Disabled man kidnapped and tortured

[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by Pliddy

I HATE that this story has become about race and rasicm. The fact that the attackers are black and the victim is white is only a side Story. The real story is how we view and protect the most vulnerable members of our society. Those 4 people could have attacked nearly any single individual, and they probably past dozens of people walking alone before they attacked a person with a developmental disability. The fact that we are ignoring this to focus on the more sexy issue of race and Trump says a lot. Why are we ignoring why this person was left alone, why did these 4 people think that treating this vulnerable person like a dog was such a statement worthy of broadcasting on Facebook. I think this horrible crime should be used to start a conversation about the rights of people with disabilities and what place we see them having in our communities, rather than giving the usual talking heads another 6 hours of air time to talk about Trump and a rehashing of race relations that really have not changed in 30 years

Not with what they made the victim say. The actual incident itself is coloured by racism, the story should reflect it.

Yes, the focus should be on the horrendous deeds done, but racism was an active part of this garbage - so it should be reported. Should it be the controlling narrative? Well, whatever scares people/generates clicks/creates conflict seems to be what politically controlled media tends to write about...so, yeah.

[CliffFletcher]

It's not whining to point out how toxic identity politics and media partisanship have been to American politics.

[icecube]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

It's not whining to point out how toxic identity politics and media partisanship have been to American politics.

North America was literally built upon the genocide of indigenous peoples and the theft of their lands. It was built upon the backs of slaves. Generations of racist and harmful government policies screwed these people and institutional racism still screws these people.

"Identity politics" as you call it is probably here to stay until we see true equality. The classical liberal model has been an utter failure. Every other venture has been an utter failure. What do you propose as a real solution to inequality that was created by white supremacy? Individual choices and pulling yourself up by the ole bootstraps ain't gonna cut it.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

White people run everything in America.

Black President, black Attorney General.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by icecube

"Identity politics" as you call it is probably here to stay until we see true equality.

Equality of what - outcome? It's been tried before. Despite rivers and rivers of blood and enforcement by a nightmarish totalitarian system, it lasted for 70 years and then collapsed.

When you define people by racial identities, and then pit those groups against one another politically, you get endless conflict and violence. Everwhere and every time. There is no model for this approach to politics ever making a country better, and dozens of cases of it making things worse.

Originally Posted by icecube

The classical liberal model has been an utter failure. Every other venture has been an utter failure.

You're clueless. The material standard of living, and the social, sexual, and political freedom of people in the West is higher today than it has ever been, and higher than anywhere else in the world. We have equality before the law, regardless of race, gender, or sexuality. And we have unrivalled freedom of expression (though that his under assault by extremists on both the left and right). Thanks to liberalism.

Anyone who thinks the world today is 'an utter failure' is either wholly ignorant of history, or a flat-out misanthrope.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

It's a problem of evolutionary psychology that human beings have evolved so as to be ill-suited to thinking on timelines longer than segments of a human lifetime. This seems to make people unable to fathom even the relatively short span of human history and place our current position into perspective.

The current status quo, whereby people in developed societies air their differences and views openly and without prosecution rather than simply banding together to kill the people who disagree with them, is only a couple hundred years - for well over 99% of human history, this wasn't the way things worked. It's not like we're somehow hugely different sorts of animals than we were fifty thousand years ago. Yet people act as though the status quo is more or less the only way things could be for humanity. We could lose all of this fairly quickly, particularly when you remove yourself from the myopic time scale that we intuitively apply to world events.

The amount of human progress that's taken place since the enlightenment would have been utterly unfathomable a couple of centuries ago. People who make statements like "The classical liberal model has been an utter failure" would be pitiable if they weren't so damned dangerous in numbers.

[icecube]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Equality of what - outcome? It's been tried before. Despite rivers and rivers of blood and enforcement by a nightmarish totalitarian system, it lasted for 70 years and then collapsed.

When you define people by racial identities, and then pit those groups against one another politically, you get endless conflict and violence. Everwhere and every time. There is no model for this approach to politics ever making a country better, and dozens of cases of it making things worse.



You're clueless. The material standard of living, and the social, sexual, and political freedom of people in the West is higher today than it has ever been, and higher than anywhere else in the world. We have equality before the law, regardless of race, gender, or sexuality. And we have unrivalled freedom of expression (though that his under assault by extremists on both the left and right). Thanks to liberalism.

