"Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. [...]
"Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly."
The simple answer is "no they weren't." The nuanced answer is "it's complicated." But anyway, you are forgetting the countless Jews who were saved by the Vatican.
Roughly divided in protestant north and catholic south - same as today. Catholic southern Germany was and is culturally and religiously much closer to Austria (and maybe even Italy) than to northern Germany. Hitler was from Austria and raised catholic.
My understanding is there was a strong Catholic political party that opposed the Nazis, but Hitler made them a lot of promises in exchange for dropping opposition. Then when he came to power he broke the promises.
America is a very different place now than in 1946.
I googled "most popular people in America" and Google shows me pictures and out of the top ten, half are African-American including Barack Obama, Michael Jackson, Muhammad Ali, MLK Jr, and Oprah Winfrey.
I looked at one page that had top ten most popular people in America in the 1940s and there were no African-Americans on the list.
> Your ancestors dragged these black people from their homes by force
Many slavers were African, particularly the ones dragging people out of their homes, and in 1946 very few Americans would have had ancestors who were either slave traders or slave owners.
>I googled "most popular people in America" and Google shows me pictures and out of the top ten, half are African-American including Barack Obama, Michael Jackson, Muhammad Ali, MLK Jr, and Oprah Winfrey.
Try googling "over-represented race in incarcerations", "over-represented race in police shootings", "redlining", poverty stats, etc. too. Besides, of those popular people, Michael Jackson tried to turn himself white, MLK Jr was conveniently murdered, Muhammad Ali was persecuted by the state, and Barack Obama is routinely called racist slurs despite being the president.
Plus, it's easy to make popular idols of talented black artists and still view down on the majority of them. Louis Armstrong, boxers and other black entertainers were quite popular when the country was openly racist too.
>Many slavers were African
But none of them operated in the USA or kept slaves there.
The buyers of the millions of blacks that came to the US, those who used and abused them as slaves, and who made the trade profitable in the first place, were white Americans.
>Many slavers were African, and in 1946 very few Americans would have had ancestors who were either slave traders or slave owners.
No, but the majority of them had ancestors that were racist, enforcing double standards, unfair laws (segregation, Jim Crow laws, etc.), and in some cases violence (beatings, lynchings, etc.) to the black population. And most of them were racism themselves too.
> Try googling "over-represented race in incarcerations", "over-represented race in police shootings"
Why did you leave off "over-represented race in violent crimes"?
> Michael Jackson tried to turn himself white
So that makes him not black? Are the people who idolize him confused and don't realize he's black? People loved him before his transformation. One funny anecdote is Michael Jackson, refusing that he "turned himself white", said that his grandmother told him that the reason they called them colored people is that they come in all different colors. :)
> MLK Jr was conveniently murdered
Conveniently? I'd say tragically. Abraham Lincoln was also assassinated. I don't know how this changes that both are among the most admired people in America today.
> Muhammad Ali was persecuted by the state
As were many white people who openly violated the draft or spoke out against the war (I'm not saying avoiding the draft is a bad thing or that Ali wasn't a legitimate conscientious objector).
> Barack Obama is routinely called racist slurs despite being the president.
Not routinely by any major national publications or widely popular figures. Also, being the current president doesn't mean people don't call you mean things, if anything it means you're called more mean things. People said plenty of mean things about Bush or Clinton while they were president.
Lincoln had absolutely no interest in freeing slaves. His main purpose was to maintain the union at all costs. “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery.”
Really you have no idea how Lincoln felt about slavery, nor how those feelings changed with time. His public statements are the carefully crafted words of a master politician.
For a guy with no interest in freeing slaves, he sure freed a lot of slaves.
"I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator. As a law professor and civil rights lawyer and as an African American, I am fully aware of his limited views on race."
-- Someone who might know a little bit about being a politician
This is fun and all but it has nothing to do with my point.
Someone upthread provided a short list of African Americans who were murdered as a result of their notability.
In an attempt to refute the argument that to be a notable black in America is dangerous, Abraham Lincoln was introduced as an example of a notable white leader who was killed. There were any number of white leaders that could have been introduced as counterexamples, but, amusingly, the commenter chose one who was murdered because of white enmity towards blacks.
The question of whether Lincoln had any ambivalence about freeing slaves has little bearing on the question of why he was murdered. Had Lincoln not emancipated the slaves, he would not have been murdered. His death clearly belongs in the tally of "people killed because it's dangerous to be a successful black person in America".
"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling."
