For your purposes, I suggest that The US has developed an honour ethic well suited to 'the Wild West, and if you believe Pirsig, heavily influenced by Native American ethics. — unenlightened

Not disagreeing entirely, except that I think you paint too broad a brush when you speak of the US honor ethic. Most of my information comes from a book I read a while ago Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South. A distinction is made between the South and North, and it's very evident when you look at the distinctions in ideologies of the New England states versus the southern ones and the types of laws the pass (especially as they relate to providing healthcare and other benefits). I suspect much could be written about the Scandinavian influences of the mid-west and we could likely go region by region in finding these variations.

An interesting study on this issue: http://cognitionandculture.net/wp-content/uploads/InsultAggressionAndTheSouthernCulture.pdf

This article describes an experiment where Southerners would walk down a hallway where a man stood in their way. The Southerner would give him a very wide berth and try to avoid him. The guy would bump the Southerner and the guy would call him an asshole. When compared to Northerners, the Southern guy gave a wider birth, would be more agitated, and when encountering the man for a second time on the way back, would give very little berth, and would attempt to provoke an altercation.

The Northerner wouldn't care and wouldn't remember.

Your description of the Southern honor culture as primitive or as in antiquated due to societal changes is commentary I don't agree with. I think if you have buy in by the citizens that this type of demanded autonomy is a moral virtue, it can and does work.

I'm not following the link you attempt to draw between the jungle and the city. It seems more a distinction between sparsely and densely populated areas, especially as it relates to isolated areas. If you live in small spread out communities separated by bonnie bonnie bens and braes, you're going to develop greater autonomy and a need for individualized protection because you don't have the defense of the group around you.

I also don't see how the culture of Germany is synonymous with the culture of Scotland and Ireland. The former suffered from a perverse sense of hyper-community, an out of control nationalism, and a rejection of anything slightly in variation of the norm. The latter strikes me as a hodgepodge of loosely affiliated people trying to eke out an existence largely clan to clan. The German government (and German people really) are a highly organized systematized unit. The Scotch-Irish not so much.

I just can't see how the ethic of the Scotch Irish could have ever led to a holocaust. One reason they couldn't arrive at such a plan is because they didn't have a peat covered hut big enough to meet in and most of the adult males were out fucking goats.

What do you think the reason is for that kamikaze “hurrah” we see too often on this forum? There have been a few now who clearly decide they are going to act out and get banned. — DingoJones

A topical analogy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_by_cop

I never was a boy scout, and was a remarkably inept cub scout. — Ciceronianus the White

I was never a boy scout or cub scout, but I was a cub scout leader, having volunteered after no one else would. It was some years ago, but my recollection is that it involved visiting fire stations and nature centers and putting together bird houses and having parents pretend their children made the professionally crafted soapbox derby cars that would be subjected to serious competition. You could also earn belt loops and pins and stuff, which some kids took great pride in and others couldn't keep track of.

I'm not sure what it taught, but it's really important to some people and a point of great pride. My kids attended because if I had to, they had to, but they were more interested in throwing and kicking balls than in citizenship and craftsmanship.

Perhaps off topic, but I am aware of the honor culture, which is prevalent among Celtic cultures and explains the differing ethic of the American South, especially in the Appalachian region, which was largely settled by the Scotch and Irish. It's best defined, per wiki, as "The traditional culture of the Southern United States has been called a "culture of honor", that is, a culture where people avoid intentionally offending others, and maintain a reputation for not accepting improper conduct by others. A theory as to why the American South had or may have this culture is an assumed regional belief in retribution to enforce one's rights and deter predation against one’s family, home and possessions."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_honor_(Southern_United_States)

It leads to such things as the Hatfield and McCoy feud. Whether it's an ethic worth defending, I don't know, and I'm guessing it's different from the ethic you stumbled upon, but it's one near and dear to my heart.

I banned @Nuke today for refusing moderation after multiple deletions of posts and specific PMs asking him to stop posting low quality posts containing nothing other than pictures with no verbal content.

The domination of systemic racism
discourse makes Tramp's "Make America Great Again" rhetorics meaningless, so his campaign has to invent the different rhetorics asap. — Number2018

What Trump needs to do is double down on his MAGA platform, and he will. There will be zero Trump supporters who will change their vote due to what you see as a major change in ideology.

