Political Roundtable Part XI

[Wizardspride]

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...interesting tidbits,,,:

The survey found that ...86 percent thought police work had become harder because of high-profile incidents like the killings of Mike Brown in 2014 and Alton Sterling in the summer of 2016; and that 93 percent of police officers think their colleagues now worry more about personal safety.

Always interesting to see how people interpret what they read. It sounds to me like you interpret this to mean that 86% thought that it would be easier to do their work if incidents like those mentioned didn't become high profile, as this made it more difficult for them to employ deadly force on someone who presented any kind of resistance. I.e. that the inability to shoot/kill at their discretion was something they missed & wanted. Is that what you think the passage means to say?

I don't. The connection to the following clause seems clear enough to me. Incidents like those mentioned might make some class of people stopped by the police fear that their lives were in the balance, a fear that might well make them more of a danger to the personal safety of a policeman who stopped them -- including the obviously overwhelming majority of policeman who would pose no threat to them.

That's a bad thing. Would you say the solution is to avoid giving a high profile to the relatively (or even absolutely) few such incidents that take place?

I wouldn't. I'd say the solution was to do everything possible to a) minimize such incidents and b) prosecute offending officers effectively. That, one imagines, might give someone stopped by a policeman more confidence that his life did not hang in the balance.

Black officers were less likely to feel frustrated by their jobs and less likely to have physically fought with a suspect resisting arrest within the last month than their white or Hispanic colleagues.

The general thrust of the article is that black officers see things differently than white/Hispanic officers. Could it be because criminal suspects are more likely to resist white/Hispanic officers due to the anti-police rhetoric emphasized by the BLM movement?...

Could it be that black suspects are more likely to resist a white officer than a black officer, because they don't think it's as likely that a black officer will kill them?

Btw, nate, what's a "criminal suspect?" Is that a criminal who's a suspect?

...Are all races of suspects more likely to resist white/Hispanic officers, or is it just the black suspects?

What might one conclude if it were the latter?

There was one standout question on which police officers, regardless of their race, tended to agree: They were close to unanimous in their belief that the public does not comprehend the risks and challenges of their work.

Amen.

I take it that "Amen" means that you think you do comprehend those risks and challenges. If so, how have you come to comprehend them?

But, I may be wrong: do you mean, instead, that like the rest of the public you also don't comprehend the risks & challenges facing a cop?

[gtn130]

there should be a rule that nate isn't allowed to talk about race and nobody should engage with him if he does

[nate33]

...interesting tidbits,,,:

The survey found that ...86 percent thought police work had become harder because of high-profile incidents like the killings of Mike Brown in 2014 and Alton Sterling in the summer of 2016; and that 93 percent of police officers think their colleagues now worry more about personal safety.

Always interesting to see how people interpret what they read. It sounds to me like you interpret this to mean that 86% thought that it would be easier to do their work if incidents like those mentioned didn't become high profile, as this made it more difficult for them to employ deadly force on someone who presented any kind of resistance. I.e. that the inability to shoot/kill at their discretion was something they missed & wanted. Is that what you think the passage means to say?

I don't. The connection to the following clause seems clear enough to me. Incidents like those mentioned might make some class of people stopped by the police fear that their lives were in the balance, a fear that might well make them more of a danger to the personal safety of a policeman who stopped them -- including the obviously overwhelming majority of policeman who would pose no threat to them.

I have the same interpretation as you. The recent high profile shootings, including the ones that actually were justified (like the Mike Brown one) yet received disproportionate media attention, have made suspects stopped by police more inclined to fear, which puts themselves and officers in more danger.

That's a bad thing. Would you say the solution is to avoid giving a high profile to the relatively (or even absolutely) few such incidents that take place?

I wouldn't. I'd say the solution was to do everything possible to a) minimize such incidents and b) prosecute offending officers effectively. That, one imagines, might give someone stopped by a policeman more confidence that his life did not hang in the balance.

I agree with this too. However, I would also add that there be an effort to do a better job of clarifying when perceived "bad shoots" are actually justified and why they were so. I'd prefer that inaccuracies like "hands up don't shoot" weren't so effectively disseminated.