He was very much against the expansion of slavery. This is clear in his writings and his voting record. I'm not saying that he was an outright racist, but take him in historical context. He resisted his party's call for emancipation for over two years into the Civil War, and he only issued the Proclamation once the North was all but sure to lose. And even then he only abolished it in states that were rebelling against the Union. He could never have abolished slavery outright given that there were six slave holding states that were fighting on his side that would have seceded immediately thereafter.
Lincoln repeatedly asserted that the President possessed no legal power to rewrite the United States Constitution. The only way he could justify emancipating the slaves was in his capacity as Commander in Chief of the armed forces, which meant that he had to wait until it became a military necessity.
He had already exercised his power as Commander in Chief by sending troops into combat. He didn't have to wait for it to become militarily necessarily -- the Constitution gives the President wide berth in this regard. It was reigned in with the War Powers Act in 1973. I'm not sure he was much of a strict Constitutional kinda guy either, as the Founding Fathers made allowances for states to secede, or reject the Union in whole. New York made sure they could back out of the federal government at any time before ratifying.
>Why did you leave off "over-represented race in violent crimes"?
Because those crimes are (for anything above the baseline for people in general at the same poverty levels) are results of centuries of being abused, held down and denied opportunities.
Even if all white people (and people in power) in some city X stopped being racist, it wouldn't automatically mean that the blacks there living in the wrong side of the tracks, in an underfunded school district, and working shit jobs, will suddenly have the same opportunities as the average white person. For one, as parents they will still be the same poor folks that didn't have a good education and can't afford (or know) to raise their kids properly and send them off to some good school. This things take generations to overcome, slowly trickling upwards (and in an era when the middle class is squeezed down and the working class is fucked, that's even less likely to happen).
If you believe in blacks being inherently more violent etc as a race outside of systemic causes (poverty, bad school districts, lack of opportunities, etc, caused by centuries of slavery, double standards and racism) then you might as well believe that they have inferior DNA.
>So that makes him not black?
No, that makes him an example of the kind of forces of American society towards blacks, where even idols can't be satisfied in their black skin.
>Conveniently? I'd say tragically. Abraham Lincoln was also assassinated. I don't know how this changes that both are among the most admired people in America today.
It's easy to admire a non-threatening murdered person, especially if you make him into a convenient sugary version of what he stood for. Unlike Lincoln he wasn't much admired by white American society in his day, and a black rights advocate in his vein wouldn't be that admired today.
>Also, being the current president doesn't mean people don't call you mean things, if anything it means you're called more mean things. People said plenty of mean things about Bush or Clinton while they were president.
About their race? Were they drawn as monkeys? Asked about being muslim?
> Because those crimes are (for anything above the baseline for people in general at the same poverty levels) are results of centuries of being abused, held down and denied opportunities.
Yet no matter where you look on this planet, no matter what the history of that location is, no matter how far back in history you go, the pattern (of violence such as murder and rape) stays the same - and even more so when those places are absent of the other races/groups.
>Yet no matter where you look on this planet, no matter what the history of that location is, no matter how far back in history you go, the pattern (of violence such as murder and rape) stays the same - and even more so when those places are absent of the other races/groups.
I'm not sure I follow. What you mean by "the pattern (of violence such as murder and rape) stays the same"? The pattern of violence that black people do?
If so, that's absolutely wrong that it stays the same "no matter where you look on this planet, no matter what the history of that location is, no matter how far back in history you go".
In fact the amount of violence perpetuated by "white people", from the Crusades to the Holocaust, colonial wars, Cold War proxy wars, etc, and onwards, is so much higher, it's not even funny. And not even at their own house -- they pissed all over the world.
As far as medieval history and the other things you've mentioned go, every type of tribe on this planet has engaged in conquest and warfare. Some won. Some lost.
Well, checking for the crime rate between different races and attributing it to "race", instead of looking for the underlying causes, is the epitome of racism.
No different from 18th-19th century scholars, who concluded that blacks had inferior intelligence and reasoning skills etc, which they might indeed have as individual examples under study -- but those scholars also forgot to account for the fact that blacks didn't have the schooling and freedom to develop their personality, or that their original culture was stolen from them and they were abducted and had to operate in a hostile and foreign environment.
>As far as medieval history and the other things you've mentioned go, every type of tribe on this planet has engaged in conquest and warfare. Some won. Some lost.
And some caused endless bloodshed and massacre all over the world for profit and control, and those tended to be whites, from them, to the modern world and wars for oil and strategic interests...
Condemning the entire white population of this world into collective guilt and perpetual servitude for the actions of others is the epitome of racism.
