Well, Mark Levin has a very large audience here in Texas and on the matter at hand is expressing what so many people are afraid to say out loud. He and other local radio talk show hosts are saying similar things. The community are afriaid b/c they fear what happened in Baltimore. In fact if you look back a few pages you will see someone posted from a member of that very community and said that same group had another party in a private home the next night. They vandalized cars, loud vulgar music, and people were banging on doors frightening the other residents. The community is very fearful of the violence they saw in both Ferguson and Baltimore. I am actually surprised that Greg Abbott , the new Governor has not made a comment. He may yet.
McKinney Texas pool party?
by Marvin Shilmer 305 Replies latest social current
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Billyblobber
Ferguson and Baltimore have a long history of police abuse and oppression on citizens forced in ghetto enclaves generationally that was inflamed by an event. Did Mark Levin make that distinction in his show (I don't see it from a quick scan) to show why situations like that ignite in the first place? If so, it would show the difference between silly extreme right fearmongering (ie. his statements about Obama being a secret Muslim trying to oppress Christians), and legitimate commentary on events. -
Marvin Shilmer
...oppression on citizens forced in ghetto enclaves...
The longer I live the more this ghetto theme loses traction with me.
Governments don't pull communities from ghettos. Communities pull themselves from ghettos.
Name the social disease (slavery, poverty, discrimination ...). There is no peoples on the face of planet earth whose ancestors at some time in human history have not suffered horribly due to one or another. None of these peoples were emancipated from ghetto-like environments by a government. Each that found its way from such an environment made their own way out by owning their own future and working hard toward a productive end. Even European Jews lucky enough to survive Nazi Germany had to claw their way back from poverty despite being relieved from Nazis by Allied forces. They started by cleaning the streets in front of their own living quarters.
The world we live in is cold and hard. We can't make it warm and fuzzy for anyone no matter how hard we try. For children we try to make it easier, but they have to eventually grow up and understand their life is going to be no more than they are able to make it, and with some luck maybe a little better than that.
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Billyblobber
Marvin, what you're missing is that, historically, in places like Baltimore and Detroit, the people in the cities DID attempt to leave the city as the jobs moved out to the outskirts, but were not allowed to. This kind of stuff lasted into the 80s. That's the generation living in those places now, and their children (and in some cases, grandchildren). Those communities weren't allowed to "lift themselves up," enforced BY the government in many cases, as those communities were entire city areas, dependent on business infrastructure that left. Right when they started picking themselves up, they were forced back down (businesses/work leaving, for instance, the manufacturing jobs that they moved to certain cities for disappearing or being shipped offshores), and when they tried the same path of escape as other (going to suburban opportunity), they were not allowed to, while those that COULD benefit from it now prospered from having less competition.
Much of this happened in the middle of the 20th century and lasted until around the 90s, which was around the peak of EVERYTHING being gone in those and similar places, opportunity-wise. What you and others are doing is looking at the tail end of this situation, at ta generation who suffered from the brunt of it, and saying "life isn't fair, but they should have come up with a way to fix their own situation, oh well," and then comparing it to people who built themselves up over GENERATIONS after their destitution. It's like asking why South African natives didn't fix themselves and were still poor 20 years after apartheid, and blaming all of their problems on them or saying tough luck, while comparing them to Asian immigrants to California.
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Marvin Shilmer
...the people in the cities DID attempt to leave the city as the jobs moved out to the outskirts, but were not allowed to....
To buy that assertion as true I'd have to believe that not a single person living in one these communities you speak of made their way to a better future by working to that end. I don't see any reason to believe such a thing.
What you and others are doing is looking at the tail end of this situation, at ta generation who suffered from the brunt of it, and saying "life isn't fair, but they should have come up with a way to fix their own situation, oh well,"
I'm not suggesting what folks of yesteryear should have done. I'm talking about what folks living and breathing right now should be doing, and starting in their own homes.
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Simon
One of the areas that we "went on the work" (blargh) was one of the most deprived areas in Greater Manchester. It was where people were rehoused from Victorian slums in the inner city. It was rough. I think it had the highest vehicle crime-rate in the country.
So people were moved there - I guess that would make it a ghetto ...
