[Saeko]

The longer this goes on, the more viable this kind of "be tough" stuff becomes, regardless of whatever isolated cases @Saeko or others may try to present.

That argument works both ways.

[Wulfschilde]

So, this post isn't going to win me any new friends on here but here goes

I actually see a shared issue between the reaction to COVID-19 and this George Floyd case. They're both instances of a historically unprecedented ability to cope with the reality of death.

In the case of COVID-19, old people get sick and die. A virus with a 0.1% chance of killing people was never considered a sufficient reason to shut down the world in the past. People accepted that old people get sick and die and they kept on going. In light of the suicides and so-on (such as California seeing a year's worth of suicides in one month) this is probably the smart thing to do.

As for George Floyd, I've been genuinely disturbed by the whole thing. But the reality is that there's a lot of violent criminals who need to get their necks held down by people's knees and you can't tell who is who until after the fact. The guy only died because of a heart condition and likely intoxicants. The truth is that older black men die of heart disease and intoxicants all the time in the US. But people are going nuts because they can't accept this. It's a pretty new thing.

The problem then is basically that our society has been taken over by a bunch of screaming pussies. No, you aren't winning people over when there's looting and burning happening and no, you aren't qualified to tell the police how to subdue potential criminals. And yes, you are going to fucking die and it is probably going to suck.

Now go read my post in creative writing!

[Saeko]

So, this post isn't going to win me any new friends on here but here goes

I actually see a shared issue between the reaction to COVID-19 and this George Floyd case. They're both instances of a historically unprecedented ability to cope with the reality of death.

In the case of COVID-19, old people get sick and die. A virus with a 0.1% chance of killing people was never considered a sufficient reason to shut down the world in the past. People accepted that old people get sick and die and they kept on going. In light of the suicides and so-on (such as California seeing a year's worth of suicides in one month) this is probably the smart thing to do.

As for George Floyd, I've been genuinely disturbed by the whole thing. But the reality is that there's a lot of violent criminals who need to get their necks held down by people's knees and you can't tell who is who until after the fact. The guy only died because of a heart condition and likely intoxicants. The truth is that older black men die of heart disease and intoxicants all the time in the US. But people are going nuts because they can't accept this. It's a pretty new thing.

The problem then is basically that our society has been taken over by a bunch of screaming pussies. No, you aren't winning people over when there's looting and burning happening and no, you aren't qualified to tell the police how to subdue potential criminals.

Now go read my post in creative writing!

Shut up incel.

[Beren]

That sounds nice in theory, but history would suggest otherwise. Nixon, for example, successfully campaigned on a law and order platform after the DNC riots in Chicago and the MLK riots nationally in 1968 (in Chicago, too, Major Daley took a harsh attitude that actually reminds one of Trump, and not only he was reelected but he died in office in 1974). After the 1992 LA riots, the Democratic Major retired and the election the following year was won by a Republican.

Different times, different context, I'd say. It's postmodernism at its highest this time.

[Wulfschilde]

Finally I have been called an incel. You have no idea how long I've waited for this day.

first of all I am not an incel. I literally went on a date a week ago, so I’m not incel. Second, you don’t even know that there are different extremities of incels. I want an egalitarian world, not a gynocentric world. Third, there is a common misconception that all incels want is sex. Yet I am not even ready for sex. Fourth, don’t assume someone’s ideologies based on one thing they said. Just because you can’t handle the truth doesn’t mean you should go out and say “I’m wrong” without validly proving your point. I was mainly going off of science, and apparently most people in the world don’t agree with science if it doesn’t fit their ideologies, even if science is true. That is like even if Trump appeals to you and you agree with his viewpoints on issues, you still vote Biden because you call yourself a Democrat. So if you could kindly educate yourself a lot more about Incels, TRP, and other related topics before you say stuff, I would appreciate it. But as I know of how stubborn you are, you won’t even consider looking deeply into topics and act like you know so much about them. This is what separates people like you and people like me. I look at both sides of every argument, and choose the one that is most rational, not go off of what other people say is “cool”. I rationally choose what I think is best for myself, my family, my community and my country. If you would like to know more about what I believe in, ask me (I know you won’t and you would still make stupid assumptions about me that aren’t true) in what I believe is right or wrong and not just say

[noemon]

Sorry but the only one who seems to be okay with police brutality here would be you, when committed by Greek police at least. I'm not ok with American, Chilean or Israeli police brutality - particularly when it ends with people killed - or other forms of abuse of power, but I'm also not okay with looting, arson, battery and murder, that needs to be stopped no matter how righteous your cause is and unfortunately that needs to be done by using force, even if it's the least force necessary to accomplish this task. I'd rather have the police do it instead of private citizens because the latter will tend to act with more force than necessary if they have the means (i.e. firearms) to do so, as the LA riots in 1992 painfully showed.

