Posts by Billyblobber

305

McKinney Texas pool party?

by Marvin Shilmer in

so today i was asked my thoughts on the pool party incident in mcminney, texas.

my response: it shows a clash of expectations.

i saw police officers who expected citizens to listen to and follow instructions.

And, also, the "well it's the parents" thing, that shows that people attempt to only think of the most recent cause in a cause/effect situation. Their parents grew up in the same or even worse situations, so...? It's just a blame-deflection that was touched on earlier - basically, "I am/would be a better parent so my kid wouldn't have to worry about this - I DO have control!" A way of propping oneself up as opposed to empathizing with and trying to figure out ways to help the most people out.

Marvin, the issue is that since no place is perfect, everyone should strive to effect change in whatever situation/country they find themselves in. The U.S. has a lot of good things about it, but it also has a lot of terrible things about it, and a lot of people attempting to make things worse here for a lot of people as well. To affect those things, you start with dialogue (what were doing here) attempting to break down the source of the problem, and then come up with ways or work to enact change from the ground up when it comes to those things.

What we're seeing now is a public consciousness shift on how various things about police departments should change to mean that less people get screwed over (which seem to be disproportionately poor and minority). This is increasing because the voices that were ignored in the 70s through 90s are finally being heard a little bit thanks to the advent of video being everywhere and more activism about those and related subjects.

Just "voting" doesn't solve the issue because things like zoning and gerrymandering makes voting pointless for large swaths of people. Other types of activism would be necessary to create change.

305

McKinney Texas pool party?

by Marvin Shilmer in

so today i was asked my thoughts on the pool party incident in mcminney, texas.

my response: it shows a clash of expectations.

i saw police officers who expected citizens to listen to and follow instructions.

Billyblobber

like you I grew up in one of thee worst cities in America , Newark NJ. I made it out and made a success of my life as well. However I would never be so arrogant as to insinuate that because I did everyone else could. With anyone all it takes is one bad mistake to keep someone from moving ahead.

I also grew up in one of the worst cities in America (and have seen cops detail and assault people for no reason, personally), and also made it out, and would take what you said a step further - any part of me that is a success, including my personal effort, is still based on luck of the draw (my effort being rewarded where other peoples' weren't, me happening to meet the right people at the right time, etc.).

I just shake my head at the bootstraps/personal responsibility crowd. There have been many cases where I know I started lower than some of the same people claiming that, worked harder, and achieved more, and yet I'm still not ignorant enough to deny that all that is still just a coinflip and with one minor changed circumstance, I could have ended up on the streets or something. I think a big part of it is that, starting so "low" on the totem pole, you tend to meet more peers who have as much or more potential than you growing up, who never realized it just due to the wrong thing at the wrong time. People that start of relatively middle, or who completely leave their pasts behind on leaving to not SEE things like that as much, tend to just not make that connection, I guess.

305

McKinney Texas pool party?

by Marvin Shilmer in

so today i was asked my thoughts on the pool party incident in mcminney, texas.

my response: it shows a clash of expectations.

i saw police officers who expected citizens to listen to and follow instructions.

Billyblobber

Racism and sexism are still alive and well on JWN I see... :pensive:

It should be surprising to see the violent assault of a teenage girl who broke no laws and exhibited no violent or threatening behaviour not just defended but praised, but when that teenage girl is black it's basically par for the course around here.

I'm not even sure it's racism. It's known psychology for people to attempt to put systematic blame on the individual. This is because it's an uncomfortable thought for them to realize that their life is luck of the draw, and if they were born in slightly different conditions, they would have ended up as screwed up as those people. The illusion of control is really important for many.

Keeping a whole illusion of control up is important for people to feel that life is less random. It's the same psychology that leads people to victim blame the person raped or robbed, and other such things. It's easier to jump on "that person must have done something wrong that I would not have done in that situation" as opposed to confront the fear that you could be on the receiving end of complete bad luck outside of your control. That showcases itself as an automatic defense of authority and skepticism of the person who states they're wrong.

305

McKinney Texas pool party?

by Marvin Shilmer in

so today i was asked my thoughts on the pool party incident in mcminney, texas.

my response: it shows a clash of expectations.

i saw police officers who expected citizens to listen to and follow instructions.

Billyblobber

Baltimore will continue to disintegrate and breakdown until someone makes the decision that tough policing is needed and preferable to political correctness.

What?!?!?!

As I posted in the Baltimore thread, Baltimore is one of the worst policed cities in the country, and is practically entirely a product of sticking the poor and disenfranchised in one area, along racial lines, and then forcing them to stay there as the little support that they had in that area left them.

