Does law enforcement need to be corrected? Absolutely, The heart of the problem though isn't even with law enforcement, but it's far too often the end result. There will be no overnight magical solution, and until we can make these inner-city areas more prosperous it will continue to plague this country. There needs to be a culture change in these struggling communities. Who can deny those single-parent households with unsupervised kids with numerous baby daddies aren't at the heart of it? If you point the finger in that direction however prepared to be labeled a racist. How often have we said here on these very boards that there needs to be a change in culture with the Bears and that starts with a change in ownership otherwise things will continue year after year yielding the same disappointing results? Do I think Virginia has the best intentions in mind with the Bears? Yes, I do but that doesn't make her a capable parent to this team. So why improving law enforcement could appease the masses it, in reality, does nothing to correct the underlying problem.
This is wrong. You are deliberately sidestepping what most of the conversation around the protests has been, fueled by the very things the protesters themselves have been saying. When protesters are saying things like (and being echoed by the NYT, WaPo, CNN, Vox, etc.) "police are murdering black people in the streets" "police are racist" "defund the police", the conversation is no longer about the injustice of George Floyd's murder, it's about a whole set of much larger issues. That's the type of things the protesters have brought up for discussion, like it or not. And naturally it's going to generate the talking points you feel like are not relevant to George Floyd's murder.
I'm not side-stepping anything. Again, two things can be true at the same time. Do people take away/does the focus shift away from the injustice of George Floyd's murder by bringing up what you did, what I brought up? Yes. Is black on black crime, or police killing white people, or black people shooting children--part of a systemic problem of injustice? Yes. Do they have anything to do with a cop putting a knee on the man and choking him out, the discussion that the idea of "letting the police police themselves" no longer working, and ideas to reform something that clearly isn't working? No the fuck they don't. They are talking points by pundits meant to stop conversation of progression of a solution or policy. There is a differentiation. They are mutually exclusive/different problems. My focus is the one about the shitbag cop who murdered George Floyd, not something to be twisted and applied to another of these topics doing the whole "well based on that logic" argument/straw-man. BWW pointed out "gotcha moments" and this is one of them. I also brought up somewhere in this thread when you bring up the extremes (defund the police, police are racist, etc) that they are extremes for a reason, or an exception to the rule--not the rule/majority itself. Defunding the police is the left's version of the right saying "defund planned parenthood" when Obama was running the show. Its poorly thought out, and most people on the "left" want cops. WIthout cops, we have warlords running the show and that's what a third world country looks like. Also, not every protester wants the police to be gone. Not every protester wants the inmates to run the asylum. Most of them want society to function normally--meaning not being incredibly biased based on one's pocketbook.
By this logic, the whole protest movement has shifted the focus away from George Floyd's murder, based on what the protesters have acknowledged as the reasons for their protests (what I called out in my earlier post). And I guess I would agree with that. But again, go back through this thread, the discussions aren't just about George Floyd. So to dismiss posts from D-line and Bear-man as BS, even though highly relevant to the topics of the thread, I think is unfair. I go through my facebook/twitter feed and all I see is these "extremes". I open up the NYT editorial page and all I see is these "extremes". BWW said this before and I'm not sure I agree, these extreme voices might actually be the majority, not the exception.
Don't apply "by this logic" to anyone's argument. As tedious as this may be for some people to do frequently, I take things case by case and form my opinions there. The logic behind my opinion on Floyd does not apply every time I apply logic to something. Facts and answers can be different, and I choose not to apply "blue" or "red" or any other labels to things that are just correct or incorrect. I think everybody should do that, and most people already do including many of you on this thread, yourself included. We agree on pretty much everything so let me clarify. George Floyd's case is small/granular, and what the other guys bring up is big picture. I believe in the context of Floyd/small picture, when people bring up "black on black crime" and the other arguments from the big picture, the small picture gets lost because the conversation changes from what Chauvin did, and justice gets laughably half-assed out of the spotlight in the form of taxpayers/people who didn't murder or brutalize someone being on the hook for the 3+ million fuck up, no repercussions to many of the bad apples because it all gets swept under the rug. And no change, as these cases continue to pile up. And cities are pretty fucking broke as is. Big picture? Of course what they brought up matters in the context of understanding then fundamentally changing our broken justice and economical systems. Changing opportunity so black on black crimes and murders of black children plummet as well as poor whites, red, brown, yellow, whatever color of the rainbow you may be is vital to big picture/getting people out of poverty and this level/layer is where the points belong. Both of these ideas can be true.
