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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   36912 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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Prior to reading this comment, I had assumed that the Democrats’ attempt to make hay from this incident would fail miserably, as no one on the right would defend the shooting. Absent a scissor statement situation, I figured the controversy would die a quick and easy death. Now I’m not so sure.

If the Right is smart, they’ll publicly agree that it was a bad shot regardless of their inner feelings, as that is probably the easiest way to defuse the situation. No controversy, no news; no news, no BLM reboot; no BLM reboot, no electoral benefits to the Democrats.

If the Right is smart, they’ll publicly agree that it was a bad shot regardless of their inner feelings, as that is probably the easiest way to defuse the situation. No controversy, no news; no news, no BLM reboot; no BLM reboot, no electoral benefits to the Democrats.

"Yes, we need to hold bad cops accountable. But you know who else we need to hold accountable? Killer criminals preying on the weakest among us insert long list of sympathetic victims of crime They deserved to live, but the Democrats don't care about them, otherwise they'd close the border and stop raising money to bail killers out of jail to kill again. There's only one party that's going to keep you safe from the real threats out there; vote Republican."

Or something like that. I don't know, I'm not a campaign strategist or a PR guy.

If the GOP was smart they would do the opposite. Full scorched earth Womp Womp's.

I can't believe that GOP and friends don't have guys crafty enough to weave a narrative of law and order, back the blue and whatever else out of this.

Don't make the shooting an issue, make the media and Democrats the issue. They are attacking a sacred institution, these hallowed halls of law and order and blah blah blah. Show teeth. Don't be weak and limp wristed. Blame the Democrats and media for the shooting. Whatever you do, don't let the foot off the gas. Organize pro police protests, do whatever. Everyone is sick and tired of this play. No one respects it. People just go through the motions because it's the only game in town and they're forced to participate.

There is no way there are even close to enough normies, on either side of the center of the political aisle, that think this is a justifiable shoot to make womp womp a viable response.

There is a lot of untapped frustration after the Floyd riots. Just like there was with endless sob stories about immigration and refugees. People just need someone mainstream to channel their emotions.

This mindset seems like it could be labelled "cargo cult winning". You see someone beating your team at a ball game (elections/popularity/institutional control) and being obnoxious about it, hollering and making deliberately bad low-effort shots (that still hit) and singing little childish songs about how you are a loser (dragging institutions and values that you appreciate through the mud). You conclude that if you just do all the same obnoxious and self-handicapping moves that the opponent does and that seem to make them feel inordinately pleased, you too can win.

When the alternatives are race riots and 'prison reform' I have a hard time sympathizing with the "high road". Whatever that even is, aside from tut tut's.

This is a very common disease in underdog political movements. Look at the sea of people who want to organize "protests" and end up beat up with batons because they don't understand their opponents are merely holding triumphs.

And look yet again at all the people down thread that want to use civility and debate against political violence, not understanding that words backed by no force are empty.

People have a hard time considering how power works because it's dangerous knowledge that's not taught to them. So they look at what works and too rarely why it works.

Except with this footage those officers are wildly overreacting and escalating a benign incident to literal murder. As a general fan and supporter of cops I hope more footage with relevant information comes to light.

With supporters like these, who needs enemies. The point is that you don't cave in, instead you show you actually stand behind the thing in its moment of weakness. Precisely because it's being attacked by your enemy.

We're public citizens, not defense lawyers.

Is it constitutively part of policing to kill someone because they threaten you with being scalded?

If not, it's not defending the "sacred institution" of policing to defend these officers. I think it's the opposite: if police officers can't handle situations involving crazy old ladies, then this will encourage many people to avoid bringing them into situations, undermining policing and supporting crime. "Should we call the cops? Well, she's acting crazy, but I don't want them to gun her down and maybe us too."

All sources report her as being 36 (e.g. here). She does seem much older in the videos.

"threaten" doesn't really do it justice. She was mid-throw in an attempt to do so.

Is it constitutively part of policing to kill someone because they threaten you with being scalded?

