Land of the brave

RandRuns

10000maniacs wrote: »

So how do you explain it then?

I'm not the one that brought it up, why should I explain it. You've come up with a, to put it mildly, fairly questionable contention, perhaps you should prove it?

yourdeadwright

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

Ah here , are you seriously trying to justify the pepper spraying of a child already in handcuffs?

Ah no not at all ,
But still make your kid behave and it'll be grand

Snickers Man

notabogsnotion wrote: »

Boards.ie has a demographic of a lot of white, male posters. You are not remotely qualified to speak about the marginalised, vulnerable or persecuted.

Hey! We're Irish. We DON'T stay in our lane.

Witness!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKhKwsfv7vQ

WrenBoy

Snickers Man wrote: »

Hey! We're Irish. We DON'T stay in our lane.

Witness!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKhKwsfv7vQ

Road signs and marking are more suggestions really.

Snickers Man

Donald Trump wrote: »

Here is a video of an unarmed white fella getting shot because he was lying prone on the floor, and being pissed, tried to fix his trousers that were falling off.

That's outrageous. And the cop got away with it too!!!

Thank God we have a largely unarmed police force.

Quantum Erasure

Somethings been bugging me about this thread and I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but it just came to me there....

It's the land of the FREE, and the HOME of the brave

Billy Mays

Quantum Erasure wrote: »

Somethings been bugging me about this thread and I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but it just came to me there....

It's the land of the FREE, and the HOME of the brave

Anything but brave

Home of the terrified doesn't have the same ring to it unfortunately

10000maniacs

Quantum Erasure wrote: »

Somethings been bugging me about this thread and I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but it just came to me there....

It's the land of the FREE, and the HOME of the brave

Fitting that it was written by a slave owner.
I changed the lyrics to disassociate myself from the song. LOL

Donald Trump

Snickers Man wrote: »

That's outrageous. And the cop got away with it too!!!

Thank God we have a largely unarmed police force.

Well one of the issues is that one can't ever seem to reach a point in the debate where you can actually address the root of these problems.


Cops get called to a disturbance by the parents of a 9 year old. She gets arrested and pepper sprayed. You should be able to point out that the system seems a bit messed up and the cops that did it must be a eegits and/or very badly trained (or maybe they actually followed some stupid protocol).


But instead, that can't be pointed out. All that can be pointed out is that they are racist.



That man who was shot in the hotel was white. So there wasn't much about it. If he had been black, then there'd have been riots about it. What is never discussed is the overall state of things that means the man was shot dead in a hallway. Was it bad training, trigger happy cop, lack of alternative methods to subdue an unarmed (and crying from being scared) drunk man? No - he was white so nothing to see here. If he had been black it would have been just because the shooter was a racist. So the actual real issues and causes are never addressed

Donald Trump

Quantum Erasure wrote: »

Somethings been bugging me about this thread and I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but it just came to me there....

It's the land of the FREE, and the HOME of the brave

It was the home of the brave


Until they killed them all and put the few remaining ones on reservations

the purple tin

Donald Trump wrote: »

It was the home of the brave


Until they killed them all and put the few remaining ones on reservations

As you used to say 'Make America Great Again' the only way to truly make it great again is for everyone to clear off and gave it back to the native americans.

WrenBoy

the purple tin wrote: »

As you used to say 'Make America Great Again' the only way to truly make it great again is for everyone to clear off and gave it back to the native americans.

So go back where you came from is it ?? :pac:

the purple tin

WrenBoy wrote: »

So go back where you came from is it ?? :pac:

Precisely, It has been all downhill since the Spaniards first landed. A population of around 40 million reduced to just 1 million after 50 years

kildare lad

There's about 10 million people arrested in America every year while I agree that the cops in the video should be fired and it shouldn't be happening to 9 year olds . But it's obviously brownie points to the " I hate cops " brigade . It's the same narrative that cops are going around killing unarmed black men . There's about a dozen cases of unarmed black men killed each year , thats hardly an epidemic if there's 10 million arrests . It's about 0.0000012 % of arrests.

