President Obama just published an essay regarding George Floyd and policing. It’s a fundamentally flawed recommendation that funnels energy down the same old pathways that have been failing for decades. I responded:
This essay is disappointing and shows a lack of vision. When improperly policed neighborhoods have a security alternative that they can choose, the police will have to compete or face the humiliation of being displaced by something better.
That threat to their jobs, their position in society is already in the law, has been since 1789 when the Constitution was passed, but has been left to molder since the 1913 passage of the Dick Act. A President who understands politics, cares, and actually spent some time thinking about this would have picked up on the opportunity.President Obama, you blew that 8 year chance. This essay blows it again.
Police were invented because professional police of any serious quality are better than the unorganized militia. But the unorganized militia is better than what happened to George Floyd. Revitalizing the unorganized militia, making training available, updating how to communicate with it, making it a real security alternative would place an institutional floor below which any corrupt or incompetent police force would be replaced because there would be an alternative available and it would be an improvement.
There is a baseline civil rights problem that the minority community faces. Law abiding people who are white have a higher chance of being legally armed than those who are black or latino. The criminals of any color don’t care about the law. That puts minorities in an inferior security position because whites have a higher level of DIY security capability.
Blacks can and should have the same level of DIY security capability. Latinos should have the same level of DIY security capability.
The most dangerous people in your neighborhood should be law abiding members who spend time at the range and can hit what’s aimed at. In white neighborhoods, that’s more often the case than in black or latino neighborhoods. That’s something within your power to change.
First, the waves of protests across the country represent a genuine and legitimate frustration over a decades-long failure to reform police practices and the broader criminal justice system in the United States. The overwhelming majority of participants have been peaceful, courageous, responsible, and inspiring.
Just a lie. The black looters are the foot soldiers of the Antifa anarchists who are mostly white. This is planned and funded by someone. The Floyd thing was just an excuse like the illegal aliens are an excuse.
Yes, letting the writey-writey people write, and the talky-talky people talk, so that you contemplate the sins they have designated you to have, will solve everything.
They are protecting their own industries. Not much else is happening here.
Newsflash to you, Barry.
You were President for eight years. That would have been a good time to translate your aspirations into specific laws to address what you’re whining about now.
But no, you were too busy trying to punish your enemies and arm Iran to actually accomplish anything positive.
Trump has shown that there’s a good bit of support for reforming the justice system. He got at least some of that done.
You did not. You failed, Barry. You were a shambling, miserable failure as preezy whose main accomplishment was to make Donald Trump President.
Thanks for that, but I doubt that’s what you wanted.
Go back to your mansions and shut up.
I agree with your analysis and its warning, Mike(and your earlier observation that this set of protests actually aims mostly at the 2020 election). But “just a lie” seems to me a bit of an overstatement. While (correctly, imho) understanding how protesters got used, it does not recognize that some protesters had what I think you and I would agree are legitimate concerns. How do we recognize that without endorsing all of the protest actions much less the violence? How do we advance civil communication where people work toward specifiable objectives?
Perhaps one could challenge TM Lucas’ thought that a majority of participants were “peaceful, courageous, responsible”. Perhaps one could help the ‘peaceful participants’ see the reality of the rest of those present such that they could/would grasp their ‘useful idiot’ patsy status. I see that as a very difficult task.
Yesterday I bicycled to a protest march already in progress. The majority seemed to me peaceful. It did not surprise me to find (decades, sigh) younger friends I already knew, friends concerned about out of control police. I watched the marchers’ actions. I talked with those friends and a couple dozen other people. It may be that our conversations remained peaceful because I listened and did not challenge. I found the younger friends rather naive regarding groups becoming mobs, and, for that matter, about what specific goals they hoped their protest march would accomplish. From the conversations and from listening to chatter among the group, I heard concern the march would progress peacefully. In addition to generalized statements, eg, “stay peaceful”, I also heard pleas to keep off people’s lawns, to not leave trash behind (candy wrappers, empty water bottles) and saw the group heed that counsel.
Meanwhile, I did not see everything that happened. I had at minimum objections to some of the actions (eg, creating traffic hazards ;no parade permit, police had to improvise protecting roadblocks that trapped people on a closed interstate and thus at minimum caused significant inconvenience if it did not produce accidents). I also heard some pretty intense, curse-filled language exchanged between members of the group. The peacefulness might have been only in the daylight while I was watching. That evening some part of the march path suffered vandalism.