> Well, checking for the crime rate between different races and attributing it to "race", instead of looking for the underlying causes, is the epitome of racism.
Unless that underlining cause is race. And there are quite a few studies backing this up, that did take into account all the typical factors (such as socioeconomic class).
I don't think we are ever going to agree, but I am curious of what you think a middle ground solution would be?...
I would gladly trade some type of payment (reparation) for absolute freedom of association (in all aspects of work and life).
> And some caused endless bloodshed and massacre all over the world for profit and control, and those tended to be whites, from them, to the modern world and wars for oil and strategic interests...
That is because white societies had the technological and strategic platform to do so... If you where to give that same platform to any African-country president/leader/warlord/etc, you would find the end result 10x worse.
The conservative value on the amount of resources provided to minorities through affirmative action, welfare, charity, government programs and hiring quotas, and other forms of restitution is 20 trillion USD minimum.
Also the costs associated with absorbing the negative factors related to minorities (such as crime related costs, various social costs, etc) likely geometrically multiplies the above amount in various ways.
Why is it controversial to say USA is a different place today? When it clearly is: Black president, wealthy black actors, wealthy black sportsmen and so on.
There's a saying that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
It might be a different place than in the era of KKK-cross-burnings, but it still ways from what a modern, racially just, society should be. Token black president or not.
I wrote above that blacks are for example over-represented in incarcerations, and somebody said that that's because they are over-represented in crime stats too.
Not understanding that that argument, far from being an answer ("see the law it's just doing its jobs, its just that blacks are more criminal") is a great example of racism itself.
It's a given to me, that blacks are not more criminal as a race (that is, in biological terms -- except if you agree with KKK and them having "faulty" criminal DNA etc.).
So if they are "more criminal" in actual life, this can mean mainly two things: (a) the white-dominated legal system has a prejudice against them (putting more of them in jail, giving them harsher punishment for the same crimes compared to whites etc) and (b) their life circumstances push them to commit more crimes.
And I say it's a combination of both (a) and (b).
So, let's put it this way: US would be non racist, not just when black people are less frequently shoot by the police, but when black people are less frequently participating in violent crime too.
Because that would mean that the systemic causes keeping them down and pushing them towards those means have finally been eradicated.
Oh, thanks. Next time I'm on business in SF and I start thinking about which cargo pocket to put my phone in to minimize my chance of being murdered by the police, I'll draw comfort from a bunch of token Negros in show-biz and politics.
And yet this text pops up on the front page of hacker news.
I assume it is because of the events in Dallas; but why discuss this text and not the actual event or a million other things related to the topic of race and racism?
It is obviously a "hard and controversial" problem to discuss - I don't really understand why. I sense it has something to do with the upcoming US election and maybe there is a lot of campaigning being done online.
HN in general has good discussions on economics and social issues but not on this.
Before people ask why this is relevant to Hacker News: he's a great example of how academics, scientists, and even technologists can have effects outside their field of inquiry. For a mix of reasons, hackers are both securely employable and cultural heroes right now. We may not be Einstein, but there are things we can do.
I think not only can we do things, but we are obligated to. Cheering on from the sidelines or even worse offering platitudes like "I support your goals but not your methods" while offering no help or alternatives isn't really helping. If you support change, the do something about it. Call your local officials or congressmen. Donate money to political action committees. If you make peaceful change impossible, then violent change becomes inevitable. We might feel safe today while we're sipping lattes in our gentrified neighborhoods and tisk tisk on Reddit and hacker news, but that safety might be illusory.
The wave is coming. You can either help guide it safely to shore or get drowned by it.
I will offer that platitude over and over again, Einstein's wonderful definition of insanity be damned. If I could end bigotry tomorrow, I would, but what I won't do under any circumstances is ally myself with people who cry racism at the drop of a hat. They do more harm than good.
I believe a lot of people we now see as noble were just the right person in the right place at the right time, and the more we dig in today, in hindsight, the easier to see their personal flaws.
A few others, like Einstein, where just the right person, period. To see such a sound point of view coming from a person writing at a time where everything was pointing on the other direction... pretty amazing.
Another interpretation of finding that people we perceive as noble turn out to have flaws might be that noble people are people, and people have flaws. If anything, being flawless would actually take away from their success since they wouldn't be dealing with the same crap as the rest of us.
Einstein appears to have been a big-time philanderer, for example. Doesn't detract from his contributions to our society in my view.
>I believe a lot of people we now see as noble were just the right person in the right place at the right time, and the more we dig in today, in hindsight, the easier to see their personal flaws.