But then how complicated is voting that you need an education to do it? Or that an education differential causes a large difference in waiting times. — Benkei

They just got all new voting machines and the training on them was apparently very limited. It's not rocket science, but they have scan your driver's license, load up some card thing, have you insert the card into the voting machine, cast your ballot, print your result, scan your result, and then get a sticker that says "I Voted Today." I can say that whenever we upgrade our technology at our office, there's always someone who can't figure it out or there's some snafu somewhere, but then there's always that guy that can magically figure it out. They have fewer magicians in the poor areas.

It is not clear if another decisive result will be Trump’s re-election. — Number2018

No predictions are really clear. It's all speculation, but I really can't see middle America finding anything acceptable about defunding the police. In fact, there is tremendous support for the police nationwide. It's just been silenced for the moment. I don't even think the African American leadership is totally comfortable with these attacks on police departments. Most big cities are Democratically controlled, meaning the mayors and police chiefs are typically Democrats and oftentimes minority. I'm not fully convinced that even inner city minority citizens want to see police withdrawal from their communities, as I've heard their complaints in the past were that it took too long in their communities for the police to arrive, if at all.

What is poised to take place is that in inner city communities with high crime rates, they will have fewer police, but in affluent communities where there is strong support for police, there will be more enforcement. How is it that this is a win for the inner city? It sounds like turning the clock back to me and abandoning those most in need.

It's just typical that although it affected everyone, it's again something that appears to affect black/poor communities more. — Benkei

I think that's right. The more affluent and educated the community, the more educated the poll workers and the voters, so they're able to navigate problems better as they arise.

you manage to vote? I saw some crazy waiting lines on the Daily Show. — Benkei

Yes. The line wasn't that long, but it went really slow. In the morning it was too long, so I came back in the afternoon.

How nefarious this all was, I don't know. It felt like incompetence in getting enough of the new machines to the polling places in time. Yesterday was election day and the last day to vote, but you could vote anytime last week and if you had requested a paper ballot, you could have voted and dropped off your ballot whenever you wanted.

If this was intentional voter suppression, they were mastermind evil geniuses in figuring out how to make this look like a fuck up. Gazing into the eyes of those in charge, it wasn't genuis I saw, but maybe that's part of their genius.

I'm also not sure what could have been gained even if they suppressed minority vote.. This was a primary, not the general election. No Republicans or Democrats were elected, but just the candidates from the respective parties were chosen for the general election. I'm too think the Republicans wanted their challenger to be a lesser evil in the event they lost, so they manipulated the primary? Sounds like a pretty lame plan. Should have saved the manipulation for the actual election if you ask me.

Clinton won Georgia in 1992. — 180 Proof

I voted for him. I voted for Mondale in 84 and Dukakis in 88.

The Democrat Party was a bit different back then too, you know. — ssu

So was I.

I think you will be accompanied by many Republicans that never have voted for a Democrat Presidential candidate before. — ssu

From 1831 to 2003, Georgia never had an elected Republican Governor. During all of that history Georgia was overwhelmingly Democrat, both at the state and federal level. The first Republican Senator in Georgia (ever) was in 2003 when Saxby Chambliss was elected.

Georgians voting for Republicans is a new phenomenon. All of this has to do with the Civil War and the South's reluctance to vote Republican, the party of Lincoln. It took over 150 years to swing that vote.

In modern times, there has been a trend to vote for Republicans for President starting in the 1960s (voting for Goldwater over Johnson due to Johnson voting for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 followed by George Wallace, then of the Dixiecrat party), but there have been exceptions. Georgia did vote for Carter in 1976, but he was a Georgian after all.

No I agree systemic racism is pretty upsetting and if anyone gave a shit about their own self well-being they'd want to do everything in their power to see the end of it. — StreetlightX

Very well, but what do we see as the predicted outcome of the current awakening to racial inequities? Is it that people will do as you suggest and throw their very being into its elimination, or will they march while the marches take place and then go back to business as usual, or will they hold their breath until all this passes, or will they recommit to protecting the institution that they never thought racist in the first place?

My prediction is that they will not do as you think they should, but that it will likely be one of the other approaches. Leaving aside the question of how bad and systemic the problem truly is, unless you are the one oppressed, it is unlikely you will spend the time trying to resolve the problem, whatever it is. Will the white middle class Democrat from the mid-west really vote for the person who wishes to defund the police department or who stands in unity with the person who riots in the streets? Will they kneel when the flag is raised? I seriously doubt it. What do you expect the Asian immigrants will do or even the Latino immigrant? Trump did not win the last election from just stirring up his base of FoxNews Republicans. He won by taking states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio.

