:rolleyes:
Well aren’t you perfect.
It’s just sad that you think it is an expression of self-righteousness to say that the vast majority of humans do not wish for kids “like the looters” to be executed in the streets.
(Most of us don’t think even the looters themselves should be murdered, much less some ill-defined category of their type, though I appreciate that there are those who think nothing of shooting a boy in the face if he tries to steal a TV from your store.)
That’s not me being on a high horse. It’s me being an utterly ordinary, sinful human who just happens to lack the severe racial resentment issues or whatever that cause a person to think like this.
Having a passing thought that someone “got what they deserved” is hardly the same thing as favoring some sort of policy of public executions or whatever it is you’re desperately trying to move the goalposts to.
When the thing they “got” was being shot to death, it is not moving the goalposts one inch to observe that most people do not have a “passing thought” that the kind of people who might loot deserve to be shot to death. Having that thought is not normal. If you’re having that thought and telling yourself that everyone else has that thought, you’re wrong. You’re using a defense mechanism to make yourself feel better about having such a fascist thought.
You don’t need to keep going on about how perfect you are. I’ve got it. You are so much better than the rest of us that you can’t even comprehend how bad we all are.
I’m in awe of your excellence.
The last time you got mugged, instead of being afraid you probably just felt pity at the poor soul. After all, he must have had such a bad upbringing to lead him to this life of crime.
Do you do life counseling? Are you available? Clearly the rest of us need your help.
Did watching or reading about this looting make you feel like you got mugged, Debaser?
Here is the victim’s friend eyewitness testimony:
Do you believe him?
Who is blaming the store owners?
Yet, YOU are the one that injected race into the discussion. I stand by my statement regardless of the color of the groups involved. Schmuck.
Here’s your problem right here. Vandalism and theft do are not justified. And the people doing the looting aren’t looking for justice, they’re looking for flat screen TVs and Air Jordans. I wish you owned one of those stores that’s get ransacked and damaged. The you’d be able to sit back and enjoy their justice in action up close and personal. Hell, maybe even join in yourself. Because you’re a double schmuck.
I tend to believe him. I have been treated poorly by the police when I was a young man, trying to find my way in the world. I also believe that the officer probably didn’t leave the house intending to shoot a man. He may have. I’ve met people who believe themselves to be entitled to pass judgement and carry out sentence. I have a friend who simply will not believe the word of a black man over a white cop. He recently had the misfortune to be treated like shit by the police for calling an ambulance because an acquaintance brought a friend to his house from the bar who promptly went into his bathroom and overdosed on heroin. He still doesn’t see the similarities in his being mistreated and this young man. He wasn’t knowingly breaking the law and he’s butthurt that someone would think that he was.
The cops in his case had a definite justification for their suspicion.
The people in this area have the same type of suspicion forced on them for existing in a darker shade, not necessarily from any concrete evidence of wrongdoing. While working on call, I have had conversations with police from a neighboring municipality that basically went like this. Me: "A tenant in apartment building A says that a tenant in apartment building B is in the parking lot waving a gun around." Officer(knowing that I'm a white guy who takes care of the place because we've talked before): " Yeah that's the way these people are, He (aptA) is probably just has a beef with (aptB) these people use us to fight their battles for territory if they can. We'll check it out." Turns out there was a 19 year old man with a handgun brandishing it in the parking lot. He was arrested and no longer lives in the complex. My problem is with the very real "us vs. them" attitude that seems to be more common than it should be among law enforcement. This breeds a hatred on both sides and you can say that both sides are equally responsible, but when one side has a legal right to carry and use a firearm against the other who kind of has that right but can't use it to defend himself from a man with a badge. I am just saddened by this whole thing and I get to go home to a relatively safe (from looters and police) existence. I just can't really imagine what it would be like to have to live in that area. I know I'm coming off as a little detached and maybe snobby, and I'm trying not to. I don't think I'm better than the people of Ferguson. I just feel like maybe I got a better shake than some of them.