Hard to tell if this is a rhetorical question, but in the interests of speaking plainly: Yea, of course. Police officers killing people who attempt to harm them is a shitty system, but it's better than all the alternatives.

You can argue that policing is better this way, but in the context of that discussion, my point was that you don't have to oppose the institution of policing to think that the officer should have acted differently.

Most people would prefer the police shooting someone than being scalded, yes. I don't know how or if that fits your 'constitutional' priors.

Policing is whatever it has become. Its sanctity lies in its foundations and principles, not individual events.

Policing in the US has degenerated a lot to face third world challenges. Sometimes old ladies get shot. The police are still sacred, though, for all the old ladies that don't get shot. Or so goes the tale of why we need police in the first place.

Constitutive, not constitutional.

Its sanctity lies in its foundations and principles, not individual events.

Exactly my point. It's not defending the foundations and principles of policing to defend each and every thing that police officers do. That's like, given an incompetent president, saying "I'm rallying round democracy."

Note I'm also not criticising US policing in general. I don't know the statistics well enough, and I suspect even they skirt over a lot of circumstances. For all I know, maybe more info. will come to light that exonerates this officer. What I can say is that, from the info provided, he acted incompetently (I see no evidence of racism, personal vendetta etc.) and unfortunately if you act incompetently when wielding a gun, you can end up going to prison. Maybe his hormones were wrong that day. Maybe he found out that morning that he was being cucked. That's tough on police officers, but it's the law, and it's that way for a reason.

You are defending the foundations and principles when you stand against politically motivated mass media attempts at smearing and weakening the institution. You do the opposite when you don't. Officers will make mistakes. You don't crucify those who make them in media.

If the institution itself is deteriorated and bad, you need to cast a light on that, but the fake news narrative of racist police and black victims is a lie, so this event is very clearly not it.

I disagree. Egregious violations of public trust should not be glossed over or hidden for political reasons. That's the essence of corruption. A "moment of weakness" is an understatement here.

I am not advocating some bizarre defunding or excoriation of law enforcement as a social institution. I am suggesting that to condone wanton abuse of life-and-death power and reckless escalation is irresponsibly dangerous, immoral, and corrupt. Thus my desire that there is more to the story.

How would you suggest "standing by" the officer(s) here if what we see is an accurate depiction of events? Would any behavior by a police officer cause you to question his/her judgment or censure/punish/fire/prosecute?

I disagree. Egregious violations of public trust should not be glossed over or hidden for political reasons.

No one said this should be done. No one said this should be 'condoned', no one said anything about what you advocate.

By the same token I can accuse you of a similar thing. Hyperbolizing an event like this in an effort to throw a bunch of gasoline on an ACAB fire and then say you back the boys in blue. Which seems counter intuitive to me, but you do you.

You can stand by officers in cases like these by letting due process run its course, or by recognizing these cases as statistical outliers, or by recognizing that policing a third world population with a first world police force simply doesn't work. Not by swirling around in a media fueled frenzy. If your takeaway from any of the previous media fueled ACAB frenzies was that policing got improved or things got better in some way I'm not sure what planet you are coming from.

You and I are talking (typing) at cross-purposes. And for my part I'm not "accusing" you of anything, except possible pointless hostility. Maybe not even that. You're looking at this as a political strategist. I'm simply making a comment in due process and justice (though again, I don't yet know what that should be as I just clicked in and still haven't watched the full video and do not necessarily think my armchair opinion should be the last word anyway. I've made that caveat.). I agree that releasing this footage was shittily political.

You and I are talking (typing) at cross-purposes. And for my part I'm not "accusing" you of anything, except possible pointless hostility.

You wrote: "I disagree. Egregious violations of public trust should not be glossed over or hidden for political reasons." Insinuating I believe or said something to the tune that glossing over violations of public trust is preferable or in some way good. I did not say anything of the sort. I would in fact argue that it's near impossible for the public to determine whether something was a violation or not in a media landscape as toxic as the one we have.

How do you want me to reply to such behavior on your part? You do this again here:

I agree that releasing this footage was shittily political.

I never said anything about releasing the footage or not. Like, what are you doing?