All big cities are controlled by liberal Democrats like Obama. He must be frustrated with himself most of all.
Raleigh, NC has a female mayor and black female police chief, who was just forced to give a half-hearted defense of why she allowed her officers to defend their own lives, but, of course, certainly not the community
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article243141921.html
“I will not put an officer in harm’s way to protect the property inside a building because insurance is most likely going to cover that as well, but that officers’ safety is the utmost importance,” she said.
Are we up to date on our civilization insurance?
the protege of bill ayers, and jeremiah wright, tell me another one,
Your response is flawed in one respect-blacks and so-called Hispanics have plenty of access to guns for self defense, as witnessed by the plentiful gun play in majority ‘minority’ neighborhoods. It isn’t difficult for those living in high crime areas to gain access to firearms. Whether that access is granted legally or gained surreptitiously is due to Democrat Party platform statutes against gun ownership and denial of concealed carry laws.
Teresa Says – Sure if you’re willing to violate the law, it’s not that difficult to get a gun in many inner cities. But that sets up exactly the situation that is to be avoided like the plague, the state conspiring to turn law-abiding citizens into criminals.
Obeying the law is a decision, then a habit. Some people choose to obey the law and have a lower security capability. Those people are disproportionately crime victims. If armed, they would reduce the need to police those neighborhoods.
it does not recognize that some protesters had what I think you and I would agree are legitimate concerns.
Many of which are mistaken if honestly held. Racism is NOT the driving force in American society. A well off Philippine origin commenter at Althouse has moved his family to Spain to avoid the coming explosion he sees. Last night he commented on American history to point out that blacks are non-contributors to this society. They were brought here as slaves but slavery was only viable in the primitive agriculture of the South. It did not contribute significantly to the economy of the North which won the Civil War because the Industrial Revolution was limited to the North.
It is not PC to point this out but everyone not brain washed by miseducation knows this. Blacks have a normal distribution of IQ centered one standard deviation to the left, or lower end. That means there are millions of blacks capable of contributing if they only educate themselves. Lyndon Johnson and the “Great Society” created incentives to avoid education and self discipline. The result has been a disaster but it is not white racism.
A pretty good comment from elsewhere on this topic.
Charlamagne tha God kept asking how would you “dismantle white supremacy?” I would reform the schools.
This year 40 % of the black guys in the class of 2020 in the major US cities where the black community is concentrated did not graduate. And the public schools in the black inner city community are so beset by discipline problems and have so softened the curriculum that many of those who do graduate are not equipped to do a competent job in the better paying professions. Yet charter schools have shown that people in those communities can do well, graduate from high school with a good preparation and go to college in large numbers. Yet the Democratic leadership in the these same large cities opposes and tries to shut down charter schools and all alternatives to the public schools. I call the state of public school education in the black community “liberalism’s failure”, not “white supremacy.” But doesn’t giving a community a poor education guarantee a poor outcome in life for its citizens? You cannot rise if you cannot spell, whatever you call it? So this is an area where we could co-operate. But I think that Charlamagne and his friends will not dare take on the educational establishment or the Democrats in the cities. This has been going on a ling time and no significant leader in the black community dares stand up and criticize the education the children of the community are getting. When it all over and done with and another generation miseducated 40% of its members – then talk about “white supremacy” when you mean “the schools you voted for didn’t teach your children enough to hold their own and still you look the other way.” (Of course, the leaders, like Obama, have taken their own children out of that situation and their children are doing well, so there’s that.}
That’s why you see mothers lining up for vouchers and charter schools.
Agreed, Mike, that “racism is not the driving force.” In support of my concurrence I note that I did not mention to younger friends the statistical details about police and race. I did not point out to them that not just blacks, but whites get abused by police, that, in fact, whites are more likely to get abused. I did not attempt a discussion helping them to ponder the difficulty an authority might have in responding to a peaceful group transitioning (not in minutes, but mere seconds) into a mob, and that bent on vandalism. I did not direct them to Thomas Sowell and meditate with them upon the incredible-in-history peace and prosperity all people, specifically blacks, enjoy in the U.S. The situation was not one in which any challenging ideas requiring thought would receive a welcome.
Further, I agree that, regarding their concerns (which, since I’ve known them since before they were born, I believe honestly held), “many…are mistaken.” How to explore those concerns and help them get past the heat of the moment/day/week is the problem.
