Fund the police

[little2add]

2 hours ago, Era Might said:

 authoritarian

Totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and fascism are all forms of government—and defining different forms of government isn't as easy as it might seem. None which describe the United States.

Comparing Tiananmen Square (pictured above) to the civil liberties of America is Ludicrous.  

SEE LINK: https://www.thoughtco.com/totalitarianism-authoritarianism-fascism-4147699 

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Thomas Jefferson

[Era Might]

1 hour ago, little2add said:

Totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and fascism are all forms of government—and defining different forms of government isn't as easy as it might seem. None which describe the United States.

Comparing Tiananmen Square (pictured above) to the civil liberties of America is Ludicrous.  

SEE LINK: https://www.thoughtco.com/totalitarianism-authoritarianism-fascism-4147699 

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Thomas Jefferson

Trump is an authoritarian by definition. He's part of a global wave of authoritarian victories. Trump is an authoritarian because he is uninterested in institutions. His solution to mass protests, for example, is not to take them seriously as a message from the people. His solution is to sic dogs and police on them. Even at a high level, Trump is not interested for example in building up America's diplomatic corps. This requires long-term institutional thinking.

America is exactly like Tianemen Square. The only difference is that America has institutions that protect a space for protest. But Trump is dismantling institutions, he's an authoritarian. Trump is a political entrepreneur. His money and power is independent from actual politics, he's not even accountable to his own party.

If you you want a good an analysis of Trump and the rise of authoritarianism since the Cold War, I suggest the historian and Stalin biographer Stephen Kotkin, particularly his three lectures at the IWM in Vienna where he discusses global geopolitics since the Cold War.

 

 

 

Edited July 8, 2020 by Era Might

[Era Might]

Black ppl are not your enemy. They are children of Abraham, just like you. The oldest human being we know of is Lucy, whose body was discovered in Ethiopia, billions of years old, the Eve of all humanity, from Africa. Black ppl have their own history. You can't erase that history by pretending that black ppl are American, so therefore their history is white history. Black ppl are a nation unto themselves, like the natives, but unlike the natives, black ppl have real political power. The US Government has always tried to stamp out black political power precisely because black ppl are African ppl in America. They are also Americans to the bone. If anybody has a claim to this country, it is black ppl.

[little2add]

4 hours ago, Era Might said:

Black ppl are not your enemy

Never said or ment to imply they are. 

 

4 hours ago, Era Might said:

. The US Government has always tried to stamp out black political

Nonsense, Affirmative action programs, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 effectively ended most Racial discrimination, a black man was elected to the highest office in the land, twice.

America is the land of the free and home of the brave

all men and woman are equal.

10 hours ago, little2add said:

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Thomas Jefferson

 

 

 

[Era Might]

11 hours ago, little2add said:

Never said or ment to imply they are. 

 

Nonsense, Affirmative action programs, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 effectively ended most Racial discrimination, a black man was elected to the highest office in the land, twice.

America is the land of the free and home of the brave

all men and woman are equal.

 

 

 

I don't know who told you America is the land of the free and the home of the brave, but God didn't reveal that, so some man told you America is the land of the free and the home of the brave. Keep that in mind and ask whose history does that little idea serve, and why they made it up.

First, about the Civil Rights Act, I would note it was in 1964. That wasn't very long ago. By comparison, 56 years after Juneteenth in 1865 it was 1921, the start of the virulently racist and xenophobic 1920s, when the KKK was revived and immigration, including Catholic immigration, was curbed as America ripped itself out of the 19th century and the role it had played as the land of immigrants. Now it was a land of industrial workers and former slaves, and capitalists like Carnegie, etc. Remember, this is 1921, before even the decolonization of Africa and the Civil Rights movement. Slavery had been quickly replaced with the chain gang and Jim Crow. This was also the time of the great migration of black ppl from the South to industrial cities in the North like Chicago and New York. After 56 years of paper freedom, black ppl were still a despised race, like the Jews of Europe. And if you doubt that America stamps out black power, just look at what it did in the 1920s. The same man who helped bring down Martin Luther King and Malcolm X in the 1960s, was in the 1920s a young FBI man named J. Edgar Hoover. In the 20s, he helped destroy Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Fast forward to the 1980s, the children of Marcus Garvey who had migrated to New York were systematically controlled no longer through institutionalized segregation, now they were controlled through the legal and prison system, particularly through enforcement of drug laws. Who was Obama? A constitutional lawyer. Not a politician or activist. Obama is about as black as this country can tolerate. Donald Trump has multiple children by several women. Who knows or cares about Obama's personal life, but his public image had to be impeccable. He had to be Heathcliff Huxtable, because The Cosby Show is the only black family most Americans know. A black man with children by multiple women paying off porn stars? Imagine that in a US election, it would never happen. Trump is a white man sowing his wild oats and enjoying his success, in the mind of white ppl. Black ppl are savages with a few noble exceptions like MLK. Marcus Garvey was the most incredible leader America has ever known, but he's been erased from American history because he was a BLACK leader. He was also nominally Catholic, btw.

