An honest question: where exactly am I doing that ?
Well, that and there's the fact that you've pumped your streets so full of guns, that's it's expected of any serious criminal to be in possession of one.
It is a criminal's choice to arm themselves. That decision is on them alone. It is also their choice to commit violent and destructive crimes.
On a gun range - sure, that's possible. In the heat of the moment...let's be serious here.
In urban conditions, there's rarely more than 10 yards between the shooter and its target, usually less and that limits time for anything fancy like aiming more than in the general direction significantly. You'd pretty much need superhuman reflexes and Gamer's Mind to make your scenario viable.
Btw. isn't the above the standard blue defense ?
There was a young patriot in kenosha that recently managed to shoot a gun wielding criminal in the bicep at less than that distance. No clue what you mean by blue defense.
I'm actually going in a completely different direction: you seem to be taking "a few bad apples" police defense at face value, yet unwilling to consider that despite sometime poor choice of 'martyrs', the problem might be real.
Note as many people/organisations in power, police too is more than willing and able to put their spin on any case they're involved in.
What's more, it's also in position of engineering a situation to look like any abuse committed was a rational thing to do. Pretty much like show trials, just a step earlier.
(wasn't interested much in the antifa shooter arrest, but from what I recall, he was interviewed by a reporter after the fact, so it would seem a peaceful arrest was an option)
In order for me to consider the possibility of the alleged problem being real I'd need to see some concrete evidence from an unimpeachable source. The overwhelming majority of persons shot by cops are involved in criminal activity and/or fail to follow lawful orders. Decisions have consequences.
It's not that I implicitly trust LEO's, it's that those accusing them of abuse of authority have little to no credibility and cannot support the accusation with evidence. Given that some 80+% of polled black Americans want the same level or MORE police as reported by a recent gallup poll, and that around 75% reported rarely to never experiencing discrimination when surveyed
You must be registered to see the links
, I think it's pretty fair to require those things.
Unfortunately, I need once again go Godwin here.
Some notable advances have been made by Germans during Second World War in medical sciences due to abundance of 'voluntold' test subjects.
We as civilization benefited from it, those test subjects - not so much.
Unethical experiments have been a staple of medical science since long before the Nazis came into being. Most of our medical knowledge finds it's base in some doctor watching someone suffer and die. The value of that knowledge far outweighs the cost. The lives saved by that knowledge outnumber the lives that were taken/lost/experienced suffering to obtain it giving us a clear and positive benefit to cost ratio. Besides if your kid has cancer and a cure comes out you're using it, you don't give a shit if to discover it some whackjob killed 100,000 or more people.
...this is just rephrasing of "might makes right".
The way I see this part of your argument is basically: "as long as I hold a gun against your head, I'm entitled to all the money I can get from you".
Which is kind of right, but not necessarily the way you've meant it to be.
No, I definitely mean might makes right. After all, the conqueror imposes their laws and at least some of their culture upon the defeated, thus shaping their morality.
The resources gained by that conquering allow them to fuel their progress further, ensuring their civilization's survival making it the correct of the two civilizations.
Having more advanced technology means that civilization can better utilize the resources invariably leading to continued advancement. Victory for our SPECIES requires, at the very least, the ability to travel to and colonize other star systems meaning that technological progress is THE metric that weighs the heaviest when deciding the success of a civilization.
You see we can't apply the same morality to a civilization that we would to an individual. Moreover a civilization, much like a nation, is ( or has been for the greatest part of recorded history ) only beholden to those which comprise it.
...and I thought I was the sci-fi geek here.
The little problem with that once you're off the planet, distances tend to get large, which adds significant time and energy cost penalties.
Perhaps we as humanity get around that, but it's a gamble with long odds.
Haha, just set up rail-guns across the system to transport materials from local harvest sites to processing and then to production. Once you're outside of the gravity well it's pretty easy to get enough energy for the necessary thrust with solar panels. Of course if we managed to develop a decent ion engine ( or something similar ) that'd also help.
I didn't specify any specific group, so no, not solely "women alone where there are few other people around." I'm talking in general, and prior to current events.
This I gotta see, it sounds absolutely ridiculous.
I'm more on the side of providing functional support via funding and trained persons to go in and help fix those neighbourhoods. Better teachers with better supplies at better schools, and in-community support workers with the tools and resources to help inner-city youth find a way out besides through a rap career or in a coffin. Sending more police in to de-escalate a situation where they're probably just adding fuel to the fire is antithetical to both improving things and their actual purpose. You don't send a cop to make your taco at taco bell in the same way you wouldn't send some minimum wage work-horse into gang territory armed with nothing but their debit machine.
I can certainly favor your solution on humanitarian grounds, unfortunately I think it will run into a few problems. First is staffing, who would be willing to enter such a dangerous environment when given the choice not to? The gangs are definitely going to push back, making it even worse. Second is that there's no real guarantee it will work, and you've gotta sell this solution to the taxpayers. Third is it would take generations before we'd even see the results.
