NBA games postponed today p14 Players decide to resume Playoffs

[WookieOnRitalin]

Just remove the ability of police to collectively bargain. That's by far the best possible outcome to actually fixing the root cause of the policing issue.

This makes me curious. What groups of workers are allowed to collective bargain and which group of workers are not?

Police are a union. Professional athletes are a union.

What's the threshold?

[musiqsoulchild]

If I applied your thought process and inserted African American's into this group, I would come out with the most racist arguments you've ever heard and would be banned for racist comments. That apparently doesn't bother you though, that you are using the argument forms that have excused rampant discrimination for centuries.

This argument immediately falls apart when you consider that police officers choose to join that profession while black people don't really have a choice in being black.

This whole "rotten apple" argument is just as tired. There is a culture of immunity in the police force. I live in a nice Chicago neighborhood and I see police cars without sirens on blasting through stop signs all the time. I see them hit their sirens to make a red light, then immediately turn them off. These aren't the biggest issues in the world, but they certainly speak to a culture where consequences don't exist for some. This culture leads to things like 16 cops working together to conceal the LaQuan McDonald incident https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwe784/heres-how-chicago-cops-really-covered-up-the-murder-of-laquan-mcdonald. 16 police officer conspiring to help a fellow officer is not a few "rotten apples" it is proof of systemic lawlessness.

This doesn't even get into the stories of Jon Burge and his torture team, Fred Hampton's murder by CPD and FBI, Ronald Watts framing innocent people, and on and on. These are not one-off stories, they provide a narrative from the COINTELPRO days of the 60s up to today.

More recent examples:

1) Arburys case was originally completely snuffed out because ex cops and the DA were in cahoots

2) The 17 year old kid was not arrested the night he killed 2 protesters. It was only once social media got him that he was turned himself over in Antioch.

[musiqsoulchild]

If that’s the goal, I’m not getting it. Saying “why don’t you love me” and refusing to play until you get some satisfactory answer just sounds like some sort of psycho spouse. The NBA loves their players and the black community.

Then again, I didn’t agree with your original premise so this may just be why you think they should boycott.

I dont think my opinion should matter at all.

I think people who are grieving should be allowed to grieve.

If you pull them out of their grief too quickly, it just moves to the next generation.

Grief, Trauma, Pain...are best resolved. At the oppressed person/peoples pace. Not at our pace.

All we can do as good citizens is give them the space to grieve and help in any way we can.

I also can't understand the grieving here. The man was committing a domestic, and then got into a car with three children in it. Whether he has any sort of weapon or not, being surrounded by officers and attempting to run away from them with kids in the car seems like a hostage situation to me...

If you cant understand the grieving here, then you are probably not going to understand most of the related issues.

I am not being cynical. I am being honest.

For me, there is grief in seeing my Dad shot 7 times by cops. As an 8 year old.

That's going to impact me the rest of my life.

Or, if I am that Dads mother.

[musiqsoulchild]

I think Police Unions much like Teachers Unions are a necessary evil.

The root of real evil though is when the Union protects it's bad seeds.

I am NOT ok with piss poor performing teachers being protected by Teachers Unions either.

Same should go for Cops unions.

[dougthonus]

If I applied your thought process and inserted African American's into this group, I would come out with the most racist arguments you've ever heard and would be banned for racist comments. That apparently doesn't bother you though, that you are using the argument forms that have excused rampant discrimination for centuries.

This argument immediately falls apart when you consider that police officers choose to join that profession while black people don't really have a choice in being black.

This whole "rotten apple" argument is just as tired. There is a culture of immunity in the police force. I live in a nice Chicago neighborhood and I see police cars without sirens on blasting through stop signs all the time. I see them hit their sirens to make a red light, then immediately turn them off. These aren't the biggest issues in the world, but they certainly speak to a culture where consequences don't exist for some. This culture leads to things like 16 cops working together to conceal the LaQuan McDonald incident https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwe784/heres-how-chicago-cops-really-covered-up-the-murder-of-laquan-mcdonald. 16 police officer conspiring to help a fellow officer is not a few "rotten apples" it is proof of systemic lawlessness.