There's 700,000 cops in America , it's a very big brush people are trying to use to taint a whole organization for the actions of a few. Some people would have you believe that cops spend their days arresting kids or killing unarmed black men , all the while dealing with shootings , seeing people dead or dying from violence, car crashes , sexual assaults , they've to deal with the victims of rape or child abuse , they've to inform parents of their kids been killed in crashes or murdered . All the while working in a toxic environment created BLM, media and having no support from left wing politicians . So before idiots slams 700,000 cops think how hard it'd be doing a job like that.

FTA69

There clearly is an issue in America with racist policing and it has been well documented, arising from a society that treated black people on the whole pretty badly for a very long time. That having been said, while race clearly does play a role in terrible policing - you can't condense the entire issue within that country down to race alone. I remember reading an article recently that said when you examine the amount of lower income people killed by the police then the race factor narrows substantially and as we have seen with the video posted here of that poor man shot in the hotel by a cop who was a complete psychopath, being white isn't a guarantee you're not going to be on the wrong side of bad policing. Ice T summed up well recently enough, "when the cops get going, no lives matter."

When you couple America's clear race issues with a massive rich/poor divide and a history of state violence and a country flooded with guns the results are fairly disastrous. I've major issues with policing in America and its general role in society, but on a personal level I wouldn't want to be a cop in America - approaching every routine domestic situation with the worry bullets are going to fly through the door when you open it.

This incident of a young girl casually being sprayed in the eyes by a grown adult is horrific, and it's a symptom of a wider society that is deeply sick on many levels.

the purple tin

kildare lad wrote: »

There's about 10 million people arrested in America every year while I agree that the cops in the video should be fired and it shouldn't be happening to 9 year olds . But it's obviously brownie points to the " I hate cops " brigade . It's the same narrative that cops are going around killing unarmed black men . There's about a dozen cases of unarmed black men killed each year , thats hardly an epidemic if there's 10 million arrests . It's about 0.0000012 % of arrests.

There's 700,000 cops in America , it's a very big brush people are trying to use to taint a whole organization for the actions of a few. Some people would have you believe that cops spend their days arresting kids or killing unarmed black men , all the while dealing with shootings , seeing people dead or dying from violence, car crashes , sexual assaults , they've to deal with the victims of rape or child abuse , they've to inform parents of their kids been killed in crashes or murdered . All the while working in a toxic environment created BLM, media and having no support from left wing politicians . So before idiots slams 700,000 cops think how hard it'd be doing a job like that.

Yes there is a good AMA on atm with an Irish guy who has been a cop over in the US for years. He was saying there will always be some bad eggs but it doesn't make the entire police force rotten. Also there are a lot of different rules and regulations and ways of operating for police in each state.


https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058151871

kildare lad

the purple tin wrote: »

Yes there is a good AMA on atm with an Irish guy who has been a cop over in the US for years. He was saying there will always be some bad eggs but it doesn't make the entire police force rotten. Also there are a lot of different rules and regulations and ways of operating for police in each state.


https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058151871

Agreed , while I think they've a lot of problems over there as you lined out could you imagine doing police work in a country where there's more guns than people. If you look at the stats of the amount of murders in some cities over there it's mind boggling . I know it's hard for some people to comprehend but if people stopped getting involved in criminality , there odds of interactions with the police go way down

kildare lad

kildare lad wrote: »

There's about a dozen cases of unarmed black men killed each year , thats hardly an epidemic if there's 10 million arrests . It's about 0.0000012 % of arrests.

No idea where you're pulling those figures from, but I've a feeling the sun don't shine there very often.

https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/fatal-police-shootings-of-unarmed-black-people-in-us-more-than-3-times-as-high-as-in-whites/
There were over 4500 shootings in 5 years:

Some 5367 fatal police shootings were reported by the Washington Post from 2015 to May 2020; missing details on race/ethnicity or age left a total of 4653 deaths for analysis.

---

The victims were unarmed in 1 in 6 (753;16%) fatal shootings. Rates among unarmed Black and Hispanic victims were significantly higher than they were among White victims: more than 3 times as high and 45% higher, respectively.