Defund the police and everyone strap your colt 45 in your holster and let’s just have survival of the fittest. What the hell do these idiots think defunding the cops is going to accomplish?
Why do so many always take it to the extreme? I don't waste my time explaining anymore. It's a fruitless task. Hint: there will ALWAYS be police. Now go find a clue.
Good for your wife SCS...........I'm NOT a gun guy .....but Jezz things are getting nerve wracking ......people are fed up and will take matters into their own hands. It is a scary thought what does the future hold.
My wife isn't much of a gun person either. And she hates shooting my rifles. But this was her idea. Ask me to go to a gun store and buy something ?? OH HELL YEAH !!!!
Yes, that would be a scary thought, a day when we could all stand together with pride as equals for the anthem. Everything worthwhile comes with a fair amount of pain.
This is the most civil I've ever seen for a discussion like this. I tip my hat to you gents. I was reading a thread elsewhere on the utter stupidity of DJax, and someone brought up he's going to Auschwitz. That is a "monument" to one of the most terrible things in world history, and it *needs* to exist. There's no way DJax is going to go there (well hopefully anyway) and think "Yeah, Hitler was right". Many of the statues in question that should be removed don't serve that purpose, especially of Southern Leaders which were explicitly erected to intimidate. But Lincoln, Douglass, etc, those are statues that, in my opinion, need to exist. I do agree that the gaslighting going on with regard to history is a bit scary. They say history is written by the victors, does that mean we can change history based on current trends? This is a huge digression from the main thread here, but it's interesting. https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/ - "We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable." I think that's super cheesy nonsense honestly. They are saying that you can be a single parent and it will be ok because the community will "pick up the slack". However, I agree with you Tuna, that at the least having two parental "figures" that fill all the needs of a child is missing, and that culturally causes problems. That nuclear family does not need to be "disrupted" or "discarded", rather, it should be supplemented somehow in the places it can't exist for whatever reason. You need the ying AND the yang, as it were. And yet my idiot city has (after passing a super stupid Amazon tax at the height of economic instability), done *exactly* this, the resolution the City of Seattle passed is to *defund* the police by 50% of their current budget. To be honest, I'm not looking forward to going back to the city after all this time working from home, to deal with an even more strapped police presence, where it exists. I agree this is super poorly thought out, but honestly that's Seattle's MO often. Today, driving home, I saw someone in the middle of the road who was clearly out of his mind tripping balls on something, jumping at cars and screaming at people. The cops were on their way but I didn't see how that turned out. I really agree with the idea of getting this dude some psychiatric help, but I don't know how great an idea would be to send a psychiatrist to the middle of the street to talk to him. Again, lots of stuff here I agree with.
In theory, it sounds like a solid plan, but reality shows us quite a different picture because what element of the community will be picking up that slack? Even single parents with the best intentions struggle to find a single job that can pay all their bills and quite often have to supplement that income with yet another job. Many of these jobs fall well below the living wage because the table has been tilted for quite a while now out of our favor, and the money has been flowing up not down. Education is getting more and more expensive and even if you're lucky to get a grant where do you find the time to pursue it? So where does this supervision and parenting come in? Tax reform also sounds good on paper but with so many families struggling to make ends meet tell me how the last tax cut really helped us at the bottom when 90% of it went to those at the top and needed it the least. Money is the biggest influence in this country, not the well being of its people, and when there is talk in any way shape or form of legislation in attempting to level that table the word socialism gets thrown out there along with Venezuela, and many naive people feed on that like a tank of hungry piranhas. As long as they can continue to convince half of the population that money flowing up is beneficial for them we'll be stuck on stupid, and if you really want to enrich your life right now, get a dog.
WE INTERUPT THIS THREAD TO GIVE AN IMPORTANT NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT............ Due to the recent coin shortage, none of you are allowed to put in your two cents worth anymore.
Hey guys. Today a thought occurred to me. With all the virus stuff going on. I was wondering........ Have I poured more alcohol on my hands or down my throat ??? Aw shit. We.re all going to die !!!!!!
Great reply. Thank you. You never once touched on the fact that 70% of black kids grow up not knowing who their dad is, and 50% of Chicago kids don’t graduate high school. Can you expand on that?
It was nice talking with everyone here. I enjoyed the banter and the football talk. Peace. I am out. No more yelling at the TV for 9 hours every Sunday and stressing about a game that millionaires are going to complain about being “mistreated”.
What does that mean Bear-man? Does that mean that there won't be any football this summer? Or does this mean you aren't going to stay on L4SN?