This doesn't even get into the stories of Jon Burge and his torture team, Fred Hampton's murder by CPD and FBI, Ronald Watts framing innocent people, and on and on. These are not one-off stories, they provide a narrative from the COINTELPRO days of the 60s up to today.

Oh, so if you join the police then you are automatically bad and have bad intent, because you joined the police? How do you propose we ever have good cops if you are immediately bad for choosing to become a cop? That is so ridiculous it is beyond words. I guess this only applies to white cops based on your words, since they had a choice. What about black cops? Are they all evil abusive racists too?

Are people with tattoos also all criminals and drug users because they chose to get them?

I am not making a bad apple argument. You can have a syatemic problem, which is a problem with the system, and it doesn't mean that the people in the system are all bad and not demonizing innocent people working for the same things you are should be an important consideration if you actually want things to get better.

[musiqsoulchild]

Are you saying the players want to tank the NBA? I didn’t think that was their goal

I am saying that when posters ( in this case Bluewaterheaven) ask...." What do you think the outcome they are looking for?"

Sometimes in life its NOT about the outcome. It's about the steps that lead to it.

When Gandhi started the Non Cooperation movement in India and MLK did something similar here...the end results were not clear.

Complex problems dont have a clear Point A to Point B trajectory in their solutions.

I'll refer back to Doc's question:
" We love you. Why dont you love us back?"

Hes not looking for an answer at which point his boycott will end.

He's just asking ALL of us to introspect.

I am curious... you want the US to look like the UK, that is the goal?

No you're not curious. You are way smarter than that. I have known you for a long time. You know exactly what I am talking about Blue.

[Dieselbound&Down]

I typed a post last night but I don't think it posted (so sorry if this is a reposted thought)

Focusing only on the financial implications for the NBA, this is going to be a major year for the league. Ratings have been declining for 10 years and there is a fairly large number of people who won't turn the league on because of political/racial views. That is a segment that won't be quickly added back to overall viewership. The bubble this summer had little competition on TV for live sports and the numbers were really poor. The league TV contracts are up in a couple of years which gives the league a pretty short window to turn the overall trend and numbers back around so they can negotiate a big deal.

Either way, the league is going to survive but it seems likely the total revenue will be appreciably diminished. The NBA attracts the best global talent because it pays the most and is the highest profile league. Even if that won't change soon, the gap will close and may get uncomfortable at some point. The rumors of canceling the playoffs further fuel potential (financial) issues.

This is not saying what the league and players are doing is wrong (not at all), but this will have some pretty lasting implications in my opinion.

[musiqsoulchild]

If I applied your thought process and inserted African American's into this group, I would come out with the most racist arguments you've ever heard and would be banned for racist comments. That apparently doesn't bother you though, that you are using the argument forms that have excused rampant discrimination for centuries.

This argument immediately falls apart when you consider that police officers choose to join that profession while black people don't really have a choice in being black.

This whole "rotten apple" argument is just as tired. There is a culture of immunity in the police force. I live in a nice Chicago neighborhood and I see police cars without sirens on blasting through stop signs all the time. I see them hit their sirens to make a red light, then immediately turn them off. These aren't the biggest issues in the world, but they certainly speak to a culture where consequences don't exist for some. This culture leads to things like 16 cops working together to conceal the LaQuan McDonald incident https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwe784/heres-how-chicago-cops-really-covered-up-the-murder-of-laquan-mcdonald. 16 police officer conspiring to help a fellow officer is not a few "rotten apples" it is proof of systemic lawlessness.

This doesn't even get into the stories of Jon Burge and his torture team, Fred Hampton's murder by CPD and FBI, Ronald Watts framing innocent people, and on and on. These are not one-off stories, they provide a narrative from the COINTELPRO days of the 60s up to today.

Oh, so if you join the police then you are automatically bad and have bad intent, because you joined the police? How do you propose we ever have good cops if you are immediately bad for choosing to become a cop? That is so ridiculous it is beyond words. I guess this only applies to white cops based on your words, since they had a choice. What about black cops? Are they all evil abusive racists too?

