Or a democracy.Quote:
Originally Posted by JaneV2.0
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Or a democracy.Quote:
Originally Posted by JaneV2.0
I was thinking more of a dictatorship...
A democracy is a sort of dictatorship, tribal but dictatorial.
Well are they paying him? If so it's a paycheck. And if not it's quite a privilege indeed to have to worry about such soft restraints of freedom (it's a case of having nothing REAL to worry about pretty much - and having nothing real to worry about may as well just be the total of the definition of privilege in it's entirety).Quote:
This concern with the basic condition of freedom -- the absence of physical constraint -- is unquestionably necessary, but is not all that is necessary. It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison and yet not free -- to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national State, or of some private interest within the nation, want him to think, feel and act.
Well, see, this is why I liked Alan’s definition of priveledge.
previously white Christian males had all the priveledge and they got to define terms like “freedom of association”, “conscience”, and “religious liberty” and impose their version of social equity on everybody else. Now some of that priveledge is slipping into other hands and they don’t like it. It’s not fun when other people have priveledge and you don’t And it significantly impacts your life!
I think the problem occurs when people leap off the “priveledge” into all sorts of petty tyranny and ethical nonsense in the name of social equity. Wealthy white people lecturing less wealthy white people about the need to sacrifice their unfair advantages. Making judgments of guilt or innocence on a group rather than individual basis. Speech codes and silencing of opposing ideas. And the endless condescension driven by the unfounded assumption of moral superiority.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chicken lady
This thread reminds me of the predictions Hanna Rosin made seven years ago in an article for the Atlantic magazine called, The End of Men. Perhaps it was a few years early but in light of recent happenings....seems prescient.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...of-men/308135/
The ability to strip the license plates off a car with a long handled adjustable wrench in early morning daylight in a residential area in a strange town and have the sheriff drive past without even slowing down.
Trayvon Martin would undoubtedly agree with you on this were he still alive today.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
That sad episode provided many tragically comic and comically tragic examples of that kind of thinking. The New York Times struggle with the shooter's pedigree that eventually preserved the narrative with "White Hispanic". NBC editing the 911 call audio to achieve the desired impact. ABC 're-digitizing" photos to the same purpose. Presidential musings on what his male issue might have looked like. The raising of sweatshirts and Skittles to protest totems. The usual uplifting commentary from the Rev. Al Sharpton. Spike Lee tweeting (incorrectly) George Zimmerman's home address. Zimmerman auctioning his gun to the skinhead community. It was a true Bonfire of the Vanities moment.Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1
Ultimately, the presumption of innocence triumphed over the forces arrayed against it; but it was a near-run thing.
I studied the Martin/Zimmerman case. Proving that Zimmerman committed any crime beyond a reasonable doubt based on the evidence ...... was a huge stretch. If it wasn’t for race, media bias and expansive vigilantism necessitated by police indifference to neighborhood issues; we probably would have never heard about this case. Pick another martyr jp1....there are better ones out there.
Like The Gentle Giant Michael Brown?Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
Another false god in the game of race politics.
Perhaps a worse example ...... if that’s possible. Walter Scott would have my vote if I were into that sort of thing. His life was truly snuffed out unnecessarily. But then, justice prevailed and Mr. Slager is serving a twenty year sentence.Quote:
Originally Posted by iris lily
IL: I just read that St. Louis had double the homicide rate that Chicago and Baltimore have.
I noticed that in Williamsmith's post about travel to NYC, several people said "I felt safe." I thought that was an odd comment, actually. I don't think of NYC as UNsafe, and I have to admit that Guiliani is responsible for that in good measure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Teacher Terry
So I looked up crime rates across the US, and found that New York City is #32 on the list for violent crime, after cities like San Diego, Austin and Portland. For murders/manslaughter, it ranks 13. For robbery, it's 39. As for me, I've had a computer stolen from my car in Burlington, VT. I've also had my wallet and/or pocketbook stolen in NY 3 times. But, strangely, the New York thieves took the money and threw the wallet/pocketbook in the mailbox. I got most of my stuff back every time. So New York thieves are very thoughtful thieves. OTOH, I didn't get my computer back in Vermont.
Safety is not a huge issue in NYC tourism, unless you decide to take your life in your hands by driving there.
I used to go to NYC on weekends in the early 80s. It did not seem especially safe then, and I always travelled with a group. The NYC of today is like Disneyland by comparison. Clean, safe, friendly, service-oriented. Not as many people in giant furry suits though.
