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[pmcd9]

Seems like the Fox News crowd (and way too many of my Facebook friends) have decided that Black Lives Matter is a hate group. Seems like a case of give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile.

Here in Houston we had a police officer that was murdered. Off duty, but in his uniform. Just minding his business pumping gas at the convenience store. A black guy shot him dead with no apparent motive. In a huge case of projection the murder is being linked to Black lives matter. Juxtapose this murder onto images of Baltimore protesters stupidly chanting "Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon." Boom, Black Lives Matter is a hate group!

#straightupracistlivesmatter

[pmcd9]

People will grab any hook they can hang their hat on to hang onto their delusions. If you gotta start out your response with "but what about group x" then fuck you in the neck.

ALSO: fuck the police. I say nailing their home up shut and setting it on fire and the screams of everyone inside as they blacken and crackle and roast should be recorded and played for lessons. But since you can't do that you might as well spill their brains on the sidewalk every chance you get.

I ran over a sheriff deputy on the train Thursday because the motherfucker was in the way and I needed to get to the door and the petty motherfucker wouldn't consider lifting his privilege for a second and turning a little so I could slip by even though I asked nice as I swarmed down the aisle. He grabbed for his taser as I made contact and went over him and I grabbed his hand and pinned it good and told him 'I'm trying to leave, brother' and went right on. I popped out the door and he chose not to come after me, which was good for everybody.

But you know what? That shouldn't have been anywhere near a thing. I've gone through that same situation a bunch with normal old people and never had a problem. But you get a placard on some fucker and all of a sudden they don't have to have common courtesy because of special?

It's us versus them alright. And they're just as guilty of making it that way as anybody else in the equation.

Can I nominate this for post of the year?

Dude, you grabbed a cop and lived to tell the tale. Every moment from now on is like, a gift.

[wombat]

I guess it's impossible to know whether police are worse than they used to be, or whether it's just that we know about it now because people can broadcast their own experiences directly on the internet. What I don't understand is why when unemployment has been so bad for so long, why haven't hiring standards for police gone up? You'd think that they'd have enough of a pool that they could weed out the psychopaths etc.

[theinevitable]

Really strong unions. They have each other's backs 100%, and nobody in power can/will stand up to them.

[theinevitable]

I am thinking way too much about this Kentucky clerk who is in jail for not giving gay people marriage licenses. Specifically, kinda surprised (but not surprised) by my friends who suddenly are 100% in favor of the rule of law and punishing people who break the rules for their beliefs. Would they be condemning someone who was breaking the law and being held in comtempt of court if they were,  say, issuing gay marriage licenses when they were still illegal? Or punishing killer cops or freeing protestors or something? Probably not, right?

I'm sure if I bring this up they will find all kinds of ways to contort themselves to say this is different, and all of those will boil down to "it's OK when good guys do it, not when bad guys do it." Which I hate but maybe it's the reality of the world that when you are fighting for a cause you can't be picky about methods.

I guess I have the luxury of being concerned about this stuff because it does not directly affect me.

I read somewhere that this kind of quibbling is why the Paris Commune failed. The revolutionaries got bogged down because half of them wanted to storm Versailles and kill the king (emperor?) and disband the army, and the other half wanted to immediately form a democratic government and decide fairly what to do. It turns out it takes a long time to form a democratic government and decide fairly what to do, longer than it takes to rally your imperial troops and massacre some revolutionaries.

This kind of thing also happened recently in STL, where a guy I really support in STL politics voted "ABSTAIN" on establishing a police oversight board, because he was pissed off that activists were trying to intimidate him into supporting the bill that he already supported. Politics takes a more careful hand than some people want to think, and of course that's tough with a mass movement that anyone can claim to speak for.

[pmcd9]

You may have a point if this clerk, Kim Davis, were actually making a principled stand. I'm sure she believes she's being principled, but her principles are all fucked up. Add to that her personal history and her principles are a joke. It's okay to distinguish between the truly principled and just another hateful prick.

[AugustWest]

Inev, she's in jail because she ignored a federal judge's order, not because of her principles.  She's free to walk out of jail any time she wants -- all she has to do is agree to follow the law of the land or resign as county clerk.  We are a country of laws, and SCOTUS is the final arbiter of what those laws mean.  As a government official, it is her job to implement and enforce the laws as interpreted by the courts.  She does not get to substitute her beliefs, no matter how sincerely held, for the law of the land.  Even if I agreed 100% with what she believes (which I absolutely don't) I would agree that jail is the right place for her right now.  She's not being punished for her beliefs, she's being punished for ignorning the law as a government official.