As for the looting and rioting, I’m not at all sure I would be able to act as rationally as I can viewing it from the outside. This why I wrote that I don’t condone or support the action, but I can understand that desperate and distraught people often act irrationally and often act against their best interests.
Uh, you realize the posts you make stick around, right? Perhaps you need to craft a story around that reality and what you actually said:
[QUOTE=septimus]
Once again, let’s all blame the victims.
…
Leave it to the right-wing racist assholes to make the story about the looters, not about the innocent unarmed teenager shot dead by police.
[/QUOTE]
So far I asked two people and they refused to answer. So I will ask you:
Is it possible that you would loot stores and set them on fire in that same situation? It seems to me that you’re hinting at it, but I’d like you to tell me explicitly.
Half of this discussion is exactly why I pitted both the police and the looters. The looters because they have steered the discussion toward themselves and away from the fact that the police shot an unarmed man(barely) to death. Not barely to death, cause barely dead is just as dead as really dead. Definitely more than Mostly dead. Barely a man at age 18.
I surely do not know. I was not raised in a broken home. I have a reasonably decent education, I have never had one of my family killed or injured or even so much as profiled in the way that many of the people of Ferguson have. I would certainly like to think that I wouldn’t respond that way, I pray I never have to find out.
I didn’t ask you if you would. I asked if it is possible that you would. Seems like your answer is yes, it is possible?
I’m never quite sure what the point of this sort of question is.
“Excuse me, sir, but could you give me a sense of the possibilities regarding your potential actions in a situation that is not remotely like anything that you have ever experienced, and is extremely unlikely ever to be a part of your experience, so that i can make a snap judgment about you for partisan political purposes.”
Well, you gotta understand that Terr has never taken been in a position to take inchoate rage and anger out on a wrong target. It’s pretty typically human, but he’s ascended to a higher plane. He’s above that shit.
Well no, you gotta understand that I don’t think it is possible that in anger at police I would ever go loot a store and set it on fire. And for people who don’t think (or refuse to say) that it’s possible that they would do it, to express “understanding” for other people doing it is, IMO, regarding those “other people” as lesser human beings who don’t know better and can’t be expected to do better.
My nineteen year old self or me? When I was a teenager, If one of my peers was unarmed, shot to death by the police in broad daylight, you bet your ass I would be wreaking some sort of havoc. Are all of the protesters bad, or only the looters? Is it only okay to demonstrate for causes that you believe in, or is it okay for me to have a different opinion than you? Now, I am nearing forty. I don’t have the energy to go back across the river and protest, let alone loot and pillage. And by the way, who the fuck are you to sit at whatever computer your sitting at and assume you know anything about me or what kind of person I am? Your inability to see shades of gray has left you blind. It seems that the people who are so self-assured in their own righteousness are the kind of people that cause situations like the one Ferguson, or the one in Iraq(let me give you a hint, it isn’t the U.S. this time), or the one in Kansas(they’re broke). It comes down to the idea of “us vs. them” I was replacing a counter top in Ferguson today, The folks whose house I was in are as scared of the looters as they are the police. Did you read my OP? Why would you think that I supported the looting in any way? Those assholes are the ones who are taking the spotlight off of the young man who was shot to death. I know it may be amazing to someone like you, who has only had righteous thoughts from birth, but my opinions and philosophies have grown and evolved in between my birth and now. I’m sorry you couldn’t have your gotcha! Is time all of us understand that it has never been “us vs. them” we are them.
Because you’re “understanding” them.
Understanding and justifying are the same thing? I didn’t start this thread to argue over the meanings of words that most of English speaking society agree have different meanings. I started it after a long hard day of working and listening to many people talk about how horrible the assholes who looted and burned were, and not listening to people offer up suggestions that would appreciably help old white men understand young black men and young black men understand old white men. Understanding why someone did something is not the same as saying it’s okay. I’m not entirely sure why I should have to explain that to any adult. Do you understand why the ISIL is cornering those people in northern Iraq? Do you condone it? See you know why they’re doing it, but probably don’t condone it. See how that works?