US Politics Mega-thread - Page 153

On April 30 2018 05:55 Slaughter wrote:
My point was that your plan requires so much more politial will power and participation while also being a harder sell if this thread is any indication of reaction. Amd more importantly both sides of this debate agree that there is a major problem and should focus on convincing and motivating more people so that it is also a big issue for them.

On April 30 2018 06:15 Stratos_speAr wrote:


This post just screams of "It's so OBVIOUS! Why doesn't everyone just SEE IT?!".

I wonder how many times we've heard that in history.

The problems with law enforcement in this country are far more complicated than "police bad, we need to completely abolish them". Not only is that idea utterly ridiculous and an overly emotional response from you, but as Gor said, it simply alienates a huge swath of the country and kills the political motivation to try to make changes to policing in this country. It's the same problem that racial/sexual disparities face in this country despite the very clear evidence that minorities and women are treated poorly here; when you make people "the enemy", they don't fucking like it. It doesn't matter if you're right or wrong. People aren't going to respond well and they're going to shut you out.

On April 30 2018 06:32 GreenHorizons wrote:


I agree that your characterization is 'utterly ridiculous' and reflects "an overly emotional response from you".

I'm not making anyone my enemy, their position is the enemy, it literally protects the very status quo that threatens my freedom and existence and that of millions of others across the country. That's the situation.

Our lives and freedoms/rights are in constant jeopardy every day. We don't know if we're going to go into a starbucks to use the bathroom and get handcuffed and taken to jail by police for it, we don't know if we're going to be slammed on our head in a parking lot knocking out our teeth and then getting rape choked because someone said we had a gun (and we didn't, not that it's a crime anyway), we don't know if women will be stripped and abused in a waffle house over plastic utensils and a managers number, we don't know if we'll be shot in the same waffle house by a growing movement of people hell bent on our destruction being ignored by law enforcement agencies, or be the hero that disarms him and saves the people there unarmed and unrecognized by a president that brought Kanye to the whitehouse for wearing his hat, we don't know if our children will be playing with a bb gun in the park and get shot within seconds of police seeing them, or any of the other outright horrible and terrifying and sometimes outright terrorist shit happening every day.

With that being just a snippet of the daily status quo, again, it's not me that makes people refusing to act my opposition, it's their contentment with inaction.

EDIT for your edit:

I agree that raising class conciousness and recognizing it's not the officers themselves as individuals or 'bad apples' that are the problem, it's the system of capitalism and their political lap dogs that have manifested the conditions for which they are misdirecting their anger and frustration at the people offering them a path toward the answers and solutions to the problems they are able to relate to.

They aren't my enemy (even if they see me as such), they are blinded by corporate propaganda that has indoctrinated them into believing and defending the positions that are enabling my, others and their own oppression.

*Insert Igne's sig here*

On April 30 2018 07:11 hunts wrote:


so what you just said amounts to: "I'm not calling people the enemy by presenting a ridiculously radical idea, they ARE the enemy for not liking my radical idea!" Not to mention your "our people are under attack and the other side that's also our enemy wants us exterminated" sounds like the exact rhetoric that a lot of the alt right people use. And as others have said, your radical ideas, hostile, extremist attitude, and refusal to compromise or work or civilly discuss things with anyone that doesn't think the exact same as you makes many people who would otherwise be on your side not want to side with you. And unless your movement gains a ton of traction, as the minority movement, you can't afford to push everyone away. Because if you want any of your changes to ever happen, you need the majority on your side, but they don't need you.

On April 30 2018 07:23 GreenHorizons wrote:


You or anyone else have done nothing to substantiate that the idea is 'ridiculously radical' or that the 'incrementalist reform' position is less ridiculous.

We are under attack, and I would hardly say any of the opposition here wants us exterminated. xDaunt came closest with the advocating a white ethno state and suggesting I and people who agree with me should leave the country, but I don't think he would openly advocate our extermination. That specific phrase was a reference to the actual growing movement within the united states of neonazis (or whatever the preferred term is) that are literally advocating ethnic cleansing/genocide, distinctly different than their suggestion that they fear 'white genocide' which is a silly concept on it's face.

If someone is advocating for ambiguous/unidentified incrementalist reforms (that somehow still haven't been presented by anyone saying it's the obviously better choice) they are taking an oppositional position and no change in my rhetoric or tone will change that fact.

The argument has essentially boiled down to the group that needs to be convinced is wrong, but you'll never convince them by telling them the truth. Fine, but don't pretend that's not a moral failure on their part and instead a messaging failure of people like myself.

On the moral indictment of those content to wait for nondescript incremental reforms, James Baldwin articulates it better than I could hope to. Though honestly that wasn't the case I was making, but merely my honest interpretation of those who argue to set the time table of my and millions of other peoples rights and freedoms to their convenience and skepticism.

https://youtu.be/BrqwdOEPeD8?t=14s

On April 30 2018 07:55 hunts wrote:
Again you say that people who wish to slowly improve the police through reforms are the opposition to you,

that is not the case. They are on your side, except they are being realistic about it while you are going the way of bernie/trump and shouting for unrealistic and simple solutions that cannot happen.

The people that are actually in opposition to you are the republicans, who want no change or want more power for the police, and less protections for minorities against them.

You are labeling people on your side as the enemy, and thus alienating any support you may have gotten for your radical cause. Instead of having it be along the lines of left vs right on the issue of police reform and protections for minorities from police abuse, you make it you vs the left and vs the right, while also having little to no support. Your method of refusing to budge, compromise, or discuss civilly, will not do you any good when you need the majority to be on your side but instead alienate them.

