindness and colour-consciousness. This took me awhile to wrap my head around, but you'll get there in the end if you try.

Common questions I expect from people trying to wrestle with this problem, and which I don't feel I need to answer directly (so please don't ask me):
Okay...but when does it end?
I'm not a racist. My friend/father/brother isn't a racist. Why does that fucking word get thrown around everywhere?
Why are black people getting extra leeway when it comes to doing bad shit based on race?
Why are white people having their every action, intention and motive hyper-analyzed for racial intent?
What if we do all this, and suddenly black people start oppressing us?

You might ask some or all of these questions, though I hope for your sake that you don't. But if and when you do, please give yourself a long and honest look, and try hard to answer them from your head and your heart. I was unclear on some of those questions myself for literally a decade, bro, so it's not an easy struggle. Not at all. But it's an important distinction. Because words matter, and the way we talk about issues matters. Let's not pretend this into a "good people on both sides" or "bad people on both sides" style of debate. That was Trump's style of rhetoric, and it has no place, none whatsoever, in honest discourse about important issues of our time.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1