That's a ratio of 1:3:1.45 in terms of White/Black/Hispanic. Apply that to the 753 figure and you get:
138 unarmed white victims
414 unarmed black victims
200 unarmed hispanic victims over the 5 years. That's more than 80 per year, or nearly 7 per month, not 10 per year as you suggested. Please note, however, that this is only covering shootings and does not include all other methods of killing unarmed civilians. So George Floyd isn't counted, for example. Nor is Breonna Taylor as her boyfriend had a gun so the killing doesn't count as unarmed, even though she didn't have a weapon.

Interestingly, if you split the stats into two (white vs non-white) instead of three, the figures are even more stark: 138 vs 615. That's an average of 123 per year, of unarmed BIPOC being shot dead by police in America. More than ten per month, not "about a dozen per year" as you claimed. Again, to emphasise, this is just shootings we're looking at here, not 'all killings'.


Some further reading:

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/3/1263

Young unarmed nonsuicidal male victims of fatal
use of force are 13 times more likely to be
Black than White

So, the first article I linked says it's 3 times the rate for white vs black unarmed deaths. This second link says that, if you eliminate the crazies and those looking to commit 'suicide by cop', that figure of 3 jumps to 13 because those people are almost exclusively white.

It may still be statistically insignificant, or not, but the bottom line is you are misrepresenting the data by a factor of at least 8.

Foxtrol

kildare lad wrote: »

There's about 10 million people arrested in America every year while I agree that the cops in the video should be fired and it shouldn't be happening to 9 year olds . But it's obviously brownie points to the " I hate cops " brigade . It's the same narrative that cops are going around killing unarmed black men . There's about a dozen cases of unarmed black men killed each year , thats hardly an epidemic if there's 10 million arrests . It's about 0.0000012 % of arrests.

There's 700,000 cops in America , it's a very big brush people are trying to use to taint a whole organization for the actions of a few. Some people would have you believe that cops spend their days arresting kids or killing unarmed black men , all the while dealing with shootings , seeing people dead or dying from violence, car crashes , sexual assaults , they've to deal with the victims of rape or child abuse , they've to inform parents of their kids been killed in crashes or murdered . All the while working in a toxic environment created BLM, media and having no support from left wing politicians . So before idiots slams 700,000 cops think how hard it'd be doing a job like that.

The number is at least double what you're saying there (likely much higher but the data is absolutely rubbish). The problem is not just killing though - it is also other types of brutality that very few police forces make their officers even report. For example most officers don't have to report deploying mace so without the video here this situation wouldn't have been captured in statistics.

Even ignoring that, you'd potentially have a point if the police unions didn't excuse and defend the actions of those situations where the officers were obviously wrong - like this one. How can you not think a group is rotten when their elected representatives defend the worst of them?

Snickers Man

Donald Trump wrote: »

Well one of the issues is that one can't ever seem to reach a point in the debate where you can actually address the root of these problems.

Well, you can if you retain your own clear view of the situation and express yourself accordingly.
It's very easy to get sidetracked down trying to second-guess other people's points of view and reacting to what you think they might be. But that just starts off a spiral of whataboutery and "If this happened nobody would say a thing"

The two videos posted here are appalling. A nine year old girl and a drunk, frightened fairly harmless young man brutally and unnecessarily dealt with by incompetent policemen.

I quite agree: the race of either shouldn't come into it. But a more holistic consideration of each situation might offer some suggestions as to what should happen.

In the second case, it is clear the cop is far too stressed out and hyper to be safely in charge of an automatic weapon, never mind to be pointing it at a whimpering drunk dude in a prone position. Now maybe you or I would have been no different if we'd been told (as he had been) that someone in the guy's room had been pointing a rifle out a window. (Turned out it was a pellet gun and he had been showing it off to two young ladies he had brought back to his room)

Frightened person calls cops. Frightened cops threaten drunk people. Frightened drunk person doesn't behave exactly as the cop expects him to. Blam Blam Blam.

The only thing that saves an innocent person from an idiot with a gun is not letting the idiot have the gun in the first place.

But try telling that to a yank........

Montage of Feck

People expecting too much from the US. It was founded by a bunch of slave holding big protestant farmers descended from the lads up north.

