What About Black Lives Matter?
For two years the protest movement called "Black Lives Matter" has caused demonstrations all around the nation. It was triggered by the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO in August of '14. It holds that racist police are the greatest threat to young black men. This has triggered riots, and the murder or attempted murder of police and an attempt to eliminate grand juries when police use lethal force.
The U.S. Justice Department has completely disproven that Brown was merely a Gentle Giant and was shot in cold blood while trying to surrender. Even though it was shown that Brown had just stolen from and intimidated a store owner and was charging at the officer who shot him, and had attempted to get the officer's gun, he is venerated as a martyr.As a result, officers are backing off in the face of the hatred which is relentlessly directed at them on the street and in the media. As a result, violent crime is on the rise. The question becomes do the police pose the greatest threat to young black men? Or is it the far greater threat of black-on-black crime?
The U.S. Justice Department has completely disproven that Brown was merely a Gentle Giant and was shot in cold blood while trying to surrender. Even though it was shown that Brown had just stolen from and intimidated a store owner and was charging at the officer who shot him, and had attempted to get the officer's gun, he is venerated as a martyr.As a result, officers are backing off in the face of the hatred which is relentlessly directed at them on the street and in the media. As a result, violent crime is on the rise. The question becomes do the police pose the greatest threat to young black men? Or is it the far greater threat of black-on-black crime?
In 2015, 13 police died from gunshot and so far this year, 18. Though that number includes accidental, fraudulent suicides, and friendly fire incidents. See: http://www.nleomf.org/facts/officer-f...
In my opinion, the skin color of those deaths is the least significant data of all. I'm personally tired of any side in this issue trying to advantage their group or beliefs based on an individual case, culture, ethnicity, inequality, or any other "ity".
The fact is that we hire, train, and license police for the avowed purpose of protecting the individual rights of all residents of this country at all times in all circumstances. That includes the license to use force after a crime (initiation of force against another) to apprehend the guilty person to stop the force and/or bring the guilty person before a court. Our judicial and criminal system is predicated on the requirement that the state has the duty to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that an accused is guilty in court before he is punished, not based on the perception, mis-perception, error in home address, or mis-deed of an LEO in the heat of the moment.. The reason for all of that is to protect our freedoms against tyranny and/or misuse of that very judicial and criminal system.
In recognition of the potential danger to the individual LEO, we provide extensive training in why and how to contact and/or apprehend an American resident accused of a rights violation, offensive (both lethal and non-lethal) and defensive equipment, and even the use of psychological techniques. All of that is so effective that of some 900,000 to 1,000,000 LEO's with innumerable public contacts per year, the mortality is less than that of roofers. LEO's don't even rank in the top 10 of dangerous jobs.
However, we've allowed our Constitutional protection of individual rights legal and justice system to be so inverted, subverted, and perverted that the most insignificant basis for LEO contact (walking in the street by a teenager. selling a cigarette, 12yo child playing with a toy gun, your address being invaded in error in the early hours of the morning, a broken taillight, even a rude response to the LEO, etc., etc.) can and does result in the use of excessive and deadly force against the citizen. Yet the state, the agency, and the individual LEO will face no repercussion in some 96% or more of cases.
And we're discussing whether LEO's or other black men are more dangerous to black men? How easily we are led by our noses into trivial nonsense and away from the real danger facing all of us. Our life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and our unalienable rights are no longer a matter of concern to those that we elect, hire, and license to only protect those rights which we all possess by virtue of our birth. They actually fight us to further limit them if not outright eliminate our belief in them. I fought and killed and watched friends die within a foot of me halfway around the world, came back to public ridicule and hate, and still made an Objective success of my life--all to be labled a potential terrorist by those we've made responsible to protect my individual rights. And now at this stage in my life, every time I see a Police Cruiser I watch to see if he turns around and comes after me.
How ignorant, simple minded, and propagandized have we become that instead of seeing the reality in front of our faces, we look where we're told at what is of little or no significance, while the reality we're no longer seeing is our liberties and rights being boxed and locked away to leave us as no better than compliant slaves.