The Jewish apologist of Israeli brutality who has defended the Israeli brutality against Palestinians in this forum for years is back in form with "whataboutisms and distractions". Bottom line all your distractions are intended to serve one purpose alone to muddle the waters and blame the victims, much like your standard Palestinian victim-blaming.

If you have reading comprehension issues, let me say it again:

I do not support Greek police brutality, I have repeatedly stated that police being brutal deserves to be trashed just like we Greeks trash them in Greece always.

and in Greece we have instituted yearly parades since 2011 against police brutality, even that we do not consider it tolerable and we do something about it.

You think you have a point or that posting videos of Greece bother me, they do not bother me at all. I am not defending police brutality in the name of law & order like you nor am I defending the theft of both Christian & Muslim Palestinian properties by a regime who refuses to both acknowledge them as citizens and to leave them alone but rather prefers with your blessings to keep them in limbo like live animals that it can torture on a whim. Last conversation we had in this forum before you disappeared you were blaming the Christian victims of Israeli persecution for their own persecution. Back in form I see.

Your pretension that you are a "Latin non-citizen in the US, scared of Trump" was the ultimate height of pretension. You are the type of guy who considers Trump the new King Cyrus the Great.

You have no moral leg to stand on and your mask has come down.

It doesn't, but it has a bearing on how to fight it.

If it doesn't then why would you quote the Trump troll accounts that you follow as an argument that because this troll account will use the protests as a way to deligitimise them that it follows that the protests are now "illegitimate and coutner-productive", first of all you have betrayed yourself here and second you are just another troll account operating from a different posting style and trying to legitimise the exact same argument as the troll account you quoted. Bottom line is you are scared of the protests because they challenge the status quo which you consider essential for your own petty and nationalistic interests. At least be honest about it like Zionist Nationalist.

[Donna]

Certainly the State is responsible as well. But citizens have a duty, too, to respect the law so this doesn't happen and this is even more so given that there is recourse. Having a justified grievance doesn't give you right to riot and get people killed as a result of the ensuing lawlessness

According to Émile Durkheim society would never know the full extent of the underlying grievances if people didn't act out in violent and criminal ways. Rioting, obviously, requires a lot of nuance beyond moralistic condemnation or approval.

[Beren]

You own the 666th reply, @Donna, congratulations!

[ness31]

So, I might be on my own in what I’m about to say, but I find that Tou Thao cop even more reprehensible then the Chauvin guy. Does anyone else see it?

[Donna]

You own the 666th reply, @Donna, congratulations!

[Saeko]

Finally I have been called an incel. You have no idea how long I've waited for this day.

first of all I am not an incel. I literally went on a date a week ago, so I’m not incel. Second, you don’t even know that there are different extremities of incels. I want an egalitarian world, not a gynocentric world. Third, there is a common misconception that all incels want is sex. Yet I am not even ready for sex. Fourth, don’t assume someone’s ideologies based on one thing they said. Just because you can’t handle the truth doesn’t mean you should go out and say “I’m wrong” without validly proving your point. I was mainly going off of science, and apparently most people in the world don’t agree with science if it doesn’t fit their ideologies, even if science is true. That is like even if Trump appeals to you and you agree with his viewpoints on issues, you still vote Biden because you call yourself a Democrat. So if you could kindly educate yourself a lot more about Incels, TRP, and other related topics before you say stuff, I would appreciate it. But as I know of how stubborn you are, you won’t even consider looking deeply into topics and act like you know so much about them. This is what separates people like you and people like me. I look at both sides of every argument, and choose the one that is most rational, not go off of what other people say is “cool”. I rationally choose what I think is best for myself, my family, my community and my country. If you would like to know more about what I believe in, ask me (I know you won’t and you would still make stupid assumptions about me that aren’t true) in what I believe is right or wrong and not just say

Whoops. Looks like I struck a nerve.

SORRY! SIR! BUT! I! DO! NOT! SPEAK! KLINGON!!!

[Wulfschilde]

Whoops. Looks like I struck a nerve.

SORRY! SIR! BUT! I! DO! NOT! SPEAK! KLINGON!!!

Maybe you should learn? Try to understand where I'm coming from here...

By distancing myself from mainstream culture and societal trends, I have turned myself into a person who can't form connections with anyone due to a lack of common interests. My handful of close friends are only connected to me with thin strands of commonality that have already reached their limit. My current loneliness and desperation for female company will never be fulfilled because no girls can relate to me. My only comfort is simulations of relationships through inanimate objects and computer software. Am I destined to be an incel my entire life, or will I force myself to adopt elements of society I formerly deemed to be insufferable?

