Here we agree. Yes, of course those individuals need to be held legally accountable for their personal actions. But that's not a general problem with the Police. As an example, some children are raped by female public school teachers. It happens. It'd be inappropriate to generalize their behavior to all female school teachers. While horrible when it happens, the total number is minuscule. This is a case of the media creating AND profiting from a Narrative about Identity Politics during an election year. While you ask what should be done, with regard to the Police Officers that strangled the man selling cigarettes to death? The first thing that should be done, is the actions of those individual police officers must be reviewed, with the possibility of taking them to a court of law. If so, a legal decision will be made. The second thing, and more important, is: WHY do we have police enforcing such a law? This is far more important. The man was selling his personal property, in this case: his cigarettes. Why is this against the law? Well, it's partly against the law because he's required to have a State-granted permission-slip / licence. But, why? Isn't this the "Land of the Free". He's selling perfectly good products to other adults. Seems like this was exactly what the USA was designed to protect, not make illegal. Anyway, in modern America, he'd have to have a business licence too. But, why? Oh, he'd have to pay various taxes on the sale. And on his income. But, why? Why, indeed. Why do we have all of these laws that the police must enforce? Endless laws: from what color your house can be painted, to whom you can legally marry. How did that come about? How is it possible, that the Police can pull you over, and demand you provide a State issued Drivers Licence when the Supreme Court determined such a requirement runs counter to the US Constitution? The supposed "Law of the Land". How is it legal for them to do so? That's a question you may want to ask. I wouldn't blame the Police. Blame the Police State. Anyway, those questions IMO are the more important. In the meantime, I'd expect more Police State. Not less, no. We want more. And, because we want more, we have to live with the reality that mistakes will be made. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. The courts will determine who is justifiably killed. I'd also note: Freedom is the price we pay for free-shit.
A return to a limited form of Government, as was intended by the framers of the US Constitution, may help to bring such politicians to heel. That's not going to happen any time too soon. That America is LOOOOOONG gone. We now live in a Police State called the USA.
To: Michael re: Insult One of the most consistent aspects about your brand of excremental hubris is the degree to which you rely on the presupposition that you are somehow that much smarter than everyone else. In the end, this aspect of your contempt is so defining that your anti-American rants are simply that: Hatred of the United States and its people. Not everybody sees the wisdom in building a cult around such vague platitudes― ―that only ever have the effect of institutionalizing injustice. It's a hallmark of overpainted potsherds. You need to understand that your condescension only reiterates that you and your argument are first, foremost, and exclusively about yourself. Bottom line, you do nothing effective for your cause by impotent, choking self-love. No institutional conspiracy raised Donald Trump's banners over the GOP: This is what those people want. You need to stop relying on the proposition that people are inherently utterly helpless victims without your leadership. Practically speaking, when your argument orbits telling people how stupid you think they are, you're not going to find much for an affirmative response. As a matter of general decency, though ... er ... never mind. Decency has never been a priority in your campaign.
People want to know that the products they buy and consume are relatively safe. We can't have everyone that wants to packaging green stuff in a cigarette, in the name of freedom. And tobacco is taxed heavily. Without regulation, there would be no tax income.
There is no Federal or State law that tells anyone what color they can paint their house. There are such laws that forbid lead based paint. Do you object to them? The laws about marriage have been relaxed, more and more, as time passes. More freedom, not less, is the trend. In the old days, before big intrusive horrible Federal marriage tyranny, marriage choices were far more restricted in the US than they are now. You often recommend returning to those days - you prefer them. Why do you still believe every latest item of crapola from that source you get all this nonsense from, when it has embarrassed you so often in public, and a 30 second search of the internet is all anyone needs to debunk whatever it is this time?
To a certain extent I can agree with that. But one can argue the opposite as well. Today, when cops kill innocent people, at least we now have videos, at times, and can attempt to hold any guilty responsible. Racial discrimination occurs but isn't openly accepted as it was in many places even when I was a kid. For example, as late as the early 1970s, the city of Portland Oregon still had white-only drinking fountains. Then and not long before that, the government regulated what happened in the bedroom even between a married man and woman. The government only allowed marriages sanctioned by religion. Without the mass media, there were far fewer checks on government activities and abuses of power. Politicians could start wars and easily control the information about it released. Even the Constitution was constructed unconstitutionally. It was done in secret because it had no chance of passing a purely democratic vote. So liberty itself was a secret government conspiracy.