"I don't see it" is the bare minimum requirement of willing ignorance. "I don't see it, so it must not exist." You can't see Pluto from where you're standing, but I'm pretty fucking sure it exists. I also hate making non sequitur arguments, so fuck you.
No, the bare minimum requirement for willful ignorance is to see the wrongdoing and ignore it. Not seeing it even though it's going on is simply ignorance. Though, I assure you I am diligently investigating these alleged abuses of authority and racist behavior. Turns out, it's pretty uncommon.
Also, your analogy doesn't work as no events have occurred that would change the situation of the bodies in the solar system since Pluto last had credible evidence of it's existence produced.
John Oliver did a really good story on sheriffs. Definitely worth the watch. While it is an elected position, they're also in a position where they can/will drum up false charges for their opposition, or bullying someone out of running by force of arms. It's not incredulous to presume that these people are willing to do anything to hold onto their power.
Not untrue, but in this specific circumstance an election was held and he did win. After that press release was made.
It doesn't take a genius to see that that guy has a bend towards a specific race and only mentioned "people of this criminal class" to save face. Also, what he's suggesting is barely acceptable, even in terms of basic Human decency. Prisons are supposed to be a reform system, to give those who had a bad break and made a few mistakes a chance to do better. What it has become is a punishment for everyone, regardless of severity or situation, to make it so that joining a gang and becoming a repeat offender is more an inevitability than a series of bad personal choices.
He's targeting a culture, had it been a bunch of wiggers in that car he'd be giving the exact same statement. Believe it or not the overwhelming majority of racists are really honest, they'll openly proclaim that they hate X ethnicity even! Granted I don't think you're wrong to be suspicious, but I don't believe you can accuse him with the case presented. You find a racist policy he's created, or find him marching with the Klan then I'll buy it.
No, prisons are a place to confine destructive elements to allow law abiding citizens to live their lives free of being victimized. They're also places of penitence (the reason penitentiary is synonymous), punishment by an impartial party is a must to prevent retribution by victims. Should reform be a part of the process? When possible sure. But it can't be the main goal until we can ensure it's effectiveness, which means mind control and that's where I draw the line. At that point it's tantamount to execution so just fry them.
It depends on the type of apartment complex. A low-income complex, sure, slapping it into a gated community where everyone's mailbox is solid gold and they only have bay windows, sure, your property values will probably dip. At the same time, they weren't talking about apartment complexes. They were saying "these people." You know who else said "these/those people?" Racists from the 1970's who pushed back against allowing blacks into white communities because it would "lower the property values." You can't defend that shit seriously.
They were, single-family home zoning is what makes the suburbs the suburbs. It doesn't allow for apartment complexes in specific residential areas, mainly the ones where people purchase property so they're not next to apartments.
Yes and, anyone that doesn't want to describe a group every time they have to refer to said group. I spent quite a bit of time checking on google and couldn't find a single result telling me that "these people" actually means "fuckin niggers".
My understanding is that that "mob" had stopped at their property line and those two had pulled out enough firepower to erase a few mobs, themselves, and then started shouting expletives at said mob. Yeah, I don't feel any pity for people who actively go looking for a fight with people who are at the end of their rope, and then somehow believe they were in the right for picking said fight. I'll grant them that they have a right to defend their property and it's fine. Pointing a gun at an angry group of people who feel beaten down and desperate, and yelling expletives at them is just unnecessary sabre-rattling.
Being that it is a gated community, the entire thing is private property, including the gate that was destroyed to gain entry. The people looking for a fight? That's the mob. Better yet, these are not impoverished people at the end of their rope, they're political activists attempting to impose their self-serving ideology. The fact that the couple stood their ground and made it apparent they were willing to use lethal force is probably the reason that the mob didn't cross onto their property, cause damage, and assault or possibly kill them. Guns as a deterrent. With some foul language mixed in for good measure.
Yeah, no, what he's talking about with guns being available wholesale on the streets? This is an actual thing in Chicago. It's not inconceivable elsewhere. Also, buying a gun and carrying it across state lines is not difficult, or rare. Shit happens on a near-weekly basis. The lack of adequate enforcement and gun laws that prevent that kind of shit is incredibly terrifying. The only saving grace is that it's usually kept to the inner-city, though that's basically like saying the ocean isn't scary because you're not forced to go into it.
Still the fault of criminals, not law abiding citizens. But the two sides of the debate continuing their game of chicken with policies in the extremes does create situations like this instead of averaging out, you'll get one state where it's next to impossible for a responsible person to legally acquire a firearm and in the next they'll be selling them like candy at the checkout. It's legal to transport your firearm across state lines as long as the state you're traveling into accepts the license issued by your state.