[Wellsy]

@Wellsy I beg to disagree, a great example of a conquest that was reached using the institutions in place would be the racial desegregation of public schools - and this was long before the race riots of the 1960s. Even worse, the use of violence by those who weren't willing to comply with the courts was one of the reasons of why they failed. In that sense, the most obvious and indeed revolting violence of those years was indeed started by the White Supremacists, not the African Americans - and theirs was a reaction to that as well.

To clarify is your point desegregation was a result of liberal means (ie not illiberal struggle) and as such didn’t require civil struggle

Or

That that it was a top down process that enacted desegregation? And thus not a product of the civil rights movement.

Because whilst there may have been racial conflicts after desegregation, such a point simply focuses in time after the fact of enacting desegregation. But when the question is posed as to what brought about such an enactment in the first place, it doesn’t seem intuitive to think it was solely a product of the government out of their benevolence rather than in response to pressure from the public and civil rights movement specifically.
Because politics is born in the public sphere typically, the government reforms on the end of public change more so than leads the charge and even when it does take a lead it still often works with groups that have already established themselves in pursuit of such reforms.

In fact it is but part of the cycle of a movement to successfully objectify in institutional changes, even if the movement is constituted by members within that institution to revitalize its principles.
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Jamison.pdf

[Saeko]

Maybe you should learn? Try to understand where I'm coming from here...

By distancing myself from mainstream culture and societal trends, I have turned myself into a person who can't form connections with anyone due to a lack of common interests. My handful of close friends are only connected to me with thin strands of commonality that have already reached their limit. My current loneliness and desperation for female company will never be fulfilled because no girls can relate to me. My only comfort is simulations of relationships through inanimate objects and computer software. Am I destined to be an incel my entire life, or will I force myself to adopt elements of society I formerly deemed to be insufferable?

Have you tried growing up?

[Prosthetic Conscience]

@Wulfschilde , if you truly think this is currently "a gynocentric world", then I suggest you work on understanding the world from other people's point of view; very few women could be said to live in an egalitarian world, and none in a gynocentric one. Don't mistake "many women find just a few men extremely sexy, and the rest of us have to work at relationships rather than having women throw themselves at us" for "women have the power in society". Most women work hard at both relationships, and their appearance, because they know that they get judged on both.

"Distancing yourself from mainstream culture and societal trends" has its consequences, yes. You may get lucky and find women who want to distance in the same way that you do, but you are inevitably taking a chance on that.

[Wulfschilde]

OK look you guys I'm not even incel I'm volcel. There's a difference.

I am not an incel.
There is a big difference between being a _volcel_ and being an incel ffs. Being a volcel means that you are VOLUNTARY in celibate, while incels are INVOLUNTARY in celibate. Calling me an incel will not make you any better, it will just make you look foolish. And no I am not a volcel because I can't get a date, I am a very attractive man and any woman would be lucky to have me. I am just not interested in shallow dating and the sins of the flesh. When I think about it, you are the incels but what you are celibate from is your own spirit. It thrives in thoughts and reflection, the soul withers when you are constantly seeking out new prey. So please get your facts right.

Edit: OK I've gtg, these were all copypastas btw.

[ness31]

You know, there’s a massive AI elephant in the fucking room with this Floyd thing, but I guess we’re all just going to ignore it yeah?

Whatever. Turns out that Elon was right though in his mistrust of AI.

[wat0n]

That argument works both ways.

Sure, it does, but only one of those ends in the White House. The other one ends up being infiltrated and dissolved by the FBI. I'll let you guess which is which.

Different times, different context, I'd say. It's postmodernism at its highest this time.

We'll have to find out, but this is more less constant over time, for wholly understandable reasons like not really liking to see your livelihood affected by these events. There is a term for a more extreme situation, when a Revolution goes "too far" and people get tired of all the quick changes and either repression or disorder.

Normally, I'd have thought that Biden's election would be just that. You know, let's go back to something resembling a more normal administration. But what happened this week may actually lead some to conclude that this isn't going to happen and that Biden will not deliver that, and desert him. And it may lead others to conclude Biden means that, but that it's a bad thing, that it means more of the same grievances they still have, and therefore will just remove themselves from the process of this election altogether. So this is a lose-lose situation for him.

@noemon: Just like I said I don't like American police brutality and you didn't believe me, I don't believe you either. Quid pro quo is a thing, and I can tell you didn't like it - but hey if you try to moralize using present-day Greece as a template you have to expect some scrutiny of your idea. The rest is just a mix of strawmen and ad-hominems and I won't bother addressing them, but I will tell you that so far I'd like to be able to stay in the US and what Trump represents for that prospect is not good - let alone the effects on the rest of the globe. Not everything revolves around Israel, in case you can't believe that, and even in that case I didn't appreciate his attempt to prop Netanyahu up for the elections to get him a "avoid jail card".