Foxtrol

kildare lad wrote: »

Agreed , while I think they've a lot of problems over there as you lined out could you imagine doing police work in a country where there's more guns than people. If you look at the stats of the amount of murders in some cities over there it's mind boggling . I know it's hard for some people to comprehend but if people stopped getting involved in criminality , there odds of interactions with the police go way down

The old 'they were asking for it' excuse...

Sure some cases the person is carrying out a serious crime but many times it either isn't serious at all, a potential forged $20 bill or selling loose cigarettes, or aren't even committing crimes.

Here is a recent settlement for a black cop who was undercover in a protest and other cops kicked the crap out of him. How many times has this happened but the cops were able to get away with their lies because it was just a normal protester they beat up and not a cop.

https://twitter.com/sarasidnerCNN/status/1361399717972746242?s=20

We need American news in a sub forum.

kildare lad

Foxtrol wrote: »

The number is at least double what you're saying there (likely much higher but the data is absolutely rubbish). The problem is not just killing though - it is also other types of brutality that very few police forces make their officers even report. For example most officers don't have to report deploying mace so without the video here this situation wouldn't have been captured in statistics.

Even ignoring that, you'd potentially have a point if the police unions didn't excuse and defend the actions of those situations where the officers were obviously wrong - like this one. How can you not think a group is rotten when their elected representatives defend the worst of them?

Look I agreed with you about bad cops etc. It's just the tarring of all cops with the same brush as the scumbags is wrong. Ive an uncle as a Garda , would I that him with the same brush as the Garda involved in the maurice mccabe fiasco. No I wouldn't . All I'm saying is that any organization with 700,000 people is going to have a few bad eggs . Then you add in all the crap they've to deal with in not surprised incidents of people getting wrongly killed or arrested happens . Could you imagine how much harder it would be to be Garda if we had the same amount of guns in circulation as they did in the States. They've more guns than people over there. Some of there cities are like war zones ,


700 people murdered in chicago last year

https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-police-homicides-murder-report/8424707

500 killed and 2200 shot in Philadelphia which has a population the same as Dublin .

https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-gun-violence-homicides-shootings-pandemic-2020-20210101.html

Foxtrol

kildare lad wrote: »

Look I agreed with you about bad cops etc. It's just the tarring of all cops with the same brush as the scumbags is wrong. Ive an uncle as a Garda , would I that him with the same brush as the Garda involved in the maurice mccabe fiasco. No I wouldn't . All I'm saying is that any organization with 700,000 people is going to have a few bad eggs . Then you add in all the crap they've to deal with in not surprised incidents of people getting wrongly killed or arrested happens . Could you imagine how much harder it would be to be Garda if we had the same amount of guns in circulation as they did in the States. They've more guns than people over there. Some of there cities are like war zones ,


700 people murdered in chicago last year

https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-police-homicides-murder-report/8424707

500 killed and 2200 shot in Philadelphia which has a population the same as Dublin .

https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-gun-violence-homicides-shootings-pandemic-2020-20210101.html

If there are only a few bad eggs then I need them to show it. Practically every time there is one of these shocking situations their elected representatives in their union defend the scumbag cops involved. You hear the odd cop being upset by the stance but absolutely nothing is done by the 'good cops'.

At best it seems like their culture is akin to the church, knowing very well they have 'bad eggs' that have committed crimes but the group as a whole having little to no issue about doing everything possible to make sure no one on 'their side' sees any kind of justice.

John Doe1

This is uncalled for but....

There is plenty of evidence that Black Americans are simply more likely to commit criminal acts and therefore are more likely to have negative interactions with Law Enforcement. Even this factcheck from the ultra-left Channel 4 admits as much.

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-black-americans-commit-crime

Blacks only make up a tiny 13% of the population yet commit 50% of all murders (and 50% of victims), there is a problem within the community and the sooner that community admits to it rather than playing the victim at every available opportunity, the better.

The fact that African immigrants to the US do so well pretty much negate the racism argument also

Snickers Man

John Doe1 wrote: »

This is uncalled for but....

There is plenty of evidence that Black Americans are simply more likely to commit criminal acts and therefore are more likely to have negative interactions with Law Enforcement. Even this factcheck from the ultra-left Channel 4 admits as much.