Anyway, the point is, America's white ideology is crumbling, and either we start over around core principles that actually work for everybody, or we go the route of law and order. But no justice no peace, black ppl are not going to go back to the place they've been assigned. If America can't deal with that, then the die is cast.

Edited July 9, 2020 by Era Might

[Era Might]

In other words, the Civil Rights Act ended discrimination, but it didn't end black men getting police knees to their necks and bullets to the head from police. These ppl are Americans too. This country does not belong to the middle class. The political agenda will no longer be determined from a mainstream mass market. As in South Africa, black ppl in America have a right to their own country.

[Ice_nine]

Era might, long time no see. What brought you back here?

Any way I don't know if I am too much of a dunce, but I am having a hard time distilling what you're trying to say. What is your main argument if you could summarize it to a few points?

[Era Might]

6 minutes ago, Ice_nine said:

Era might, long time no see. What brought you back here?

Any way I don't know if I am too much of a dunce, but I am having a hard time distilling what you're trying to say. What is your main argument if you could summarize it to a few points?

That we don't need more police. 

[Ice_nine]

5 minutes ago, Era Might said:

That we don't need more police. 

so we should get rid of the police? Reform the police? Disarm the police?

Who is saying we need more police? We need better police imo.

[Era Might]

Just now, Ice_nine said:

so we should get rid of the police? Reform the police? Disarm the police?

Who is saying we need more police? We need better police imo.

See the OP:

"The BLM movement has destroyed all respect for the rule of law and respect for police.   Defunding will not solve anything, except for fanning the flames of HATE"

The argument is that BLM represents a breakdown of law and order that requires increased police power. This is the Trumpist propaganda right now, that America is undergoing a leftist revolution, etc. The same tactics were used during Civil Rights, trying to discredit the movement as a trojan horse for foreign influence, etc. Ppl saw MLK as a sower of lawlessness. This is part of the American playbook when it comes to racism.

[little2add]

4 minutes ago, Era Might said:

MLK as a sower of lawlessness.

Said no one 

MLK is a great American hero and Patriot

[Era Might]

4 minutes ago, little2add said:

Said no one 

MLK is a great American hero and Patriot

For the FBI he was a subversive political threat. And he was, because the Civil Rights movement was the beginning of the decolonization of Africa from the British and other European powers. A black man talking about equal rights was a national and local scandal.

[little2add]

I don’t know Who killed JFK, but it certainly was  not Oswald.  

I suspect it was same entity who killed MLK. 

[Ice_nine]

35 minutes ago, Era Might said:

See the OP:

"The BLM movement has destroyed all respect for the rule of law and respect for police.   Defunding will not solve anything, except for fanning the flames of HATE"

The argument is that BLM represents a breakdown of law and order that requires increased police power. This is the Trumpist propaganda right now, that America is undergoing a leftist revolution, etc. The same tactics were used during Civil Rights, trying to discredit the movement as a trojan horse for foreign influence, etc. Ppl saw MLK as a sower of lawlessness. This is part of the American playbook when it comes to racism.

well, if you don't believe that some of our important institutions (academia, hollywood, news media) are drifting farther and farther left I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I am aware of COINTELPRO and the efforts of the US government against black civil rights and black power groups. In truth the Panthers were socialist AND there were a lot of racist policies in place. It's pretty hard for me to tease out how much of the resistance to MLK and Malcom X was due to racism vs how much was due to socialism/Marxism.