[theinevitable]

Yes, I get that. What I am imagining is, if it were the opposite political action, where she was in jail for breaking a law left wing people disagreed with, they would certainly be marching with "Free Kim Davis" signs. I am annoyed with the people I know who I can imagine taking that stance and yet are criticizing her now for choosing to take direct action against the law.

It's like how we hate republicans who filibuster, but cheer about that Texan congresswoman who filibustered the anti-abortion bill, and the mobs of people who disrupted the meeting of that assembly so it wouldn't pass. It seems short-sighted of liberals to support those kinds of behavior, when I think we would usually not be on the side of mobs.

[pmcd9]

Yes, I get that. What I am imagining is, if it were the opposite political action, where she was in jail for breaking a law left wing people disagreed with, they would certainly be marching with "Free Kim Davis" signs. I am annoyed with the people I know who I can imagine taking that stance and yet are criticizing her now for choosing to take direct action against the law.

This is what I was trying to get at before. Yes, liberals would be in her corner if the tables were turned. In that case she would be making a stand for equal rights, not against them. I've heard some right wing buffoons compare Kim Davis to Rosa Parks. It's an overblown characterization even if it were correct, but she's not standing up for equal rights, she's standing up for her perceived religious right to be a bigot. She's not a Rosa Parks character, no, she's a Governor Wallace character standing in the doorway of the school not allowing the black children to enter. The major difference is that we are right. The left is right. We have the constitution on our side and we believe in social justice. Same thing goes for Wendy Davis the Texas State Senator who filibuster'd the Texas senate. She was standing up for women's rights against a right wing senate trying to roll back Roe Vs. Wade. And it's okay to pick sides because our side is right.  And history will prove we are right.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Oh boy, I could write a novel in this topic.

It's like how we hate republicans who filibuster, but cheer about that Texan congresswoman who filibustered the anti-abortion bill, and the mobs of people who disrupted the meeting of that assembly so it wouldn't pass. It seems short-sighted of liberals to support those kinds of behavior, when I think we would usually not be on the side of mobs.

IMO, the filibuster was meant to be used when something so big is on the line that you're willing to spend hours or days monopolizing the floor to accomplish it. The Texas congresswoman was a good example of that. In recent years the Senate Republicans just threaten to filibuster every freaking thing they oppose, and it's completely ridiculous.

"All Lives Matter" has become a good way to tell which of my Facebook friends are closet racists. Unfortunately, every time someone shoots a cop it just gives them material. Just as police brutality is doubly bad (to the victim, and to other cops who now have to put up with the backlash), when someone kills a cop it's both unfair to that cop (obvs), and to everyone else when bad cops point to it and say "SEE?!? This is why we have to shoot black people at the slightest provocation."

As for the question about hiring standards for cops--I've come to think that police work is not unlike the Socratic paradox of government. People who would be good at it are smart enough to know it's a lousy job and thus avoid it. Too many people get into policing for the wrong reasons (get to feel like a big man! I can carry a gun!), and we're seeing the fallout of that every day.

[wombat]

Paul, that was inspiring.

I feel like Inev's post shows like, the logical problem of the left. It's hard to have the courage of your convictions when one of your convictions is that everything is relative. But in fact only nearly everything is relative. Some things really are a matter of right and wrong and you have to know where to draw the line.

[theinevitable]

To me it isn't about things being relative, it's about what the rules of the game are. I don't get mad when conservatives run for office, or hold debates in congress, but I do get mad when they interrupt speakers or ignore laws they don't like. However sometimes people I support do those things and offer compelling arguments for why that is the right thing to do. Often those reasons boil down to "we are right." But "do the right thing" is not a good way to improve society. We need laws, rules, and procedures. To fix a broken system you need to replace it. Although I guess that is a symptom of being a liberal and not a "leftist."

[pmcd9]

In this case the system seems to be working just fine.

In my earlier post I compared Kim Davis to Gov. George Wallace. It's a sign of our progress as a society that now, instead of a Governor opposing the Supreme Court on a social issue it's down to a rogue clerk.

I can almost sympathize with the religious zealots. It must be difficult for them to face the fact that religion is becoming irrelevant. They're wrong about almost everything and everyone with half a brain can see that. The GOP is a joke and it's impossible for them to win a national election because there aren't enough people left who believe the crazy religious shit they espouse.

[wombat]

Again Paul has hit all the nails on the head.

[theinevitable]

Remember when we used to get in weird fights on here? I don't miss that. Tiny cans all around.