Black officers were less likely to feel frustrated by their jobs and less likely to have physically fought with a suspect resisting arrest within the last month than their white or Hispanic colleagues.

The general thrust of the article is that black officers see things differently than white/Hispanic officers. Could it be because criminal suspects are more likely to resist white/Hispanic officers due to the anti-police rhetoric emphasized by the BLM movement?...

Could it be that black suspects are more likely to resist a white officer than a black officer, because they don't think it's as likely that a black officer will kill them?

Yes. That could very well be the case. But that begs two questions. First: are black officers actually less like to kill black suspects than white officers? (The answer to that is no.) Second: if whites cops are not more likely than black cops to shoot black suspects, then why do the suspects nevertheless believe white cops to be more dangerous? Because this perception is getting people killed.

Btw, nate, what's a "criminal suspect?" Is that a criminal who's a suspect?

Someone suspected by the cop to be a criminal.

...Are all races of suspects more likely to resist white/Hispanic officers, or is it just the black suspects?

What might one conclude if it were the latter?

That white/Hispanic cops might end up more likely than black cops to shoot suspects not out of prejudice, but due to the way suspects respond to the arresting cops.

There was one standout question on which police officers, regardless of their race, tended to agree: They were close to unanimous in their belief that the public does not comprehend the risks and challenges of their work.

Amen.

I take it that "Amen" means that you think you do comprehend those risks and challenges. If so, how have you come to comprehend them?

But, I may be wrong: do you mean, instead, that like the rest of the public you also don't comprehend the risks & challenges facing a cop?

I think most non-cops, myself included, do not fully appreciate the difficulty of the job.

[penbeast0]

...
It's a joke. Satire. It's as believable as Trump taking golden showers with prostitutes in Moscow.

Sorry, I just couldn't see any humor in it.

[verbal8]

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Bernie is absolutely right on this. People that are voting against this are against the American people.

Interesting mix, the Dems Senators from VA split on it.

[verbal8]

There's no way Tillerson should be confirmed--no experience and a horrible testimony thus far. Hopefully he gets shot down. Absolutely no reason to confirm him.

Apparently one thing giving Tillerson a decent chance at nomination is that many who are lukewarm consider alternative options will be worse.

[closg00]

:dontknow:

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Wow, thanks for sharing that. The key point of the article is the two allies intelligence services, lamenting the fact Trump was going to be President and as a heads-up, shared the Trump dossier with them.

[DCZards]

:dontknow:

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Turnabout is fair play. Trump doesn't trust the US intelligence community and they don't trust him.

[montestewart]

:dontknow:

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Turnabout is fair play. Trump doesn't trust the US intelligence community and they don't trust him.

When I predicted (back in October or whenever) that if elected, Trump would tweet top secret information, it was only a smidge of a joke. Not a surprise that others see the same.

Watch on YouTube

[closg00]

:dontknow:

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Turnabout is fair play. Trump doesn't trust the US intelligence community and they don't trust him.

They have good reason to not trust Trump, he has been identified as having an extreme case of narcissistic personality disorder therefore he is mentally unstable.Recall that during the campaign, 50 top security officials (mostly Republican), signed a letter warning about Trump and had it published in the NYT.

[Wizardspride]

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[Dark Faze]

There's no way Tillerson should be confirmed--no experience and a horrible testimony thus far. Hopefully he gets shot down. Absolutely no reason to confirm him.

Apparently one thing giving Tillerson a decent chance at nomination is that many who are lukewarm consider alternative options will be worse.

Well the others in the running were Guiliani and Romney--and the former is off the table. Just give it to Romney. At the time some of Trumps base were pissed about the idea of Romney but it's not as though Romney hasn't brought a ton of Goldman Sachs people on board either. He's just doing what he wants now so I don't think the next person will be as bad as Tillerson.

[Dark Faze]

:dontknow:

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Wow, thanks for sharing that. The key point of the article is the two allies intelligence services, lamenting the fact Trump was going to be President and as a heads-up, shared the Trump dossier with them.

this would have to suggest the IC is closing in on evidence right? that's a huge step to take without having that

[nate33]

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Bernie is absolutely right on this. People that are voting against this are against the American people.