So you may say "see the government attacked Black people under the guise of resisting socialism and they're doing it again," as they say, history repeats itself. However, it doesn't appear to me to be a guise at all. America was much more institutionally racist, and there were groups and people actually pushing socialist ideology as a remedy to our social ills. Both can be true at the same time. The FBI came in and murdered Fred Hampton, probably because of both racism and anti-socialism. Neither justifies murder. Just like an anti-racist motivation does not justify murder. However, I think at the core, resisting Marxist ideology is a good thing that gets messy due to its association with various Black political movements. I don't think you're treating the topic with the nuance it deserves. Maybe because you see racism and anti-Marxism as both contemptible things? Or you don't find Marxist ideology an actual threat?

Again, maybe I am just super daft, but I do think there are Marxist actors trying to transform our society. Call me a wild conspiracy theorist or say I've fallen to the propaganda, but there is a BLM leader on record saying she and her comrade are "trained Marxists." And their statement of faith on their website IS far-left ideology.

Now to be fair, I think that they genuinely believe tearing down our society and replacing it with a Marxist, godless, and classless religion will remedy our social problems. In other words, I think they mean well. But I also think there's enough dead bodies stacked up in communist countries that might make you want to pump the brakes a bit.

 

[Aloysius]

blindly throwing money to the police won't solve the crime problem

blindly taking money away from police departments won't solve police brutality problems

we do need some creative, thoughtful, and intelligent measured approaches to these issues.  sadly I'm not optimistic that will happen.  this moment has the potential to be another swing in our cyclically swinging pendulum, where we got softer on criminal enforcement in the 70s and 80s leading to a situation where we got too tough on crime (in ways that unfairly impacted African American communities, though in many ways it was black leaders calling for some of that, though there were also many in the black community warning against it, it was complicated but overall most Americans, black and white, had a sense that crime was out of control and they wanted the country to get tough on crime) with the 90's crime bill, steadily increasing in militarization of the police after 9/11, and here we go again swinging back against policing.  now, IF we actually do some radical and creative things in terms of non-violent alternatives and building civil institutions that could be preventative, it would break the cycle maybe, but my bet is we're just going to see the criminal justice reform movement consumed by political actors in favor of neoliberal austerity whose ears have been perked up by the call of massive mobs "defund the police" to which they have heard "cut money from the budget!!! woohooo!!"

a smart and reasoned approach that seeks to put as much resources as possible into proper training of the police to deal with (especially violent) crime while also working on more programs that help build up civil society is the direction we ought to be going in.

personally I think the narrative attacking the whole American ideology of liberty as a "white" ideology is wrong.  American history has been a history of relative increases (though also from time to time setbacks) in liberty, with an expanding circle; yes, there were winners and losers and atrocities galore, history is messy, but from an historical perspective we can see certain ideas that took root in the American revolution were a significant step forward.  Frederick Douglass toyed with that idea of being totally against the American founding myth for a while but eventually came to the conclusion that the foundational principles of liberty are tools to be expanded, not some kind of thing to be burned down, using the Constitution as a tool to be "wielded on behalf of emancipation".  Echoed by the likes of MLK who also clothed his statements in American ideals and ideology of liberty.

there are things to improve.  there will always be things to improve.  shall we burn it all to the ground and start over?  I remember when I was younger I used to think the Catechism's position about just wars that "there must be serious prospects of success;" and that it "must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated." (CCC 2309) were weasel words... shouldn't we fight no matter what, if our cause is just?  against all odds?  there's probably a post on here somewhere of me saying something like that when I was younger lol.  That kind of youthful outrage and the 'first political emotion'--that is, anger, is something that fuels a lot of passion but we do need principles like that to consider... because the veneer of peaceful and stable civilization is much more fragile than we realize, so we do have to be careful with how many core elements of it we actually tinker with or dismantle.  no system is perfect, there is no utopia coming, we need to figure out what is good in what we have and how to improve it.  that's the kind of language that I know when I was younger and more fiery I'd find a bit too defensive of the status quo, but yeah, I really think we've made a ton of progress since the 1960's and we are risking throwing all of those away right now, unfortunately I see no wise or seasoned statesmen out there with reasonable and creative ways to explore how to deal with these problems.

I hope this isn't just a swinging pendulum, as GKC said "The whole curse of the last century has been what is called the Swing of the Pendulum; that is the idea that Man must go alternately from one extreme to the other. It is a shameful and even shocking fancy; it is the denial of the whole dignity of mankind. When Man is alive he stands still. It is only when he is dead that he swings."