When I say "worst policed," I mean where it's documented police policy there for them to PURPOSELY brutalize people, where they purposely target based on location, etc. There is no possible way people could possibly think that Baltimore should have "tougher policing," when the problem there is that the policing there is so ridiculous that it -has- actually created an essential police state in the inner city area.Baltimore is possibly the prime example of "this is what happens when police are allowed to be terrible continuously." There's a reason that even other low income black areas like Detroit don't blow up like Baltimore did, and that's because Baltimore is uniquely horrible and corrupt in the police force. There was an entire show about this that is known as the greatest television show of all time. How could someone watch The Wire which shows how it works from the ground up, fictionized from multiple real life sources, and then not focus on the systematic corruption there - unless, of course, they didn't watch it.

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305

McKinney Texas pool party?

by Marvin Shilmer in

so today i was asked my thoughts on the pool party incident in mcminney, texas.

my response: it shows a clash of expectations.

i saw police officers who expected citizens to listen to and follow instructions.

Billyblobber

COPS is a horrible basis to use for anything. That's a television show where the police force invites the show to follow them around, sticks them with their best officers who know they are on camera the entire time, and try to act as according to the book as they possibly can for the camera. Also, the show is based on police compliance, so it's important for the police to always be shown in a good light in the show by the producers of the show. They typically always are shown to use the applicable force possible, and be very reasonable with whoever they were dealing with, no matter what.

In "real life," while many, probably the majority of U.S. police are decent people, there are enough of a number of them who are terrible people, or at least people who shouldn't not have that position of authority (ie. known psychological problems), which is a huge problem in this country when combined with the fact that a) prosecutors and police cover for those cops to the point in which many are still able to be police officers even while after abusing their authority, and b) there is often no departmental system in place that weeds out these kind of people that would help to avoid people getting hurt and killed. This makes sense, as police organizations weed out intelligent, balanced people that would make decent officers, either intentionally, or as a byproduct, while attracting personality types that want to feel a semblance of power, and are thus more likely to abuse it.

People have been saying this for a century, but because it was mostly the cries of the poor and/or minorities, not many listened. If it doesn't affect them personally, many people would rather ignore that some things might be happening that makes the world seem more unfair to others than they may have realized. Especially with the weird military/police worship or blind support for authority that many in this country have. It's only recently, with the advent of EVERYONE around having a video camera on their person, that a lot of people are starting to realize that, hey, perhaps all those anecdotes that were once ignored actually have some merit.

182

The Case for Theism

by FusionTheism in

"theism" here means "belief in a god" or "the worldview that an intelligent designer created the universe and life.

" ("god" here means a being with a mind who initiated and/or wound-up the universe, and designed life on earth)the most common claim that i see atheists making on twitter, is that "no evidence" exists in support of belief in a god.this post will remove any excuse atheists have for claiming "no evidence exists" in support of an initiator.

atheists can still reject this evidence as "weak," but they cannot truthfully say it does not exist.now, it is true that we do not have "observable, repeatable, falsifiable, empirical, scientific" evidence conclusively proving that an initiator exists, but we do have many lines of philisophical, experiential, and logical evidence.and... here... we... go:1:) many leading scientists, including stephen hawking, say that the space-time-matter universe had a beginning at the singularity/big bang.

Billyblobber

Uh, that backs up what cofty said, with the 6.9 out of 7 sure about his beliefs that you forgot to highlight in red.

182

The Case for Theism

by FusionTheism in

"theism" here means "belief in a god" or "the worldview that an intelligent designer created the universe and life.

" ("god" here means a being with a mind who initiated and/or wound-up the universe, and designed life on earth)the most common claim that i see atheists making on twitter, is that "no evidence" exists in support of belief in a god.this post will remove any excuse atheists have for claiming "no evidence exists" in support of an initiator.

atheists can still reject this evidence as "weak," but they cannot truthfully say it does not exist.now, it is true that we do not have "observable, repeatable, falsifiable, empirical, scientific" evidence conclusively proving that an initiator exists, but we do have many lines of philisophical, experiential, and logical evidence.and... here... we... go:1:) many leading scientists, including stephen hawking, say that the space-time-matter universe had a beginning at the singularity/big bang.

Billyblobber

Outlaw, nobody needs or really tries to prove "No God."

The point is, basically, the accrued rational evidence for any god is so terrible as to be stupid, and doesn't pass any sort of reasonable muster. Nobody has to prove something with practically no evidence "isn't." It's like saying, "people who don't believe in Leprechauns can't prove that there really aren't Leprechauns."

When it comes to specific gods, then some people like to poke holes in the logic/evidence for them. The Christian God needs centuries worth of apologetics to TRY and make any amount of sense, and it gets worse the more we find out about science and history. Then, it's saying "your god is stupid and makes no sense, I can show you why with logical reasons/factual evidence."

25

Would you like to live for ever on earth?

by fulano in

i was discussing this topic with two friends of mine, ex jws, a few nights ago.

i think it would be boring after a while.

you can't smoke, have to drink with moderation (difficult in europe with all the wines).

Billyblobber

Not under JW rule, but outside of it, definitely. Living forever with other people means that people would also progress and invent things and also offers the possibility of space traveling and settling and all new things to discover and appreciate. Also, you tend to "forget" things that makes revisiting them fun (for instance, you can easily forget a movie you haven't seen in 10 or 20 years and look at it almost through new eyes the next time you see it).

The JW paradise sounds absolutely terrible, though, and many of them know it as well. That's why they always go "trust in Jehovah to make us like all this stuff we don't like" when they start talking about it.

184

Why are people burning their city to the ground in Baltimore? How doe Looting and Mob Violence Help?

by PokerPlayerPhil in

it's hard enough for businesses to enter these areas the government once had to offer up tax breaks to service them.

in watts, california it took decades for city residents to get a grocery store after the thugs burned their businesses to the ground.

you can see the insanity taking place, when you allow mobs and fools to burn building down nothing good comes from it.

Billyblobber

Here's an excellent interview by The Wire's David Simon that gives a bit of history and nuance to the way that the Baltimore PD is run, and why stuff like this happens, for anyone that wants to read it:

http://www.vice.com/read/david-simon-talks-about-where-the-baltimore-police-went-wrong-429

Quote:

But the other thing that gets you beat is if you fight. So the rough ride was reserved for the guys who fought the police, who basically made—in the cop parlance—assholes of themselves. And yet, you look at the sheet for poor Mr. Gray, and you look at the nature of the arrest and you look at the number of police who made the arrest, you look at the nature of what they were charging him with—if anything, because again there's a complete absence of probable cause—and you look at the fact that the guy hasn't got much propensity for serious violence according to his sheet, and you say, How did thisguy get a rough ride? How did that happen? Is this really the arrest that you were supposed to make today? And then, if you were supposed to make it, was this the guy that needed an ass-kicking on the street, or beyond that, a hard ride to the lockup?

I'm talking in the vernacular of cops, not my own—but even in the vernacular of what cops secretly think is fair, this is bullshit, this is a horror show. There doesn't seem to be much code anymore—not that the code was always entirely clean or valid to anyone other than street cops, and maybe the hardcore corner players, but still it was something at least."

184

Why are people burning their city to the ground in Baltimore? How doe Looting and Mob Violence Help?

by PokerPlayerPhil in

it's hard enough for businesses to enter these areas the government once had to offer up tax breaks to service them.

in watts, california it took decades for city residents to get a grocery store after the thugs burned their businesses to the ground.

you can see the insanity taking place, when you allow mobs and fools to burn building down nothing good comes from it.

Billyblobber

Yes, race becomes a quick and convenient proxy to judge class and affluence which can easily be confused with racism when it isn't even though the bias appears to be against a race.

But...that is racism. Stereotyping someone because of their race/ethnicity is racism. If a cop sees a black or hispanic person and makes a default gut assumption that they're more dangerous, and/or treats them differently because of race based assumptions, it's racism, because they're stereotyping based on skin color. That's one of the big problems with police in America (regardless of the race of the officer in question).

People often conflate things like racism and sexism with assumptions that it's calling someone a "bad person" by doing so. This is not true at all, in fact, almost everyone probably has aspects of racial or sexual bias somewhere, it's almost unavoidable because of humans evolving to classify things by gut, based on what they see and experienced previously.

The problem, and what people try to fight, is when this happens in a way that widely negatively affects people. When you have an institution like the police , making snap gut decisions based on what someone looks like, it can unfairly screw over people, and results in skewed treatment among large groups of people. That is what needs to be fixed.

This individual case in Baltimore has nothing in it where there can be a clear "they did this because of him being black" issue though. Him being black led to the position in which he was in (given the history of Baltimore and why so many black people are the underclass there), which can segue into the larger narrative, but this is not something that I would place more on a horribly run and managed police department as opposed to racial lines.