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-black-americans-commit-crime

Blacks only make up a tiny 13% of the population yet commit 50% of all murders (and 50% of victims), there is a problem within the community and the sooner that community admits to it rather than playing the victim at every available opportunity, the better.

The fact that African immigrants to the US do so well pretty much negate the racism argument also

At the risk of "triggering" some people, this post is an example of why All Lives Matter is a better aspiration than Black Lives Matter. Or at least, why BLM might be better amended to read "Black Lives Matter Because All Lives Matter"

Though in fairness, the topic may not even have been raised unless the BLM people made such a deal of it.

We can toss backwards and forwards all day the nitty gritty of US statistics showing how much more likely Black people are to be shot by police or how much more likely they are to be shot by each other. But there are a few salient irrefutable statistics that should occupy the place, metaphorically, of a very big elephant in a very small room.

For a start nearly A THOUSAND people are shot dead in the US every year by law enforcement officers. That's according to bald facts gathered by the Washington Post. They don't assess culpability, or justification or extenuating circumstances. They just report, as a fact, that on average over the last five years or so, somewhere close to a thousand people, the overwhelming majority of them American citizens, are gunned down every year by cops.

Is that not enough of a disgraceful statistic to prompt people to think that something is very wrong?

The trouble with focusing solely on the race angle, is that it gives people like Ben Shapiro and the quoted poster (who I suspect is a fan) the opportunity to dive into the statistics and divert attention away from the big facts.

Why do so many black people appear in confrontations with police? Is it because they tend to occupy the poorer sections of society where police action is concentrated? Might this not be a broader social issue than a law-enforcement one?

Get with the big picture, people. It's damning enough!!!

Here's the Washington Post's summary data for the years 2015-2019

No of people SHOT DEAD by law enforcement officers in US

Year Total
2019 1001
2018 991
2017 986
2016 962
2015 994
5 yr Avge 987
Source:Washington Post

By contrast, the FBI reports on the numbers of cops and Federal Law enforcement officers (FBI, DEA, BTAF etc) that were feloniously killed in the same years. Here's their data from the horse's mouth.

US Police and Federal agents feloniously killed in performance of duty

Year Cops Feds Total
2019 48 0 48
2018 55 2 57
2017 46 0 46
2016 66 1 67
2015 41 1 42

5-yr avge 51 1 52
Source: FBI

So on average over the past five years (for which data is readily available), for every cop that gets killed on duty in the US, about 20 people are SHOT DEAD by the law!!! That doesn't include police killings by other methods such as over zealous choke holds ("I can't breathe") or, say, kneeling on a suspect's neck for 10 minutes!

Here's a contrast: in Yugoslavia during WWII the Nazis adopted a policy of shooting 100 civilians in reprisal for every German soldier killed by resistance fighters. So kudos to the yanks, they're not quite as bad as Nazi war criminals in eastern Europe. Only a 20 to one ratio as opposed to a 100 to one ratio.

Maybe if the Germans had kept their reprisal rate down to 20 to one, there would not have been so many of them hanged at Nuremberg?

Foxtrol

John Doe1 wrote: »

This is uncalled for but....

There is plenty of evidence that Black Americans are simply more likely to commit criminal acts and therefore are more likely to have negative interactions with Law Enforcement. Even this factcheck from the ultra-left Channel 4 admits as much.

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-black-americans-commit-crime

Blacks only make up a tiny 13% of the population yet commit 50% of all murders (and 50% of victims), there is a problem within the community and the sooner that community admits to it rather than playing the victim at every available opportunity, the better.

You're completely ignoring the different poverty levels between white and black families. No matter where you look in the world, poorer people commit more crime, especially people who come from generations of poverty. It can be seen in Dublin as much as Chicago.

The fact that African immigrants to the US do so well pretty much negate the racism argument also

Not sure what you mean by 'do so well' but your argument doesn't stand up to any scrutiny.

In general people who make all the effort to emigrate are better educated and have a better drive to succeed than the average of those in of country they're moving to. For example, if you compare white Americans who emigrated to Ireland to average white Irish person you'd find less examples of poverty or crime.

