Protesting that cops kill black people and face no legal consequences is ridiculous?
The idea that there are cops on safari hunting black people is a fundamentally absurd notion. When it is clear that the officer was involved in a "bad shoot", those officers are removed from duty and charged with murder/manslaughter. If you can point me to one that was not, I'd be very interested to learn more. However, it is often difficult to determine a bad shoot from a "good" one, which is the primary issue.
Cops disproportionately target black Americans because black Americans commit a disproportionate percentage of the crime in America. And you don't need to stop at the overall crime rate, you can look at how black Americans kill a disproportionate number of cops.
There were 511 officers killed in felonious incidents and 540 offenders from 2004 to 2013, according to FBI reports. Among the total offenders, 52 percent were white, and 43 percent were black.[1]
And according to the 2010 US Census [2], the racial split in the US was: White: 72.4%
Black: 12.6%
I think the numbers speak for themselves. Do these numbers justify cops killing unarmed civilians that pose no threat? OF COURSE NOT. But that is almost never the case. Remember, cops are not the military (they are not tried in internal military tribunals), and they do not have immunity. At the end of the day, it is up to the DA to bring charges against a police officer, and the DA will usually not bring said charges if that DA does not think he/she can prove in a court of law that it was a bad shoot. So yes, there are racist cops. But that should only be a crisis if you believe the US' entire justice system to be racist against black people.[1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/01/...
[2] - https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdf
.. and then acquitted. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/us/white-tulsa-officer-is...
> the US' entire justice system to be racist against black people
I believe that's a key part of the BLM argument, yes.
The Tulsa County District Court jury of eight women and four men, including at least four black jurors
Jury decisions need to be unanimous, so at least four black people thought this woman was not guilty of manslaughter. A truly outrageous verdict from a truly racist justice system.I'd also like to point out that, although unarmed, the victim was high on PCP at the time of the shooting, and PCP is nothing to joke about. It causes erratic and often dangerous behaviour.
Case in point: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/man-high-pcp-shows-s...
Of course, Black Lives Matter isn't a well defined group, so you can't blame all of them for the actions of a few. But that's true of people who want <insert right leaning policy proposal here>.
The library video with BLM harassing students was extremely embarrassing. Shit like that would get people arrested over there and nobody would look at them seriously ever after.
That may or may not be influenced by my northern-ish shy attitude.
Act like idiots = be treated like idiots.
What does this mean? What is "thrashing shit and taking over rallies"? Under what circumstances do you think it's acceptable for police to shoot citizens?
Clicks profile, and understands the statement. Sorry mate, but Eastern euro right is considered extreme compared to western euro right. To you this may seem business as usual.
Could you elaborate on this "going bananas"?
> While the right seem to be business as usual.
* Pushing through Gorsuch using nuclear option
* Trying to deprive 10s of millions of people of healthcare multiple times without even publicly showing the proposed bill(s)
* Banning cameras and reporters from briefings
* Electing a GOP congressman one DAY AFTER assaulting a reporter, on live tape.
* The president contradicting generals and trying to incite wars over twitter, and the GOP majority congress and senate letting it slide. Time after time, after time.
* etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
You're either trolling or your calibration for "business as usual" is sincerely fucked up.
In most of Europe a major party advocating for legalising illegal migrants or opening borders doesn't stand a chance. This is why migrants vs refugees discussion is huge in Europe. People are OK to help refugees but most people don't want unlimited uneducated immigrants. The difference is what people see as refugees. In Western Europe, only extreme left (= greens and communists) advocate for open borders or legalising illegals. In Eastern Europe, such discussion is completely off the table.
> * Trying to deprive 10s of millions of people of healthcare multiple times without even publicly showing the proposed bill(s)
US healthcare look 100% fucked up. Be it Obamacare or post or pre that. I don't see how GOP stance changed on this. They always were fucked up in this regard, they still are. Thus business as usual.
> * Banning cameras and reporters from briefings > * Electing a GOP congressman one DAY AFTER assaulting a reporter, on live tape. > * The president contradicting generals and trying to incite wars over twitter, and the GOP majority congress and senate letting it slide. Time after time, after time.
I was talking about overall left vs right tendencies, not about single politicians. GOP was weird a decade ago, it still is now. Democrats went full retard IMO. I can't see what was going on their minds to push HRC. She's probably the only person that could have lost to Trump and, well, she did! I'd love to see Trump vs. Sanders election in parallel universe. IMO he'd have better chance. It was pretty clear that public wants "non-establishment" candidate. HRC is as establishment as it gets. Sanders is less establishment than Trump with his business history.
I was stating that they wanted to deprive a further 20 million people of healthcare, from the current system, ACA ("obamacare") which, while needing fixes, is still better than the old system. They (GOP) with a near complete unity (missing 3) tried to push through a bill with 12% (!) approval rating. If that is business as usual, the GOP took a wrong turn, you can't honestly deny that.
> I was talking about overall left vs right tendencies, not about single politicians. GOP was weird a decade ago, it still is now. Democrats went full retard IMO. I can't see what was going on their minds to push HRC.
Are you actually for real? You're saying that democrats went "full retard" in regards to nominating Hillary Clinton, and nothing is wrong when republicans went with Trump? Have you had your head in the sand for the last 6 months? Really?
I won't deny that Sanders would've had better chances, and most likely would've been elected, but there is a stark difference between effective politics and rational politics.
HRC nomination was either full retard or just being delusional and careless. It was truly painful to watch the campaign and see her (and to extent, Democrats) make mistake after mistake. I'm surprised she lost by such a small margin. But then it was loosing to Trump, which is even more surprising.
All in all, popcorn economy is doing great. I hope democrats will collect themselves and put up a reasonable candidate next time. Or maybe GOP will make progress. I don't see how they could get worse so only way is up.
It's interesting you bring this up, because it was a surprise to me when I first heard it from Europeans I spoke with while traveling. Of course it's anecdata, but immigration is a huge deal in Europe and many want it severely limited.
The US is routinely painted as racist and xenophobic (and I think on average incorrectly), but Europe if far from a magically enlightened place. And, depending what ethnic group is trying to immigrate into what country, Europeans can be worse than many Americans.
> I'd love to see Trump vs. Sanders election in parallel universe.
I think Sanders would have won. He gave populism a voice without the Trump baggage. I think socially, Sanders would have done wonders for the US.
But on immigration front.. Europe is built on nation states and that won't change for at least several generations, regardless of what media is saying. I think the main difference is US have problem with underclass of different ethnicity. Thus differences are very stark. Poverty amplifies differences and you get the endless loop. Being homogenous, Europe didn't have have such problem until now. There was no place for such issues to come up. Jews may have been somewhat similar case. But they were relatively educated and rich. Which, while bringing in it's own set of issues, covered a lot of other issues.
However, several countries are headed on US path. Personally I don't see how uneducated migrants can get to median life in a generation or two. Especially with less and less industry and more automation. Different culture and poverty is highway to US style racism/xenophoby/etc. This is one of the main reasons why I'm against migration. Today's Europe can't give good life (by Euro standards) to millions of uneducated people from different cultures. Importing people and then keeping them as underclass is not good neither to newcomers, nor to host countries.
To be fair, something like 30-35% of votes were cast in that election before the assault (postal, early, etc.)
(What should have happened is that he was then ejected from the party and the election re-run. But that would require honour and dignity from the GOP...)