Portland, Ore

Discussion in 'Politics' started by mathman, Jul 21, 2020.

  1. Thus Spoke Registered Senior Member

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    This is a multicultural forum and in British and Australian English, it’s just the opposite. Their rule is exactly how you applied it. I prefer it that way. It’s easier to read. The American way looks awkward.

    Tiassa’s already covered it quite well. Did you miss it?

    He talks a lot about justice. Two good things; love and justice, with one being more secular, and the other more pious, but both being necessary. Although, if you think about it, horrific acts have been committed in the name of both. They serve different goals, but they both compete for the same damn thing, the right to guide our lives. It’s odd though, isn’t it, because both of them are illusions.

    Thanks for that, BTW. It was an honest and interesting assessment. Hey, if you get the time, would you mind telling me what's wrong with my sentence? Iceaura absolutly refuses to. I do struggle a little due to an autoimmune disease. I've tried but I can't figure it out.

    "I simply pointed out your habitual disingenuous contextomy and rightly so."

    What? Maybe add a comma or two?

    It's crazy, all of this just to justify a riot. They say that the FBI opened more than 300 domestic terrorism investigations. So, I’d say that, not my definition of domestic terrorism, BTW, but the legal definition itself is correct. A terrorist is a person or a group that uses violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.
     
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  3. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Uh, unfortunately:
    The ill-written supposed "paraphrase" there is an example of what David Foster Wallace (in his sterling and influential essay on this subject) labeled "The snoot who is wrong". (sic, please).
    The most likely reading of that quote, one which the "paraphrase" does not present, is this: the air temperature outside is the object of John's hatred, the heat outside is what he hates. The heat outside is not a marker of the timing or trigger of his hatred for something else unnamed, even though that is what the paraphrase directly asserts. We should probably read it thus: It's not that John hates [stuff (other stuff, lots of stuff, whatever)] when it's hot outside, but rather that he hates hot weather.

    So the "paraphrase", due to bad grammar, badly misleads if read carefully. And the more carefully and technically one reads it, the more obscure and confusing it becomes (imagine translating it for a readership of another and distant language).

    So we see there one of the many reasons for writing well and paying attention to grammar etc: It allows the reader to pay careful and serious attention without leading them (sic) into ambiguity and confusion one can - and will - have created from grammatical carelessness and disrespect (not to mention malice and bad intent); to comprehend without wasting time in mental revision and physical rereading.
     
    Last edited: Aug 11, 2020
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  5. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Tiassa is wrong to the extent he agrees with your careless and misleading usage here in this thread. That extent is small and insignificant.
    As you seem to have overlooked in my posting above, I agreed and agree with your last assessment there. Despite being American and educated I even post accordingly, as you can see in many dozens of my posts throughout this forum.

    But you posted otherwise, above - you nitpicked that awkwardness to whatabout a more significant criticism of your posting, a criticism you continue to avoid rather than address. That characteristic wingnut dodge is the target of my recent posting here. It does harm itself, and abets harm done otherwise.

    In particular: it obscures critical issues surrounding the common Federal and State and City governmental response to BLM's demonstrations of resistance to police abuse of black people.
     
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  7. Thus Spoke Registered Senior Member

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    I don’t think that Tiassa was agreeing with me. He provided an historical account. It was an honest and thorough account of what happened.

    I never denied that there wasn’t an issue with police brutality or racism. There might have been incidences where federal officers crossed their boundaries. I don’t know because I wasn’t there. My point was that it’s their duty to protect federal property and they had a right to be there.
     
  8. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    Intentional?
     
  9. Thus Spoke Registered Senior Member

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    No. It was an accident.
     
  10. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Actually, I'm going to go with the point that you chose the word, "contextomy". There is a lot that goes with that, though. First, "disingenuous contextomy" is redundant. There is also the point that contextomy is a particular form of sleight. And coupled with that is your more general contextual muddling. There might be a more cumulative effect at play, here, by which people read according to the sum of your behavior and, at the very least, doubt the contrast of general and particular contextual manipulation.

    But, no, I don't think extra commas will help.

