The Goat Pen

Jungle Rat wrote:Tazers should always be the first response. Unless Bad Guy draws a gun. Still a judgement call.

if anyone thinks the bar is low for getting shot with a gun by a cop, they'll just tazer you to make sure their batteries are charged.

I think cops shoot before they even think and that's a problem. I also think people should realize that cops shoot before they think and go into self-preservation mode. I also think people, esp. black people, are fed up as hell, for good reason, and don't care what the cops think and sometimes end up dead.

But ultimately, I've got too many of my own problems to worry too much about any of it. Sounds lame but that's the way it goes.

"But ultimately, I've got too many of my own problems to worry too much about any of it. Sounds lame but that's the way it goes."

Actually, I think that's the way it is for most people, but it's easy to express obligatory outrage over whatever is the flavor of the week subject at the time. But most people don't really give a shit about anything outside themselves and their immediate fambly, which is really just an extension of yourself. And sometimes not even the immediate fambly....

Meh....to me, it's just a lack of empathy. People find it easy to understand the fundamental unfairness of someone going into a hospital for a routine procedure to remove tonsils or have a gall bladder removed and winding up dead due to a bad intubation or miscalculated anesthesia. That happens and people will all line up to say a doctor was negligent. They do that because they can see themselves on the bad end of that situation. They don't say "hey, being a doctor is a hard job." They expect accountability.

My frustratjon is in the asshats that give a long list of reasons why the person got shot...they looked older than 12, they had prior history with (other) police, they didn't comply, they looked like they were on pcp, blah blah blah. They never say the officer was wrong...let alone criminal. That speaks to a lack of empathy bc that problem isn't there's. It belongs to the types of people who DO get shot by police. Follow your different set of rules, brah, so you can maybe avoid getting shot. If you do still get shot, it's because you looked like a bad dude, or you didn't move fast enough, or the autistic kid next to you playing with the truck needed a warning shot that accidentally struck you, or "hey, what about Chicago and blacks shooting blacks" or it's the protesters...

your problem is with profiling.

there are times when people say the officer is wrong. Now the police department may have a problem saying the officer is wrong - I , and many other people recognize that it happens. Shooting a man who aides an autisitic child? Who is saying he deserved that?


but I have zero..nada...no empathy whatsoever for a man holding a gun and not following police orders to drop it. And no tolerance for a community that decides that rioting, looting and violence is an answer to him getting shot.

I am saying I know people in my real life and people on these boards who have happily commented on incidents where they felt a cop was justified and been silent, at best, on any others. If you are not one of those people, then this shoe ain't yours.

We also know people who say Michael Brown was shot needlessly even though Obama's own federal team exonerated the policeman.

its not just one side of the equation that is frustrated with asshats and their long lists of reasons why someone should or shouldn't have done what they did.

You know anyone that says Darren Wilson was doing his job?

Kinda changing my subject, homie.

If there can't be honest dialog, then how can you expect empathy

I enjoyed this open letter addressed to any Trump voter. I think he pulled too many punches but the sentiment is spot on.

http://www.gq.com/story/a-word-for-donald-trump-voters

He mentioned John Oliver. Argument invalid.

Vote Trump.

Cletus is of the John Oliver/Keith Olbermann ilk.

eCat wrote:If there can't be honest dialog, then how can you expect empathy

An honest dialog has to stay on topic. If you want to talk Mike Brown, or Chicago, or Fred Hampton, or whatever I have a view on...then I'm down. However, if the topic veers to some straw man, I don't have any belief that a desire to learn/understand empathy was ever in the cards.

With the PAH you know what your getting. A lying, corrupt, conniving, money grubbing, fuck America and the little people as long as I get richer kind of 'what's in for me politician' or a who knows what's coming, anti establishment guy who pisses off everyone. Tough Choice. NOT!

BigRedMan wrote:He mentioned John Oliver. Argument invalid.

Vote Trump.

sardis wrote:Cletus is of the John Oliver/Keith Olbermann ilk.

Perfectly aligned with the article.

The condescending bullshit about how stupid a group of the electorate could be by nominating Trump rings hollow. Look what you brought to the table...Hillary Clinton. From the so called intellectual party you bring us her. An unintelligent, uninspiring, propped up, unethical candidate who, if wasnt for her husband couldn't get elected dog catcher in Chappaqua. She is the US version of Christina Kirchner.

The reason that a possible Trump Presidency even exists is not because Republican voters think he'd make a great President. It's because they've known for years that you guys were going to put hersleazeness up for nomination, and they knew the only way to kill the wildebeast is to send in an even more sleazy, cunning film flam artist. They turned away from their usual upstanding, qualified nominees because they knew that these good men had zero chance going up against the con. So, they hired their William Munny.