Are people with tattoos also all criminals and drug users because they chose to get them?

I am not making a bad apple argument. You can have a syatemic problem, which is a problem with the system, and it doesn't mean that the people in the system are all bad and not demonizing innocent people working for the same things you are should be an important consideration if you actually want things to get better.

Doug, choosing to be in a profession is fine for various reasons stemming from altruistic motives like wanting to help the community. All the way down to more realistic reasons like good pay and benefits.

On the contrary, being born a certain race or color or ethnicity or religion predisposes the individual to all the advantages and disadvantages that society has already created for that demographic.

There is really no similarity between the two.

[dougthonus]

Some systems are binary. They are not meant to be tiered like Spice levels on Curries or Ramen in a restaurant.

You cant be 15% pregnant. Or 15 percent diabetic.

You cant have problems with 15% of your plumbing and somehow hope that the remaining 85% is doing its job.

Policing is like that. Cops are like that. I have seen it in multiple countries.

None of this contradicts anything I said.

Your willingness to judge all people in a group by actions of a few people in a group is discriminatory behavior, it is the basis of all discrimination, it is the basis of racism, sexism, homophobia, whatever. That behavior you are so willing to engage in is horrific.

You can discuss the issue of fixing things without lumping everyone into one group and calling them all awful.

There are many great cops. But if the system has systemic imbalances then the onus of that falls on the good cops. Probably more than it does on the bad, racist ones.

I think this is likely a very unrealistic and unfair expectation which also punishes those that are doing the best they can, because they aren't empowered or able to affect change of other people even though I'm sure there are many whom would desire to do so.

You have now created arguments in these forms:

1: All <members of a group> are bad because some <members of a group> did <this bad thing>.
2: Some <members of a group> did <insert bad thing> so all <members of a group> are bad.
3: Why don't the good <members of a group> stop the bad <members of a group> from committing this <bad action>

If I applied your thought process and inserted African American's into this group, I would come out with the most racist arguments you've ever heard and would be banned for racist comments. That apparently doesn't bother you though, that you are using the argument forms that have excused rampant discrimination for centuries.

It's just not necessary and it prevents actually finding a solution IMO. This is an important issue to resolve, but it won't be resolved with this type of thought process or behavior IMO. When you try to apply solutions that include throwing out 85-90% of the people whom are doing a good job, but you want to convict purely due to group membership then all your solutions will fall apart, and that 85-90% is your number not mine.

I dont know why you're beefing with me. I have no clue.

Are you saying that I am over-generalizing in calling cops bad?

I am calling bad cops bad. And I am going to call silent cops silent. And I am going to call good cops, good.

The Policing system is bad and corrupt. From.hiring practices to internal metric fudging and extra-judicial justice they meet out.

We love our Dirty Harry's as much as we hate the Racist cops. That doesnt make Dirty Harry good.

What am I missing?

If that is what you are doing now then great. This started when you made arguments that all cops are bad and I called you out on it.

Instead of clarifying that you are speaking about bad cops, you doubled down repeatedly on why it is perfectly fine to group very diverse people together regardless of their actions or beliefs into negative categories. When pointed out how you are doing that, you doubled down again and came up with more reasons why it is okay to lump everyone together and view them all as bad.

What you have stated here is a big reversal of what you said earlier.

[TheSuzerain]

Just remove the ability of police to collectively bargain. That's by far the best possible outcome to actually fixing the root cause of the policing issue.

This makes me curious. What groups of workers are allowed to collective bargain and which group of workers are not?

Police are a union. Professional athletes are a union.

What's the threshold?

The most straightforward threshold is public vs private. Private unions compete with private owners for a pool of revenues/profits. You can consider it a somewhat healthy tension between labor/capital.

That's not the case in public unions.

I believe the above in a vacuum, but America has a problem where one of the major political parties has a stated interest in gutting government to the bare minimum. The existence of public unions is an imperfect check against that.

[musiqsoulchild]

None of this contradicts anything I said.

Your willingness to judge all people in a group by actions of a few people in a group is discriminatory behavior, it is the basis of all discrimination, it is the basis of racism, sexism, homophobia, whatever. That behavior you are so willing to engage in is horrific.

