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Comment by athanas | Hacker News Reader

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athanas

Some people on HN like to read both sides of a story:

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/06/23/why-the-cop-who-shot...

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/07/16/philando-castile-got...

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That's so repulsive I don't think a mere downvote is enough.

That's a horrific character assassination of a man who did nothing wrong. Even if he were a hardened criminal (which he was not), cops are not judge and jury and it is repugnant to suggest they have the right to execute someone for having traffic tickets.

The level of pjmedia is just deplorable. One article makes the point that the police officer had his life threatened by someone who TOLD HIM IN ADVANCE THAT HE HAS A FIREARM because that's what you do when you want to shoot, and mentions nothing about conflicting requests: reach for the license, don't reach for the gun. The other one is complete non-sense trying to cast shadow on the Black Lives Matter movement (while hypocritically implying that the color of the victim's skin doesn't matter) and on the victim BECAUSE HE HAD BEEN PULLED OVER BY THE POLICE MULTIPLE TIMES AND HAD A FINE DEBT OF $6000. All of this obviously means his life should have been taken.

The techdirt article has two elements (which are not challenged by pjmedia) that make this a pure kill and power war in contrast with the term public servant: one is the facebook warrant for which no reason is given, reason based on what the police knew already on the victim, and the other is the lack of logic in the officer's TESTIMONY connecting smoking marijuana to willing to kill (statistics actually show the opposite).

This is character assassination and does not seem relevant to the issue of arbitrary warrants for information on related people by the police.

Anonymous coward indeed. What's in it for you? Why on earth would you want to peddle this crap?

What's wrong with sharing both sides point of view? Even if one side is pure evil, should we not at least give it an opportunity to defend it self?

Would your reasoning also apply to a racist tag performed on your door? Should it stay up to give them a platform for their point of view?

This platform is, and should be, moderated; I am not sure how this is controversial when /pol/ exists, and yet even that is (lightly) moderated.

In a real democracy it is common to let both sides speak, even in newspapers.

If someone shares one sides point of view in a forum I think many, including me, wants to know how the other sides look at it and let me make up my own conclusion. In this case I do not agree with the police side and I get frustrated and angry when I read it, but still I want to understand the complete picture. I think censoring speak because you do not agree is a very bad path, I stand by Voltaire.

I fail to understand what propaganda on ones door has to do with a discussion about a specific event at a news forum?

I did give that opportunity.

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