Anyone else becoming terrified of Liberals.

demfad

marienbad wrote: »

I am sure you could do a similar exercise on Limerick city in the 80's , and you would probably find that 85% of the crime was due to the inhabitants of about 4 housing estates .

What do you think that tells us ?

What is your view on the fact that the population there is over 99% white? Pretty conclusive I would have thought.....

marienbad

demfad wrote: »

What is your view on the fact that the population there is over 99% white? Pretty conclusive I would have thought.....

So why was the crime so confined to specific areas ? what did they have or not have that made them different than other places in the city ? I'll give you 2 guesses

red ears

demfad wrote: »

What is your view on the fact that the population there is over 99% white? Pretty conclusive I would have thought.....

That would be a good point demfad of the same problem wasn't replicated right throughout America. There is obviously a problem with African Americans in terms of crime and poverty, gang membership, single parenthood etc. Whose responsibility is it to sort it out.

Zubeneschamali

red ears wrote: »

That would be a good point demfad of the same problem wasn't replicated right throughout America. There is obviously a problem with African Americans in terms of crime and poverty, gang membership, single parenthood etc. Whose responsibility is it to sort it out.

Yet here in Ireland, there is obviously a problem with white people in terms of crime and poverty, gang membership, single parenthood etc.

Perhaps the colour of people's skin is not that root cause in either case?

marienbad

red ears wrote: »

That would be a good point demfad of the same problem wasn't replicated right throughout America. There is obviously a problem with African Americans in terms of crime and poverty, gang membership, single parenthood etc. Whose responsibility is it to sort it out.

So what makes limerick different ?

red ears

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Yet here in Ireland, there is obviously a problem with white people in terms of crime and poverty, gang membership, single parenthood etc.

Perhaps the colour of people's skin is not that root cause in either case?

Perhaps so, above my pay-grade though i'm afraid. There is a problem though and it doesn't seem to be getting better. I hope someone can find a solution. America will be the better for it if they do.

Brian?

red ears wrote: »

Perhaps so, above my pay-grade though i'm afraid. There is a problem though and it doesn't seem to be getting better. I hope someone can find a solution. America will be the better for it if they do.

Perhaps if we stopped thinking in terms of race and focused on the socio economic causes of crime it may help.

demfad

red ears wrote: »

That would be a good point demfad of the same problem wasn't replicated right throughout America. There is obviously a problem with African Americans in terms of crime and poverty, gang membership, single parenthood etc. Whose responsibility is it to sort it out.

red ears wrote: »

Perhaps so, above my pay-grade though i'm afraid. There is a problem though and it doesn't seem to be getting better. I hope someone can find a solution. America will be the better for it if they do.

If its above youre paygrade and you basically haven't got a clue what you are talking about then then why have you reached the conclusion that Crime is correlated to skin colour in the US?

As its not based on reason it must be based on prejudice by definition: and prejudice based on skin colour is called racism.

Again, please clear this up for us.

I would encourage anyone who encounters racism to call it out. An excreble human being like Donald Trump cannot suceed in normalising it.

R P McMurphy

red ears wrote: »

Perhaps so, above my pay-grade though i'm afraid. There is a problem though and it doesn't seem to be getting better. I hope someone can find a solution. America will be the better for it if they do.

If you have Netflix you could watch a doc called 13th. Looks at the history of mass incarceration of African Americans and the problem that these policies have created over the decades

red ears

demfad wrote: »

If its above youre paygrade and you basically haven't got a clue what you are talking about then then why have you reached the conclusion that Crime is correlated to skin colour in the US?

As its not based on reason it must be based on prejudice by definition: and prejudice based on skin colour is called racism.

Again, please clear this up for us.

I would encourage anyone who encounters racism to call it out. An excreble human being like Donald Trump cannot suceed in normalising it.

How is Trump normalising it?

demfad

red ears wrote: »

How is Trump normalising it?

Answer my question before asking one of your own. Thats how it works.

Walter H Price

marienbad wrote: »

So what makes limerick different ?

Similar stuff , Poverty , replace the large African American community with a large Traveler Community (both Minority with similar cultural issues) ... But honestly Limerick is Micky Mouse stuff compare to the ghetto districts in the US , not sure if you've ever been to places like Baltimore or the ghettoized parts of DC and LA but Limerick is no comparison at all to those places.

Liberal views or not its undeniable that there is huge crime , drug abuse and other social issues in minority ghettos in the US be they African American or Latino .... Once upon a time it was the Irish and the Italians it was south Boston instead of Chicago , but i see no issue with Trump looking to address this issue you cant have heavily armed gangs controlling and battling it out for areas of urban centres

Brian?