But enough of that. You replied to a comment of mine that was very expressly about the political angle of this. You take a personal stance. My point would be that your personal stance is counterproductive to your stated support of the police. Your personal feelings towards a specific incident are irrelevant. The broader context is shaped by a political media machine that is propping up specific cases at specific times for their own gain.

If you don't realize that political reality I don't know what to tell you. Why bother stating your political stance of generally favoring the police if you don't care enough to stand against a force that very recently dealt some very serious blows to policing in the US off the back of exactly this type of situation?

I'm done. I'm not going to argue.

But that we are spending this amount of time taking about it is a problem. Bad case of the Chinese robber fallacy.

Honestly that’s a bad question. I don’t think the court of public opinion is the place to try these kinds of issues. Most people don’t have the background to even begin to assess whether or not it’s a “good shoot” or not. So allowing the institution to be dragged before the court of public opinion to score political points is not going to do good, and in fact erodes the credibility and legitimacy of that institution. There’s no gain to be made for police to be judged by Monday Quarterbacks who have no understanding of the work involved and can sit around in air conditioned homes and offices playing the videos and debating what the officers who had mere seconds to decide on their actions and carry them out in a situation full of unknowns.

I think review boards are a better bet. They would know what the risks are, what the procedures are, and any other factors influencing the event. They could actually talk to the officers and dispatch and get a much firmer grasp of the entire situation. The best civilians can do is “they shouldn’t have done that” based on movies, tv shows, and political commentary.

Sure, and I didn't say public opinion was the proper forum Certainly the footage being released was a devious political maneuver. Transparently. I'm not suggesting otherwise.

But I think that’s exactly how to defend the institution. The issue isn’t the shooting and the debate about the shooting, the issue is an attempt to discredit the institution by dragging an incident to the public square completely without context and using it to heavily imply that cops make a sport of this kind of thing. I think defending the institution requires making exactly that point. We, as the general public, have no background for understanding this. Even the participants are unknown. This woman might have a long history of attacking people. This might be a neighborhood full of drug users and dealers. There might have been things happening before the recording started.

I gurss guess I'm not being clear. I'm happy to defend the institution. And I've already suggested there's hopefully a story here that we cannot glean from just viewing the bodycam. I'm suggesting that this appears to be a needless killing and if it is, that should be acknowledged unflinchingly.

My takeaway is that Kamala would love to see more 2020 riots if it helps her win the election. Republicans, instead of joining the anti-police bandwagon as they were so eager to do in 2020, should simply ignore and move on.

If pressed, they can talk about the innocent people that Kamala railroaded when she was a prosecutor: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/opinion/kamala-harris-criminal-justice.html

There's no need to pretend to have a good faith conversation about topics that were clearly raised in bad faith. And you will never win elections if you play the game on the other side's turf.

Republicans, instead of joining the anti-police bandwagon as they were so eager to do in 2020, should simply ignore and move on.

Oh, I was thinking of responses along the line of “Yeah, looks like a bad shot. But the justice system is already on it,” followed by pretty much ignoring it. But I’m starting to reconsider the effectiveness of that approach given that “no controversy, no news” seems to have been dead wrong with regard to George Floyd. I still think quickly agreeing with the complaint and then ignoring it is smarter than defending the shot though.

I definitely agree there. Defending the shot is the worst possible play. Any time spent litigating and arguing these incidents just makes them grow stronger.

From the NY Times article, here are several of her convictions which violate ethics and may have sent innocent people to rot in prison for decades:

Worst of all, though, is Ms. Harris’s record in wrongful conviction cases. Consider George Gage, an electrician with no criminal record who was charged in 1999 with sexually abusing his stepdaughter, who reported the allegations years later. The case largely hinged on the stepdaughter’s testimony and Mr. Gage was convicted.

Afterward, the judge discovered that the prosecutor had unlawfully held back potentially exculpatory evidence, including medical reports indicating that the stepdaughter had been repeatedly untruthful with law enforcement. Her mother even described her as “a pathological liar” who “lives her lies.”