Noble or not, people have flaws.
What's important about them isn't their flaws (which millions share) but their unique insights (which millions don't share).
I think in the article he himself described why he had a different point of view. He was indeed an outsider. His mind was not shaped by past generations, because there were no slaves and thus very few black people in Germany.
Regarding his personal life, Einstein wasn't the most devoted lover to his wives/lovers etc. Not everyone (including me) counts that as a moral failing but some do.
Isn't it usually said that Einstein betrayed his wife? That's pretty horrible to me, no matter how "right" (in your opinion and mine) he was about other things.
Einstein was probably better at science than at debating social racial issues. Likewise, nobody should give more weight to Einstein's opinion on God, bees [1], or the Jews [2], than on anybody else's.
Because the political party (and the signers) were comprised of Jewish people? I'm perfectly fine if you read "Israelis" there (or "early Jewish politicians"), or find a different reference closer to "an opinion on Jews", as long as it not detracts from the point I was making: Einstein's dated opinion on racial issues is as relevant as Stallman's opinion on the fashion industry. Interesting? Sure. But relevant? No. It's a fallacy to think that smart people have smart opinions on everything they are not an expert in. It's a misplaced appeal to authority. It's a proxy submission to have HN discuss the recent events, and I doubt HN can make sensible points on this subject, as much as HN can make sensible points on women in technology.
Yes, it could have totally gone the other way too. There are smart domain experts that are very naive, politically incorrect, racist, or intolerant of domains they have less expertise in.
Einstein points out that the humanity of slaves has always been belittled. Maybe it's a psychological switch in the masters brain - enslaving equal creatures would be just evil and no one wants to be evil.
I think pointing out the root cause of the stigmatization of a segment of a society is a very good way to start a social discussion in the modern age.
Unless we as a species are to face our limitations and prejudices with open minds I fear there will be much anguish in the future history of mankind as well.
I agree. I also think it's annoying that the comment now is deleted and can't be replied to. I had just written a reply where I responded to many points, explaining what I think is wrong with them, but I can't post it now...
The only thing I agreed with is that I'd like HN to be for hacker stuff, and not for politics and social commentary.
(Also, why is a commend denoted "flagged", when it in reality is deleted?)
Sorry about that, if you have the time you can email me your answers hntemp@mailhero.io I'm curious what your "points" are going to be. Chances are I've heard them a dozen times.
I think I'm just done with HN. It's amazing the hateful things people post here towards one group yet rebuttals don't seem to be allowed. Especially with this crowd.
Flagged comments are visible if you turn "showdead" on in your profile, and can be vouched for and thus resurrected by users. They are not completely gone, just hidden from view.
1. Einstein was speaking about American slave owners, who were primarily white. I believe the term 'whites' is inclusive of Jews.
2. Einstein wrote this article in 1946... so there were likely a lot less black millionaires.
3. I think he was only making an observation that the whites around him (not necessarily all the whites around the world) still discriminated and thought less African Americans.
He goes on to explain that some of their feelings are reasonable and have been experienced in the past... but are nonetheless flawed.
I'm not sure what your arguments above are supposed to point out... but Einstein was pointing out a problem in 1946... problems which may or may not be the same today.
The narrative is the same today as it was yesterday...
Every fault of the black community is the result of white privilege and/or supremacy. And whites must constantly absorb those faults until everything is equalized.
You have not answered a single point, you have simply pretended that those points don't exist.
I'll agree that the narrative you pointed out is ongoing... but I think that the idea of modern-day whites absorbing those faults is stupid... they shouldn't be responsible for the faults of their fathers.
However, they do need to treat everyone around them like equal human beings and offer equal opportunities to men and women of equal skills. Modern-day blacks need to realize that they're in control of their own destinies and demonstrate that they are equally human beings.
That's just my opinion. I'm an Sub-Saharan African man... so I'm well accustomed to people assuming that I'm less capable just because of the average capabilities demonstrated by people in the region. I think that that's a little unfair, but I've got to do what I can to prove that they're wrong. Otherwise, I'm just proving that I have the ability to complain.
Given the numerous police shootings, typically of blacks, but not always, which are obviously excessive uses of force, why is absolutely nothing being done about it? The cops get off, people protest, and the cycle continues. Do we not have leaders? Has the system become so inept that no one has any responsibility? Does that mean the cops are literally "out-of-control"?