Walter H Price wrote: »

Similar stuff , Poverty , replace the large African American community with a large Traveler Community (both Minority with similar cultural issues) ... But honestly Limerick is Micky Mouse stuff compare to the ghetto districts in the US , not sure if you've ever been to places like Baltimore or the ghettoized parts of DC and LA but Limerick is no comparison at all to those places.

Liberal views or not its undeniable that there is huge crime , drug abuse and other social issues in minority ghettos in the US be they African American or Latino .... Once upon a time it was the Irish and the Italians it was south Boston instead of Chicago , but i see no issue with Trump looking to address this issue you cant have heavily armed gangs controlling and battling it out for areas of urban centres

So we're agreed, the problem is not to do with race, it's to do with the socio economic problems in the areas effected.

Trump isn't looking to address the problems, he's tweeting nonsense about the problems. He can't "send in the Feds".

Zubeneschamali

Brian? wrote: »

So we're agreed, the problem is not to do with race, it's to do with the socio economic problems in the areas effected.

which is Why Trump appointed two random black lads to deal with "urban" issues, a slightly mad brain surgeon and a comedian.

Widdershins

Brian? wrote: »

Perhaps if we stopped thinking in terms of race and focused on the socio economic causes of crime it may help.

That's at the root of the problems. It's not surprising that many minorities are from poor families, as they have had to deal with inherited disadvantages. There are many poor white people in America, too. I suppose it is interesting if they feature much less in those statistics, and I'm reminded of a study that showed that white single mothers were statistically more likely to suffer certain hardships, for example, to be evicted, but nevertheless, the reason for gang and drug crime has little or nothing to do with their colour.

Walter H Price

Brian? wrote: »

So we're agreed, the problem is not to do with race, it's to do with the socio economic problems in the areas effected.

Trump isn't looking to address the problems, he's tweeting nonsense about the problems. He can't "send in the Feds".

Oh absolutely its not confined to race as i said in the past it was the Irish and the Italians , but i think at the same time you have to acknowledge there are problems now within the African american and Latino communities with drug abuse , gang violence , gun crime dysfunction families etc ...

It is not racist to acknowledge this , look at crime statistics particularly gun crime stats for predominantly African american areas of any US city you will see a repeating patter , the same for rates of incarceration , drug use etc ... thees communities have major major social issues witch need to be addressed , they have ghettoized themselves and this has exacerbated the issue's further.

Over time the Irish and Italians integrated became less insular , for the most part removed themselves from ghettos over that same time African Americans and Latinos became more insular more ghettoized and as with all crime wold wide drugs and drug gangs changed the game from the 80's onward ... i agree with Trump something has to be done about those communities.

I more so however relate to Ron Paul , Gary Johnson and the libertarian stance that it is unlikely anything can change until the war on drugs is ended , i don't see the Republicans or Democrats supporting this idea, so in the meantime until we can all mature a bit i suppose a crack down in terms of s of heavier policing , maybe sending in the national guard is all he or anyone else can realistically do ... or take the Obama approach support further racial division (BLM) and bury your head the sand, not sure that can be seen as doing anything though to be honest.

El_Duderino 09

Walter H Price wrote:

I more so however relate to Ron Paul , Gary Johnson and the libertarian stance that it is unlikely anything can change until the war on drugs is ended , i don't see the Republicans or Democrats supporting this idea, so in the meantime until we can all mature a bit i suppose a crack down in terms of s of heavier policing , maybe sending in the national guard is all he or anyone else can realistically do ... or take the Obama approach support further racial division (BLM) and bury your head the sand, not sure that can be seen as doing anything though to be honest.

Sending in the national guard would be similar to trying to secure Baghdad. There would be armed uniformed targets walking the streets. Your talking major engagements between national guard and drug gangs Unless you want to clear the ghetto and send the inhabitants elsewhere but I don't think anyone is suggesting that.

Trump mused that he might send troops to Mexico to sort out the drug trafficking problem. Daft as that sounds, there's probably a better argument for it than sending troop to Yemen. Drugs cause real deaths and social problems in America. Terrorists just frighten americans, for the most part.

How many deaths caused by drugs from south America vs terrorists from the middle East in the last 20 years (to cover 9/11 and ME wars). In the last year there were probably only a handful of deaths by Terrorism but tens of thousands of drug/drug gang related deaths. Not to mention the social problems.

Walter H Price

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Sending in the national guard would be similar to trying to secure Baghdad. There would be armed uniformed targets walking the streets. Your talking major engagements between national guard and drug gangs Unless you want to clear the ghetto and send the inhabitants elsewhere but I don't think anyone is suggesting that.