You can discuss the issue of fixing things without lumping everyone into one group and calling them all awful.



I think this is likely a very unrealistic and unfair expectation which also punishes those that are doing the best they can, because they aren't empowered or able to affect change of other people even though I'm sure there are many whom would desire to do so.

You have now created arguments in these forms:

1: All <members of a group> are bad because some <members of a group> did <this bad thing>.
2: Some <members of a group> did <insert bad thing> so all <members of a group> are bad.
3: Why don't the good <members of a group> stop the bad <members of a group> from committing this <bad action>

If I applied your thought process and inserted African American's into this group, I would come out with the most racist arguments you've ever heard and would be banned for racist comments. That apparently doesn't bother you though, that you are using the argument forms that have excused rampant discrimination for centuries.

It's just not necessary and it prevents actually finding a solution IMO. This is an important issue to resolve, but it won't be resolved with this type of thought process or behavior IMO. When you try to apply solutions that include throwing out 85-90% of the people whom are doing a good job, but you want to convict purely due to group membership then all your solutions will fall apart, and that 85-90% is your number not mine.

I dont know why you're beefing with me. I have no clue.

Are you saying that I am over-generalizing in calling cops bad?

I am calling bad cops bad. And I am going to call silent cops silent. And I am going to call good cops, good.

The Policing system is bad and corrupt. From.hiring practices to internal metric fudging and extra-judicial justice they meet out.

We love our Dirty Harry's as much as we hate the Racist cops. That doesnt make Dirty Harry good.

What am I missing?

If that is what you are doing now then great. This started when you made arguments that all cops are bad and I called you out on it.

Instead of clarifying that you are speaking about bad cops, you doubled down repeatedly on why it is perfectly fine to group very diverse people together regardless of their actions or beliefs into negative categories. When pointed out how you are doing that, you doubled down again and came up with more reasons why it is okay to lump everyone together and view them all as bad.

What you have stated here is a big reversal of what you said earlier.

It's not a reversal. And I dont mind changing if I have evidence to the contrary.

I am saying that:

1) Cops abuse power. I am not talking just racism. I am talking all kinds of abuse of power. They do it without even knowing it in many situations. That's how ingrained it is. I gave you an example of a cop putting on his siren just to get ahead of a busy intersection.

2) I gave another example here of a supposed good cop like Dirty Harry. The character that is. This is who GOOD COPS aspire to be.

Good policing is to stay within the lines of the law. Very few cops do this.

Even now, it's coming out that the Kenosha PD called for armed militias and actively funneled protesters into the armed militia.

It's very difficult for me to pretend that the good cops that are out there even if they are a majority say 60 percent are enough for me to change my views on the gross abuse of power that the remaining 40 percent engage in.

This isnt about racism and racist cops. Racism is just one of MANY ways in which cops manifest their abuse of power.

[WookieOnRitalin]

My reaction over the course of the last several years is that like anyone, cops make mistakes. They use bad judgment. Warning signs are ignored and less than stellar officers are kept on the roll. Policing is not an exact science. I would say that policing has a spectrum of severity where in the strictest measures the police can violate an individual's personal liberty through totalitarianism. Conversely, policing can largely be impotent when given no real authority to stop offenders or when little consequence results in the offense. I have always looked at policing as an evolving practice that is constantly being tested in the real world. Cops get it right most of the time, but as we know, they mess up. The problem now is that it is much more public than it ever was in the past which causes a lot of "knee jerk" reactions from the universe at large without many of the facts ever being known about the circumstances. In my mind, there is a vacuum of critical thinking amongst the population at large. The internet as taught people to digest information, but not know what to do with it. Faster and more information does not allow for most people to process it in a way that can create perspective and reason. This consistent cultural malfunction is causing a lot of vitriol and tribalism to the point where a lot of us feel completely left out of the conversation.

The bottom line is the the black community needs police. One of the issues facing the black community is that if you pull resources from the police, you will effectively inhibit the police to stop crime where the poverty is located.