And no, you can't sit there and argue that the cops aren't doing anything wrong. A young man is in police custody and ends up dead from a fractured neck and no one is responsible? A woman is in police custody, a camera is turned off, and ends up needing facial reconstruction? The list goes on and on. The police have to be a notch above the average person in conduct, not a notch below.
So I ask again, why is nothing being done about it?
Something is being done about it, lots of people are protesting and demanding change, writing letters to politicians, many are standing up to the police and refusing to let their rights be infringed, and some people are actually sacrificing their own lives and committing murder just to make their point be heard.
What specifically do you want to be done to change a increasingly militarized institution with unlimited resources and hundreds of thousands of people in it that has unwavering support of tens of millions of people that nearly all accept the myth of their infallibility?
I'm doing nothing and I don't know why. I asking myself why I don't stand up to police when they give orders I don't legally need to follow. I am asking myself why I don't fight back when police departments ask for more money, more officers, more body armor, more guns. I am asking myself why I am complicit (through non-action) in allowing culture of hero worship to circle all uniformed occupations and how this may create the very God Complex of infallibility that needs to be curtailed.
It seems to me that a love of Americans believe in this "sovereign citizen" nonsense. No wonder American police has to use more force than that in any other civilized country.
There are more likely - and more charitable - interpretations of the comment. Specifically, police often ask for things they're not legally entitled to compel. ("May I look in your glovebox?" During a routine traffic stop with no probable cause for such a search, for example.)
As. 40 year old white male with the financial resources to defend myself, I now say no to such requests. But I also don't get asked... When I was 17 and found cops terrifying, I didn't stand up for my rights. And funny - I received more unreasonable requests when I was more obviously vulnerable.
He had no reason to look in there (no probable cause). It's going on a fishing expedition, and it's the start of the chain of events that leads to the "if you look hard enough, everybody's guilty of something" problem. The law is very clear that under the circumstances, the officer had no right to _compel_ me to let him look. If he had, anything he found as a result of the search would be inadmissible in court. But it's entirely within his right to ask, and if I voluntarily comply, then anything he finds can be used as evidence.
The problem is that "voluntary compliance" is very slippery (when you think of refusing a cop's request for something like that, do you imagine that there might be retribution? You might -- and if you're not in a relative position of power, it's almost certainly on your mind.) It's therefore easier for some people to assert their rights than for others, and that can lead to very unequal protection under the law.
No reason to look there? How do you know that? You think you, with your behaviour, can't be described as "acting suspiciously"? With that logic you might as well say he had no reason to stop you. Or to stop anyone unless the police officer has a very concrete reason for doing so. In other words, by your logic, routine traffic stops something you don't have to comply with at all.
Goodness, you're full of unfounded assumptions. You also seem unfamiliar with American jurisprudence and the basics of constitutional law - I assume you're not local?
First of all, he did have no reason to stop me in particular -- it was a DUI checkpoint, and they were stopping everyone. DUI checkpoints are perfectly legit, but don't provide a basis for reasonable suspicion to search anyone thus stopped. (They were challenged, but deemed constitutional). Routine traffic stops are based upon an officer's observation of the law being broken, which provides a clear basis for stopping someone.
You seem to be arguing a strawman that I'm not presenting (that this is a slippery slope that leads to nobody obeying lawful orders).
But you are right on one thing: The police don't have the right to stop people unless they have a good reason to do so. This is legally well-established. See, for example, Delaware v. Prouse: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/440/648
DUI checkpoints that are pre-announced and publicized are a valid reason to stop people. Observation of breaking the law, even in minor ways, is another. A broken taillight is sufficient, as is speeding. A license plate scan showing that there's an outstanding warrant - stop away.
But when it comes to expanding the search from a routine traffic stop, the 4th amendment guarantees the right to be free from _unreasonable_ search and seizure. Not from any search and seizure, but from searches and seizures lacking a reasonable basis and in which the search-ee has a reasonable expectation of privacy:
Because of this, a police officer typically doesn't have reasonable suspicion to search your car if they just pull you over at a routine stop. (Obviously, if they see something suspicious -- open container, bag of pot, gun, whatever -- that provides a basis for further search.) But they're legally entitled to ask your permission to dig more -- and that's the behavior I object to, because it unfairly stacks the deck against people less aware of their specific rights under the situation and able to defend themselves legally.
In other words, yes , I was right. You think you're the one who can set what is reasonable, what is a good justification, and when can an officer be suspicious. Thanks for clearing that up.
Again, I'm not surprised American police acts the way they sometime act when they have to deal with the likes of you. Opening the glove box isn't an unreasonable request on any level.