Trump mused that he might send troops to Mexico to sort out the drug trafficking problem. Daft as that sounds, there's probably a better argument for it than sending troop to Yemen. Drugs cause real deaths and social problems in America. Terrorists just frighten americans, for the most part.

How many deaths caused by drugs from south America vs terrorists from the middle East in the last 20 years (to cover 9/11 and ME wars). In the last year there were probably only a handful of deaths by Terrorism but tens of thousands of drug/drug gang related deaths. Not to mention the social problems.

Completely agree regards troops being better used to tackle drugs then terrorism , realistically that can be achieved through discontinuing military action abroad and restrictions on immigration from the middle east and north Africa , either boots on the ground in the ghettos an taking on the gangs directly or in mexico taking on the traffickers directly are better solutions then doing nothing ... legalization , regulation and control will eventually be recognized as the only workable solution but until that time taking on the gangs and traffickers directly is the best alternative.

El_Duderino 09

Walter H Price wrote:

Completely agree regards troops being better used to tackle drugs then terrorism , realistically that can be achieved through discontinuing military action abroad and restrictions on immigration from the middle east and north Africa , either boots on the ground in the ghettos an taking on the gangs directly or in mexico taking on the traffickers directly are better solutions then doing nothing ... legalization , regulation and control will eventually be recognized as the only workable solution but until that time taking on the gangs and traffickers directly is the best alternative.

Agreed. The war on drugs is a big industry and provides a lot of jobs in enforcement, imprisonment and layers. The war on terrorism is a vote winer through national security etc.

I can't see anyone changing much in either area. Trump has found a way to capatalise on the drug problem by pointing to black lads being the problem (pleasing his base) while not committing to actually do anything about it (not disrupting the war on drugs industry). Having his cake and eating it. And people call him stupid.

frostyjacks

jooksavage wrote: »

This x 10000.

Trump is not a conservative, either socially or fiscally. Plenty of self-proclaiming conservatives hitched their wagon to him because he wasn't Clinton. We'll get to see how true they are to their ideals when the prospect of trade tarriffs becomes a reality and the bill for the Wall arrives in the post.

What bill? The Mexicans will pay for it, in one form or other.

Walter H Price

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Agreed. The war on drugs is a big industry and provides a lot of jobs in enforcement, imprisonment and layers. The war on terrorism is a vote winer through national security etc.

I can't see anyone changing much in either area. Trump has found a way to capatalise on the drug problem by pointing to black lads being the problem (pleasing his base) while not committing to actually do anything about it (not disrupting the war on drugs industry). Having his cake and eating it. And people call him stupid.

US has a war economy has done since WW2 they cant afford to not be fighting someone or some thing

El_Duderino 09

Walter H Price wrote:

US has a war economy has done since WW2 they cant afford to not be fighting someone or some thing

It's grand to fight the war on drugs but it would be disastrous to actually win it.

Collateral damage from drugs us mostly poor people who are mostly black. That's acceptable, and he gets to tut at the dreadful minorities and their drug/social problems.

Collateral damage from winning the war on drugs would be mostly white, middle class professional being made redundant. Can't have that.

Walter H Price

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

It's grand to fight the war on drugs but it would be disastrous to actually win it.

Collateral damage from drugs us mostly poor people who are mostly black. That's acceptable, and he gets to tut at the dreadful minorities and their drug/social problems.

Collateral damage from winning the war on drugs would be mostly white, middle class professional being made redundant. Can't have that.

I don't think its as black and white as that (excuse the pun) , the thing that frustrates me with the current approach to the war on drugs is that the miss the bigger picture there will still be professional jobs there ,in regulation , in drug manufacture, production , quality control ,distribution , the medical and health profess in the treatment of addicts , distribution in transport and retail of the new drugs , it will still need to be policed to an extent but police resources could be better utilized elsewhere e.g. more highway cops , cut down on road deaths while your at it double win.

I don't believe politicians and bureaucrats are inherently racist and vie it as beneficial to keep wasting time money and resources fighting an un-winnable war to keep the poor a criminals ... i honestly believe they simply lack the vision to the opportunity for growth and wealth creation that legalizing , regulating and controlling current banned substances would bring , as alcohol and tobacco have.

