Defund the Police?

[Reality Check]

21 minutes ago, GregPersons said:

 

Okay, chill. (Edit - "chill" as in "that's cool" not "chill" as in "chill out/calm down"). We're more on the same page than we aren't, or at least, more than I expected.

 

You are correct on these points, or rather, these I strongly agree with 

 

—This is a police state problem

—This is an everybody problem

—This affects white people and black people both

—Crime is caused by poverty

—Black people have been systemically impoverished because of crimes that have not been addressed since, and arguably, are ongoing. (Well, I'm maybe taking the points you made on this a little further in connecting the dots but correct me if you disagree.)

 

Reparations, IMO, would be only possible if it were something that White America saw as an honor. That would not happen this generation. But I can see that mindset happening. In the ways that Trump is sometimes a wildcard, it's occasionally been a flight of fantasy that maybe Trump could beat Democrats by co-opting the left — a lot of which aligns with libertarian goals — and mandating a stronger and more consistent social safety net. Universal health care. Basic universal income. Housing support, etc etc etc.

 

It's not like the money ISN'T there for it. It's just the will isn't there. @Deranged Rhino lives in LA; if he's paying attention, he can tell you about places in Venice and Long Beach and elsewhere, where the money is earmarked for homeless shelters, but white NIMBYism prevents health care from being established and accessible. This is where the unity bit comes in too. White liberals are just as awful as the worst racists, sometimes; their goals can also line up alarmingly quickly. 

 

Libertarians would push back against national government services. Maybe. Or maybe they would compromise. Because maybe they would agree — as you said, crime is caused by poverty.

 

Why were the Black Panthers created? It had nothing to do with intimidating White America... not at first, anyway. It was created to give kids breakfasts. They weren't getting breakfast before school. They needed care. They needed people looking out for them. The Black Panthers made sure their elderly got medical care and the children all had clothes and food. Later, the berets and the shades and the guns (btw, remember when the NRA was actually very pro-gun legislation? yeah its when black ppl had the guns out in the open). 

 

Freedom isn't possible without security. Not security in the sense of like, fences and guns and cameras and physical protection. I mean security in the sense of basic human necessities.

 

America has the resources to do this. We could live to see a generation make this happen. You provide every single American with the same baseline of services offered -- imagine having tangible benefits of being a legal citizen (which also encourages illegal immigrants to apply for citizenship through legal channels) like UBI and M4A. 

 

Imagine not having to work if you didn't want to. And being able to get by, not living on much, but maybe you needed time off to... for whatever reason. Kids. Death in the family. Just wanted a change. Imagine having that opportunity.

 

And why the ***** not? Automation is here. What we need is ingenuity. We need people using their creative skills in productive ways. We don't need Deranged Rhino playing Racist Riddler here. We need him doing something that can challenge fossil fuel companies and accelerate clean energy. Just to name but one existential threat off the top of my head.

 

Instead it's ... such.... stupid.... preventable.... *****. We should have learned this ages ago. It is very annoying that people are still pretending this is hard.

What is your solution to black on black violence?

[3rdnlng]

1 hour ago, Reality Check said:

What is your solution to black on black violence?

You are not going to get his solution on that matter. His posting today reminds me of an educated person that has no sense of simple reality. So far in life he has not been successful and desperately wants to blame his loser status on someone or something other than himself. He keeps looking for a crutch but he can't find one that fits. If he'd stop and look he would find that they are adjustable but he's too consumed with what the government can do for him. Universal healthcare, a monthly stipend from the government along with unarmed police are his idea of success. Simply put, he can't stand on his own two feet and wants to blame his failures on anybody but himself. He's trash. 

[GG]

Hold on for a moment.  Netherlands is socialist?

[GregPersons]

58 minutes ago, 3rdnlng said:

You are not going to get his solution on that matter. His posting today reminds me of an educated person that has no sense of simple reality. So far in life he has not been successful and desperately wants to blame his loser status on someone or something other than himself. He keeps looking for a crutch but he can't find one that fits. If he'd stop and look he would find that they are adjustable but he's too consumed with what the government can do for him. Universal healthcare, a monthly stipend from the government along with unarmed police are his idea of success. Simply put, he can't stand on his own two feet and wants to blame his failures on anybody but himself. He's trash. 

 

These all seem like projections. It appears that I am anything anyone wants me to be. 

 

Y'all are pretty good at proving your need to insist on defining other peoples identities for them.... very interesting way of dealing with people for a bunch of "not racists." ?

[billsfan1959]

1 minute ago, GregPersons said:

Y'all are pretty good at proving your need to insist on defining other peoples identities for them.