And yes, I'm fully aware of American culture of "muh rights".
> Opening the glove box isn't an unreasonable request on any level.
You have the wrong definition of "unreasonable request". It isn't that it is difficult to open the glove box and thus is an "unreasonable request due to difficulty of compliance". It is unreasonable because they lack reason to open the glove box and have no right to search it. ("muh rights", and for damned good reasons)
dgacmu gave you legal cases (possibly precedent setting cases?) and you ignored that as if dgacmu set the limits and constraints of the law.
Again, by that logic, any random checks, including DUI checks, are unacceptable. That's what the first link is partially about. Second link is the 4th amendment and third link is an irrelevant opinion that doesn't even open from my end. All of that only supports the theory that dgacmu is one of those amusing "sovereign citizens" who treat the police like nuisance.
So yes, I ignored those links. And a lot of nonsense in that post.
Edit: I did learn that random stops are mostly illegal though. What a country to be a cop in. Now I'm doubly not surprised why American police acts the way they sometimes act.
The amusing bit is that you can't tell the difference between someone who believes strongly that everyone (police and citizens) should follow the law, and the soverign citizen adherents, who believe [1]:
"that they are answerable only to their particular interpretation of the common law and are not subject to any statutes or proceedings at the federal, state, or municipal levels"
The soverign citizens live in a delusional world that wants to pretend that our judicial system has no say over them. Their beliefs and actions range from the mildly worrisome to outright domestic terrorism.
I live in a world in which I believe that understanding one's rights, responsibilities, and limits within our judicial system is important. And also that understanding why we have those laws is useful - a lesson you seem intent to ignore.
There are historical reasons for the powers granted to the police, and the limitations placed on those powers, primarily with an eye towards balancing the need to protect the populace as a whole while preventing specific abuses of power.
(Note: The ACLU won, and the police were fined $2,000 for engaging in illegal racial profiling.)
It's hard to appreciate that case without the context, which is that this behavior was happening _constantly_ in this area of Utah, and in several other areas of the country:
If you can't understand that both citizens, politicians, the military, and police need to operate within a well-defined legal framework, I worry for you. When the Czech Police conspired to expel Romani from housing in Bohumin in 2005, including _cutting off their hot water supply in winter_, the same laws that limit the actions the police can take were the the same laws that eventually led to a remedy of the situation and a fine against the town. The same kinds of restrictive laws, in this case against using the military to spy on civilians, led to the resignation of Petr Necas. Or perhaps you're in the camp that believes "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear"? [2] After all, Necas' ex-wife had committed the horrible crime of not wanting to be married to him, so clearly deserved surveillance. Lest you think I'm picking on the Czech Republic, do recall that the Watergate scandal took down Nixon in the US, for similar abuses of official power.
We grant power to the police because people are imperfect, and sometimes break the law in ways that endanger or harm others. We place limitations on the power of the police because police are human too.
"the likes of you" - yes, indeed. You're making some pretty big generalizations from behind that monitor of yours.
You seem to be aware of a particular, negative stereotype of the culture, but you're woefully ignorant of the laws and their history, so why are you continuing in the debate? You're making assumptions about my behavior with the police based upon my factual statements about the limits on police powers for search and seizure.
(for your edification: Had the officer had a reasonable suspicion, he wouldn't have needed to ask permission. In that case, it would have been an _order_, and regardless of whether it's lawful, when it happens, you follow an _order_ from a cop, and fix it up later in court.)
I'm done - you seem to have a strange stereotype of americans that puts anyone with beliefs that differ from yours in the "gun totin' amemdment hollerin' crazy" camp. You may find it more useful to stereotype me as an ACLU (google it)-donating, left-leaning liberal that comes from a family of law professors, and believes that a constitutional protections are a cornerstone of guaranteeing equal protection under the law. Without that, it's too easy for one sort of justice to be administered to the wealthy (and white), and another sort to be administered to everyone else.
I'm not making any assumptions mate. You said, multiple times, that you deny doing anything but what you absolutely must. Clearly just out of principle. That falls right into that stereotype. And that's behaviour I find disgusting regardless of your "freedoms".
I personally believe things like this have always been happening. We're only now learning of such acts, and being forced to face it. Most people would still like to see that as isolated incidents, something that happened, a one in a million thing that you cannot prevent.
It's hard for us to accept that it is indeed a side effect of something a culture that was allowed to grow, and to understand what should be done. For people in a situation of comfort (politicians, rich people, most whites), it's easier to turn away from the Bad News than to confront it.