In this vein Trump will follow the same its morally wrong to do drugs argument , he may commit extra resource he may choose to literally fight suppliers and traffickers in some sort of armed conflict , either way he will be wasting resources and chasing his tail, it may or may not achieve more success then doing nothing it may not , either way its what the American people voted for

OleRodrigo

There is the prison industrial complex. 2.5 million incarcerated in 2015. Much of the prison functions including parole are run by private corporations, who also benefit from prison labor at 25 c an hour (and if you call in sick, its solitary confinement )

Since the abolition of slavery, there has been some mechanism to oppress minorities and people of colour. Since then a variety of measures—from Jim Crow laws to President Richard Nixon's "war on drugs" and President Bill Clinton's "three-strikes-you're-out" legislation—have served to send increasingly large numbers of black men in prison. Corporations have reaped profits off the privatization of prisons and prison labor; some prisoners have gotten paid as little as 12 cents an hour, doing work for corporations, like Victoria's Secret and Walmart.

It doesn't matter what ' side' you take - not being tough on crime is political suicide. Hillary Clinton supported the 1990s crime bill that led to a jump in the prison population from 1/2 a million to the amounts today. Trump supported the death penalty in the case of 5 innocent youths imprisoned for a murder.

If you're a an African American, you have a one in three chance of going to prison over the course of your life.

( Source - 13th https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/oct/09/13th-review-bracing-fiercely-intelligent-prison-documentary-ava-duvernay )

Walter H Price

OleRodrigo wrote: »

There is the prison industrial complex. 2.5 million incarcerated in 2015. Much of the prison functions including parole are run by private corporations, who also benefit from prison labor at 25 c an hour (and if you call in sick, its solitary confinement )

Since the abolition of slavery, there has been some mechanism to oppress minorities and people of colour. Since then a variety of measures—from Jim Crow laws to President Richard Nixon's "war on drugs" and President Bill Clinton's "three-strikes-you're-out" legislation—have served to send increasingly large numbers of black men in prison. Corporations have reaped profits off the privatization of prisons and prison labor; some prisoners have gotten paid as little as 12 cents an hour, doing work for corporations, like Victoria's Secret and Walmart.

It doesn't matter what ' side' you take - not being tough on crime is political suicide. Hillary Clinton supported the 1990s crime bill that led to a jump in the prison population from 1/2 a million to the amounts today. Trump supported the death penalty in the case of 5 innocent youths imprisoned for a murder.

If you're a an African American, you have a one in three chance of going to prison over the course of your life.

( Source - 13th https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/oct/09/13th-review-bracing-fiercely-intelligent-prison-documentary-ava-duvernay )

I don't necessarily think its a racist system though , there are huge social issues in the black community's , had the system been as it is today from the 1900 - 1950's it would have been disproportionately full of Irish and Italian , it just so happens that since the 1960's the community with the biggest social issues has been the African American community , i feel part of this actually stemmed from the civil rights movement (the racial divisions of some the more hardline groups like the black panthers etc... ) where groups segregate themselves social issues become more pervasive as has happened with the african american community and is currently happening with the latino community , poverty and crime breed more poverty and more crime in a repetitious cycle that can only be broken be greater social integration.

even here in a far more liberal prison system , in state control , not for profit we have a disproportionate amount of Travelers among the Irish prison population for the exact same reasons as the African Americans in the states

Professor Moriarty

Walter H Price wrote: »

I don't necessarily think its a racist system though , there are huge social issues in the black community's , had the system been as it is today from the 1900 - 1950's it would have been disproportionately full of Irish and Italian , it just so happens that since the 1960's the community with the biggest social issues has been the African American community , i feel part of this actually stemmed from the civil rights movement (the racial divisions of some the more hardline groups like the black panthers etc... ) where groups segregate themselves social issues become more pervasive as has happened with the african american community and is currently happening with the latino community , poverty and crime breed more poverty and more crime in a repetitious cycle that can only be broken be greater social integration.

even here in a far more liberal prison system , in state control , not for profit we have a disproportionate amount of Travelers among the Irish prison population for the exact same reasons as the African Americans in the states

Bit of chicken and egg there. If black people had been given equal rights then they wouldn't have been forced to agitate for them. Also, the idea that black people in America segregated themselves really doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

vetinari

The prison system in the US has a clear racial bias.
It's evident in the statistics.
The book "The new Jim Crow" gives a good account of how the system is put together.

At it's simplest, people of all races use drugs at similar rates but arrest rates for Black and Hispanic people are drastically higher.
It's not all due to class. Working class white people have significantly lower rates of arrest for drug use as well.

What they police choose to enforce and what the courts give as sentences matter.
A good comparison is between enforcement for drink driving and say a black drug like crack cocaine.
I think most people would agree that drink driving should be a bigger offence than possessing 28 grams of crack cocaine.
Drink driving though is rampant in the States. At least in Boston, there are no checkpoints. You're only at risk of arrest if you have an accident. If you somehow manage to get caught, you'll probably escape jail time.

