The Murder of George Floyd & Subsequent Protests/Riots

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Who runs these places?

9/10 Forbes most dangerous cities controlled by Democrats, page 1
mmy cu
Not exactly champions of capitalism.

I am blown away by the sophistication of your intellectual thought. Wow. I needed an intellctual titan like you to deprogram me from my cult. It turned out all I needed was the strong, fearless leadership you've shown in this thread.

 

[Lark]

People wouldn't be looting and rioting if they were raised by better parents and had some moral education. The people who burned down libraries, pharmacies, and minority owned businesses are immoral, greedy, selfish assholes. There is a severe crises of morality in this nation and it's worst in urban Democrat run cities.

You couldn't pay me to destroy someone else's property; none of those animals who destroyed personal property were libertarians.

So being labelled Democrat run cities just marked these places out for immoral, greedy, selfish assholes to come and destroy and steal?

Well that does seem to fit the standard capitalist paradigm of practice so, yeah, sure that makes sense.

 

[Lark]

Who runs these places?

9/10 Forbes most dangerous cities controlled by Democrats, page 1

Not exactly champions of capitalism.

You are suggesting it was the elected officials where the people out burning properties, looting and rioting?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I'm only nominally a Democrat, which is why I find it hilarious that the rebuttal to my rigorous post demonstrating the shakiness of an alleged "utilitarian" basis of conservative ethics, was "cities have these problems because they're run by Democrats." No, cities have these problems because there has been a bipartisan consensus in favor of neoliberalism. This means the criticism of neoliberalism also apply to Democrats. Evidently I'm supposed to believe that, despite being centers of trading markets, capitalism has no purchase in America's cities.

Apparently the real centers of American capitalism are the rural areas? Wall Street is just a socialist front, I guess.

i have a choice between piss and shit, so I pick piss. Then people act like attacking piss is sufficient to destabilize my entire worldview. It doesn't make sense, but maybe I just lack the intellectual depth of conservative free-thinking firebrands. I'm sure if I was on their level, I'd understand it.

 

[Tellenbach]

So being labelled Democrat run cities just marked these places out for immoral, greedy, selfish assholes to come and destroy and steal?

The evidence shows that rioting occurs mostly in Democrat run cities; it has nothing to do with "labelling". It has to do with Democrat policies that create impoverished, lawless, and entitled people. We saw looting when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans; we didn't see looting when the tsunami hit Japan. They have people who respect property rights over in Japan.

 

[Polaris]

Law enforcement as it currently exists is inherently flawed. It operates on the premise that a wrong act requires the response of more wrong action. It is wrong to fine people, to bind them, and to imprison them. These things are so wrong that in many cases they amount to an evil as bad as or worse than the evils they're intended to prevent. Given how the moral scales are in this case weighted, it's obvious that law enforcement exists largely for some other purpose than to prevent harm from being done to people. The main reason it exists, I think, is to convenience some--those in power--at the inconvenience of others--those who lack power. We're taught to revere the law, but if one thinks about it, there is little in it deserving of respect.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

The evidence shows that rioting occurs mostly in Democrat run cities; it has nothing to do with "labelling". It has to do with Democrat policies that create impoverished, lawless, and entitled people. We saw looting when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans; we didn't see looting when the tsunami hit Japan. They have people who respect property rights over in Japan.

If we don't respect property rights, why isn't the U.S. a failure? Either we suck under Trump or property rights don't play the role you claim they do.

East Asian societies are said by some to place less emphasis on individualism and more emphasis on community. Perhaps that is why there was not looting in Japan, but I suspect you would be uncomfortable with that conclusion. Maybe looting is actually a byproduct of our American ideology, especially with regards to consumerism. Zizek has suggested as much. People who don't place acquistion of goods and wealth as taking precedence over the needs of the community will likely have little inclination to steal such goods when the opportunity arises, after all. Should one truly be surprised that, in an environment where survival of the fittest is the chief organizing principle of society, chaos reins when institutions are hobbled, and competition for goods takes a more direct form?

Of course, seeing as how conservatism isn't a cult unlike secular leftism, I'm sure you have examined such possibilities and have coherent reasons for why my speculations cannot be true. No doubt your refrain of "cities have lots of Democrats" is simply an efficient distillation of a well-considered viewpoint, rather than the mere kneejerk response to paper over cracks in one's worldview that it appears to be.

 

[ceecee]

The evidence shows that rioting occurs mostly in Democrat run cities; it has nothing to do with "labelling". It has to do with Democrat policies that create impoverished, lawless, and entitled people. We saw looting when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans; we didn't see looting when the tsunami hit Japan. They have people who respect property rights over in Japan.

Japan is lacking hyper-individualism and systemic selfishness of Americans. But it's good to see you coming around to a better way of thinking about other people.

 

[Tilt]

Majority of Minneapolis City Council announces support for dismantling police department

 

[anticlimatic]

I am blown away by the sophistication of your intellectual thought. Wow. I needed an intellctual titan like you to deprogram me from my cult. It turned out all I needed was the strong, fearless leadership you've shown in this thread.

Abandoning the topic for the ad hominem train already?

You are suggesting it was the elected officials where the people out burning properties, looting and rioting?

I'm suggesting that the polices Democrats have enacted (most of these cities have been controlled by them since Jim Crow) typically do not lead to prosperity. I can speak personally for Detroit on this issue, which is little more than a crater at this point.

Who benefits from Democratic control of cities?

Of the 20 most dangerous major cities, all but one had a Democratic mayor. In many of these cities, the Democratic Party has ruled for a half-century or more. Only Tulsa, Oklahoma, with 17.3 murders per 100,000 residents, had a Republican mayor.

Violent crime is not the only problem for blacks in our major cities. Because of high crime, poor schools and a less pleasant environment, cities are losing their economic base and their most productive people in droves.

During the 1960s and ’70s, academic liberals, civil rights advocates and others blamed the exodus on racism — “white flight” to the suburbs to avoid blacks. However, since the ’70s, blacks have been fleeing some cities at higher rates than whites. The five cities whose suburbs have the fastest-growing black populations are Miami, Dallas, Washington, Houston and Atlanta. It turns out — and reasonably so — that blacks, like whites, want better and safer schools for their kids and don’t like to be mugged or have their property vandalized. And just like the case with white people, if they have the means, black people can’t wait to leave troubled cities.

Can't wait to see how much disbanding the police "helps."

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Abandoning the topic for the ad hominem train already?

the topic was run by democrats

 

[anticlimatic]

the topic was run by democrats

For someone who pretends to care at all about police brutality and racism you don't really seem interested in discussing any legitimate evidence that might help.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

For someone who pretends to care at all about police brutality and racism you don't really seem interested in discussing any legitimate evidence that might help.

evidence is a democrat hoax

 

[anticlimatic]

evidence is a democrat hoax

George Floyd Protests: Democratic Politicians Avoid Accountability | National Review

Who is responsible for the mess in Minneapolis? The answer to that question is not unknowable — but it is, in many political quarters, unspeakable.

Minneapolis’s municipal government, its institutions, and its police department are what they are not because of the abstract Hegelian forces of capital-H History, but because of decisions that have been made by people. Who these people are is a matter of public record. We know their names: Jacob Frey, Betsy Hodges, R. T. Rybak, Sharon Sayles Belton, Medaria Arradondo, Janeé Harteau, Tim Walz, Mark Dayton . . . the rogues’ gallery is practically inexhaustible.

But, oh, the transmuting magic of partisanship! Minneapolis is a Democratic city, with a Democratic mayor and a Democratic city council (0.0 Republicans on that body), in a state with a Democratic governor and a Democratic state house; these are the people who hire police chiefs and organize police departments, who specify their procedures and priorities, who write the laws that the police are tasked with enforcing — Democrats and progressives practically to a man. (Not every member of the Minneapolis city council is a Democrat — there’s a Green, too.) That’s a lot of lefty power, hardly anything except lefty power — but, somehow, the bad guy in this story must be Donald Trump.

Cue the retreat into abstraction: The problem mustn’t be political leaders and the decisions they make — that can’t be it, because progressives have all the power in these cities — and so the problem instead must be something without a fixed address and regular business hours: systemic racism, white supremacy, white privilege, capitalism, etc. It isn’t that racism is imaginary, any more than crime, poverty, or government corruption is imaginary. But Minneapolis hasn’t been governed by abstractions all these years. It has been governed by people.

 

[Jonny]

 

[Riva]

They wouldn't be looting and rioting if they weren't already poor.

Poverty is no excuse for looting.

Sadly the disgusting behaviour of a few (looters) are highlighted to hide the concern of the peaceful protestors. Happens all the time all over the world.

The lack of police and judisiary accountability is the concern here.

 

[EcK]

Poverty is no excuse for looting.

Sadly the disgusting behaviour of a few (looters) are highlighted to hide the concern of the peaceful protestors. Happens all the time all over the world.

The lack of police and judisiary accountability is the concern here.

Especially when the 'poverty' in question is having a car, tv, AC, video game console etc. while working part-time or not at all. That's considered rich/privileged in most of the world.

The lack of police and judisiary accountability is the concern here.

Well, yes. But another key issue and the one that led to all the riots are threads like this : 'the murder of...' - it is extremely foolish to make up one's mind before a reasonable amount of evidence comes in.

Nobody sane wanted this guy dead, even though he seemed like a total scumbag, he was not at that moment committing a violent crime that would warrant his death [ even though he had in the past ].

Everyone is just jumping to conclusions. The saint in question seemed to have had multiple drugs in his system. He was also positive for coronavirus. He had the cops called on him because, if I recall, according to the shop staff who called the police he had given a still wet counterfeit banknote (which makes it sound like he was involved in counterfeit money printing). Oh and he was a violent felon with a history of armed robbery, notably having put a loaded gun on a pregnant women's stomachs while robbing her house. Another video came out where the guy was seen resisting arrest despite all the claims to the contrary. I've also heard that he was seen disposing of a 'small white packet' (haven't checked though) - if true, I'm assuming it wasn't grandma's aspirin.

Then there's the fact he was a giant (try restraining a muscled 6"6'), that he had lied to the police several times during the attempted arrest, was obviously on drugs - the cops had good reason not to believe him when he was claiming to be choking.
He also wasn't wearing a mask, meaning the cops were justified in trying to avoid having the guy breath on them. And yes that cop wasn't wearing a mask either - but two wrongs don't make a right.

And I'm not on the side of the cops either, but I just don't see anything deserving of either protests or rioting here. If the cop in question is found guilty he should go to jail, but there is certainly a mountain of evidence disproving the initial narrative of Saint Floyd vs evil white cop.

Was it a preventable death? I think so. But is it the horrible cold-blooded murder the first partial video made it seem to be? It doesn't look like it.

 

[EcK]

If we don't respect property rights, why isn't the U.S. a failure? Either we suck under Trump or property rights don't play the role you claim they do.

East Asian societies are said by some to place less emphasis on individualism and more emphasis on community. Perhaps that is why there was not looting in Japan, but I suspect you would be uncomfortable with that conclusion. Maybe looting is actually a byproduct of our American ideology, especially with regards to consumerism. Zizek has suggested as much. People who don't place acquistion of goods and wealth as taking precedence over the needs of the community will likely have little inclination to steal such goods when the opportunity arises, after all. Should one truly be surprised that, in an environment where survival of the fittest is the chief organizing principle of society, chaos reins when institutions are hobbled, and competition for goods takes a more direct form?

Of course, seeing as how conservatism isn't a cult unlike secular leftism, I'm sure you have examined such possibilities and have coherent reasons for why my speculations cannot be true. No doubt your refrain of "cities have lots of Democrats" is simply an efficient distillation of a well-considered viewpoint, rather than the mere kneejerk response to paper over cracks in one's worldview that it appears to be.

Jesus. Yes of course, that's why Switzerland riots at every opportunity. It's the rampant individualism and consumerism.

 

[Riva]

If the cop in question is found guilty he should go to jail,

Not going to happen. Which is the reason behind the protests. There are countless number cases 'caught on camera' where cops are using unnecessary-trigger-happy violence where the cops claim 'fear of death' and judiciary acquitting the cops.

There was one instance the judge doesn't allow video footage taken from the cop's body cam to be used because the gun he used to massacre the unmarmed man had profanity written on it. The victim was white in this incident.

There is another in which the cop gets caught on camera shooting an unarmed man running from the cop and he proceeds to plant incriminating evidence on the man after he shot him dead.

In both the instances the cops walked free but lost their jobs.

 

[FemMecha]

George Floyd: Minneapolis council pledges to dismantle police department - BBC News

Looks like they are actually doing this.