Poverty is the enemy here. This creates environments where crime is high and it impacts the relationship these communities have with police. In general, most people accept the need for the police especially in black communities.

What seems simple within this entire discussion and favored by all sides is higher levels of accountability for the police when they do make errors or if they are murdering defenseless men and women. Waiving things like qualified immunity and independent community oversight boards are good starts to helping create a bridge. Police need to understand that they are not in a position of leverage and the more they try to leverage their position, the more support they will lose. Police should accept that they will have to make some sacrifices in order to get things more under control and the more they resist on certain issues the more likely it is that they will lose trust within the communities they serve.

Even with that said, I have a tough time empathizing for a man who drives his children to have a confrontation with his girlfriend, already wanted by police on separate charges, who clearly was resisting arrest, had a weapon, and put himself and his children in danger. The situation was created by him and not by the police. At some point, accountability works in both directions. If people do not want to be killed by police, they need to recognize that antagonizing, assaulting, and threatening them is not the best way to avoid that outcome.

Most people can recognize that some things systemically are not working and we as a society need to work diligently to make improvements. That is how our society works and just as it evolves so too will the art and practice of policing in the 21st century will be. If we want to make the police better, we have to help not create the situations that cause these incidents to happen in the first place.

[musiqsoulchild]

I'll try this one more way...succintly.

Policemen are generally abusers of power. The Men who are Police are not.

There is a difference that tangibly shows up when the uniform goes on and the uniform goes off.

I am sure there are a 100 different examples to the contrary....but I am trying to paint a broad brush here. Not write a dissertation.

[dougthonus]

Do I buy products manufactured in China? Occasionally.

If you care deeply on this issue, why would it be occasional? Certainly your loss here is less than the half billion dollar loss you want other people to take isn't it?

Do I consciously search a product's packaging for its manufacturing location? Yes.

And I'm sure this is much more than most (including myself)!

Do I have a deep, direct working relationship with China or its companies? Am I receiving investment money from any Chinese corporations or the Chinese government itself? Would I ever accept seed money from Chinese corporations for any of my potential future startups? No, no, and likely never.

That's not really what we're talking about though. Would you ever work for a company that sold its product to China or had a business relationship with China? If not, and if you think all Americans shouldn't, then you've eliminated a pretty good percentage of all jobs.

I love playing these strawman games.

It's not strawman to expect you to behave in the same way you demand others to behave it.

[moorhosj]

Oh, so if you join the police then you are automatically bad and have bad intent, because you joined the police? How do you propose we ever have good cops if you are immediately bad for choosing to become a cop? That is so ridiculous it is beyond words. I guess this only applies to white cops based on your words, since they had a choice. What about black cops? Are they all evil abusive racists too?

No idea how you got that from my comment. Are you disagreeing that people have a choice in their profession versus their skin color? Once you accept that reality, we can have an actual discussion. This is just putting a bunch of words in my mouth. If you are interested in the lives of black cops, listening to actual black cops would be a good start.https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/black-rookie-chicago-cop-says-he-s-leaving-police-union-over-criticism-of-kneeling-officers-the-fop-has-not-been-welcoming-to-folks-like-me/ar-BB16jw7U:

“I spoke with 22 (Black) officers that have 10-plus years on the job,” Givens told the Tribune. “And the first thing that they told me was, no, the FOP doesn’t represent me and they don’t stand for what I stand for, they aren’t who I am. And that was across the board.

“The FOP has not been welcoming to folks like me,” he said. “They haven’t been very welcoming to folks like myself, being a Black man, a Black police officer. In its current form, in its current environment, that’s not even something I’m willing to participate in.”

Lodge 7 has no Black officers in leadership posts. The union endorsed Donald Trump in 2016, and the new union chief received a congratulatory tweet from the president, who has been accused of dividing the country by race.

Are people with tattoos also all criminals and drug users because they chose to get them?

Is there a tattooed persons union that protects them from consequences? Do tattooed people falsify legal documents (or testimony) to protect other tattoo people? If not, then the analogy probably doesn't fit. I do find it ironic that you chose tattoos as your example. Tattoos can be covered (just like a police uniform can be taken off), skin color isn't something you can easily cover or take off at the end of the day to go about your life.