    Still, though, pointing to the part about MS-13 doesn't really help; proper police work cannot afford the kind of emotionalism your appeal requires. As I said before↑, it's a curious defense of police misconduct.
     
  11. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    As you insist on ignoring, thereby illustrating the wastage of time involved in attempting to inform you or anyone in your Tribe of anything via written language: the copyeditor's standard markup would be "recast", applied to the entire sentence.
    That's something the author has to do. Other people should not be obliged to guess at your meaning in order to mentally revise your language as a basis for responding to your posts - no matter how much easier you find it to deny your posting and attack them for supposedly mistaking your posts when they do.
    You might as well claim to not know the moon is an Earth-orbiting oblate spheroid made of rock because you haven't been to the moon.

    The refusal to credit other people's well-documented experiences and soundly reasoned analyses is a field mark of the corporate media addled wingnut "conservative" Tribe.
    You tripped on a triple negative in that one, and faceplanted on the "or". Recast so as to employ at most one negation, then specify in three words or fewer the "issue" you are talking about - the one you are claiming to never not deny, never deny not, or whatever or.
    If you can.
    Which is not known. You apparently cannot (alternatively: will not) write logically sound or grammatically correct English sentences that mean what you apparently want (alternatively: deliberately take) them to mean.
    You denied and deny the issue/behavior/situation as reported by journalists, illustrated by historians, employed by writers, argued from evidence, described by witnesses, admitted and established in court, affirmed by jury verdict, and specifically demonstrated against by many organizations over many decades including BLM recently. You have repeatedly insisted and continue to insist on changing the subject to some other issue,

    one compatible with your Tribe's fantasy of a strictly historical and long vanished American racism, of a formerly (you insist) nationally entrenched and (according to you) nationally ubiquitous dominating racial bigotry that not only has suddenly and recently all but disappeared from American society (you insist) but taken its effects with it (you claim), a racism somehow (regardless of appearances) not fundamentally and overtly and significantly blighting the lives of black people right now and for years to come.
     
    Last edited: Aug 11, 2020
  12. Thus Spoke Registered Senior Member

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    150
    Billvon’s quote was taken from a speech in 2017 relating to a gang. Why use Trump as a scapegoat for police brutality? Why politicalize it? We’ve had a problem with police brutality under the watch of both parties. Black Lives Matter emerged under Obama, as well. Is this uprising really about police brutality or racism because we all know that blacks aren’t the only target? It’s bigger than that, isn’t it? It’s not just about racism or police brutality, is it? It’s a reaction from those that believe that the US is a fascist force under the Democrats as well as the Republicans. Maybe billvon and pjdude are too ignorant to see this, or maybe they’re someone else’s sock, who knows, but the 'champagne socialists' aren’t.

    There’s a constant power struggle between the individual and the state. The individual wants to maintain a certain amount of freedom, but during times of dangers, we can be persuaded to relinquish our freedom in favor security because ultimately that’s where are freedom lies, in hands of the collective. That’s where the fascist regimes focus their attention. It becomes the redeemer of the system for the collective. Fascism requires valuing violence as a necessary tool of class struggle, i.e., riots and domestic terrorism. The US is too individualistic to ever become a fascist regime. Cooperation and empathy have served us well, but it’s like love and justice, empathy too, can be dangerous.

    Highly empathic people can get past labels by nurturing their curiosity about others. They look for commonality rather than differences. I don’t see that in here. All I see is finger pointing, name calling and tribalism.

    To be empathic doesn’t mean to place yourself solely in the shoes of the marginalized. It goes both ways. It doesn’t mean that we have to agree with them, but we have to understand, and connect with those in power, too.

    In regards to police brutality itself, the police officer’s views are shaped by real and perceived dangers. They become cynical and their world becomes a world of 'good guys vs bad guys.' It's a byproduct of power and authority, as well. We’re all aware of the psychological effects of both.

    Nevertheless, we still need firefighters, soldiers and police officers. The pay isn’t that great. The defunding slogan is ridiculous. Crime and victimization will increase. It’s an issue that needed to be brought to the forefront but we will face future recruitment problems. Who wants to risk their life and be perceived as a villain? How will we convince young men to risk their lives for the sake of our own? What we’ve done in the past is to appeal to honor, glory and power. We’ve used hero propaganda, and without this propaganda, we would have no military, no fire or police protection.

