Nothing but straw. As I said there is a debate about these issues.

A mob defacing statues is not the sign of a debate but of the perverted and illiberal use of violence and force to assert political expression.

Droll. You complained about presentism, I set out common declarations of his time on the basic of which he could be considered a war criminal and racist. So no presentism. What other problems do you have with this qualification?

You are applying present-day attitudes to a historical figure and have furnished one quote in order to pretend that was the general attitude of 1945.

It wasn’t much of a question.

I don't think one opinion of Churchill is sufficient either.

Judging Churchill by the standards of some woke, effete, privileged college kids from London doesn't make any sense to me.

There is a debate raging in the UK about which statues should be pulled down and if it is justified to pull them down and how to determine which should, or shouldn't be pulled down. People are saying should we now pull down the statue of Churchill in parliament square.
I was there when this happened, nice Mohican.

Sick. Barbarism premised on presentism. It’s Year Zero nonsense. A culture that will not defend its past is unlikely to defend its future.

Not only in language, but by extension thinking. If we view individuals as individuals rather than a component of this or that race we negate any foundation for race-thinking.

I’ve been trying to give the systemic racism theory a fair shake. Here are my thoughts.

The racism of South Africa or the United States was explicit and enshrined in law. That kind of racism was overt and concrete, made real in the countless interactions between the individuals involved insofar as they were motivated by racist ideology. I refuse to conflate that sort of racism with the "systemic racism" being put forward here.

But when the institutional racism has finally vanished and the racist ideologies have been discredited and proven dangerous, what can account for the disparities in the results whenever we view them through a racist microscope? Why is there a wealth gap between races, for instance? Since we cannot find any company or institution paying blacks less than whites, and whites less than Asians—it is illegal to do so— there must be something other than personal choice and will perpetuating these disparities.

I take the "systemic racism" theory to mean that there must exist some racist algorithm inherent in the "system". Racism has left the human brain and has found a new home in “systems and structures”, though it is not clear what those are. Any state that had its genesis marred in slavery or racism no doubt carries with it a shameful past, but is also cursed to perpetuate it. Even though the slavery and institutional racism has all but vanished it’s “legacy” remains. It's in our DNA. It exists in our individual thoughts, compelling the countless interactions—political, economic, cultural—between individuals in a given society, especially as they are demarcated on the basis of their phenotypes. We ought not just oppose individual acts of racism, but we should also oppose the system that allowed them to happen in the first place.

But I suppose it’s a testament to the “system” that we have shifted from talking about the overt racism of slavery, apartheid, or segregation to a “subtle” more invisible racism that no one can really point at but are certain is there.

The problem is this shift maintains focus on the least racist societies while doing little about the most racist. Meanwhile there is still slavery in Africa and the Middle East. There are more than three times as many people in forced servitude today as were captured and sold during the 350-year span of the transatlantic slave trade. There are concentration camps and ethnic cleansing in communist China. And there are no marches for their victims.

Please. Like they are the only people who love to argue in this forum.

My preferred pronoun is “he”.

There you go, that's it. Thanks for saying it better than I could.

It's not just policies, it's culture too. Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables" comment sums up the snotty superior mindset of so much of leftie culture pretty well. We need to face that attitude squarely and do something about it.

Agreed. The condescending class were so out of touch with the country that they believed their chosen candidate had it in the bag right up until the night of the election. Then they cried wolf for years, promising us future Hitlers and nuclear wars, and here we are are still caught in the bubble they have built for themselves.

I was born in the US and I moved here in 2008. Canadian women can be quite convincing.

Is there a point there?

Though I can empathize with your traumatic story, I cannot see any reason to suppose that the skin-colors of those involved had any influence on the criminal behavor or your treatment. Maybe people didn’t rush to your defense because they too live in fear of violence.

That being said, I can understand how people who have been traditionally “racialized” their whole lives would begin to harbor racist beliefs. Routinely being told that you belong to this or that racial group, arbitrarily placed upon a hierarchy of mental apartheid, seems to me to be a breeding ground for racism.

Well said. Many former democrats and independents who voted for Obama have voted for Trump, myself included. This isn’t because we abandoned the left, but because the left abandoned us. Once our former political allies trended towards the illiberal and globalist, there was no home for us in that space.

Would “positive” racial and ethnic discrimination such as affirmative action qualify as systemic racism? Here in Canada there is the Employment Equity Act which requires federally regulated industries to favor women, people with disabilities, Aboriginal peoples, and visible minorities, or in other words, anyone but able-bodied light-skinned men.

Thanks for writing that out.

Wow. This is a crazy story about recent pauses on hydroxichloroquine studies. Let’s hope none of this has put lives at risk, but certainly a lot of people have been fooled.

The World Health Organization and a number of national governments have changed their Covid-19 policies and treatments on the basis of flawed data from a little-known US healthcare analytics company, also calling into question the integrity of key studies published in some of the world’s most prestigious medical journals.

A Guardian investigation can reveal the US-based company Surgisphere, whose handful of employees appear to include a science fiction writer and an adult-content model, has provided data for multiple studies on Covid-19 co-authored by its chief executive, but has so far failed to adequately explain its data or methodology.

Data it claims to have legitimately obtained from more than a thousand hospitals worldwide formed the basis of scientific articles that have led to changes in Covid-19 treatment policies in Latin American countries. It was also behind a decision by the WHO and research institutes around the world to halt trials of the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine. On Wednesday, the WHO announced those trials would now resume.

...

A search of publicly available material suggests several of Surgisphere’s employees have little or no data or scientific background. An employee listed as a science editor appears to be a science fiction author and fantasy artist. Another employee listed as a marketing executive is an adult model and events hostess.

The company’s LinkedIn page has fewer than 100 followers and last week listed just six employees. This was changed to three employees as of Wednesday.

While Surgisphere claims to run one of the largest and fastest hospital databases in the world, it has almost no online presence. Its Twitter handle has fewer than 170 followers, with no posts between October 2017 and March 2020.

Until Monday, the “get in touch” link on Surgisphere’s homepage redirected to a WordPress template for a cryptocurrency website, raising questions about how hospitals could easily contact the company to join its database.

Desai has been named in three medical malpractice suits, unrelated to the Surgisphere database. In an interview with the Scientist, Desai previously described the allegations as “unfounded”.

In 2008, Desai launched a crowdfunding campaign on the website Indiegogo promoting a wearable “next generation human augmentation device that can help you achieve what
you never thought was possible”. The device never came to fruition.
Desai’s Wikipedia page has been deleted following questions about Surgisphere and his history, first raised in 2010.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/covid-19-surgisphere-who-world-health-organization-hydroxychloroquine

What could the motives behind this be?

I just don’t know how an act can be considered racist if it is mostly perpetuated by a member of the same race. What is the evidence that an officer holds a racist outlook when he unjustly kills a man of another skin color? Maybe I haven’t quite fully grasped the concept of “systemic racism“.

Here’s some sobering evidence that kind of throws doubt on the whole claim of “systemic racism” among the police shootings.

https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15877

Good point about King. However I think non-violent resistance was not limited to civil disobedience, and included peaceful protests. And his dedication to nonviolence is quite explicit.

“ Occasionally in life one develops a conviction so precious and meaningful that he will stand on it till the end. This is what I have found in nonviolence”

- Where do we Go From Here.

I think racism, at its core, is the belief that human beings can be subdivided into races. Once those sorts of abstract aggregates disappear from thought it becomes impossible to treat them as members of it. I don’t think it’s a human failing so much as it is a rational one.

Plenty of states have restricted travel. And for example it wasn’t Trump who mandated that nursing homes in New York couldn’t refuse patients diagnosed with coronavirus, which turned out to be a fatal mistake. So your point is pointless, which isn’t surprising.

What changes do you think the police and surrounding legal system need?

It’s a tough question. The dynamic between officers and various neighborhoods and communities are too complicated to assess from any one standpoint. It’s simply not as simple as everyone is making it out to be. There are too many individuals and interactions involved that we never see or hear about, and I think making hasty generalizations about this or that group of people only exacerbates the problem.

I don’t think defunding the police goes far enough. They are agents of the state and I think we need to start at the top instead of the bottom.

He said he stands with protesters but also wants to protect American‘s lives and property from violence, looters, and vandals. I’m not sure why one would have to pretend looters and vandals are protesters, nor can I understand why one would condone or excuse that behavior, but I guess that’s exactly what you need to do to politicize it and blame it on Trump.

And yes, state governments are in charge of their own public health. Coronavirus death rates in Democratic areas are triple those in Republican ones. So why do you think it’s Trump’s fault?

By now we all know that powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are vested in the states, and that the states and municipalities are in charge of both their public health and policing. But politics have become so schizophrenic that when a city cop murders a man in a Democrat-run city in a Democrat-run state, or when a Democrat mayor and Democrat governor have to dig mass graves in their cities for victims of a pandemic, it becomes an indictment on President Trump.

Another man murdered in the streets, this time David Dorn, a 77 year old retired police chief that went to check on his friend’s shop.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/small-town-police-chief-killed-officers-cities-wounded/story?id=71017820

Here is the woman Obama referenced in his article. Sad.

Another officer shot in the head in Vegas last night. Alive, but on life support.

https://fox59.com/news/officer-shot-in-the-head-in-las-vegas-on-life-support/

It’s true. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and all that.

Then what might account for the appearance that police/citizen interactions are getting worse?

Good call. Exposes, to my dismay, a point of view that isn't all that praiseworthy. I mean would there be no protests, no hurt, no call for justice, would people have looked the other way, if it had been a white cop killing, using excessive force, an unarmed white man? While I don't condone racism-motivated attacks, shouldn't the police be told in clear terms to tone down their "zeal" when making arrests in general and not just under "special" circumstances?

There was the 2016 case of Tony Timpa, who was slain in much the same way as George Floyd. Charges were dismissed against the officers, who mocked him as he lay dying.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/02/us/dallas-police-body-cam-footage-captures-death/index.html

The kid was light-skinned, probably affluent, so probably not much of a symbol for any greater cause. The officers apparently received death threats, but there were no protests or rioting as far as I can tell.

PTSD among police is something that should be considered.

Symptoms of PTSD were frequently endorsed; for example, 30% of officers reported having intrusive thoughts or nightmares, and 22% reported avoiding situations or places that reminded them of a traumatic event. With respect to the CAGE items assessing alcohol abuse, 14% of officers believed they should “cut down” on their drinking behavior, and 3.3% reported having an “eye-opener” first thing in the morning to get rid of a hang-over or steady their nerves (data not shown). Of the three conditions assessed, PTSD was the most common (23.8%), followed by alcohol abuse (18.7%) and depression (8.8%). Overall, 40.0% of respondents had at least one of the three mental-health conditions (Fig. 1).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4089972/

Especially since it negatively effects “response inhibition”.

This study provides evidence of heightened attention and/or arousal in police officers as indicated by the generally greater P3 amplitude in police compared to controls during a task requiring sustained attention and inhibitory control. Greater PTSD symptom severity in trauma-exposed individuals may affect frontal cognitive control systems related to response inhibition.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167876013000597?via%3Dihub

Many times the real solution is just to form a new police department. Let everybody go, start from scratch.

We should also remember that cops are also murdered. Here is a memorial page for those who were shot and killed this year. Perhaps the problem isn’t as simple as “cops are racist and bad”.

Yes, I too reckon the trail of dead black bodies is perfectly OK.

They’re stacking up.

Chris Beaty, murdered in the streets.
https://sports.yahoo.com/former-indiana-football-player-chris-beaty-shot-and-killed-in-indianapolis-violence-135059190.html

Dave Underwood, murdered in the streets.
https://richmondstandard.com/community/2020/05/31/community-mourns-death-of-federal-officer-dave-patrick-underwood/

I’m sure the “movement” will remember them.

So far the status quo looks far better than anything you guys have offered. What a lost opportunity.

He won’t. Neither will other innocent victims: the Oakland security officer gunned down in the street, the people murdered in Iowa last night, and the countless people who have been assaulted or had their property destroyed. Whatever “movement” was here has lost my support a long time ago.

But to the main issue, maybe some of the people who shouldn't be police are getting exposed right now. There's been a few firings so far. Needs to be more. Maybe a lot more.

The police have utterly failed. The murderers within their ranks have been exposed, and now the cowards. They have refused to protect and serve, sheepishly standing around as communities are razed to the ground.

From previous experience we know what happen when the police run away during a riot: Roof Koreans. People will plea, flee, or finally stand up to protect their communities and neighborhoods. There are clearly instances of that already.

I will do all I can to abide by the rules, and I recognize and respect your authority to police this forum as you see fit. But I can honestly say I have never nor do I intend to troll anyone. I just enjoy grappling over ideas with people who I assume can think. Perhaps there is a fine line.

While there may be some sort of rational discussion to be found here in this thread, I don't think it can be had with those who for no serious reason support destroying local businesses and in turn the communities that house these businesses. It's just destruction for the sake of destruction. Simply having righteous anger doesn't entitle one to a blank cheque when it comes to violence and no one can seriously entertain this viewpoint intellectually speaking.

It's because they do not live there. They need not worry about their jobs, their grocery stores, their homes, nor think about anyone these riots might affect. What's left but to bleat from the ivory tower?

Here's an example of a homeless man's property being tossed into a fire.



But hey, it's just property, right?