There's all this talk about how much progress these riots have brought about. My point is that it is far from clear what the final result will be. The opposition to the riots has been largely silenced to where it has become politically incorrect to object, so much so that people pretend to care more than they do. The 2016 polls showed Trump didn't stand a chance. It's because those folks don't speak except at the polls.

The New England liberal, the black southerner, the west coast environmentalist, the union worker, and the Latino immigrant are all cobbled together under the same party. What is going on here is not a unifying issue, and how it plays out might be very different from how is expected.

He's exasperated by the disaster that is Georgia's attempt at having an election and doesn't understand why you can't just use paper and pencil like a sensible society. — Michael

I just told the man with the mask behind the desk who I wanted to vote for and he put a tic mark next to the name and then I went home. I don't see what the big deal is.

Speaking of annoying goings ons, my dog keeps shaking his head and rubbing his head on the couch. I'm thinking an XXS attack.

seems words only have meaning when the experience the worst is based on is shared by more than one witness. Otherwise the information cannot be conveyed. — Benj96

If you never conveyed the meaning to another but then encountered the color a month later and said to yourself "there's that phlibex again," why wouldn't that statement have meaning to you?

The biggest problem facing the African American community is not the police. Not by a long shot. A single man is murdered in Minnesota and this barely makes headlines. https://www.foxnews.com/us/chicago-saw-its-deadliest-day-in-60-years-with-18-murders-in-24-hours-report

The protesters are arguing about how to rearrange the chairs on the Titanic.

Just like Hitler hated lots of people! Equal opportunity murder! Nothing to do with Jews! — StreetlightX

I appreciate you're trying to make the point that police brutality is sufficiently enough about race that it's appropriate to say black lives matter without identifying other groups who might also be affected, but the analogy to Nazi Germany hardly applies. The oppression faced by blacks, even characterized at its must hyperbolic, is dramatically less than the systematic gassing of Jews. When you compare today to Nazi Germany, you don't maximize the sympathy for blacks, but you minimize the concern for Jews. I say this not to chastise, but just to point out where other sensitivities lie, considering the ultimate goal is greater empathy for all.

But as I was picking up litter, the SUPREME BLACK RACE would drive by, shouting 'work harder you white fuckhead!' at me while throwing fast-food wrappers behind me where I had just picked up, and occasionally hitting me with beer bottles — ernestm

Sometimes you can talk to your probation officer and they'll reassign your community service in order to make things safer for you.

Can the police line not proceed at a slower, less violent speed, so that the people who refused to clear the area are merely pushed back, with little enough force that they can stay on their feet but enough force that they can’t stay in place, rather than being harshly shoved to the ground risking serious injury? — Pfhorrest

No excuses, but I doubt the officer expected the man to fall back completely defenseless like that. He was old and frail and couldn't balance himself or brace himself. You'd think (or hope) if it were a woman or child, the officer would have better recognized the strength disparity.

Stop assaulting peaceful protesters. How hard is that? How hard is to train police to restrict themselves to a reasonable level of force appropriate to the situation? — Baden

It's interesting really because I do think this is more the issue than has been discussed. The guy was white who was pushed over. This had nothing to do with race.

American police are mean as shit. It's a thing. I hear how black parents lament the fact they have to teach their children to be careful around cops, but I can't say I learned anything different. If my son (for example) told me that he stood in the path of police in riot gear and he got shoved to the ground, I would ask him why his crazy ass was in the way of police. If they say move, you move. I think they are taught to take charge like that. Is that not a thing in Europe?

You can find that in my recent post history actually. But yes, you are asking obedience in the guise of rationality. You love order above justice whereas I think civil disobedience is a duty where society perpetuates injustice where fundamental rights are infringed by state actors. Depending on the circumstances that may include violence. — Benkei

Describe what that civil disobedience looks like instead of having me sort through your post history. Does it include taking liquor from stores?

And the irony of course in that today I am accused of being a dove while you proudly proclaim you're a hawk.

Did the American founding fathers get in a room and compromise with King George? Did FDR get in a room with Hirohito and Hittler and find "common ground"? Did president Bush get in a room and compromise with the Taliban, or Sadam, or Bin Laden for that matter?

When it is your class using violence to reach political objectives, it's "serious discussion", "just war theory", "tough love", "doing what it takes", "no bleeding heart liberal hippy bullshit".