If anything, the increased awareness will have an impact. I want to believe we, as a society, will grow out of it. But the realist in me does not expect overnight results. It takes time to sink in with the powers that be, and for deep changes to take effect. It's not just prosecuting individual cops. It's changing a whole system of abuse.
Isn't it really "Why am I not doing anything about it?". And the little voice inside answers "because there's nothing I can do about it". So does everyone else's little voice inside. And there you go.
Right from the article:
"What, however, can the man of good will do to combat this deeply rooted prejudice? He must have the courage to set an example by word and deed, and must watch lest his children become influenced by this racial bias.
I do not believe there is a way in which this deeply entrenched evil can be quickly healed. But until this goal is reached there is no greater satisfaction for a just and well-meaning person than the knowledge that he has devoted his best energies to the service of the good cause."
Even for someone who (probably) agrees with you, this is a poor way to argue. "And no, you can't sit there and argue..."? If your own argument is strong --- and, in this case, it should be --- you should have no trouble calmly dismantling rebuttals.
It's weak arguments that demand to be propped up with bogus foreclosures like this.
It's not, however, the flimsiness of your rhetoric that compels me to respond. Rather, it's the implication that merely by reading your comment I must somehow be complicit in an argument that police violence isn't problematic. You probably didn't mean to suggest that literally everyone on this thread disagreed with you on police violence. But that's what you wrote.
A couple key points:
- More people in the US are struck each year by lightning than are killed by police. (373)
- Of the 1,491 persons that died from police use of force from 2009-2012:
915 (61.4%) were white males
481 (32.2%) were black males
48 (3.2%) were males of other races
28 (1.9%) were white females
15 (1.1%) were black females
4 (0.2%) were females of other races
- Of the 56,259 homicides from 2009-2012, 19,000 (33.8%) were killings of black males.
Comparisons by types of homicides of black males:
481 (2.5%) were the result of police use of force
152 (0.8%) were the result of a negligent accident homicides (i.e., child playing with a gun)
648 (3.4%) were the result of a justifiable homicides by private citizens acting in self-defense
17,719 (93.3%) were criminal homicides (murders)
More blacks are killed in justifiable self-defense scenarios than are killed by police. And overwhelmingly more are killed in homicides, mainly by other blacks.
Also note: According to the US Department of Justice, blacks accounted for 52.5% of homicide offenders from 1980 to 2008, with whites 45.3% and "Other" 2.2%. The offending rate for blacks was almost 8 times higher than whites, and the victim rate 6 times higher. Most homicides were intraracial, with 84% of white victims killed by whites, and 93% of black victims killed by blacks. (Whites are being lumped in with Hispanics here.)
It's fairly clear that there isn't an epidemic of wide scale police violence against blacks. Instead, a few incidents have been blasted onto social media, and uncritical leftists have picked them up and ran with them. I see Black Lives Matter more as an expression of intergroup competition and aggression against traditionally white power structures. Other leftist groups take the same approach, e.g. with feminist fabrications about mass rapes on college campuses - college campuses are in fact among the safest places in the world, but feminists treat them as though they're some Mad Max-esque raping dystopia by claiming nonsense like 1 in 4 college girls get raped. They're mysteriously silent about places where real mass raping occurs, such as Africa and the Middle East.
I could go on, but suffice to say, I believe we're in a period of mass hallucination and hysteria, with entire movements justifying their existence on statistically nonsensical claims. This has happened many times throughout history, and it's leaned to both the right and left axes of the political spectrum. This time the wind just happens to be blowing to the left.
These comparisons are senseless. We are talking about state violence and fear of the state.
I care far more about an armed agent of the state murdering someone than I do about some random guy murdering someone. Have you been to an inner city lately? Even New York, which is incredibly peaceful, has areas where there are palpable, reasonable fear of police violence from black people. The constant searches and seizures, the attitude of superiority and yes, the physical violence - these are preventable and they're plagues to having a peaceful world.
The problem is that police officers have good reason to be much more defensive when dealing with blacks than with whites.
Just look at these statistics and then consider how a police officer would feel when dealing with a black person that shows any kind of aggression, considering that most homicides are committed by blacks. (even though they are a minority)
The police officer wants to survive too.
Of course there are cases of excessive and criminal use of force by the police, but their general perception and caution when dealing with blacks will never change as long as this minority continues to commit most crimes.
Your comment is facile and, though you probably don't intend it that way, mean-spirited. But there's something to it anyways.