That's it folks, come one-come all, watch my left hand wave in your face while my right takes your wallet out of your pocket. Ta-Dah.
Accurate and profound.
As mega methods of communication take over and electrons deify words through easy and speedy sound and image, truth, lies, and nonsense are spewed out with equal gravitas, making the rational and the inane seem equal.
It provides a lot of facts and thus food for thought.
Police have one job and one license from the public. That is to apprehend those that have initiated force or fraud against another and bring them before a court. That is the totality of the job. It's what they are hired to do, trained, and equipped to do. That's it. They are not given the authority to kill American residents.
If blacks want to kill themselves in inordinate numbers, that's their problem. The police's job is to find those killers, apprehend them, and bring them before a court. If they exceed that mandate, they should face the exact same consequences as an everyday resident of this country that acts in their own self defense. Police are not hired and licensed executioners of "probable" perpetrators based on selling a cigarette, having a broken tail light, or any other pick-a-yuny misdeamor.
And on a website primarily dedicated to AR and Objectivist philosophy, all you can present is a lecture from a religious, so called university, You should be able to do better than that.
1. How possibly can you know what I did or did not understand from your comment, when I just suggested for your attention a collection of statistical facts?
2. I deeply resent vulgarities in communications from anybody, including you.
3. The truth is that, proportionally, vast majority (notice another "ity"!) of instances of initiating use of force is blacks doing it to blacks. No racism there.
4. From Wikipedia: "... Hillsdale no longer has any denominational affiliation, and Hillsdale Free Will Baptist College in Oklahoma was founded after the college disaffiliated itself with the denomination. However, Hillsdale is still considered a Christian institution, with students expected to follow moral tenets of Christianity as commonly understood in the Christian tradition...
As an Objectivist, I prefer that people obey the 10 commandments as a foundation of their outdated philosophy over the morally disoriented political correctness worshipers and their collectivist brethren. Unfortunately, very few people study philosophy a bit, most of them none.
5. The source I gave you is a journalistic reporter and editor. She just happens to have collected a lot of those statistical facts and had the benefit of my being aware of her presentation. I made no philosophical statement whatsoever in my comments and I resent your implying otherwise.
6. Your statement "If blacks want to kill themselves in inordinate numbers, that's their problem." I find offensive. I believe that all citizens of this country are Americans. The divisive efforts of many are at the root of much of what is wrong here and now, in my opinion. You could not sound more divisive. Draw your own conclusions.
7. I will not let you teach me about Ayn Rand and Objectivism. You have disqualified yourself from even remotely fitting such a role. The evidence is in plain sight.
8. As a result, I will refuse to engage in any further debate with you. This is it.
Goodbye.
P.S. It occurs to me that a pseudonym like "Inphamy" might fit better ;-)
I see valid points on both sides, and also emotional responses which almost negate the rational ones. Not wanting to be Dr. Phil (in any sense) I won't deal with the emotions. Based upon what I've learned about most colleges and universities, Hillsdale stands out like a beacon of rational thought to the point where you can excuse the religiosity. You are not coerced into taking any religion there and will still get your degree based on your work. As to profanity, I must say that a bit of it for color or emphasis is not objectionable to me. Unless you are using it like a rapper, which is not true in this case. Something I can see that neither of you may be able because you both are so pissed off is that you are more in agreement than not.
Pace in terram guys.
I'm hoping that you'll response to my post below.
I am not sure whether you are asking me to respond somewhere below to your original post or to respond to your post which is just below. I am choosing the former.
As the article demonstrates conclusively, the police are not the greatest threat to young black men. The problem is almost suicidal.
In my opinion, the two by far the greatest threats to young black men, and many non-blacks, are:
1. Lousy education that they are given.
2. Virtually non-existent families.
It is hard to say which is worse. If I had the power, I would drastically reduce or eliminate payments to able-bodied people who do not work and spend all the savings on the "special needs" programs for family-less kids conducted exclusively by non-union teachers who volunteered for those jobs. If a kid is brought into life by a non-existent family, the only potentials worth saving are his life and mind. All the rest has already been irretrievably lost.