You would see when you went round areas that were a complete mess but then other places you could tell the neighbours were building something together - they took some pride in the place. They didn't have fancy expensive fences but they were painted and kept clean.
All it takes is some effort to improve your surroundings. Some people want everything handed to them or to take it all from someone else.
Elsewhere in Manchester were areas that were bad and people blamed the housing and the apartment buildings that they lived in (provided by the council of course at tax-payers expense). Eventually the people were moved out and the apartments redeveloped and sold off. Eventually they became expensive and sought after places to live because of their location and, well, the people living there now showed some respect to each other and where they lived.
I've never understood who people trash their own community like some do. It just seems so idiotic. It doesn't matter where you live, you can make it better if you want to or you can blame the world and smash it up even more.
I think only one of those makes you life better and encourages others to start investing in the area as well.
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tenyearsafter
I doubt highly that either side of this argument will surrender to the other. The one comment I would make is that unless you have experienced what a police officer does, it is impossible to understand the stress, complexity and craziness of the job. It is often said, police work is 98% boredom interrupted by 2% terror. In my career, I have been spit on, assaulted and shot at...and I can tell you it isn't fun. I understand that some people say, "that's the job you chose to do", but that is dismissive of the reality of dealing with people who believe they are exempt from the rules of law. Because they are human, some officers can lose perspective and act outside of their scope of authority. I am not going to convince anyone here to change their opinion...I can only reiterate the one absolute...if people comply, excessive force would be a very rare occurence. In 30 years of policing, I have never seen anyone beaten, tasered or shot for complying with a lawful order from a police officer. That may be anecdotal, but it is a compilation of my 30 years of dealing with the public. If anyone can present facts that dispute my experiences, I am very open to hear and consider them. -
paulmolark
Ten years let me start by saying I am not being anal here or start a fight. I assume you came from a police district where the officers did their job.
I saw literally... Not an exaggeration of instances of multiple police violating people. It happened to me on 3 occasions my dad twice my friend who were jw's as well.
i watch my friends father a ministerial servant and 4 other men get completely violated on his own porch because the officer said he had drugs. 2 went in their home turned things over and acted completely out of order. They came outside and after all this and grabbed this man by his throat and acted as if he would punch him... Drew his hand back and laughed and walked away.
Everyone sat there feeling so sorry he was emasculated but since most had been through similar life went back to normal and things continued.
this was Newark New Jersey. The Italian police preyed on the black community this way. The stories could go on and on. So generally when people make the argument that if you comply all goes all I know better.
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tenyearsafter
Paul...I have no doubt that abuses happen, but I didn't see it in my career. I worked on the West Coast, which is probably different than the East Coast. I am not denying that there are bad cops...or racist cops. A few bad apples spoil the barrel, and police work is no different. I just hesitate to generalize...and this applies to everyone. For people to say all cops are bad is like saying all white people are racists or all black people are criminals...we all know that is ridiculous, but our personal experiences mold our opinions. I am sorry that you had to be subjected to that type of behavior...it is inexcusable. With regard to police encounters, I still do believe that the majority of bad outcomes could be avoided by compliance rather than resistance. Have a good night... -
zombie dub
The US is demonstratively an Orwellian Police state, the government actively spies on its citizens (and many other countries), records emails, internet activity, phone calls. The police regularly assault and kill people often for doing absolutely nothing wrong and then are defended by the brainwashed, ignorant masses.So glad I don't live there! Seems such a nasty Orwellian, totalitarian police state - this isn't the first time this has been said on this thread. Yes, out-of-control police officers deserve to be punished. But can we please stop referring to the USA as a police state? Prime examples of real-life police states are North Korea and Saudi Arabia.
Despite all the country's faults, US citizens enjoy freedoms that people in other countries can only dream about.
You say N. Korea is a police state, what is that based on? Anything other than Western Media propaganda? I'm not saying it isn't, but speaking to someone that lived there for many years they said it is nothing like it is portrayed.
There are 10,000s of videos and countless more documentation of the US police state, so its far easier to draw a factual conclusion than somewhere like N. Korea which has little documented outside of the main stream media (which by definition, is almost always propaganda).