    As I said to billvon earlier, empathy is what motivates people to take action. Everyone can see and empathize with the victims of racism and police brutality but violence and riots aren’t the answer. You can’t use coercion to persuade others unless you have the means to maintain it.
     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2020
  13. Thus Spoke Registered Senior Member

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    Edit: ^ How will we convince young men and women to risk their lives for the sake of our own?
     
  14. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Because he has called for it. (And not just during that speech.)
    Yes, that's it. You don't have a good argument, so now we are sock puppets or just ignorant. Bravo! You are a true Trump supporter.
    Absolutely.
    Nope. The refunding movement is to move funding so that police have less to do.

    In the future, rather than use police to deal with reports of domestic violence, send people trained to deal with exactly that situation. Outcomes will be better, police will have to arrest fewer people, fewer innocent people will die, and their workload will go down.

    In the future, rather than have police deal with addicts losing their shit in public, send people trained to deal with exactly that situation. Outcomes will be better, police will have to arrest fewer people, fewer innocent people will die, and their workload will go down.

    We already send paramedics instead of police to deal with injuries, because they are better than the police at providing emergency medical care (although police do have some emergency medical training.) We should extend that thinking. That way police will not be stretched as thin and they can concentrate on what their role should be in the first place - going after violent criminals who can't be stopped without police intervention.

    MLK put it better than I could:

    "Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention."

    Want to stop the riots? Start listening and acting.
     
  15. Thus Spoke Registered Senior Member

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    I highly doubt that you’re going to get trained social workers to handle domestic violence calls. They remain one of the most dangerous responses that police officers have to face.
     
  16. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Agreed. Perhaps that's an indication that they are handling it wrong?
     
  17. Neddy Bate Valued Senior Member

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  18. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    That's not how social workers would be used, obviously. The point is to address the sorts of issues that lead to high level of domestic violence.

    Why do you think some people become violent at home? Drink? Drug dependency? A miserable existence in poverty? Mental illness? Yes, all of these and no doubt maybe more too. An intelligent society would try to address some of these social evils and then the levels of violence would decline, as would other crime such as theft, for example.
    A stupid society would just let everyone stew in their personal misfortune, blame them for it, and the beat the crap out of them when they do wrong.
     
  19. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Exactly. A friend of mine was a cop in Oakland. 90% of domestic disturbance calls went like this:

    "Open up. This is the police. Your neighbors said they heard yelling."
    "Go away! There's no problem."
    "We are going to have to come and make sure of that, sir."

    (eventually they enter)

    "So what's going on?"
    "Bitch said she ain't gonna put up with my friends."
    "I said with your DRUGGIE friends! And being out all night with that WOMAN!"
    "Listen, bitch, I ain't seen her since that one time. Don't disrespect me."
    "I gonna disrespect you until you respectin ME!"

    This goes on for ten minutes. When it's clear that no violence is imminent, they leave. Then generally they come back a dozen times until one day they knock on the door, he's yelling incoherently, and so they break down the door and find her unconscious on the floor with a big bruise on her head and him screaming at them to leave.

    Those dozen initial calls were a total waste of time for those officers. Had that been a domestic violence caseworker, he/she could have seen that coming and headed it off weeks earlier. Less work for the cops, fewer battered women, more time for cops to chase real criminals.
     
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  20. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Nice dreaming

    Not going to happen

    Perhaps they powers will send society workers

    After social workers start calling the police the powers will start to think "Why are we sending social workers?”

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  21. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Cause then they only have to send the police 1/10 of the time.
     
  22. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Why do you say that? It is exactly what is done in a lot of places. None of this is new. It's just a question of adopting best practice from around the world, instead of sticking rigidly to a macho-shithead blame/punishment culture.
     
  23. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    City
    Sends social workers visit one
    Sends social workers visit two, police required
    Social workers refuse visit three
    Repeat X 10

    Ya that works

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