 

Says the guy who has called just about everyone on this forum a racist.

 

Get out of mom and dad's basement yet?

[Chef Jim]

There were 1.7 million public contacts by the LAPD in 2019 and only 33 of them resulted in officer-involved shootings.  There were only 48 weapons discharges by the LAPD last year.  These stats actually blew me away.  No pun intended there.  

[billsfan1959]

1 minute ago, Chef Jim said:

There were 1.7 million public contacts by the LAPD in 2019 and only 33 of them resulted in officer-involved shootings.  There were only 48 weapons discharges by the LAPD last year.  These stats actually blew me away.  No pun intended there.  

 

 

Shhhhh....facts......

 

GregPearson will just say the LAPD didn't report the other 1 million officer involved shootings....

 

Edited June 6, 2020 by billsfan1959

[ALF]

2 hours ago, Reality Check said:

What is your solution to black on black violence?

 

Living wage jobs regardless of education. Those were mostly outsourced to low wage countries. 

[Chef Jim]

3 minutes ago, Chef Jim said:

There were 1.7 million public contacts by the LAPD in 2019 and only 33 of them resulted in officer-involved shootings.  There were only 48 weapons discharges by the LAPD last year.  These stats actually blew me away.  No pun intended there.  

 

I think 15 of those shootings (the 48 discharges minus the 33 OIS) were Barney Fife removing his revolver from his holster.  

1 minute ago, ALF said:

 

Living wage jobs regardless of education. Those were mostly outsourced to low wage countries. 

 

So if we raise minimum wage black on black violence will decrease?  I wonder how many of those killings (I don't care about color here) were committed by people where that WAS their job?  

[GregPersons]

6 minutes ago, billsfan1959 said:

Says the guy who has called just about everyone on this forum a racist.

 

Get out of mom and dad's basement yet?

 

Racism doesn't have to be your identity, if you don't want it to be. I like that each of you have a different version of who I am, and you really just cling to the reality with all you've got. 

 

Racism is a parasite and a brain disease. It's not hard to spot. It's like tourettes. You don't really need to be a doctor to spot it, especially if you've grown up in a country where a lot of people have tourettes. Very easy to identify, even though the people with tourettes think they talk normally.

 

I'm just calling a spade a spade. Wait a cotton pickin' minute.... ever notice how racist so much of our old timey phrases are? Wild!

[billsfan1959]

1 minute ago, GregPersons said:

 

Racism doesn't have to be your identity, if you don't want it to be. I like that each of you have a different version of who I am, and you really just cling to the reality with all you've got. 

 

Racism is a parasite and a brain disease. It's not hard to spot. It's like tourettes. You don't really need to be a doctor to spot it, especially if you've grown up in a country where a lot of people have tourettes. Very easy to identify, even though the people with tourettes think they talk normally.

 

I'm just calling a spade a spade. Wait a cotton pickin' minute.... ever notice how racist so much of our old timey phrases are? Wild!

 

Oh, you poor thing. It seems to me you've spent much of you time here trying pass off another culture as your own. Who do you think you are, Elizabeth Warren?

[Chef Jim]

15 minutes ago, GregPersons said:

 

These all seem like projections. It appears that I am anything anyone wants me to be. 

 

Y'all are pretty good at proving your need to insist on defining other peoples identities for them.... very interesting way of dealing with people for a bunch of "not racists." ?

 

And the crowd goes crazy!!  @GregPersons turns his threepeat "Ironic Post of the Day" trophy and nails the quadruple inward half gainer into......you guessed it the "Hypocrite of the Day" award.  This has been an incredible day of debate gymnastics folks.  

 

[Azalin]

12 minutes ago, ALF said:

 

Living wage jobs regardless of education. Those were mostly outsourced to low wage countries. 

 

What's the incentive for becoming educated then?

[Chef Jim]

11 minutes ago, GregPersons said:

 

Racism doesn't have to be your identity, if you don't want it to be. I like that each of you have a different version of who I am, and you really just cling to the reality with all you've got. 

 

Racism is a parasite and a brain disease. It's not hard to spot. It's like tourettes. You don't really need to be a doctor to spot it, especially if you've grown up in a country where a lot of people have tourettes. Very easy to identify, even though the people with tourettes think they talk normally.

 

I'm just calling a spade a spade. Wait a cotton pickin' minute.... ever notice how racist so much of our old timey phrases are? Wild!

 

You say it's easy but you have yet to point to one symptom of my racism.  What up with that? 

