Baltimorei

[Alan]

Alan.....you've mentioned people needing to be responsible before, and I totally agree. But that's never going to happen. What then?

I don't have an answer to that. You can't force people to take responsibility for their actions, and it doesn't help matters for society to portray every anti-social actor as a victim. In the absence of people acting responsibly, society's only protection is to enforce consequences.

On TV last night I watched live video of thugs throwing bricks, rocks and bottles at police officers who remarkably did not respond with lethal force. A brick or bottle to the head meets all the requirements for a lethal force response although in this situation hundreds of violent offenders were allowed to continue. What are we teaching them by allowing them to escape the consequences of their actions? The way we tip-toe around behaviors such as these tells me that we'll never incentivize offenders to stop.

[bae]

In the absence of people acting responsibly, society's only protection is to enforce consequences.

This has all happened before...

[CathyA]

I totally agree Alan. But don't you agree that our various laws and "equal rights for all" and being "fair" to all gets in the way of things, and that leads to people thinking they can get away with destructive behavior? The police are walking on eggshells and the bad guys get to keep the upper hand.

[jp1]

But if the cops had managed to diffuse the situation with freddie grey, how many bricks would have been thrown yesterday. It's really in everyone's including the cops, best interest to figure out a better way to do it.

[gimmethesimplelife]

Obviously based on all the cases where cops use lethal force and don't get punished it's pretty much a given that lethal force can be used against the population almost any time cops feel like it. Maybe before the day is out tradd will get her wish and the cops in Baltimore will kill a few more people and then we can all cheer and be happy. The alternative, of cops learning how to defuse situations and avoid killing people in the first place so as to not cause people to protest seems less and less likely every time I read the news.

+1 Rob

[gimmethesimplelife]

But if the cops had managed to diffuse the situation with freddie grey, how many bricks would have been thrown yesterday. It's really in everyone's including the cops, best interest to figure out a better way to do it.

+1 Rob

[bae]

+1 Rob

Welcome to Rob's World:

[bae]

Communications from an acquaintance of mine in the area:

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At the risk of sounding like Nero, fiddling while Rome burns, I intend to make today a productive day of practicing and preparing for future Musical events.

As much of a lunatic asylum as my childhood was, I am eternally grateful to my parents and the Public School system of South Windsor , Connecticut, for giving me Music, at an age when I could just as well have formed patterns leading to my becoming a serial killer, drug dealer, or--worst case sociopathic horror-- a politician.

I thought about this, yesterday afternoon, as I was being driven home, past countless boarded up, rat-infested row-houses, in East Baltimore, that have been that way for years while the greed-enslaved creatures who created that situation ,( thereby driving thousands of poor families into lower-rent , roach-infested West Baltimore) eat the peanuts out of each other's shit congratulating themselves on their obscenely racist "accomplishment.

Last night I received a 'phone call from my old friend and former Music History professor, XXX XXX, who wanted to know

1. If I was all right, and
2. What the **** is going on in Baltimore?

When I reiterated my opinion that it was 500 years of racist bullshit having come home to roost, he replied, " Well, that is correct, BUT the racist bullshit could have been overcome had it not been for the past 150 years of a horrendous educational system calculated to keep 'them' intellectually enslaved." Thinking about that statement, and knowing that I live in a country whose politicians will spend trillions of dollars to do, deliberately, halfway around the world, what misguided people are doing out of frustration and anger in the streets of Baltimore, while simultaneously cutting spending on the Arts in Education, overwhelms me with sadness and anger.

I shall teach, practice and perform--whatever I can do-to make my own life for the benefit of all sentient creatures.


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[Packy]

All this talk about lack of opportunity, education, all that makes me think of this saying: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. You are acting like all we need to do is take ghetto people, and pay their way to the state university, and bingo--prollem solved! No more poverty! Wow. I hate to say it, but that is very, very naive. Just plain wrong. There are some people that are just screwed up, and that is largely the reason they are in the ghetto. They don't possess the natural personal characteristics or the intellectual capacity to benefit from higher education Or employment opportunities in western society. They live off the fat of the land. It follows that the underlying motive behind this unrest is fear that "social programs" will be cut back; they figure that this media-fed concern of trouble spreading further out--of random attacks on middle-class people, will bring politicians to the table with more handouts, more entitlements, to placate Those People. Meanwhile, their numbers multiply, and we build more prisons, more subsidized housing, etc., to contain them. All there is to it. Watch and see. Also, my advice is, stop taking the blame for these misfits and malcontents. See? Hope that helps you some. Thankk Mee.

[Alan]

I totally agree Alan. But don't you agree that our various laws and "equal rights for all" and being "fair" to all gets in the way of things, and that leads to people thinking they can get away with destructive behavior?

No, I believe that equal rights and fairness for all is exactly what we need. By that I mean that people shouldn't be judged by anything other than the content of their characters. Our society's penchant for separating people into groups of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc., and holding different standards for each based upon our own biases and feelings of guilt, assigning victim status to some and privilege to others, creates groups who act exactly as we continue to see some groups act. If society allowed us all to be treated equally, with the same right to succeed and fail, to achieve fortune and misfortune, without being burdened by do-gooders holding us to lower standards, we'd all be better off.