Interesting mix, the Dems Senators from VA split on it.

Yeah, this is a clear case where we can see who has been bought by Big Pharma, and who has not.

[nate33]

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So what.

[payitforward]

...interesting tidbits,,,:

Always interesting to see how people interpret what they read. It sounds to me like you interpret this to mean that 86% thought that it would be easier to do their work if incidents like those mentioned didn't become high profile, as this made it more difficult for them to employ deadly force on someone who presented any kind of resistance. I.e. that the inability to shoot/kill at their discretion was something they missed & wanted. Is that what you think the passage means to say?

I don't. The connection to the following clause seems clear enough to me. Incidents like those mentioned might make some class of people stopped by the police fear that their lives were in the balance, a fear that might well make them more of a danger to the personal safety of a policeman who stopped them -- including the obviously overwhelming majority of policeman who would pose no threat to them.

I have the same interpretation as you. The recent high profile shootings, including the ones that actually were justified (like the Mike Brown one) yet received disproportionate media attention, have made suspects stopped by police more inclined to fear, which puts themselves and officers in more danger.

That's a bad thing. Would you say the solution is to avoid giving a high profile to the relatively (or even absolutely) few such incidents that take place?

I wouldn't. I'd say the solution was to do everything possible to a) minimize such incidents and b) prosecute offending officers effectively. That, one imagines, might give someone stopped by a policeman more confidence that his life did not hang in the balance.

I agree with this too. However, I would also add that there be an effort to do a better job of clarifying when perceived "bad shoots" are actually justified and why they were so. I'd prefer that inaccuracies like "hands up don't shoot" weren't so effectively disseminated.

The general thrust of the article is that black officers see things differently than white/Hispanic officers. Could it be because criminal suspects are more likely to resist white/Hispanic officers due to the anti-police rhetoric emphasized by the BLM movement?...

Could it be that black suspects are more likely to resist a white officer than a black officer, because they don't think it's as likely that a black officer will kill them?

Yes. That could very well be the case. But that begs two questions. First: are black officers actually less like to kill black suspects than white officers? (The answer to that is no.) Second: if whites cops are not more likely than black cops to shoot black suspects, then why do the suspects nevertheless believe white cops to be more dangerous?

Btw, nate, what's a "criminal suspect?" Is that a criminal who's a suspect?

Someone suspected by the cop to be a criminal.

...Are all races of suspects more likely to resist white/Hispanic officers, or is it just the black suspects?

What might one conclude if it were the latter?

That white/Hispanic cops might end up more likely than black cops to shoot suspects not out of prejudice, but due to the way suspects respond to the arresting cops.

Amen.

I take it that "Amen" means that you think you do comprehend those risks and challenges. If so, how have you come to comprehend them?

But, I may be wrong: do you mean, instead, that like the rest of the public you also don't comprehend the risks & challenges facing a cop?

I think most non-cops, myself included, do not fully appreciate the difficulty of the job.

Comments on passages marked in red, in reverse order:

"...difficulty of the job" -- yes, that can only be true. It leaves aside, however, the now very long-term trend towards "militarizing" the police. I'd say that's one of the key issues underneath the increasing difficulties of the job. Whether it is "necessary" to militarize policing is a separate issue & presents a very complex, multi-faceted set of questions well beyond the scope of this kind of forum (where the discussion of these issues could only descend into name-calling).

Even if numbers don't show it to be true, "...why do (black) suspects... believe white cops to be more dangerous" to them? -- Assuming this were true (wch might be a reasonable assumption -- but in fact I don't think you've claimed that the article cites numbers to this effect), I'd have no trouble understanding why that might happen. There's a long history to be considered, & I don't think the BLM movement is a significant part of "feeling" that history in context.

"inaccuracies like "hands up don't shoot" " -- please explain....

"received disproportionate media attention" -- you mean received a lot of media attention. "Disproportionate" is a prejudicial judgement.

"high profile shootings, including the ones that actually were justified (like the Mike Brown one)" -- even if we fully accept your parenthetical reference, it's unclear how often we know that shootings "actually were justified". Often, it may not be possible to know, especially as "justified" packs a lot of assumptions. E.g. perhaps one would be able to "justify" a particular shooting, even though a different cop (or the same cop w/ different training) might have been able to avoid it yet still control the situation.