I remember the Times Square of that period as a smorgasborg of sleaze.Quote:
Originally Posted by bae
It was a great time to be alive.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
If all your shots were up to date.Quote:
Originally Posted by bae
Exactly. I grew up in the suburbs surrounding the five boroughs, occasionally going to "The City" for field trips and to visit relatives. Back then, ads used to run in the paper and on TV recommending that people not wear jewelry on the subway lest you appear too attractive to thieves. Even out in the 'burbs they warned folks when shopping for Christmas/Hanukkah that, if they put purchases in the trunk of their car, they should move their car to another parking spot to avoid people who would jimmy the trunk open as soon as you went back to do more shopping. They weren't doing that to enhance tourism.Quote:
Originally Posted by bae
Yes, at this point we suspend judgment until everyone reviews the resume of the victim. If that receives approval, only then can we proceed to decide if his life was worthy to have continued or not.Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1
Yes, we usually are in the top 3 and lately have been No. 1. Yay, us. The city of St. Louis draws tight boundaries around an urban core, so there is little suburban populace to tone down and mix with irban ceimw stats.Quote:
Originally Posted by Teacher Terry
On the other hand, urban blight is very strong in northern suburbs outside of the city of St, Louis, so ths explanatin does not entirely explain it away.
If I understand you correctly you're trying to say that because Zimmerman was hispanic that he couldn't have had racial bias against Martin because Zimmerman was also a minority? Before you make that assumption perhaps you should read Dreamland (the book someone mentioned a while back about the opiod crisis.) The current heroin problem in America is largely a white phenomenon because the Mexican heroin delivery guys were terrified of black people and absolutely would not sell to them or even go to neighborhoods with any black people in them.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
I lived through that transition to Disneyland, 1 1/2 blocks west of times square. While I never truly felt unsafe in 1992 when I first moved there (at that time at night my block had drug dealers at one end and prostitutes at the other. Neither ever harmed or threatened me, but some of the drug dealers' customers were pretty scary looking) by the time I moved out of that apartment 14 years later it definitely seemed "more safe" than it had when I moved in. I knew that the disneyfication was complete a few years before I left. The dealers and hookers had been gone for a few years by then and the long abandoned building on the corner of my block suddenly got renovated and a Starbucks moved in on the ground floor.Quote:
Originally Posted by bae
Many people have died senselessly. Martin is one of them. Whether or not he was guilty in a court of law Zimmermann did not need to take his life.
Not at all. I see it as an example of the lengths the Times was willing to go to to preserve the white-guy-kills-black-guy-and-gets-away-with-it-because-of-systemic-racism formulation. Simply reporting that a guy named Zimmerman was on trial for killing a guy named Martin without the color coding wouldn't have sold many papers to their target demographic.Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1
Perhaps. But what is your alternative to a court of law to make that determination?Quote:
Originally Posted by Teacher Terry
Personally I don't think it matters whether it is white on black or Hispanic on black racism. My point is that I wonder if Zimmerman had come across Zuckerberg, also known to regularly wear hoodies, would he have perceived zuckerberg to be as much of a threat?
You may not think so, but there is a significant outrage industry that feels otherwise. Do you honestly believe we would have seen the same media circus eager to impute racist motives to an individual and society at large for a similar incident between two people of color?Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1
You have to climb out of your own biased opinions to make sense out of it. Zuckerberg wouldn’t have communicated or acted as Martin did. We have the cell phone call with the girlfriend to illuminate us on Martin state of mind and it didn’t reflect kindly on Martin. There are several very in-depth reviews of the case....I will try to find one for you if you are interested in approaching it with an open mind.Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1
During the Zimmerman trial, how many young black men were shot to death in Detroit? What were their names?
You are going to make a lot of people angry if you keep asking these questions.Quote:
Originally Posted by bae
Jobs and welfare reform. That’s what the African American community needs more than a denouncement of racism. You don’t have to have a homogeneity to have a non violent society. You have to have a fairly equal distribution of wealth and a real opportunity to advance socially and economically. Take every black person from the Detroit ghettos and replace them with white and the homicide rate for whites would skyrocket. It’s the Tantalus syndrome and it is alive and well in the United States.....and both parties have fed it.Quote:
Originally Posted by bae
Careful speaking the truth like that!
But it's not as satisfying.Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
My opinion is that Zimmerman was at fault for approaching Martin in the first place. That was the proximate cause for everything that followed. What exactly is a geeky teenager supposed to do when a random creepy dude approaches them and wrongly accuses them of nefarious activity when all they have done is walk down the street with some skittles and a soda? Zimmerman approached him not because he'd seen him do anything wrong, but simply because he was a black teenager walking down the street. None of the options for Martin at that point were good. I suppose he could've started running. But he'd likely have ended up just as dead. At least then Zimmerman might've ended up in jail although you never know, he'd have probably said "I thought he must've been guilty, why else did he run?"Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
While I agree that jobs and economic opportunity are critically important, they aren't even the starting point if one can't even walk down the street without being accused of a crime based on no more evidence of that crime than the color of one's skin not aligning with the majority of the people in the neighborhood?Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
I advise my grandsons not to physically attack an accuser and especially not to slam their head onto the sidewalk, as that never ends well for anyone. Plus, their hard won geek status may be lost forever.Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1
Geek status is highly overrated. I'm glad to be long rid of mine. Thankfully I didn't have to bash an asshole's head on the ground to do so. The only thing Martin did wrong is not bash hard enough. Stand your ground and all that. Dead men can't disagree with your version of the story.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan
Remind me not to piss you off, you don't seem to understand the premise of stand your ground.Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1