According to Émile Durkheim society would never know the full extent of the underlying grievances if people didn't act out in violent and criminal ways. Rioting, obviously, requires a lot of nuance beyond moralistic condemnation or approval.

Sure, and there are also practical, even tactical arguments against it such as those above. Police brutality is not new and neither is the grievance around it, even if it will still inevitably happen at some point even if nobody likes it. A riot, however, is unlikely to be able to solve it for good just like it didn't in 1992, for example. Not on its own for sure, and it might even be counterproductive.

And to be able to end it, you need to understand why it happens and that also cannot be done without the proper nuance. Saying that it's just racism isn't enough, after all, why does it keep happening even when majors are publicly antirracist, when they are African American, when the Police Superintendent is African American and even when the officers themselves are African American sometimes? I mean, going beyond the optics of having a White cop doing what he did this time around, it could have perfectly happened with a Black cop too although there wouldn't have been as much outrage for some reason. After all, it's supposedly about the institution itself, and not the individuals that are part of it.

So, what's going on exactly? My guess is that it's a mix of having an armed population makes it necessary for police to be more aggressive (you never know when could someone pull a gun on you), it's a mix of societal attitudes about African Americans (both racism and statistical discrimination, particularly when it comes to jurors since they are drawn from the citizenry and are not generally full time government employees) and overly powerful police unions (good luck governing if we strike!).

Black Lives Matter helped with the second one, and with jurors in particular, both because it has led people to reflect on these issues but just as importantly (I think) it's led to a more widespread use of bodycams among police, allowing for a more objective monitoring of their actions (it's harder to cover up) and in the Van Dyke trial in Chicago (sorry but since that's where I live I know more about it), the jurors themselves said that part of the footage was a key determinant of their decision to issue a guilty verdict in that case. Is it possible that many of these allegations in the past went uncorroborated since the cops destroyed the evidence, something they cannot do now? Of course it is. And it's also why I think this has been gradually been on its way to be addressed, but societal changes don't happen overnight. Let alone in an issue as historically explosive as American race relations.

To clarify is your point desegregation was a result of liberal means (ie not illiberal struggle) and as such didn’t require civil struggle

Or

That that it was a top down process that enacted desegregation? And thus not a product of the civil rights movement.

Because whilst there may have been racial conflicts after desegregation, such a point simply focuses in time after the fact of enacting desegregation. But when the question is posed as to what brought about such an enactment in the first place, it doesn’t seem intuitive to think it was solely a product of the government out of their benevolence rather than in response to pressure from the public and civil rights movement specifically.
Because politics is born in the public sphere typically, the government reforms on the end of public change more so than leads the charge and even when it does take a lead it still often works with groups that have already established themselves in pursuit of such reforms.

In fact it is but part of the cycle of a movement to successfully objectify in institutional changes, even if the movement is constituted by members within that institution to revitalize its principles.
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Jamison.pdf

It's a bit of both actually. I'm aware of why it happened (it was a Cold War imperative, as Eisenhower himself made clear when addressing the country on why he sent the military to enforce the court rulings in Little Rock in 1957), but then again it didn't happen from a process coming from within - although, too, the Jim Crow system in general was not particularly liked in the North. Not all changes are obtained through violence, particularly gradual ones like the very Civil Rights Movement (this is starting, too, from the idea that peaceful protest is part of a liberal democratic system).

[Saeko]

OK look you guys I'm not even incel I'm volcel. There's a difference.

I am not an incel.
There is a big difference between being a _volcel_ and being an incel ffs. Being a volcel means that you are VOLUNTARY in celibate, while incels are INVOLUNTARY in celibate. Calling me an incel will not make you any better, it will just make you look foolish. And no I am not a volcel because I can't get a date, I am a very attractive man and any woman would be lucky to have me. I am just not interested in shallow dating and the sins of the flesh. When I think about it, you are the incels but what you are celibate from is your own spirit. It thrives in thoughts and reflection, the soul withers when you are constantly seeking out new prey. So please get your facts right.

Edit: OK I've gtg, these were all copypastas btw.

Cope.

[Beren]

We'll have to find out, but this is more less constant over time, for wholly understandable reasons like not really liking to see your livelihood affected by these events.

Sure, but neither Minneapolis nor Minnesota will fall into chaos or anarchy, in the long term at least, while June will be African-American Music Appreciation Month. Everything will be fine by July at least and the real discussion on racism and police brutality, both of which I'm sure will be the main themes of the Democratic National Convention, may just begin then.