Does this satisfy your request?
I am afraid that I will have to disappoint you.
Almost three decades ago my older son taught me something I wish I had known before. While sophomore at Columbia University, he wanted to switch from engineering to English as the major. Concerned that I might oppose that, he told me: "In order to write well, you have to be able to think well. So, if you found someone who can teach you to write well, you really have found someone who can teach you how to think well." How can anybody argue against that? In addition, at that time English department at Columbia was reputed to be the best or very close to the best in the country. I learned an important insight.
This is a long introduction, but I thought it worth explaining.
I will remain determined not to resume any conversations with Zenphamy.. He has demonstrated to me beyond reasonable doubt that he is not a carful thinker. Evidence? Just look at the first and the last sentence of his first paragraph addressed to me and the last sentence of the second paragraph.
Not so long ago, khalling, lamented that I am not participating on this site as much as I used to. I responded to her with my explanation. I find way too much superficial and not thought through arguments and almost nonsensical political tirades.
My interests here are to learn as much as I can about flawless and careful thinking and about Ayn Rand and the Objectivist philosophy. Perhaps I am deceiving myself, but my impression is that those things are rarer here than they used to be. Occasionally, the mistakes are so glaring that I have hard time resisting to point the out. I have other ways of spending the little time left to me (in a couple on months I will be 81) that help me learn what I wish to learn and understand. As always, I still get the best kicks out of learning that seems important to me (fits my values).
I am sorry to disappoint you due to my rational self-interest. One has to do what one has to do.
Stay well.
Sincerely, Maritimus
I find your explanation more than reasonable.I think, however, that you are more sensitive than me. When I came to the Gulch about 3 1/2 years ago, I expected to converse with Reardons, and Galts, and Roarks. To my chagrin, most of the contributors were fairly ordinary guys and gals. Not to denigrate them. They are a bright group. Certainly of greater intellectual capacity than most. Even other Objectivist -ish web sites and blogs are not better and some not as good. What I personally enjoy is the spirited banter. Certainly there'll be some nonsense, some intellectual crappiness, but also some very brilliant thoughts and writing. I'm sure you know who they are and I cannot applaud them more for the insights and out-and-out knowledge they have provided me. When I first came into the Gulch, I found myself being a grammar teacher, but I quickly dropped that. (I was an editor for a time.) Not only did it anger people, but I quickly realized that was not why I came to the Gulch.
My reason for being here parallels your and I dare say most who participate here. For every participant -- I cannot quote numbers, there are people who are absolute gems. I can learn and on rare occasions I can even teach. Over all it's a worthwhile site, and as a bonus, it actually woks to accomplish worthwhile things.
EDIT: added a clarification.
In the time period 1/09 to 12/31/12 police shot and killed, justly and unjustly 112 black men and during the same time period black men killed 4472 other blacks according to the DOJ.
This fact should provide a reasoning individual the answer. It should also cause that type of individual to realize the damage the "great society" has done to the black community. It has destroyed for the most part the 2 parent family. The lack of role models , education is not valued , a victim based mentality , no work ethic , riot and loot when a perceived injustice occurs. The flame of anger fanned by civil rights leaders and the president in the case of Michael Brown. These so called leaders never telling their constituency that their behavior has consequences. Oh and gangs kill more Americans than terrorists likely ever will.
Until you find yourself in a confrontation with a dangerous criminal and have to make a decision to do anything to stop him or face death or injury, you can't possibly claim how much kinder and gentler you would be. As to the "less than lethal" solution, there are numerous incidents of tasers having no effect on violent offenders, and people dying from rubber bullets, so the technology is unreliable at best.
I've known enough good cops to verify the bad ones are a rare exception in the profession. The media always promotes and inflates the most outrageous incidents, and rarely do the acts of courage and compassion get much attention beyond local news.
I would do whatever I needed to do to protect myself, and that would include killing the offender without losing a minute of sleep over it.
I am not suggesting that any of the current non lethal methods are as effective as blowing holes through the bodies of perps. BUT, it would seem that some research into more effective non lethal methods might result in fewer lethal shootings and the legal and political fallout from them.