Anyone who thinks the world today is 'an utter failure' is either wholly ignorant of history, or a flat-out misanthrope.

We do?

It has been an utter failure for some, and it is because their skin came out the wrong colour. Call a spade a spade. Stop sugar coating and beating around the bush. Was/is North America founded upon and still entrenched in white supremacy? Answer honestly.

[icecube]

Status quo is okay for people who are well off and white apparently. No compassion. Not surprising whatsoever.

[CliffFletcher]

There are ways to improve the status quo that aren't race-based.

For example, the way schools are funded in much of the U.S. perpetrates inter-generational poverty. Wealthy counties and districts have far more money for education and schools than poor ones. American states could adopt the Canadian system, where all education taxes go the province/state and are then distributed to schools on a per-student basis. Better education for all poor Americans would include better outcomes for poor blacks.

Social and cultural ills are more difficult to address. The collapse of marriage as an institution and the normalisation of single-parenting has been catastrophic not only for black Americans, but for poor and working-class whites as well. There's no question it's the source of many of the challenges and bad outcomes that the poor today are confronted with, but it's difficult to see how the state can resurrect or replace the model of stable two-parent households.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

If you aren't going to offer an explanation as to why the police chose the words they did, then I think you need to concede it was a stupid choice by the cops. All you need to do is see how the right-wing media is eating up.

Firstly, I've said multiple times that I understand your reaction based on your interpretation of what the police said. Again, we'll agree to disagree because I think you're given the least charitable interpretation and purposely distorting it to further your bias. Placating the alt-right is, honestly, not a very compelling argument as to why someone should act or speak differently. There isn't a reason they're the ones still beating this drum. That's not admirable company to keep.

As per your request for an explanation, straight from the source:

Police Superintendent Eddie T. Johnson noted, however, that the lack of a classification for the “deplorable acts” committed in the video was to allow the investigation to be “based on facts and not emotion.”

“There was never a question whether or not this incident qualified to be investigated as a hate crime. But as I said yesterday, we needed to base, the investigation based on facts and not emotion,” he said before announcing the charges against the four suspects.

“Taking the totality of the circumstances… we sought hate crime charges,” Duffin noted, adding that the investigators didn’t differentiate between the victim’s “diminished mental capabilities” and the racial aspects of the crime.

http://www.rt.com/document/586ecc68c361885a408b4622/amp

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Firstly, I've said multiple times that I understand your reaction based on your interpretation of what the police said. Again, we'll agree to disagree because I think you're given the least charitable interpretation and purposely distorting it to further your bias. Placating the alt-right is, honestly, not a very compelling argument as to why someone should act or speak differently. There isn't a reason they're the ones still beating this drum. That's not admirable company to keep.

As per your request for an explanation, straight from the source:

http://www.rt.com/document/586ecc68c361885a408b4622/amp

"We have the four suspects in custody."

"What about the Donald Trump and racist terms used throughout the video, was this politically or racially motivated?"

"We are still investigating that aspect of the crime."

"Will this be looked at as a hate crime?"

"We are gathering evidence. The evidence for the hate-crime needs to be based on facts, not emotions, and can't be assessed by a couple of soundbites in a video."

There, no outrage. And that's what would be said 99.999% of the time during an ongoing investigation. Instead the police force refer to them as kids, something that doesn't happen pretty much ever for 18 year olds committing a heinous crime...let alone 24 year olds. Even his "correcting himself" to young adults he was still talking about how young adults make stupid decisions. They certainly didn't have to say there was no concrete evidence that this was a hate-crime. Eddie Johnson didn't have to literally say that he thought it was "stupidity. You know, people just ranting about something they think might make a headline." The narrative they were clearly painting, downplaying the racial aspect of the crime, was not the one they are discussing today.

You're acting like placating the alt-right is a poor argument. I counter that with President Donald Trump. We're never calling Donald Trump the president without the divisiveness of the nation. There was no reason for the police force to try and create their own narrative, pissing off half the population doing so. The alt-right may be poor wording on my part. This isn't the fringe crazies anymore. It's half the population. Heck, it's liberals as well who didn't like what the police said. Insinuating that the people who are still beating this drum are doing so because of "reasons" is the exact #### that got Donald Trump elected. Some people just don't think that the police should downplay and defend people who kidnap and torture mentally disabled people...but they're old fashion like that. Simply put, the police force should not have acted politically, but they did.