I am not making a bad apple argument. You can have a syatemic problem, which is a problem with the system, and it doesn't mean that the people in the system are all bad and not demonizing innocent people working for the same things you are should be an important consideration if you actually want things to get better.

Nobody said all cops are bad, that is a red herring. In fact, I have heard people continually bend over backwards to explicitly say that not all cops are bad. You don't change a system unless the people who control that system want it changed and if cops wanted to change the system, they would start with their elected FOP leadership.

[TheStig]

Just remove the ability of police to collectively bargain. That's by far the best possible outcome to actually fixing the root cause of the policing issue.

This makes me curious. What groups of workers are allowed to collective bargain and which group of workers are not?

Police are a union. Professional athletes are a union.

What's the threshold?

Any non managerial class of workers can unionize but their is a strong effort in this country to discourage and break the unions by corporations. Amazon and Walmart have gone to extreme lengths to prevent unions in their locations.

[jc23]

I typed a post last night but I don't think it posted (so sorry if this is a reposted thought)

Focusing only on the financial implications for the NBA, this is going to be a major year for the league. Ratings have been declining for 10 years and there is a fairly large number of people who won't turn the league on because of political/racial views. That is a segment that won't be quickly added back to overall viewership. The bubble this summer had little competition on TV for live sports and the numbers were really poor. The league TV contracts are up in a couple of years which gives the league a pretty short window to turn the overall trend and numbers back around so they can negotiate a big deal.

Either way, the league is going to survive but it seems likely the total revenue will be appreciably diminished. The NBA attracts the best global talent because it pays the most and is the highest profile league. Even if that won't change soon, the gap will close and may get uncomfortable at some point. The rumors of canceling the playoffs further fuel potential (financial) issues.

This is not saying what the league and players are doing is wrong (not at all), but this will have some pretty lasting implications in my opinion.

since the lockdown ive found time replacements for sports in my life. Although i will watch highlights and inside the nba i havent watched more then a few minutes of actual live sports since early march.

[AshyLarrysDiaper]

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[dougthonus]

Avoiding conflict from some “oppressors” so you can take their money is hypocritical when you are trying to take a large stand against other oppressors.

It isn't about the money though. It is about how much they care about the issue. The NBA is absolutely losing money over the social protest now, and many players seem content to give up huge amounts of money to forward this issue, because this issue is super important to them.

They aren't willing to give up massive amounts of money on the China issue, because probably like most of America, they would think its bad, but simply don't feel passionately enough about it to massively impact their own finances for it (unlike most of the rest of us whom think its bad and aren't even willing to minorly impact our finances by boycotting Chinese products).

On social injustice, they care enough that they are willing to take a large financial hit.

They just care differently about these issues. The reasons why they feel differently about them are blatantly obvious. One impacts all of them personally and one is half way around the world and isn't in their face. However, the amount he players are willing to risk over the season is much more than the Chinese revenue. The social protesting could cut the value of the league in half or more in the worst case scenarios.

[FecesOfDeath]

Do I buy products manufactured in China? Occasionally.

If you care deeply on this issue, why would it be occasional? Certainly your loss here is less than the half billion dollar loss you want other people to take isn't it?

Do I consciously search a product's packaging for its manufacturing location? Yes.

And I'm sure this is much more than most (including myself)!

Do I have a deep, direct working relationship with China or its companies? Am I receiving investment money from any Chinese corporations or the Chinese government itself? Would I ever accept seed money from Chinese corporations for any of my potential future startups? No, no, and likely never.

That's not really what we're talking about though. Would you ever work for a company that sold its product to China or had a business relationship with China? If not, and if you think all Americans shouldn't, then you've eliminated a pretty good percentage of all jobs.

I love playing these strawman games.

It's not strawman to expect you to behave in the same way you demand others to behave it.

Basically, you're saying that if you were to have a cordial relationship with a LEO, you no longer support the black lives matter movement. That's the inductive reasoning you wish to employ with an individual's consumerist decisions.