My assessment of police shootings is totally non scientific, and probably the result of media attention. It makes me just not want to be around police, however. They advertise they are there to protect and serve, but it just seems they are they are to give out tickets and arrest people walking down the street and find laws that the people are violating (victimless crimes like possessing weed, or selling oranges on the streetcorner).
The cops seem to be cash registers for the cities and counties, especially when the fines go to the very agencies that pay for the police. Its crooked and should be stopped.
Greed
Is the creed.
suspicion of terrorism
(terrorism not defined.)
added suspicion of supporting terrorism
(still not defined)
now they are going after the street gangs after all who is going to complain. But what about the people living on the street?
(still not defined)
along with that no rights that was said not for foreigners
(but it wasn't written done anywhere)
and we still have 100 miles from any coast or border with the entire Constitution suspended.
regardless of citizenship and coast lines include navigable waters so the Mississippi and much of the Ohio and Missouri and a number of other areas are affected. Columbia, Sacramento.
85 Senators and Lightning Boy Obeyme signed it and presented it on national TV in front of the Original Document he had just crapped on.
No move to impeach
No negative comments on Cspan
(Congress was you say culpable)
SCOTUS hiding behind a think wall of dignity waiting for a case to be filed
An incompetent Attorney General picked for her loyalty to anything and anybody but justice.
Ditto Media
Ditto educators well some body has to teach snowflakes how to fall and melt.
Military leadership shy's away from testifying before Congress much less upholds it's own oath of office.
Political party's ?? Ha ha Where?
and the population?
Deserving every bit of what they asked for and what they got and what they are going to get.
BOHICA!
Still goinjg to vote left wing?
Same source and cite as last time....this is getting soooooo boring but you kept your point. Relieves the boredom so I added done more.
My comment was a suggestion that we as a people find non-lethal but equally effective ways of stopping a dangerous situation than using guns.
The problem with guns is the legal consequences that follow their use. God forbid you killed a black person today who threatened you. What if you only wounded them and then had to pay them huge sums to compensate them. Plus the hassle of dealing with it all.
If there was some sort of better technological solution that would stop the threatening behavior, but left them permanently unhurt and you free of court proceedings, it would be a better solution so long as it was effective.
I think that we could do a Kickstarter of that invention and sell it to the police in any given metro area.
Only those that had a halfway decent upbringing have escaped it.
Don't know about you but I never realized this until the last 20 years or so...before that, we rightly criticized their behavior...not the color of their skin.
We fell for the ruse of the left also...
We should view BLM as more of a distraction than a movement.
Black Lives Matter's History Goes Back To Trayvon Martin, George ...
www.inquisitr.com/.../black-lives-mat......
Feb 17, 2016 - The Black Lives Matter movement's history has become something of a ... As it so happens, George Soros was funding the MORE group, ...
No, George Soros Didn't Give $33 Million to #BlackLivesMatter - The ...
www.thedailybeast.com/.../no-george-s......
Aug 19, 2015 - “So who's funding Black Lives Matter? One of the big donors seems to be George Soros, our old pal, who gives big money to affiliates of Black ...
Trump Responds to Soros funded Black Lives Matter protest in ...
Video for Soros and black lives matter connection
▶ 0:24
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43WdZ...
Mar 12, 2016 - Uploaded by Victor Cognovit
Trump Responds to Soros funded Black Lives Matter protest in Chicago .... Soros, the Crypt Keeper is also ...
George Soros funds Ferguson protests, hopes to spur civil action ...
www.washingtontimes.com/.../george-so......
Jan 14, 2015 - 'Black Lives Matter' is liberating, unapologetic and leaves no room for ... and Mr. Soros' funding, “Black Lives Matter” grew from a hashtag into a ...
Major donors consider funding Black Lives Matter - POLITICO
www.politico.com/story/.../major-dono......
Nov 13, 2015 - Neal Blair wears a hoodie that reads "Black Lives Matter" as he stands ... including billionaire financier George Soros and Taco Bell heir Rob ...