Drink driving is a majority white crime in the states, possessing crack cocaine is a majority black crime. Before recent federal reforms, you'd have gotten a minimum of 5 years in prison without parole for the crack cocaine.

johnnyskeleton

vetinari wrote: »

A good comparison is between enforcement for drink driving and say a black drug like crack cocaine.
I think most people would agree that drink driving should be a bigger offence than possessing 28 grams of crack cocaine.
Drink driving though is rampant in the States. At least in Boston, there are no checkpoints. You're only at risk of arrest if you have an accident. If you somehow manage to get caught, you'll probably escape jail time.

Drink driving is a majority white crime in the states, possessing crack cocaine is a majority black crime. Before recent federal reforms, you'd have gotten a minimum of 5 years in prison without parole for the crack cocaine.

Maybe, but drink driving also attracts much lower sentences in Ireland than possession of Crack. 28g would probably also be sale or supply territory. Same in the UK a lot of continental Europe I'm sure and in Asia, the gulf widens significantly such that drink driving is almost not an offence and 28g would have you executed in Malaysia.

So is it really a black v white thing when possession of Crack is considered to be more serious than drink driving generally?

vetinari

If you wanted a closer comparison, you can look at the sentencing disparities between powder and crack cocaine.
They've significantly different as well.

Enforcement as I mentioned is the most significant difference anyways. Sentencing for crack cocaine might be higher than drink driving in Ireland (which is nuts if you ask me) but there's definitely more effort expended to catch drink drivers than drug users.

Maybe I'm wrong in this, but Ireland hasn't had the same heavy policing approach in certain non white areas that the US has had.
Arrest rates and prison population sizes don't seem to suggest it anyways.

eire4

Walter H Price wrote: »

US has a war economy has done since WW2 they cant afford to not be fighting someone or some thing

Good point and that economy has skyrocketed since 2001 when after the terrorists attacks the Bush government used the crisis as an excuse to creat the Orwellian surveillance state now in place and largely run by private companies not the government. Then with the Iraqi war they privatized as much of the military as possible. Be it massive contracts to Halliburton to set up bases for the troops and everything in the bases being done by private companies to hiring military contractors to carry out military operations.

Walter H Price

eire4 wrote: »

Good point and that economy has skyrocketed since 2001 when after the terrorists attacks the Bush government used the crisis as an excuse to creat the Orwellian surveillance state now in place and largely run by private companies not the government. Then with the Iraqi war they privatized as much of the military as possible. Be it massive contracts to Halliburton to set up bases for the troops and everything in the bases being done by private companies to hiring military contractors to carry out military operations.

Now your seeing the bigger picture , the US is war inc , war on drugs , war on terror ... thats what fuels the economy , they export war (through sale of weapons) fight against those they've armed the rebuild their country and sell it back to them.

Its not racism, its not islamophobia or for the protection of freedom , its not imperialism , its just business

RabbleRouser2k

It's the worst kind of orwellian state-it's searching, nay, pretending to search, for supposed 'threats'. But then it's a country where a girl can be kidnapped, raped, and held in open view, until adulthood. Then raped so that she has her rapists child-and yet eighteen years go by, she's on home soil, and 'cannot be found'. Yet she's on someone's lawn, and nobody says anything.

Yet a supposed 'terrorist' can be stopped at an airport, detained with no evidence or trial, and held in captivity for no reason. Orwellian? MAybe. But it's more fabricated dangers than anything.
Hell, a millionaire can stand in open view and claim she's gonna bomb the whitehouse-nothing happens cos she's rich and white. A ten year old kid plays with a water pistol, and because he's black, gets shot to death.
It's not a country, it's a large scale prison.

eire4

Walter H Price wrote: »

Now your seeing the bigger picture , the US is war inc , war on drugs , war on terror ... thats what fuels the economy , they export war (through sale of weapons) fight against those they've armed the rebuild their country and sell it back to them.

Its not racism, its not islamophobia or for the protection of freedom , its not imperialism , its just business

In many ways the US mentality at government level is one of empire but unlike in the past where it was based on taking over a country physically the US is more about an economic empire and in particular is about imposing its Friedmanite economic agenda euphemistically called the Washington consensus which is basically deregulate everything so the people and the environments have no protections, privatize pretty much everything and get rid of the social safety net and then the magical free market will usher in the Friedmanite utopia. Reality is this ideology produces dystopia although there are massive profits to be made by the wealthy and major corporations and thats all they really care about.