I'm not pointing to something personal here, nate, but to the fact that language often packs a lot of meanings beyond the simple denotations. In this case, a "justified" shooting points away from the need to enable situations of this kind not to justify shooting. I hope I'm being clear....

[nate33]

There's no way Tillerson should be confirmed--no experience and a horrible testimony thus far. Hopefully he gets shot down. Absolutely no reason to confirm him.

Apparently one thing giving Tillerson a decent chance at nomination is that many who are lukewarm consider alternative options will be worse.

Well the others in the running were Guiliani and Romney--and the former is off the table. Just give it to Romney. At the time some of Trumps base were pissed about the idea of Romney but it's not as though Romney hasn't brought a ton of Goldman Sachs people on board either. He's just doing what he wants now so I don't think the next person will be as bad as Tillerson.

I don't think Romney was ever actually in the running. Trump was trying to let the establishment know he was at least open-minded about their people, when in fact he never was. Alternatively, Trump was torturing Romney like a cat tortures a mouse. I wouldn't put it past Trump. He punishes people who cross him and Romney crossed him in the most damaging way possible.

[Wizardspride]

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So what.

Pretty much the response I expected.

[FAH1223]

Apparently one thing giving Tillerson a decent chance at nomination is that many who are lukewarm consider alternative options will be worse.

Well the others in the running were Guiliani and Romney--and the former is off the table. Just give it to Romney. At the time some of Trumps base were pissed about the idea of Romney but it's not as though Romney hasn't brought a ton of Goldman Sachs people on board either. He's just doing what he wants now so I don't think the next person will be as bad as Tillerson.

I don't think Romney was ever actually in the running. Trump was trying to let the establishment know he was at least open-minded about their people, when in fact he never was. Alternatively, Trump was torturing Romney like a cat tortures a mouse. I wouldn't put it past Trump. He punishes people who cross him and Romney crossed him in the most damaging way possible.

Romney is also anti-Russia. Also in the neocon camp though not as aggressive as someone like Bolton. Romney would have probably performed as John Kerry has though he could be definitely pushed into Hillary/Colin Powell territory of supporting regime change policies.

The US deep state is divided. I think for the first time the neocons/staunch pro Israel folks have overtaken the realists and traditionals. The US has overstretched itself with stupid wars and interventions (and further threats against Iran) and accelerated the alliances of Russia-China into a marriage. It basically allowed Russia to escape any threats of regime change in Moscow. The nationalists are in power and the pro-western figures have no power anymore. If Putin nationalizes the Central Bank, that'd be a huge deal.

For example, if a deal was made with Iran in 2005, when it was begging for it, Iranian oil and gas and Qatari oil and gas could have supplied Europe and sidelined Russia, weakening it and making regime change possible, and checkmating China.

The choice was do you want to remain the only superpower, maintain dollar hegemony? Or do you want to destroy Iran because Israel wishes it so?

They choose the latter and the intense sanctions regime. India, Turkey, and South Korea were told by the US to abide by the Iran sanctions regime which hurt their economies so they found a loophole to bypass the sanctions and traded with Iran in mutual currencies and gold to get the Iranian oil they needed. John Kerry admitted the motivation for the Iran Deal was to maintain the dollar otherwise this practice would spread with China/Russia united on moving away from the dollar system. Xi Jinping also kept Iran alive and was the first foreign leader in Tehran last year after sanctions were lifted. Iran became a ground zero experiment by China and other US allies for de-dollarization.

The empire of bases and chaos cannot be sustained due to the decline of the dollar.
Every transaction you make, even in Canadian dollars , any Arab gold currency, EURO, as well as most of the worlds currencies involve the US dollar in the transaction. From every transaction a small percentage funds the ever replenishing credit card which is the US Dollar.

The trend towards de-dollarization is rapid, and in our lifetime 10-20 years the US will be just one of several major world currencies. This means that there will be constraints on US spending, especially military. The US cannot afford trillion dollar **** like Iraq and Afghanistan, and the massive corruption in the military industrial complex will run out of juice.