Ferguson Rent-A-Mobs Exposed | Frontpage Mag
www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/257130/fergu...
May 18, 2015 - Money from George Soros and others fuels the racist, anti-cop violence. ... Furthermore, since the influx of funding has started, poor black people ... This is about black lives in the Black Lives Matter movement who are literally ...
How the Anti-American Left Funds #BlackLivesMatter And Why They ...
www.redstate.com/streiff/2015/11/13/a...
Nov 13, 2015 - Google is extending a helping hand to fund the #BlackLivesMatter movement. ... The Washington Times reported on how George Soros provided in ... of the Black Lives Matter movement and their allies to discuss funding the ...
'Hawaii's George Soros': The Hidden Donor Funding The Illegal ...
www.breitbart.com/.../hawaiis-george-......
Dec 9, 2015 - 'Hawaii's George Soros': The Hidden Donors Funding Illegal Immigration, #BlackLivesMatter Activists.
George Soros spent $33MILLION bankrolling Ferguson protesters ...
www.dailymail.co.uk/.../Billionaire-G......
Jan 16, 2015 - One recipient of his funding is the Organization for Black Struggle, which ... worked on the perpetuation of the 'black lives matter' buzz phrase, ...
george soros funds the “black lives matters” movement!
theafricanspear.com/2015/08/13/george...
Aug 13, 2015 - THIS website has numerous articles on SOROS and black lives ... and lobby to news media to cover events using the billionaire's funding.
Old dino would like to add that a huge amount of black on black murders (you don't need to just shoot a gun) is also being ignored while BLM screams their I"pigs in a blanket" stuff.
I've also read that BLM demos and Trump rally disruptions are being bankrolled by socialists like George Soros and MoveOn.org.
I've used this against the main proponent of racism (and sexism and bigotry to good effect.)
When you get a goverenment form or some other similar with a laundry list of races, cultures, ethnicities and especially those that are clearly slanted write this over the offending section, "This is a racist/sexist/bigoted or other question. You should be ashamed of yourself for asking and helping to promote racism/sexism, bigotry and that goes for Nazi lovers too.
I've yet to have it affect anything the form was really about.i have received on three occasions a letter of apology from one of the functionaries explaining it's a requirement of a job which allows me to introduce the idea of independent thinking and responsibility. Two at least have now read AS and one is studying objectivism. the third probably rolled their eyes and said, "oh please." To which I would have politely responded, "Thank you."
If the government would stop trying to "help" the poor, this whole issue would eventually die. Sure, we'll still have racism and bigotry, but on a substantially smaller and more manageable scale.
And the government trying to "help" the poor is indeed the biggest cause. Stop subsidizing single mothers to breed, and they'll stop breeding to "earn" a living.
Excuse me, you're a supporter of NAACP and the National Society of Black Engineers. Will that distract you from conducting your duties as head of a student body? Pardon me, you belong to Korean Christians Club and you have a lot of stock in Samsung. Can you represent the students of our school? Well, you are a member of the Chicano Movement at UCLA and yet you are a Republican. How is it so? Once and again, it creeps. We see that under the mask of "inclusive" liberalism hides a totalitarian with more insidious ambitions.
All totalitarian governments have them and it's why Obama had the current military careerist leader ship running scared. He already stated he wanted to turn DHS in to a formation with more power than the military. Waffen SS and SA/SD. by any other name.
Back to arrest with no civil rights under suspicion of supporting terrorism.
Eight months left if he abdicates.
Still a hero of the American Nazi and other Nazi parties Horst Wessel was one of Hitlers earliest supporters.
This subject keeps cropping up unfortunately this time when the current American Nazi Party first in Illinois then for the USA endorsed Trump after his speech on immigration control. But then apparently George Soros leader of the Secular Progressives appears to have also been donating to Clinton and Kasich to defeat Trump although has close business ties. Hillary is Soro's organizations poster girl for his stated purpose of replacing the republican form of government with a socialist version. Apparently Sanders isn't left wing enough for his taste and like the Republicans he has no control in this battle of the billionaires.