On April 30 2018 08:04 Stratos_speAr wrote:


Remember how we all talked about how the rampant condescension from Democrats is what helped Trump beat Hillary and usher in pretty much the single worst president anyone has ever seen into the Oval Office?

You might want to reflect on that, because your problem isn't your base ideas; they are all largely correct. The problem is the way you present them. You are mind-numblingly arrogant (just as bad as Danglars) and condescending, and you will. not. ever. get. anything. done. politically if you don't realize how bad it is.

I get it. everyday life is unimaginably shitty for anyone who isn't a white cis male (this is a slight exaggeration, but you get the point). I feel a strong urge to cuss out and permanently condemn every cop that exists whenever I read these stories or see the videos. But that isn't rational and doesn't help. Basically calling everyone sheeple and saying that they are all blinded by propaganda doesn't help improve anything one bit. It demonizes wide swathes of people, even if you don't intend for that to happen.

On April 30 2018 09:45 hunts wrote:
So why do you think that you are right and everyone else is wrong, about abolishing police?

I guess more specifically, why do you say that the argument is now that you're right and everyone else is wrong, rather than whether or not your idea is a good one?

On April 30 2018 10:03 Stratos_speAr wrote:


Are your general ideas right?

Yes. Everyone here has always agreed with you that the police institution is horribly corrupt and needs major changes.

However, your precise ideas are, as people have repeatedly pointed out, utterly ridiculous. You just stick your fingers in your ears and say "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" and refuse to face the incredibly radical nature of your proposals, instead treating your opinion as infallible and everyone else as "brainwashed". It makes you a lot less respectable.

On April 30 2018 10:25 GreenHorizons wrote:


Mostly because the people making reasonably substantive arguments have almost all agreed that I'm right but I'm talking about it in the wrong way.



They keep calling them "utterly ridiculous" without substantiating the claim. I'm not sticking my fingers in my ears, I've asked probably a dozen times for their plan for incremental reforms and got little more than vitriol about my idea or rather it's presentation.

I'm open to the idea that I'm wrong (despite the lack of a credible argument to that assertion and people saying they agree) but reasonably confident I'm not (as far as the ideas themselves).

I can concede I may not be presenting them in the most effective way to persuade the audience of posters that have chosen to respond. The audience is broader than that and often getting in the mud of the issues within the framing of those adamantly opposed to "abolish the police" rhetoric can be counter productive to lifting the consciousness of people less oppositional to the idea and rhetoric initially.

With that in mind, we can move on from the discussion of abolishing the police altogether for now, and focus on the alternative/s being presented by those in opposition.

So I'll ask again,

What is this plan that's so obviously better than mine?
What are the reforms?
How does it happen?
Who motivates this movement?
What kind of time frame are we looking at?
How will it be demonstrably better?
How will it be demonstrably more likely to succeed?

If your answer is "other countries do it" you better be prepared to explain why that's not an adequate answer for healthcare, livable wages, restorative justice, holding bankers accountable, and so on.

On April 30 2018 10:46 Slaughter wrote:


This whole argument seems dumb. Both sides are just saying vague shit and then demanding specifics as if everyone here is actually qualified to discuss the issue in depth, which spoiler alert, no one here has shown anything to prove otherwise. The venom and condescension that comes out from what is essentially a dispute about methodology seems silly.


I will take a crack at it basic generalities.

How about something where there is a federal mandate that sets up a commission to evaluate current department personnel. Basically everyone from top down is fired and has to interview back to cull the worst of the departments (no matter if you have to throw out the whole command or whatever). This can progress over .....idk 2 years? Any jurisdiction in the middle of its evaluation can have officers from the neighboring ones cover. Might be a problem if it is determined like 90+% of a department is no good so it takes an extended amount of time to rebuild

mandate a restructuring of departments, here you can give the states some choice and wriggle room but have basic mandates like "all departments must have primary community point of contact officers that are not armed and serve as the patrols out in the city". And perhaps retraining and reworking of current officers in terms of how they approach escalation of force and whatever rules surrounding use of force.

You can have separate armed units as this is the US after all so....lots of guns out there.

Mandate changes in policy in hiring and training practices. Extend and retool training in police academies as they really don't seem to be properly preparing their students or being able to effectively cull those that should not be one.

On April 30 2018 10:54 GreenHorizons wrote:


See, when you can't get the police to give you an accurate body count after more than a decade of every major politico and media outlet knowing they aren't and 'advocating' for "reforms" much less radical than you are suggesting, I have no confidence that path is any more sensible or doesn't have virtually all of the alleged problems of the ideas I'm presenting.

fwiw, when this first came up I at least presented that I was aware and accepting that I wasn't a policy expert capable of describing a signature ready policy, it's the reformists who have asserted they are and have that plan and that I must be patient and do as they say if I want any hope for change, otherwise they won't join my cause or in hunts case would rather see Trump or someone like him in charge rather than compromise his position toward mine.

They demanded what I've requested several times and more, but now suddenly confronted with the expectation for their position to withstand the same scrutiy they have applied to mine, they realize it's foolish or 'dumb' to make such demands or requests (12431245907 pages later).

On April 30 2018 11:04 Slaughter wrote:


Oh I agree with you that they both did back then and now are being ridiculous by tunneling on certain things. They got hung up on the word abolish and never really looked back. Your last few posts got more and more of pretty much the same thing though (maybe you just got sick of them idk).

On April 30 2018 11:29 micronesia wrote:
GreenHorizons when I told you what information I was looking for to understand your position, you told me you would give a more detailed answer later (presumably due to time limitations) but went on to make twelve fairly involved posts responding to others. Does my request solicit more substantial effort than I realized or did you forget about it?