Set aside the reciprocal nature of racism and criminality and acknowledge the raw demographic reality of police encounters in major cities. It seems clear to me that yes, police officers are under far too much cognitive strain to accurately judge threats. Basic human cognitive limitations ensure that police will continue to prejudge risk through race.
To me, that, coupled with the fact that police encounters with strangers are far, far less dangerous than police training and culture mythologizes them to be, suggests a straightforward solution: disarm most police officers.
What you are proposing could help reducing aggression between police and civilians, though I do not know how well this would play out in the US.
It generally works in EU countries, but a lot is different there.
What I reject though is you suggesting my comment is mean spirited. The statements you feel are offensive are just facts as far as we can tell today. You would attack my statements instead of me personally if what I wrote was obviously wrong.
Regarding the linked comment:
> Most (not all) suspects who shoot at cops aren't doing it out of spite, but instead of out self-preservation.
How do you know this? Your comment is based on this being true, because if it were otherwise there would be no way your proposal could work. In that case disarmed police officers would continue to get shot but now without being able to defend themselves.
Can you please explain to me what exactly is wrong about these stats and my conclusions?
By the way, I don't need an excuse for having an opinion.
You seem to presume that are you holding the moral high ground allowing you to attack me (insinuating I am plain stupid) without even needing to deliver any facts that prove me wrong.
Sorry, but there was no explanation. I cite statistics from the US government and he calls me stupid and biased because he doesn't like that I refer to these statistics. It just clashes with his reality or the dogmas he believes in.
> You can see whatever pattern or proof you want if you look at the numbers long enough, to serve any narrative, to rationalize any opinon.
In most Western countries the governments release stats about crimes committed by type and by citizenship or in case of the US by race.
I don't have to search for a pattern there that fits a "narrative", the statistics bluntly state which race commits most crimes in different categories.
If you don't like what these government stats show please feel free to share with us why you believe that we shouldn't use these stats. But I'm not interested in trading insults, so please keep the discussion civil and based on facts.
The protests, and the black lives matter movement, are in response to particular kinds of state-sponsored violence. Tey tend to cover instances where police had ample opportunity to deescalate, but instead chose to use lethal force. We don't have statistics to cover these instances, but we do (now) have citizen-filmed videos. These videos show a pretty clear story of unconscionable police violence against blacks.
You're arguing against a strawman nobody said blacks were being subjected to de facto police genocide or that they were more likely to be killed by police than anything else. Nobody even suggested those things.
That is one half of the problem, the other half is that the police lives in constant fear, because everybody might have a gun. And this is not being fixed because of a powerful lobby.
I think police itself is hard to fix, because the system is so federated. There is nobody, who can just say: "Alright, now the standards are a, b and c."
I think the 'federated' part of your comment is being far overlooked.
In the US, police forces are local and independent in much the same way that DAs are. Hence, there's not really a way at a federal or even state level to correct the prosecutorial/enforcement dynamic that's driving a lot of the problems.
Outside of merging precincts to create larger areas of oversight, training, and policy parity, it's a really hard sell to make to all of the thousands of police organizations independently and pretty difficult to monitor and enforce.
I don't even think police unions, as effective as they are at organizing internal activities, would be successful in getting blanket reforms to stick. The changes, as currently structured, have got to be from within.
I must admit, I don't understand this view. If "everybody might have a gun," why are police, who also have guns, more likely to live in fear than anyone else?
In the USA, especially in certain parts such as suburban Michigan, where my wife is from, there are a huge number of guns being carried all around at all times. But I don't feel the least bit unsafe; to the contrary, I like knowing that the people I'm meeting or hanging out with are able to defend the group without our having to call the police.
I assert that, at this moment in history in the USA, with gun ownership being what it is and police militarization having gone so far, disarming police will bring greater peace than disarming non-police.
Police are more fearful because their role towards people is often adversarial. They are constantly fed stories about random people shooting at them in broad daylight during routine traffic stops, etc.
Yes you do. There some seriously bad areas in American cities. Places where you can get mugged, robbed, assulted or murdered by virtue of just being there.
I tried to find some stats on the number of civilians killed by police but those numbers are hard to pin down. In terms of blacks killed by police the numbers vary between 300 and 700[1]. I suppose this number is irrelevant because it is a tiny percentage of the total population?
In my country police definitely has to act more concentrated and alarmed when dealing with drunk people in a bar or in a bad neighbourhood, where somebody might pull a knife or in very rare cases even a gun. In the US this risk is several magnitudes higher, so I expect them to be even more alarmed and trigger happy.
"Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. [...]
"Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly."