kareem abdul-jabbars opinion piece on ferguson

[Rob's House]

 

Getting back to my original point, blacks aren't being locked up for no reason. And if you're not prepared to do the time, don't do the crime. That's a code I live by since I don't want anyone else deciding my fate but myself.

No offense, but I hate that saying. It's so often used as a mindless dismissal of injustices. I prefer the saying, "let the punishment fit the crime."

[Doc]

No offense, but I hate that saying. It's so often used as a mindless dismissal of injustices. I prefer the saying, "let the punishment fit the crime."

Don't commit a crime in the first place and you won't have to worry about injustices (with rare exceptions).

[Rob's House]

 

Don't commit a crime in the first place and you won't have to worry about injustices (with rare exceptions).

 

I don't really want to take this thread down this road, but I hate (I'm using the word hate here) the idea that whatever the dipshits in the legislature decide to call a crime, and whatever penalty they choose for said crimes, is necessarily just.

 

From a practical standpoint, I agree, it's a good idea to avoid getting arrested. But you could burn someone alive for petty theft and if the law allowed for such a penalty, the idiotic "do the crime, do the time" mantra would be equally applicable.

 

And what if they determine that something is a crime that's really none of their !@#$ing business? Should I just shrug like a gutless !@#$ing pop country singer?

 

I prefer to assess penalties based on the nature and severity of the crime and the proportionality of the penalty, not aphorisms.

[Doc]

I don't really want to take this thread down this road, but I hate (I'm using the word hate here) the idea that whatever the dipshits in the legislature decide to call a crime, and whatever penalty they choose for said crimes, is necessarily just.

 

From a practical standpoint, I agree, it's a good idea to avoid getting arrested. But you could burn someone alive for petty theft and if the law allowed for such a penalty, the idiotic "do the crime, do the time" mantra would be equally applicable.

 

And what if they determine that something is a crime that's really none of their !@#$ing business? Should I just shrug like a gutless !@#$ing pop country singer?

 

I prefer to assess penalties based on the nature and severity of the crime and the proportionality of the penalty, not aphorisms.

Not sure how you get that I am, or my aphorism (thanks for calling it one, BTW!) is, justifying the penalties. What I'm saying is: don't commit a crime and put yourself at the mercy of others. It's no more idiotic or mindless than saying "don't smoke and you probably won't get lung cancer," instead of worrying about whether your insurance company will drop you if you do get it.

[Kevbeau]

really? are you that pathetic or was this supposed to be funny? http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/05/opinion/stoehr-farm-bill-food-stamps/index.html. some of you dolts really don't have a clue do you?

Yeah, the same companies that plan their promotional calendars around SNAP and WIC distributions want to reduce the amount those people have to spend on their products.

[ExiledInIllinois]

 

Not sure how you get that I am, or my aphorism (thanks for calling it one, BTW!) is, justifying the penalties. What I'm saying is: don't commit a crime and put yourself at the mercy of others. It's no more idiotic or mindless than saying "don't smoke and you probably won't get lung cancer," instead of worrying about whether your insurance company will drop you if you do get it.

 

I have to agree. Or... Walk onto a racetrack during a race while full of rage.

 

Now, he (Brown) probably doesn't deserve to die for strong arming some Swisher Sweets, but karma is a son of a beeatch!

 

Sure there are examples of truly innocent people meeting unjust fates... This incident isn't helping those poor people one bit! I have a hard time rallying around a thug that got much more than he deserved/bargained for. I understand the communities rallying point of "stand up for our children." Again, just maybe that should apply BEFORE (or if) they act badly. I just don't get turning a blind eye to a child's behavior, raising their odds of something bad happening to them because the child's parents abdicated proper guidance. BUT then screaming bloody murder when things go totally & horribly wrong because you left your child to his own devices. The few bad apples are seeing what is taking place, and they are working it.

 

Anyway, that's not raising a children. WTF. That's where the injustice lies. I understand that people love these problem children... But to blend these thugs and gangbangers into the community/family is a tragic mistake... The problems (like Brown robbing a cashier) are playing everybody as fools. The children and trouble makers in the community need to be controlled and managed! Simple as that.

 

Now, I am not saying the cop shouldn't be accountable either for popping off 6 rounds into the teen.

 

Just like Ward Jr. for getting killed, I hope Brown is proud of himself for all the trouble he caused in his community and the disappointment in his behavior prior to getting shot. Again, I am not saying killing him was justifiable... It's just that Brown by choosing to act like a thug was the catalyst to this downward spiral (if he truly was) acting like a thug and strong arming Swisher Sweets...

 

The community needs to distance themselves from the bad seeds... Doing what he was as seen on video is not some petty offense.

Edited August 19, 2014 by ExiledInIllinois

[birdog1960]

Getting back to my original point, blacks aren't being locked up for no reason. And if you're not prepared to do the time, don't do the crime. That's a code I live by since I don't want anyone else deciding my fate but myself.

are you tempted to commit crimes often? yeah, every time i am i think exactly the same thing! aren't i awesome?

 

I have to agree. Or... Walk onto a racetrack during a race while full of rage.

 

Now, he (Brown) probably doesn't deserve to die for strong arming some Swisher Sweets, but karma is a son of a beeatch!

 

Sure there are examples of truly innocent people meeting unjust fates... This incident isn't helping those poor people one bit! I have a hard time rallying around a thug that got much more than he deserved/bargained for. I understand the communities rallying point of "stand up for our children." Again, just maybe that should apply BEFORE (or if) they act badly. I just don't get turning a blind eye to a child's behavior, raising their odds of something bad happening to them because the child's parents abdicated proper guidance. BUT then screaming bloody murder when things go totally & horribly wrong because you left your child to his own devices. The few bad apples are seeing what is taking place, and they are working it.

 

Anyway, that's not raising a children. WTF. That's where the injustice lies. I understand that people love these problem children... But to blend these thugs and gangbangers into the community/family is a tragic mistake... The problems (like Brown robbing a cashier) are playing everybody as fools. The children and trouble makers in the community need to be controlled and managed! Simple as that.

 

Now, I am not saying the cop shouldn't be accountable either for popping off 6 rounds into the teen.

 

Just like Ward Jr. for getting killed, I hope Brown is proud of himself for all the trouble he caused in his community and the disappointment in his behavior prior to getting shot. Again, I am not saying killing him was justifiable... It's just that Brown by choosing to act like a thug was the catalyst to this downward spiral (if he truly was) acting like a thug and strong arming Swisher Sweets...

 

The community needs to distance themselves from the bad seeds... Doing what he was as seen on video is not some petty offense.

if you're a liberal then i'm barry goldwater.

 

Yeah, the same companies that plan their promotional calendars around SNAP and WIC distributions want to reduce the amount those people have to spend on their products.

what are you talking about? i was certain you'd be surprised! we found that cutting food stamps was very recently a successful political agenda. that corporate welfare is a higher priority. and your political knowledge base is a better thing for it. Edited August 19, 2014 by birdog1960

[4merper4mer]

 

And what if they determine that something is a crime that's really none of their !@#$ing business?

 

Dude there are plenty of pot threads already. Take it to one of those.

 

This thread is for Birddog to justify Kareem's illogical and disjointed justifications for communism. Yes stoned people "understand" this stuff but it is technically not a pot thread.

[birdog1960]

Dude there are plenty of pot threads already. Take it to one of those.

 

This thread is for Birddog to justify Kareem's illogical and disjointed justifications for communism. Yes stoned people "understand" this stuff but it is technically not a pot thread.

that's almost as clever as that frat guy's instructions on getting away with being a criminal.

[Rob's House]

 

 

Dude there are plenty of pot threads already. Take it to one of those.

 

This thread is for Birddog to justify Kareem's illogical and disjointed justifications for communism. Yes stoned people "understand" this stuff but it is technically not a pot thread.

 

Well if you took a dozen bong hits before reading it, you'd probably think birddog's argument made a lot more sense.

[B-Man]

WSJ's Jason Riley: Black Men Are Afraid Of Being Shot By Other Black Men, Not By Cops

 

(Video at the link)

 

JASON RILEY, WALL STREET JOURNAL: We don't have all the evidence and I'm hesitant to try and litigate this in the press, but there's also this false narrative being pushed out there by folks like Michael Eric Dyson and [Al] Sharpton and the rest of the hustlers is that black men live in fear of being shot by cops in these neighborhoods. That too is nonsense. I know something about growing up black and male in the inner city and it's not that hard to avoid getting shot by a cop. They pull you over, you answer their questions, you are on your way.

 

The real difficulty is not getting shot by other black people if you are a young black man in these neighborhoods and again that is something we need to talk more about. Cops are not the problem. Cops are not producing these black bodies in the morgues every weekend in Chicago, in New York and Detroit and so forth. That's not cops. Those other black people shooting black people.

 

BRET BAIER, HOST: What about the president's intervention here? He says he doesn't want to tip the scales but the Attorney General is heading to Ferguson.

 

RILEY: I've talked to some former federal prosecutors in the Department of Justice and they find this very odd, this parallel investigation going on. They say normally if the feds sit back, they let the local authorities do their job, they see something amiss and then they intervene. That has not been alleged here. Or if the police department has a history of civil rights violations, then the Department of Justice might intervene early. Again, that has not be alleged here. I think this is a parallel investigation being done purely for optics. Political pressure that the president is feeling from his left to be shown doing something, I think that's what driving it.

 

http://www.realclear...ot_by_cops.html

[Jauronimo]

I'm struggling to see how birddog found wisdom in KAJ's take on we are the world. Kareem forgot #Kony 2012 and Ice Bucket, otherwise he successfully invoked every current pop political trend. I'm also struggling to find much that I would consider controversial in that article.

[birdog1960]

I'm struggling to see how birddog found wisdom in KAJ's take on we are the world. Kareem forgot #Kony 2012 and Ice Bucket, otherwise he successfully invoked every current pop political trend. I'm also struggling to find much that I would consider controversial in that article.

it seems that inequaslity under the law is controversial here. firstly, it's existence. secondly, if it exists, is it a problem.

[/dev/null]

http://www.realclear...ot_by_cops.html

Your link might have more weight if the argument wasn't made by some Irishman named Jason

[B-Man]

Your link might have more weight if the argument wasn't made by some Irishman named Jason

 

 

Haven't you ever heard of Black Irish ?........... lol

 

All joking aside dev/null, I wonder which one of our "more challenged" posters will actually believe your post ?

 

 

.

[birdog1960]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/181310/my-major-problem-kareem-abdul-jabbars-powerful-essay-ferguson. some valid criticisms of the essay.

[Chef Jim]

http://www.thenation...-essay-ferguson. some valid criticisms of the essay.

 

Valid in whose mind?

 

 

And yet… there is also a serious and extremely fundamental problem with Kareem’s piece. This is first seen when he writes that making Ferguson about the “fist-shaking of everyone’s racial agenda distracts America from the larger issue that the targets of police overreaction are based less on skin color and more on an even worse Ebola-level affliction: being poor.”

 

Michael Brown was shot dead by the police because he is black. If he was white, no matter how poor, he almost certainly wouldn’t have died. If that is not your starting point, then you are lost without a compass. Yes, Ferguson is in so many ways a “class issue”. But Ferguson and the death of Michael Brown is about racism. If we don’t acknowledge the centrality of racism both in this case and in how racism is used to divide people, then the unity of the 50 million poor people that Kareem wants to see will forever be a pipe dream.

 

[4merper4mer]

http://www.thenation...-essay-ferguson. some valid criticisms of the essay.

 

So the kid either got shot because he was black or poor? There is no other possibility? And now we have to argue whether we should communize because of the black or we should communize because of the poor or we should communize because of global warming? That's the debate here?

 

Give me a break dude. Let the facts about the case come out. If it was a racist shooting in cold blood or a shooting of a poor kid in cold blood then put the guy away forever, but don't let that be the only possibility before, you know, due process. If it is shown, then you investigate the Ferguson PD beyond just that cop. Then on up the chain if necessary. But you have to do this objectively. Objectivity is a ship that sailed on this thing a long time ago and people on the right and the left are all too happy to toss objectivity in cases like this. All sides try to claim they are the ones being objective but their arguments in this regard are typically see through and it is always the same stuff on the other side of the glass. You need to be able to see things more objectively before you start slamming other people. Left and lefter are not the only paths to the truth.

 

If someone had a crystal ball or maybe there was a definitive video of this incident and it showed the deceased at fault, would you still want to cop to fry because of the systemic issues that led to the incident? I am not blaming the deceased, simply acknowledging that I do not know what happened. Do you acknowledge that you do not know what happened?

 

Nobody on the left has acknowledged that from what I see. Why? Because many of them want to communize and will use anything they can to inch or leap toward that goal. Kareem's article was useless when it comes to the truth because it tied this case into a bevy of issues for which there is no possible correlation that can be drawn. If he wrote a separate article about class and/or race and pointed out specific tangible causes it would be a worthy read. "Cuz the 1% and the press are out to get us" is not very specific and not at all tangible and cannot be treated seriously. It's dumb. He is a tool of the left....and he probably means well. I like his writing style but he has not shown a willingness or ability to draw all necessary correlations. All problems are a nail and being a commie is the hammer. At least it simplifies things.

 

No Thanks.

Edited August 19, 2014 by 4merper4mer

[Sig1Hunter]

Aint no better way to put it 4mer.

[birdog1960]

Valid in whose mind?

 

 

 

yeah, i thought yall would like that piece . i just thought i'd link something more controversial since jauronimo didn't find the original essay to be so.