Keep in mind Nazi's are National Socialists and like International Socialists are not Right Wing except by the skewed definitions of the Left. Placed in their proper perspective they aren't even right wing OF the left but the the two of them National and International Socialists or Nazis and Communists are the extremists of the Left. The International flavor allow no private ownership of anything Marxist Leninist Economics. The national version allow private ownership under heavy and complete control of the Party in some areas. Fascist or State Economics. Both are Fascist in nature.
background
On 14 January 1930, Horst Wessel, a young and ambitious member of the SA was shot at close range at his home in Berlin. Although the crime was never completely solved, the murder was most likely committed by a group of communists with close ties to the city's gangland. Wessel later died from his injuries. Joseph Goebbels, whose attention had already been drawn to Wessel as a possible future Nazi leader, was the first to recognize the propaganda potential of the case. 'A young martyr for the Third Reich' he wrote in his diary on 23 February 1930 immediately after receiving the news of Wessel's death. This was the beginning of the myth-making that transformed an ordinary individual into a masculine role model for an entire generation. Two months later, thousands of people lined the streets for Wessel's funeral parade and Goebbels delivered a graveside eulogy. In the years that followed - and as Nazi power increased - Horst Wessel became the hero of the Nazi movement - with his elaborate memorial quickly becoming a site of pilgrimage.
The song Die Fahne Hoch for which Wessel had written the lyrics (and which subsequently became popularly known as the Horst Wessel Song) became the official Nazi party anthem and the Berlin district of Friedrichshain, where Wessel was murdered was renamed Horst-Wessel-Stadt in his honour. Numerous biographies and films followed. Using previously unseen material, Daniel Siemens provides a fascinating and gripping account of the background to Horst Wessel's murder and uncovers how and why the Nazis made him a political hero. He examines the Horst Wessel 'cult' which emerged in the aftermath of Wessel's death and the murders of revenge, particularly against Communists, committed by the SA and Gestapo after 1933. At the same time, the story of Horst Wessel provides a portrait of the Nazi propaganda machine at its most effective and most chilling.
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Just a note that none of the violence and riots are grass roots. They are all started by paid agitators. The community wants peace and Police protection.
Its not an issue of black, white, yellow, or whatever. People are people. If they say 'black lives matter", I say "white lives matter just as much".
All this has made me just want to NOT live around the entitled culture, whether black or white. There must be someplace in the world that is nice to live in that doesnt have entitlement (other than an uninhabited desert island)
shared by countless others!! We also know
that PC is, in a word (or two) BS. Onward!
I think human nature is basically tribal. We like what we feed comfortable around, and we dont like what we dont feel comfortable around. Thats why there was Chinatown, Koreatown, Spanish Harlem, etc. Eventually the immigrants melted into the American culture enough that the americans accepted them into their tribes.
When government forces people to live together, it just encourages hatred for the people in the "other" tribes.
I dont see anything wrong with people wanting to live around others who have similar values. Thats what formed tribes in the first place.
Everyone is a member of one "tribe" or another if we think about it, and political correctness be damned, whats wrong with it. There can be tribes of people who are totally open to immigration and melting of various tribes together. Thats ok, but dont force me to do it if I dont feel comfortable with some of the tribes.
Again, political correctness be damned, but I dont happen to like the muslim culture and I dont want to live around people who profess to kill me if I am an infidel (which I am). Mormons dont go to the same degree, but I dont feel comfortable around their non accepting religion.
If I lived in totally black neighborhoods that I have seen, the first thing I would do is MOVE. Why do they call the three most important things about real estate- location, location, and location Sometimes it really is about geographical location, but often its who else lives there- rich, poor, entitled, violent, etc.
I live in Las Vegas, which has a LOT of hispanics. They speak spanish mostly. The signs are in spanish in a lot of places, and I would say they dont try to fit into the american culture, but rather try to change our culture to what they came from. If they liked their culture so much, why didnt they just stay there?? If I wanted to move to Mexico, I would learn spanish and try to mix in with their culture, otherwise I would just stay right here.