In 2015, when the case reached the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, Ms. Harris’s prosecutors defended the conviction. They pointed out that Mr. Gage, while forced to act as his own lawyer, had not properly raised the legal issue in the lower court, as the law required.

The appellate judges acknowledged this impediment and sent the case to mediation, a clear signal for Ms. Harris to dismiss the case. When she refused to budge, the court upheld the conviction on that technicality. Mr. Gage is still in prison serving a 70-year sentence.

That case is not an outlier. Ms. Harris also fought to keep Daniel Larsen in prison on a 28-year-to-life sentence for possession of a concealed weapon even though his trial lawyer was incompetent and there was compelling evidence of his innocence. Relying on a technicality again, Ms. Harris argued that Mr. Larsen failed to raise his legal arguments in a timely fashion. (This time, she lost.)

She also defended Johnny Baca’s conviction for murder even though judges found a prosecutor presented false testimony at the trial. She relented only after a video of the oral argument received national attention and embarrassed her office.

And then there’s Kevin Cooper, the death row inmate whose trial was infected by racism and corruption. He sought advanced DNA testing to prove his innocence, but Ms. Harris opposed it. (After The New York Times’s exposé of the case went viral, she reversed her position.)

Trump was pro-Floyd. Didn’t make a difference

The initial reaction to George Floyd was universal condemnation. I watched Sean Fuckin' Hannity talk about how terrible it was and how his MMA training (lol) would never have allowed him to do that kind of blood choke for that amount of time the night it happened. This did not succeed in preventing riots. The riots preceded the right coming up with reasons that it's actually fine for cops to kneel on necks for nine minutes.

Huh, looking back through old stories and discussion boards, it appears I misremembered the timeline. For example, /r/themotte’s initial thread was pretty unanimously condemnatory. One user’s comment actually makes my original response to @coffee_enjoyer look pretty hopelessly naive (bolding added):

The George Floyd incident is notable in that it appears to be far more uncontroversial than other police-killing-black-man incidents. The use of force depicted in the video seems clearly unwarranted, and the non-controversy appears to be reflected in widespread condemnation across the political spectrum. SSC readers (https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/) may recognize this as a situation where the story will not last very long in the collective consciousness because there is little controversy to fight over. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, especially if this particular incident is able to spur political reforms more effectively than previous ones over which there was more controversy due to lack of complete video documentation, lack of >99% proof that force was unreasonably used, etc. If that is the case, it may provide the lesson that consensus-building, rather than encouraging controversy and (sometimes seemingly intentionally) alienating others is the surer path to political reforms. I am reminded of the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s, where the events that seemed to have the greatest impact on public were those such as horrific lynching or police brutality against peaceful protestors which couldn’t possibly admit of any mitigating explanation and thus were not open to differential interpretation along partisan lines.

I remember it being the opposite in my spaces (admittedly very martial arts focused). Nobody could reliably recreate a strangulation from that position even if it is a highly uncomfortable position

Chapeau to you for the double check. Seriously, I appreciate the effort and lack of combativeness. The only reason I remembered it the way I do is because I was one of people that was initially on the total condemnation route and started to rationalize it after my town got jacked up by riots. Pretty hard to consider myself cleanly rational on the matter when I think about the reaction and then the rereaction.

My reaction was condemning until more information came out, such as the bodycam footage that painted a very different picture.

Unfortunate that the liberal court didn’t allow the bodycam footage be to used as evidence for no reason outside of that it would have been exculpatory, but letting Chauvin walk would’ve inflamed things quite a bit I guess

I had been a regular Reason reader since the early 2010s, so I had seen plenty of stories of police officers getting away with all manner of brutality, theft, murder, etc., directed at people of all races. Thanks to that background, I mostly remember being annoyed that Floyd’s death was instantly chalked up to racism, before being thoroughly pissed at TPTB for siding with the rioters while at the same time enforcing/defending onerous Covid restrictions. I didn’t care enough about the incident itself to bother forming any firm opinions, so my memory of the immediate reactions was apparently pretty hazy. In 2020, my anger about everything Covid-related took precedence over everything else.

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