However, I hope you agree that there does exist a need to restrain/respond to some police actions.
However, I hope you agree that there does exist a need to restrain/respond to some police actions.
Yes, I have worried about the militarization going on the past decade but here we are when it is needed. In addition, we have seen the black establishment go anti-police for the same period. In setting up this confrontation, the black militants have created a sense of paranoia among police and even police families. My sister and I once, long ago, had arguments about Martin Luther King who I thought had gone too far in his opposition to the Vietnam War. I thought and still think, he had too many communists around him. Anyway, she defended King and got angry at me for questioning “brown people.” Then she married a Chicago cop. Now, she refers to “the brothers.”
Blacks have chosen to make an enemy of the police when they are the ones who need them the most. The angry young gang bangers don’t but the mothers and children do. The black middle class does but seems stuck in this cultural cul de sac.
I see people complaining about the police unions, and I am not fan of public employee unions, but the police are the objects of thousands of bogus complaints of “brutality,” as was this cop involved with Floyd. How many were valid ? We’ll never know. Democrat politicians, like Klobuchar, are now desperate to backpedal on any effort at law enforcement. The San Francisco DA, child of terrorists, raised by terrorists, is now the model. God help us. Meanwhile we buy guns and ammunition, at least where permitted to do so.
More on white racism.
Is the vastly disproportionate number of violent crimes by blacks against whites explained by black racism? Not necessarily. It might be the product of the disproportionate propensity of blacks to commit violent crimes against anyone. But the explanation must be racism, criminality, or both.
In all events, these numbers render absurd the claim that racist America is waging war against “black bodies.” When whites encounter blacks, it’s “white bodies” that are in greater jeopardy. (As a statistical matter, neither set of bodies is normally in danger.)
We almost never see the statistics on interracial violence presented above. It’s politically incorrect, and probably impolite, to bring them up.
I’m fine with that — until our cities are trashed and burned by mobs on the pretext that white racism makes blacks, as a group, unsafe in America.
Oh well. Fox News is not interested.
A “demonstration” doesn’t include burning, looting, or attacks on employees or customers. Nearby Saint Louis had one officer killed and several shot. A nearby strip mall was burned out. The “demonstrators” should be aware that “we” will back our police and that a “demonstrator” running with a flat screen or an armfull of tagged clothes is what is known locally as a “target’.
Floyd overdosed and was abandoned by his “friends”. Tough. The police were just picking up the trash. Obviously, no sympathy from here. Floyd died from stupid not racism.
The problem with “the police” is not “structural racism” or “systematic racism” or “the legacy of slavery” any other Democratic Party lie; the problem with “the police” is that the policing power is being used by *all* levels of government as a revenue-generating scheme. Take away the ability of government bureaucracies to profit by the fines they impose, and most of the problems with “the police” will solve themselves.
Here is one way that can be done —
When a citizen is fined by a government entity, the monies — including “court costs” — are forwarded to the local government where the citizens lives (*), where the total of those monies are used to reduce the tax burden of *all* citizens subject to that government entity. That is, the monies are not *added* into the budget of the government entity, by rather reduce the amount of the existing budget to be extracted directly from the citizens.
For example, property taxation is almost universal. If a county is scheduled to raise $10 million in property taxes, and the total fines and penalties imposed on the citizens of that county for that year somehow also amounted to $10 million, then no one would have to pay property tax that year, and the county would still have the amount for which it had budgeted.
(*) this is to remove the temptation to live off the backs of out-of-towners.
“For example, property taxation is almost universal. If a county is scheduled to raise $10 million in property taxes, and the total fines and penalties imposed on the citizens of that county for that year somehow also amounted to $10 million, then no one would have to pay property tax that year, and the county would still have the amount for which it had budgeted.”
Not actually what happens. They continue to collect statutory revenue and use anything left over for a party or to buy things like tanks and fancy guns. You don’t get out of paying your taxes that easy.
The question isn’t us supporting the police so much as the police supporting us. Much easier for them to stand back and let the “creative violence” happen than do what they are paid for.
https://www.infowars.com/antifa-invades-the-suburbs-in-yucaipa-ca-it-does-not-end-well-for-them/
Info wars, I know, but still check out the responce from the Sherrif.
indeed
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/06/the-bloodletting-and-wilding-is-part-of-an-agenda-to-tear-down-the-country/