John Doe1

Foxtrol wrote: »

You're completely ignoring the different poverty levels between white and black families. No matter where you look in the world, poorer people commit more crime, especially people who come from generations of poverty. It can be seen in Dublin as much as Chicago.



Not sure what you mean by 'do so well' but your argument doesn't stand up to any scrutiny.

In general people who make all the effort to emigrate are better educated and have a better drive to succeed than the average of those in of country they're moving to. For example, if you compare white Americans who emigrated to Ireland to average white Irish person you'd find less examples of poverty or crime.

Buy why are black people poorer is the question? is it institutional racism or could it be that such things as the lack of a father figure, gang culture, rap music glorying being a criminal mean that those already within poverty stay in poverty. If parts of this culture was modified, im sure Black people would be pulled out of poverty and much less likely to be imprisoned/shot what have you.

I empathise with the community to an extent as I came from a poor background myself but I will never buy the argument that just because someone is poor that they should be given a free pass to commit crime.

Personal responsibility is a thing and not all cultures are equal, modern traveller culture is not equal to Renassiance Florentine culture for instance.

To the person who said I was a fan of Ben Shapiro, no idea, i had to google the guy. im more of a fan of Sam Harris. The below podcast with black Harvard economist Glen Loury is quite illuminating in this regard. Feel free to challenge your biases by having a listen.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/42-racism-and-violence-in-america/id733163012?i=1000373897212

Snickers Man

John Doe1 wrote: »

I empathise with the community to an extent as I came from a poor background myself but I will never buy the argument that just because someone is poor that they should be given a free pass to commit crime.

That is not the argument at all. And I wouldn't patronise anyone from any poor background by saying that it's OK to mug old ladies, steal students' bikes, break into shops and steal food etc etc

But it's just an observable matter of fact that as you increase inequality, demonstrate palpable unfairness, equate membership of an identity group with membership of an economically disadvantaged group to the point where the line between cause and effect becomes blurred you are diminishing people's ability to resist the lure of crime. That's only pragmatism.

At what point do you realise that "We're taking the piss here if we stack the odds so heavily against an identifiable section of the community and expect them all to be saints in response"?

It's in everybody's interest to at least try to have a fairer society. The response of people like Ben Shapiro (whose sentiments you appeared to echo, even if you have never heard of him) is that (in America at least) blacks have only themselves to blame for their predicament, because of their culture of irresponsibility.
It's a reprehensible attitude, but that's only my opinion.

John Doe1 wrote: »

To the person who said I was a fan of Ben Shapiro, no idea, i had to google the guy. im more of a fan of Sam Harris.

Why are you a fan of Sam Harris? What is there to like or admire about him or to empathise with him about? He is the most humourless, morose, monotonous, supercilious, bore without a spark of humanity in his public persona.

Certainly he is highly intelligent and articulate but totally lacking in insight into human feeling or emotion. His dismissal out of hand of what he calls "identity politics" is a real blind spot. Human beings are not entirely rational, calculating, units of economic production prompted solely by avarice and self advancement as he implies. If we were, all aspects of our lives could be replaced by drones and robots. (In fact many are, and the danger of people like Harris is that we are being encouraged to think that this is a good thing).

We are social animals, always keen to seek out like-minded companionship and identity with others to form peer groups. Of course, there has to be limits on what can be justifiably demanded from others just because of our membership of certain identifiable groups. But that's a separate argument to denouncing ethnic, cultural, religious or sexual identity out of hand. As Harris does.

The only reason I can perceive for people admiring Him is that he is articulate and intelligent enough to be able to give voice to opinions that justify the worst prejudices of lesser minds. If one has a sneaking suspicion about Muslims, or black activists, or advocates for any sort of marginalised person he will make one's distaste sound like an intellectually valid position.

In that, I think he's a little like Ayn Rand, another gruesome personality, although highly intelligent, who was the favoured guru of the fortuitously wealthy, especially in the dot.com boom years.

The only one of the Four Horseman I had any time for was the late Christopher Hitchens. At least he had a spark about him, and a sense of camaraderie and humour. I could imagine going on the piss with Hitchens. But being locked in a room with Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins........shheeesh :eek: