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?

There have been a couple heavily armed rednecks defending both protesters and property, but certainly not enough.

That's a great way to get a whole bunch of people killed. Not sure why the Koch brothers would care though.

Would the police have acted the way they did with Floyd if the members of that community were walking around armed with guns? I’m not sure they would have.

Police shootings disproportionately affect people of a certain skin tone.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

I’m not sure about non-shootings such as choking, but it’s clear they do happen.

Now I don’t know which of those killings were or were not justified, but I think a citizen force or militia like the Black Panther Party might be a good idea to keep a watchful eye on the interactions between the state and their community.

The largest minority and most vulnerable people in the US aren't black, theyre Latino. What we do to protect black people protects them as well.

This crowd (on this forum) will move on to the next echo chamber pretty quickly. People who actually care will be out making sure people know how to vote and know what the candidates stand for.

I’m going to refrain from grouping people according to some abstract demarcation such as race, but tyranny is tyranny and injustice is injustice. The greatest minority is the individual, and if we stand for one we stand for them all.

It's absurd that the socialists in this thread thinks there's a chance in hell of that.

The irony is they can only rail against the system while living in free and open societies, upon gadgets that no other system has given them.

Nor do we want a communist system replacing the current one. That's a fantasy.

Hell no.

I think protesters should assert their rights, and not deny them of fellows. Americans have the unique right to march down the street fully armed as a display of power and force, and they can keep the state in check without destroying their own property and livelihoods.

And doing whatever you want since the social contract is voided.

I’ve never believed in the social contract theory. I don’t think the State came about as larger groups of people naturally agreed to subordinate their private interests for the common good. I believe states were born of conquest and coercion of one group over another. In that sense, I can sympathize with the anger, but violence will will lead to the same outcome: conquest and coercion of one group over another.

NOS, by burning down a TGI Fridays you're fighting capitalism which in turn helps dismantle systemic racism. It's a nuanced argument - you need a college degree to understand.

It’s simple perversion. You can justify violence, destruction of property, and making a mockery of a valid protest by invoking some abstract idea from the recesses of your skull.

By "the law" do you mean the institution of law enforcement or the written law? Regardless, I don't see how local businesses - even powerful ones like Wal-Mart - have anything to do with what Chauvin did to Floyd.

That’s the irony of it. If we are to blame institutions, it was the State that murdered Floyd, not the private citizen. Yet here we have people destroying the property and livelihoods of fellow Americans.

Extreme poverty has been declining exponentially over the last two centuries.

The available long-run evidence shows that in the past, only a small elite enjoyed living conditions that would not be described as ‘extreme poverty’ today. But with the onset of industrialization and rising productivity, the share of people living in extreme poverty started to decrease. Accordingly, the share of people in extreme poverty has decreased continuously over the course of the last two centuries. This is surely one of the most remarkable achievements of humankind

https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty

It’s a common bias, not limited to socialists per say.

In a nutshell: When the RICH steal everything, all that's left for THE REST OF US to eat is the RICH.

Wealth isn’t a zero-sum game. There is no fixed amount of wealth in the world. Wealth is created and constantly expands.

How do stigmatized minorities advance agendas when confronted with hostile ma- jorities? Elite theories of influence posit marginal groups exert little power. I propose the concept of agenda seeding to describe how activists use methods like disruption to capture the attention of media and overcome political asymmetries. Further, I hypothesize protest tactics influence how news organizations frame demands. Evaluating black-led protests between 1960 and 1972, I find nonviolent activism, particularly when met with state or vigilante repression, drove media coverage, framing, Congressional speech and public opinion on civil rights. Counties proximate to nonviolent protests saw presidential Democratic vote share among whites increase 1.3-1.6%. Protester-initiated violence, by contrast, helped move news agendas, frames, elite discourse and public concern toward
“social control.” In 1968, using rainfall as an instrument, I find violent protests likely caused a 1.6-7.9% shift among whites towards Republicans and tipped the election. Elites may dominate political communication but hold no monopoly.

I read it back in 2015. Plenty of articles were written on it at the time. It’s probably been updated since then.

Here’s a great paper on the subject.

http://omarwasow.com/APSR_protests3_1.pdf

The riots are self-defeating, which is a shame. Whatever was gained by peaceful protests is lost and unravelled with riots. There is likely to be a rightward shift in voting if more innocent people and property are damaged, or worse, a violent reactionary backlash.

It certainly isn’t about the injustice of George Floyd’s murder anymore. They gunned down an officer in Oakland, not because he had anything to do with the assassination of George Floyd, but because he was wearing a uniform.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-30/federal-officer-killed-by-gunfire-outside-u-s-courthouse-in-oakland

I’m not aware of any evidence of Antifa agitators, but Barr’s recent statements and Trump’s tweets suggest they have enough intelligence to make this move.

"Sec. 5. This order is effective at 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time on December 29, 2016."

You are right. I was wrong.

Kislyak mentions them and says that Russia has to do something about it. That's when Flynn says that if they do something then it should be reciprocal.

Yes, Kislyak mentions them. Flynn does not. Flynn certainly does not “ask the Government of Russia's Ambassador to the United States to refrain from escalating the situation in response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia that same day“. Rather, he consistently spoke about the State Department’s decision to expel Russian diplomats, not Obama’s response. Not once did he mention sanctions, and not once did he ask Russia to not escalate in response to sanctions. This is why you can’t quote Flynn saying such a thing, that you need to leave certain parts of his quotes out, that you can only keep asserting he did while pretending I don’t understand meaning and language or that I’m acting in bad faith.

On top of that, Flynn didn’t do a single thing wrong in that phone call, and threw water on a potentially dangerous situation. He was railroaded for it.