Bklyn wrote:

eCat wrote:If there can't be honest dialog, then how can you expect empathy

An honest dialog has to stay on topic. If you want to talk Mike Brown, or Chicago, or Fred Hampton, or whatever I have a view on...then I'm down. However, if the topic veers to some straw man, I don't have any belief that a desire to learn/understand empathy was ever in the cards.

can't speak for everyone else but lets say for purposes of this discussion that Michael Brown was ground zero for this

I'm not sure what your level of empathy is expected but the tone here suggests exactly what I've been saying consistently. Follow our reactions on August 15, 2014 - a day after the shooting. Just skip over every IB post. He just wastes your time on some feminism rant thats completely out of place.

http://www.goatpen.net/forums/viewtopic ... tart=11620

sardis wrote:The condescending bullshit about how stupid a group of the electorate could be by nominating Trump rings hollow. Look what you brought to the table...Hillary Clinton. From the so called intellectual party you bring us her. An unintelligent, uninspiring, propped up, unethical candidate who, if wasnt for her husband couldn't get elected dog catcher in Chappaqua. She is the US version of Christina Kirchner.

The reason that a possible Trump Presidency even exists is not because Republican voters think he'd make a great President. It's because they've known for years that you guys were going to put hersleazeness up for nomination, and they knew the only way to kill the wildebeast is to send in an even more sleazy, cunning film flam artist. They turned away from their usual upstanding, qualified nominees because they knew that these good men had zero chance going up against the con. So, they hired their William Munny.

Cletus isn't a Hillary supporter - at least not normally - he's GOPe. The Republicans who would celebrated the election of Karl Rove/Paul Wolfowitz/Dick Cheney, etc.

The republicans catered to the southern democrats, the evangelicals, the war mongers, the anti-government sentiment. They wanted these voters. They did gerrymander, voter registration laws, - whatever they could to keep themselves elected by this voting base.

The problem is these voters told them over and over, 60 - 70% of them were against immigration, were against globalism (they probably couldn't define what that was but it boils down to being against executives making $4m a year while shipping jobs overseas), they were probably split on war but most likely were tired of the bullshit about why we had to be in Iraq, why sons were dying in Afghanistan when a seal team killed Osama in Pakistan and they wonder out loud why the people they've been told want to take away their freedom are being let into this country by the thousands. Election after election, the priorities of their voting base was ignored.

I doubt very many people are voting for Trump because they think he's going to change the world for the better - but they can't tell the difference between a Mitt Romney or a John Kerry, and neither one of them is interested in addressing what is important to a big section of the GOP. That 97% that doesn't make $200K or more a year

I am way past caring what the national review, John Stewart, Steven Colbert or any of the GOPe think. Matter of fact I've turned off the news. What can be said that insults Trump voters now that hasn't been said ad nauseam in the past 6 months?

Putting up Hillary as an alternative and the tone deafness people have toward her is just as amazing to me. She's corrupt - she's long forgotten where the legal and ethical boundaries are, she a bitch to the people around here - the staff, the secret service, reporters, etc., just a mean person and I think its insulting for her to do things like reach out to the disabled who represent about 3m voters in this country ...now...because she sees its as political opportunity. The time frame Hillary Clinton gives a fuck about disabled people is last week when Trump closed the gap until 20 minutes after the election. And the people voting for Trump are the suckers here.......go figure.

Hillary has worked with advocacy groups during her legal tenure for years after law school, worked as a US Senator and in the State Department. You have people in Congress, in his own party, that have gone on record saying that if Ted Cruz was killed on the floor of the Senate, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who would testify as a witness in court. But, there is no one who really worked with her that is saying the level of things about her that people on the internet say. What is even more interesting is that everything people say about Hillary, as far as conjecture (IMO), can be said about Trump...in reams and reams of court documents and on-the-record interviews. It's an interesting phenomenon that Hillary wears a banner in (mostly) allegation that Trump wears proudly in legal testimony and statements out his own mouth.

Hillary is a horrible politician but a decent policy wonk who would not even be in contention if not for a horrible GOP opponent.

I don't think most Trump supporters are idiotic (the racist, misogynistic nationalists are), but I do think they are short sighted. Ah well, to each his own. If the unlikely event happens that Trump wins, we'll see if we get an "oh shit, what did we do" moment like the Brexiters got this past Summer. The thing is, Brexit will probably not fully happen...a Trump presidency is a 4 year ride without an out.

eCat wrote:

Bklyn wrote:

eCat wrote:If there can't be honest dialog, then how can you expect empathy

An honest dialog has to stay on topic. If you want to talk Mike Brown, or Chicago, or Fred Hampton, or whatever I have a view on...then I'm down. However, if the topic veers to some straw man, I don't have any belief that a desire to learn/understand empathy was ever in the cards.

can't speak for everyone else but lets say for purposes of this discussion that Michael Brown was ground zero for this

I'm not sure what your level of empathy is expected but the tone here suggests exactly what I've been saying consistently. Follow our reactions on August 15, 2014 - a day after the shooting. Just skip over every IB post. He just wastes your time on some feminism rant thats completely out of place.

http://www.goatpen.net/forums/viewtopic ... tart=11620

I'll peep it out and respond in kind...