Yet, as soon as other classes express their power for violence to reach political objectives, it's "woe, woe, peaceful protest! peaceful protest! Violence isn't the answer bro! This isn't the non-violence of Martin Luther King! For the love of God, listen to MLK, just listen! Partake with me in the sacred compromise in the arms of the Holy Goddess!" — boethius

Right, and did the Democrats sit in a room and work out the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or did they go to war? It seems like those divisions were far greater then than today, yet the non-violence thing you mock actually worked.

So, I can either accept your view that because sometimes war is necessary it's always necessary, or I can realize that sometimes the things that separate us are less than those that bind us and we don't need to go to war. And let's be realistic here, the closer this gets to actual war, the worse off for the protesters. The moment the government convinces itself there is a true existential threat, it will unapologetically eliminate that threat. The point being that my desire to reach compromise does come from a place of seeking justice and having sympathy. It's not like the US government really is against the ropes and being forced into compromise.

That's supposed to be what politics and Parliament is for. It doesn't work to correct racial and socio economic injustice. This "play nice" has to go until such time as there's some assurances with regard to policies that work so that police brutality will stop. No sitting in a room until there's a genuine offer of good will from the rest of society. Until that time the rest of society can majorly fuck off. — Benkei

So what are you advocating if not playing nicely? What I've seen from not playing nicely is bricks through windows and looting. Surely that's not what you're suggesting, but I don't know. You'll need to clarify.

History teaches us something else:

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, but must be violently taken by the oppressed. — boethius

That was the message you derived from MLK?

"Boohoo, the oppressed classes are revolting, it's not like providing an argument that I don't have is going to get them back to work. What I do have is the whip though, and therefore should use that whip to get things back to the way I like it." — boethius

I've not said they should just get back to work. I said they should find common ground. Apparently that's a controversial idea. Who'd have thunk?

Yes, let's compromise on justice. Great idea. — Benkei

Yes, let's sit in a room and figure out once and for all what justice is exactly and then let's take out our hammers and forge it in place. That'll work. I know that once someone impresses upon me what justice is, no way I'll object. How could I? It's sacred justice for God's sake.

It is of critical importance whether this belief is true, and therefore should be brought to its logical terminus, or untrue, and therefore explained as a misguided notion and that better political means are available to achieve changes to state policy and essential state character. — boethius

Protests, like voting, lobbying, bribing (or whatever) are a form of political expression, aimed at obtaining something currently not received. The morality of the political demand is only relevant to the extent the person truly cares about such things. Typically people aim to get what they want just because they want it, regardless of any moral analysis, whether that be new tax breaks, new guns laws, or new emissions standards.

While you may be totally driven by morality, you can't just impose that motivation on the whole population. My feeling is that African Americans are protesting what is happening in their communities by the police because they are subject to that violence and they want it to end. While they do believe what is going on is immoral, it's not their primary driver. If morality were the primary driver behind these protests, you'd expect the Hispanic community to be as outraged. They're not, not because they don't understand morality, but because it's not their ox being gored.

All of this is to say, even if I could objectively show that the US government was legitimate and that the current method of policing was the only effective and proper means of law enforcement, it's not like the African American community would be at all persuaded to accept their lot, put on a smile, and get back to work.

Sounds like an excellent way of catering to the lowest common denominator and stick with the status quo. — Benkei

The status quo, by definition, is what is occurring right now. Right now there are protests. Tomorrow the protests will end, but the anger won't. So how is my attempt to resolve that maintaining the status quo? I suspect what you mean by "status quo" is any solution that doesn't give the protesters everything they want. My objective is compromise. The status quo is to just have the gnats continue to agitate the elephant.

As I have stated from the beginning of this conversation, the argument that the US government in it's current form of minority rule is legitimate and therefore all civil disobedience relative curfew and police instruction as well as looting and destruction of objects are simply criminal, can be made. I have yet to hear it, but I am willing to listen. — boethius

This strikes me as far afield and an entirely useless discussion from a pragmatic perspective. If you are able to prove the illegitimacy of the US government from a moral perspective with absolute certainty, the police will still keep doing as they are doing as will the citizens. It's not like a good solid argument is going to change the world or even change a single interaction between the government and its citizens.

As noted:

The important issues are how humans can live together more happily and sustainably, and what is preventing us from doing that. — unenlightened

The way that people are brought together is, well, by bringing them together. Explaining the psychology of the situation, even if you're dead on, really isn't going to move the needle one way or the other in terms of resolution.

So, what do I propose? First some leadership from anyone, whether that be Trump, Pelosi, or just anyone. All the marching in the street, be it peaceful or in fury, does nothing but inform me of the dissatisfaction felt by the marchers, but I kind of knew that already.

As a trial lawyer, I do love me a good jury, if for no other reason than you stick a bunch of disagreeable people in a small room and you tell them that that's where they'll sit until they reach a solution. So I'd put a representative of each in this room: a Republican, a Democrat, a police officer, a business owner, a minister, a teacher, a protester, and I don't know, but you get the picture. And their task will be to set up a march and to offer a speech, and they will need to figure out what they all need to say in unison. And if they can't figure out what they all agree upon and need to say, then they'll sit in that room until they get hungry enough, thirsty enough, and ornery enough to knock on the door and let us know they've reached a verdict. Surely there is something everyone wishes to say.

I love that word "verdict." It means to speak the truth.

That's what I'd do. I do think a march with the police and the protesters side by side would move the needle. While it might seem impossible, it's hard to know. No one has actually considered it. They are more interested in saying hooray for my sign.

Then why is exotic erotic? — bongo fury

I'm not sure that being sexually attracted to other races is proof of lack of racism. Sexual attraction originates from a different part of the brain than hate.

So, again, Hanover I don't know what the precise bone of contention is. — Baden

This:

"Certainly, poor blacks are hurt by racial discrimination -- mostly in biased police behavior and draconian drug-sentencing laws that result in horrendous incarceration rates for young men. "

But then points to other factors she thinks are more important. That's fine. It's not an unreasonable position to debate. — Baden

That is, I agree that racism is not the primary problem facing the African American community, and to the extent that racism does play a role in the continued oppression of it, it is of the sort practiced by the government that offers the greatest damage (e.g. police brutality and disparate drug sentencing). The racism of me subconsciously favoring my tribe is a universal problem facing us all, and I don't think we need to spend our time fretting about how we may be imperfect creatures in that regard. I'm not saying I ought celebrate my preference for those of my likeness, but I don't think that that is creating enough of an impediment that we need to riot, kneel, or even protest.

While I recognize you've not argued all of what I've said (as some is responsive to Un's video), I do think we need to appreciate the profound difference between my propensity to hire a white person over a black and a black's propensity to hire a black over a white to be far different than a cop murdering a black man in the street and even the government permitting blacks be steered away from white neighborhoods.

That being said, I echo the article I cited in its recognition of the drug laws being a primary driver of the police brutality issue. By making drug crimes felonies and creating such severe penalties for its possession, we have effectively criminalized an entire community and made it commonplace for armed officers to raid black communities and drag out the young males and throw them in prison. That does not engender trust for law enforcement, and the resistance to law enforcement in those communities is understandable. And let's not pretend that the white officers are more likely to do harm to black suspects than black officers. I've never seen any statistic that suggests white officers are less kind than their black counterparts.

"Institutional racism (also known as systemic racism)" — Baden

Then I need a different term for what I've described, perhaps legalized racism.

In the decades preceding the Fair Housing Act, government policies led many white Americans to believe that residents of color were a threat to local property values. For example, real estate professionals across the country who sought to maximize profits by leveraging this fear convinced white homeowners that Black families were moving in nearby and offered to buy their homes at a discount. — Baden

I wouldn't refer to your examples above as systemic racism, but instead as institutionalized racism, where the government officially condones discrimination by allowing such behavior to remain legal. It's without question that it's illegal to put your knee onto a petty criminal's neck who is otherwise offering no resistance until he dies. If such behavior were legal, then we'd have institutionalized racism analogous with the FHA and redlining issues brought up in the video.

We also don't need to search deeply to find other examples of historical institutionalized racism, many of which are far worse than unfair lending or redlining practices. Jim Crow laws no doubt played an important role in the American psyche for both blacks and whites. To call them "systemic" racism does a disservice to those oppressed, abused, and murdered. Not affording protections against blacks against such practices (and even explicitly legalizing such practices) denies human beings of their most basic human rights.

There is a critical distinction between that institutionalized racism and the fact that the races harbor distrust for one another. I don't group all of that behavior into one big category, as if my subconscious racism equates to the legal institutionalization of racist laws.

Moving more to the the video, it speaks of the great disparity in educational funding based upon race. By way of example, Washington DC spends $21,974 per pupil per year for public education. Utah spends $7,179. https://patch.com/district-columbia/georgetown/how-va-dc-education-spending-ranks-nationwide-census-bureau . The demographics of the DC school system are: 68 percent of students are African American, 18 percent are Latino, 10 percent are white, and four percent identified as other. <a href="https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/landscape-of-diversity-in-dc-public-schools/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/landscape-of-diversity-in-dc-public-schools/</a>
The Utah school system is 1% black (74% white) : https://www.schools.utah.gov/file/89d76231-2165-46e5-b842-4e925c04c700.

I could, if I had the inclination, to go county by county in my home state of Georgia and show you that teacher pay does not vary within any county, as the teachers in the affluent areas make the exact amount as those in the poorest areas. I could also show you that counties within the metro region, even those with large struggling urban populations, pay higher teacher salaries than those in the rural regions. In fact, that is where you see the greatest disparity in spending, which is when you go from urban to rural, with the rural schools simply not having the tax base to offer larger salaries. But of course everything is less affluent among the cows than the high rises, and that applies in the poor almost entirely white Appalachian mountain counties of Georgia and to the southern mostly black rural counties of Georgia.

You simply cannot paint this picture of African American struggles as being entirely or even mostly the result of racism, and certainly not the result of present day racism. It's not even a theory that many African American leaders still adhere to, which is to suggest that the greatest threat to the African American comes from the subtly or openly white racist. Should we take a young African American who now finds himself in prison, for example, we need to honestly ask ourselves, does he owe his plight to past FHA lending practices, the pre-civil rights Jim Crow laws, the amount paid his teachers in salary, or the glass ceiling his father found at work that limited his management opportunities.

I would suspect that if you examined the goings on in that child's home, you'd see drugs, violence, paternal absence, lack of appropriate adult role models, crime, no emphasis on education, and all sorts of other glaring ills that make your reference to subtle or present day racism appear as child's play. Attempting to link all of those ills to past racism is an attempt to absolve a whole lot of people close to that child of some seriously wrong behavior.

An article on this point, by an African American journalist (although that shouldn't be important): https://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/16/opinion/racism-is-not-the-issue.html

Of course, it goes without saying that not only do we look at the guidelines, we consult each other in most cases. Even with Chester, I made a suggestion in the mod forum after he ignored my warning that someone else look at whether he merited keeping on. He didn't. But I didn't want to take a unilateral decision to ban him. Thing is, we know bans need to be justified, so we're not going to stick our necks out on them unless we're either super sure or we get a second and, in some cases, third opinion. — Baden

I'd also point out that we typically act with unanimity, coming up with a solution that everyone is agreeable with, so it's not like we divide up into groups with one faction wanting one thing and another objecting. A single objector would typically sideline a banning for at least a while, and I really can't recall an instance where someone with a passionate position not to ban has been over-ruled. I say this just to let everyone know that by the time a banning has been decided, we've run out of other ideas.

Stupid. Quote me where I said I "encourage" looting liquor and TVs from stores or where my morals "demand" stealing from stores. Tired of people who can't read responding to my posts with caricatures and missing the substance. If you can't read, go away. If you can, try again. — Baden

Your position is that the violence serves a useful purpose. I'm describing what that violence actually is. If you envision a better form of violence to bring about positive change, describe it.

I've presented no caricature, but stated reality. If you can't defend your position, change it, but this complaining you're misunderstood and saying objections to your nonsense is stupid, is itself a waste of space.

There are riots whose behavior is far removed from any civil rights meaning. You refuse to condemn them but instead try to argue they have some positive value and then tell others to get lost when they disagree.

What would the impetus be for such major change if there were no trouble? — Baden

So you encourage looting liquor and TVs from stores? But for the distance, you'd be in the streets burning cars? Why do you sit idly behind your computer when your morals demand throwing rocks at police and stealing from stores?

use (weaponizing spin) of her comments is the non sequitur. I'm handwaving away your comments, man. As a fellow Georgia resident, you know (or should recognize) as well as I do that that tRump-stooge Kemp has a proverbial gun to any mayor in Georgia's head. Using her official statements in an attempt to invalidate the protests is simply disingenuous (at best). — 180 Proof

Kemp beat Abrams (a black female) by a very small amount. He's far from safe and this is far from Trump country.

Anyway, I take Bottoms at her word that she meant what she said. She's in zero danger of losing in Atlanta due to Kemp or Trump influence.. Her threat would come from someone left of her. Atlanta is far more diverse and Democrat than the state as a whole.

It's possible to do anything you want. — StreetlightX

Then why criticize those who criticize the riots as not being critics of the murder?