Thankfully I read where Darren Wilson supporters have raised about $350,000 so far to help him out. Since many won't accept anything short of a lynching, and pension funds, it's good to know he will have a emergency fund.
Thankfully I read where Darren Wilson supporters have raised about $350,000 so far to help him out. Since many won't accept anything short of a lynching, and pension funds, it's good to know he will have a emergency fund.
Well, yeah---I see nothing wrong with donors voluntarily helping this guy out, financially. Because, no doubt he will incur some expense before this is over. Plus, it hasn't been a pleasant experience for him, either.Originally Posted by dmc
It doesn't matter if the Mayoral candidate was unopposed--that doesn't somehow justify a perverse situation. As far as free elections go---in this area, which prides itself on being VERY conservative, there was an election in which the longtime incumbent public administrator(a Democrat & who sees to the finances of people who become incompetent or have no next-of-kin)was suddenly booted out of office by people mindlessly voting straight-ticket Republican. Her opponent was an individual who was a disgruntled former employee that had had a bankruptcy & various other baggage. Guess what? Even though she was legitimately elected, The Establishment set about to unseat her, through the courts, and succeeded! Not only did she not take office, but The Establishment reinstated the losing candidate, the incumbent. So, it demonstrates to me that just because you run, and win the election---well it ain't over yet.
Futile? One of my interests is the number of innovative, creative young people who come up with all kinds of inventions and discoveries to advance science and improve our lives. A large number of these kids are immigrants, or the offspring of immigrants. I'm not eager to send these brilliant students back—we need all the brains we can get.
I'd like to see some evidence for your (oft-stated) premise that today's immigrants are a bunch of insular malcontents/slackers—because I don't see it. I Of course, there are other insular groups—Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, Hasidic Jews, the Amish--that no one ever mentions. Closing yourself off from the society around you is certainly possible, but it leads inevitably to sclerosis of the mind and heart.
I live on the Seattle Eastside, which is—like Seattle in general—an IT melting pot. People come here from all over the world to work for Microsoft and other techno-behemoths. I don't see a lot of unrest here. When I worked as an intern, my immediate supervisor was from Beijing (married to an Italian-American), and my work group consisted of students from Mexico and China, and a woman from Canada. I often relate the time a few of us went to lunch at a Japanese restaurant and Li and I practiced our Arabic on each other (she had worked in Israel, where she picked it up. She was there to teach Israelis Chinese.) Is this the world you're so afraid of? It could hardly be more exciting to me. My youth was so bland; everyone seemed exactly the same—talk about insulated! When I studied languages, it was a treat to even find current reading material, let alone native speakers to practice on. :-D Anyway, if it weren't for immigration, I wouldn't be here, and neither would my Spanish, French, Yaqui SO (all of whose siblings speak English, btw, even though their father did not.)
It's a cliché' that the only thing constant in life is change. Who knows what this country will look like in a hundred years—surely different than it did a hundred or two hundred or several hundred years ago. Maybe the original owners will take it back (whoever the “original” owners are).
So if say, a Muslim doctor kills a number of people on an army base, we would be justified in punishing a few random Muslims (or perhaps a few random doctors) as a way to encourage the others to exert peer pressure for good behavior?
To me this is different, very different. The police have power over us, carry guns, can arrest us and hassle us, and therefore I hold them to a higher standard. In Ferguson they have not only failed my standard, but many other people's, too, and it will be interesting to see how much money transfers via lawsuits against the Ferguson police department - and overreaching officers from local police departments that stopped by to "help". Rob
If he does get off scott free, that money is enough to buy him a passport/citizenship in several countries. For his own safety and perhaps sanity, I'd recommend leaving the US even for him - though this may not be possible due to the internet and this officer's notoriety. Rob
Rob, I get the feeling that you need for everyone you talk to here, to agree with you. It's just never going to happen. We've all had so many varied experiences, it would be fairly impossible to get everyone to agree.
Jane........here's some more of my "oft-stated" stuff. (It has always seemed to bother you the most around here). I think one problem we're all having here is that all of us have, like I just said to Rob, such a variety of different experiences. Some of live in the middle of all sorts of cultures and people who get along. Some of us have had mostly bad experiences with certain types/cultures of people. Of course not everyone in different groups is going to be the same. I think it's pretty natural, if a person sees a certain type of behavior in a certain group of people over and over......there are going to be some generalizations made.
We should all strive for and hope for a peaceful co-existence with everyone. But sometimes people live around a skewed representation of certain types, and it would be naive to not acknowledge that.
I'm happy for you that you live in a place where everyone is happy and reasonable. But not everyone lives in a place like that. And it sounds like you're talking about, and interacting with very bright people from different cultures. That is quite different from the people I'm referring to in some of what I've said. Plus........as I said, I was trying to understand why some things might lead to some problems in cultures.
Cathy, people here are not going to agree with me. That's been made abundantly clear. I get that. I don't need people to agree with me per se - I post as I am a bit of fresh air around here - I hold positions that are unpopular, would you not agree with that? I can't change what took place/is taking place in Missouri, much as I'd like to. The little that I can do is to provide some kind of illumination as to why people would react the way that they did in Ferguson and to also show how less incomed people perceive the police and the courts in general. It's not a pretty picture, no, but there are more people that think like this than just me and the number grows every year with more people being booted out of the middle class. Rob
Also, I try to point out that there are more takes on this situation that the one that seems to reign on this board. Another way of looking at it is that you know how employers hold workers accountable for every last little thing these days no matter how small? We're talking of quite large issues here that are not going to politely go away - it's time to hold the police and the courts accountable mercilessly and relentlessly so I see it. It's been a long time in coming but perhaps (?) this will be the incident that does spark some positive change in the police and courts?
To be fair, I'm betting that this has not been a pleasant experience for him at all and he probably did not foresee all this happening after the shooting. I don't feel sympathy per se but I can see where this officer's life is never going to be the same again - supposing that there is no indictment, how safe is he? How could he realistically just stroll into the Ferguson police department and assume his prior duties as if nothing happened? Plus we don't know what kind of emotional scars he now bears due to fallout he probably thought he was immune from or didn't even think of in the first place. I truly wish this officer had never met up with Michael Brown to begin with but maybe, maybe, maybe, the good to come out of this will be some social change? There is a bill being drafted right now by a Democrat from Georgia in regards to reigning in the militarization of the police, for example. At least some unpleasant issues are on the table receiving proper international attention. Rob
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