Ironically, if you don't believe those idiots are part of a malicious incompetent corrupt police force, they probably did have a good intention of downplaying the racial aspect of the crime. Race relationships are heated and any type of XXX-on-YYY crimes are resulting in increased hate by all sides and type of people, they probably were trying to avoid that. But it backfired, it was a mistake. I don't see the need to defend that mistake or turn a blind eye to it.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

You guys are almost certainly talking about different things when you say "alt right", because I suspect that Pepsifree associates it much more with racist white nationalism than anything else. And presumably no one wants to placate the racist white nationalist element.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

You guys are almost certainly talking about different things when you say "alt right", because I suspect that Pepsifree associates it much more with racist white nationalism than anything else. And presumably no one wants to placate the racist white nationalist element.

Well if Oling thinks the alt-right is half the population plus some liberals then he clearly has zero idea what alt-right means.

Based on his misnterpretation of what happened along with his talking points (a white cop being racist to a white kid?), maybe the election of Trump has normalised the alt-right to the point where their little bubbles have gotten so bold that they actually think they're a big part of the pie, who knows.

The negative reaction to this, especially considering the explanation afterwards, seems eerily similar to the regressive left and the very thing the alt-right was to rise against.

Essentially different sides of the same coin. Use the language we want, or pay your pound of flesh.

I think there's a place for considering language and being thoughtful about it, but as soon as you see a misstep and look for blood regardless of an explanation or an apology, it looks embarrassing.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Well if Oling thinks the alt-right is half the population plus some liberals then he clearly has zero idea what alt-right means.

Actually if you read my posts, I have tried to make distinguish between alt-right, right-wing and even tried to clarify moderate-alt-right (i.e. what I would consider non-racists who supported the alternative right candidate Trump). I've said repeatedly that it was the right-wing media that was eating this up. You've tried to pigeonhole the entire population who didn't agree with the comments as "alt-right" and argued it was for "reasons." I.E. implying that anyone who didn't like the officers comments were racists, which is exactly the divisiveness that lead to a Trump victory. If you'll notice, I clearly hate Trump, and while it's easy to blame just the voters of his, the people who have tried to end any type of discussion by implying anyone who disagrees with them were racist are just as much at fault.

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Based on his misnterpretation of what happened along with his talking points (a white cop being racist to a white kid?), maybe the election of Trump has normalised the alt-right to the point where their little bubbles have gotten so bold that they actually think they're a big part of the pie, who knows.

There's no misinterpretation. I believe, the officers said some stuff that should not have been said. It was politically motivated, and many (not just alt-right) believe it was racially motivated (i.e. if the races were reversed, the cops would not be referring to them as kids...and if you want to see who else believes that, just read the first page of this thread, Newt Gingrich, Reddit/CNN/ABC comment sections on the stories, Twitter, Fox News, Washington Post, New York Post). I'm not saying that this is the best of the best, but I am saying that many many many people took issue to what was said, not just a small group of white nationalist. Ironically, if you were to leave your little bubble, you would find that this isn't a small sect of the alt-right pushing this 'agenda.'

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

The negative reaction to this, especially considering the explanation afterwards, seems eerily similar to the regressive left and the very thing the alt-right was to rise against.

Essentially different sides of the same coin. Use the language we want, or pay your pound of flesh.

I think there's a place for considering language and being thoughtful about it, but as soon as you see a misstep and look for blood regardless of an explanation or an apology, it looks embarrassing.

See that's the difference. You keep assuming it was a misstep. A mistake. A slip of the tongue. If you honestly can read what they say and believe that, then I completely see were you are coming from.

However, the officer didn't accidentally refer to them as kids and young adults. They didn't accidentally call it stupid decisions, and stupid ranting trying to make headlines, it wasn't a mistake that they said there was "no concrete evidence that it was a hate crime" or that they thought it was just "stupidity." As far as many people are concerned, this was making excuses, downplaying an incredibly important part of the crime. I think CliffFletcher hit the nail on the head with his second post in this thread about why they did it.

Again, all they had to do was say it was still being investigated or looked into. Anything else they said wasn't a slip of the tongue, it was intentionally. It was political (if even for a good cause). The police force should simply not be getting involved politically.