And apparently providing an evidence based refutation is similar in your 'campaign'. Whatever it is you mean by that. In the real objective world, black Americans are not being targeted for death by Police (white or black police). In the real objective world, white Americans are actually statistically more likely to be killed and black Americans are statistically more likely to engage in violent crime, as a percent of the population. But, if it's of any condolence, I was once told by an ex-Muslim whom I lived with that he was accused of 'hating Iran' because he'd become an atheist. He seemed to think otherwise.
Driver Licensing vs. Right to Travel. Actually, it would take more than 30 seconds to read a summery of the definitions, let alone the legal arguments - many of which most people would not understand unless they had at least some training in first order predicate calculus. The point not being that it's legal to drive without a State issued Drivers Licence. It's illegal. Nor is it that people should not be qualified to drive. People should be. The point is how natural rights, explicitly protected by the US Constitution, become privileges. Something you can reflect upon when applying for your internet licence and wondering when personal privacy had become a privledge. In the meantime, pull the magic lever to the Left.
Unarmed black people were killed at 5x the rate of unarmed whites in 2015 http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/unarmed/
I have, and I can tell you they do not support your claims. No natural right of travel at all, much less one explicit in the US Constitution, has become a privilege. Certain highly technical means of piloting oneself at high speed via specific conveyances that require skill and judgment to avoid seriously endangering others have been declared privileges. But travel itself? The natural way? Still a right. I agree that there comes a point at which excluding or making difficult various means of travel creates a new "right" to employ whatever means remain unimpeded - but that is a question of fact, not principle. They are being shot by the police at much higher rates than white Americans, and in circumstances that do not find the police shooting white Americans. No, they aren't. They get shot by the police while not committing violent crimes or threatening anyone, at far higher rates than white people.
Before I click on the link: 1) Is the data statistically significant and if so, what is the effect size? It's common for statistically significant data to be trivial. Usually as occurs with extremely low sample sizes - which I am positive is the case here. 2) Is the data normalized for police encounters? It's not like 70 year old black grandmothers are being shot and killed by police. Lastly, what conclusion is it you want us to draw from your post? OH, that's right - blacks are being hunted by white police officers. Well, I've already shown you empirical data that strongly suggests that is not the correct conclusion. So what is it you're trying to say with this post? That black Americans are more likely to resist arrest and end up being justifiably shot by police? That black Americans have an inherent tendency towards acting aggressively when put in a situation that warrants an encounter with a Police Officer (both white and black)? Given the percentage of the population Black Americans comprise, the number of violent offenses this small percent commits (around 50%+) and the previous data you have been presented: which allows for an objective person to draw a cogently strong conclusion that black Americans are not targeted by Police Officers (white or black); exactly, what conclusion is it you would like us to draw from your post?
Believe it or not, it's a little more nuanced. Again, the point is: How a US Constitutionally protected civil right, becomes a privledge. Don't worry, one day in the future Americans will think of personal privacy as a privledge. It's already happening now. So, we're not talking a century from now. We're talking now. As in the last vote was 49/51. Had that LIB-TARD Rand Paul not made such a fuss about our "RIGHT" to personal privacy, an alphabet agency would be legally collating all our personal and private information now. Which, they probably are anyway. All very normalized stuff.
The disparate rate and intensity of police encounters is part of the hypothetical problem being investigated. "Normalizing" that conceals or even eliminates, by assumption, the effects of significant factors about which and from which conclusions are meant to be drawn, would be a basic error in analysis. No, that's not it. You seem to have missed the point. Like this: Those would be possible explanations, which one would investigate by examining the circumstances. That has been done, somewhat, and the evidence so far indicates that those explanations do not account for the data. No, it doesn't. You are making basic errors in statistical reasoning. You would need an example of that actually happening. Instead, you peddle confusion about the Constitutional status of State driver's licenses.