 

Only a racist would consider the idiom "calling a spade a spade" as racists.  You are an exception level of dumb aren't you?

 

Edited June 6, 2020 by Chef Jim

[Doc]

10 minutes ago, GregPersons said:

Racism doesn't have to be your identity, if you don't want it to be. I like that each of you have a different version of who I am, and you really just cling to the reality with all you've got. 

 

Racism is a parasite and a brain disease. It's not hard to spot. It's like tourettes. You don't really need to be a doctor to spot it, especially if you've grown up in a country where a lot of people have tourettes. Very easy to identify, even though the people with tourettes think they talk normally.

 

I'm just calling a spade a spade. Wait a cotton pickin' minute.... ever notice how racist so much of our old timey phrases are? Wild!

 

That saying isn't racist.  I thought so as well until just last week, when I looked it up.

[GG]

Any chance that this is Hogboy's triumphant return?

[GregPersons]

1 minute ago, billsfan1959 said:

Oh, you poor thing. It seems to me you've spent much of you time here trying pass off another culture as your own. Who do you think you are, Elizabeth Warren?

 

Which culture is that? American culture? Black culture? Protest culture? Anti-cop culture? White culture? Hired protestor culture? Which culture that has been ascribed to me am I trying to pass off, my prejudiced friend? What new conclusions do you have for who I am now? You've been doing so well.

 

Btw — look, here, as the old man once again, even though it was predicted to him to his face that he would do this.... we see the attempt to box it in, try to make it something familiar and comforting. The rhetoric of racists is never surprising, because there's been no new original thought. None of the racists are really willing to stand up for their beliefs, you had guys like Richard Spencer and Milo for awhile but they went down with one punch and cried for a couple years. You just have the right wing media — which, by the way, is ***** pervasive, and somehow Republicans and Racist Whites continue to feel persecuted despite having complete control of the culture.

 

Isn't that sad, you think? Looking back on your career as a cop... seeing the world now. 1959, if that's your birth year, you were born into the greatest empire in the world. Unimaginable wealth and power afforded to you. And what did you do with it? Where are you now? What good have you done with the huge power given to you at birth, you useless sack of *****?

 

You bitched. And moaned. And blamed everybody else for your inability to do anything. Everything you stand for — Bills, cops, your generation — complete failure. Frankly, seeing you get increasingly less veiled in your racism and hatred, that seems right. Maybe you're lonely too to top it off. I wouldn't wish you on anyone.

[Chef Jim]

Just now, Doc said:

 

That saying isn't racist.  I thought so as well until just last week, when I looked it up.

 

I never thought it was. I assumed it had to do with cards.  But I did just look it up and it's attributed to Plutarch.  

[GregPersons]

4 minutes ago, Chef Jim said:

You say it's easy but you have yet to point to one symptom of my racism.  What up with that? 

 

Only a racist would consider the idiom "calling a spade a spade" as racists.  You are an exception level of dumb aren't you?

 

 

It's definitely because you're not racist and not because you're repulsive. Didn't we already give one award for your heroic non-racism? You didn't even yell the N word once this year, probably.

[billsfan1959]

3 minutes ago, GregPersons said:

 

Which culture is that? American culture? Black culture? Protest culture? Anti-cop culture? White culture? Hired protestor culture? Which culture that has been ascribed to me am I trying to pass off, my prejudiced friend? What new conclusions do you have for who I am now? You've been doing so well.

 

Btw — look, here, as the old man once again, even though it was predicted to him to his face that he would do this.... we see the attempt to box it in, try to make it something familiar and comforting. The rhetoric of racists is never surprising, because there's been no new original thought. None of the racists are really willing to stand up for their beliefs, you had guys like Richard Spencer and Milo for awhile but they went down with one punch and cried for a couple years. You just have the right wing media — which, by the way, is ***** pervasive, and somehow Republicans and Racist Whites continue to feel persecuted despite having complete control of the culture.

 

Isn't that sad, you think? Looking back on your career as a cop... seeing the world now. 1959, if that's your birth year, you were born into the greatest empire in the world. Unimaginable wealth and power afforded to you. And what did you do with it? Where are you now? What good have you done with the huge power given to you at birth, you useless sack of *****?

 

You bitched. And moaned. And blamed everybody else for your inability to do anything. Everything you stand for — Bills, cops, your generation — complete failure. Frankly, seeing you get increasingly less veiled in your racism and hatred, that seems right. Maybe you're lonely too to top it off. I wouldn't wish you on anyone.

 

Haven't you embarrassed yourself enough? You are beyond pathetic...