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“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

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Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#221

Post by sneak »

Nrsolis wrote: post #184

I knew Sal Culosi. He was a nice enough guy that used to hang out at Fast Eddies Sports Bar in Fairfax, VA. I saw him there often just tending a beer and minding his own business. If you can believe it, he was an optometrist at a Wal-Mart that just measured eyeballs and wrote prescriptions. If he was a bookie (as alleged) then I never saw anything that gave him away. I followed his story in the paper and was surprise…

It's shit like this that flies in the face of all those "but most cops are not bad guys" arguments.

If an organization fights to protect bad guys, I don't care how much good they do: they are complicit in furthering criminal behavior. And they're in a position of trust, at that!

It's an open secret that cops lie to protect other cops.

Why do we allow this? Any other person in a special position of trust and responsibility that contravenes their duty gets _extra_ punishment.

Lon Horiuchi was an FBI sniper that shot Vicki Weaver in the back while holding her infant daughter in her arms: case dismissed. That cop that pepper sprayed those protesting kids at UC Davis, John Pike, was never even charged for "lack of evidence" (nevermind that video of him doing so was on every news show in the country that week). The FBI and BATFE set the Branch Davidians' home on fire, burning up the children inside.

Instead of meaningful outrage, we simply let cops get away with murder, literally.

Fuck the police.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#223

Post by saraid216 »

sneak wrote: post #221
Nrsolis wrote: post #184

I knew Sal Culosi. He was a nice enough guy that used to hang out at Fast Eddies Sports Bar in Fairfax, VA. I saw him there often just tending a beer and minding his own business. If you can believe it, he was an optometrist at a Wal-Mart that just measured eyeballs and wrote prescriptions. If he was a bookie (as alleged) then I never saw anything that gave him away. I followed his story in the paper and was surprise…

It's shit like this that flies in the face of all those "but most cops are not bad guys" arguments. If an organization fights to protect bad guys, I don't care how much good they do: they are complicit in furthering criminal behavior. And they're in a position of trust, at that! It's an open secret that cops lie to protect other cops. Why do we allow this? Any other person in a special position of trust and responsib…

It's rhetoric like this that makes cops feel obligated to protect each other from other citizens. If you're accused of a crime, you deserve maximum legal effort applied for your defense.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#224

Post by tripzilch »

logn wrote: post #210
Ovid wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with much of what you say, but I'm not sure I agree that "Americans won't accept that". - Obama has a secret "kill list" and has bragged about killing Americans without due process of law. - We have widespread surveillance of our phones and email. - The FBI admits that drones are now being used for domestic surveillance. - The activist Supreme Court is continuing to gut our laws and give Big Business everythi…

I understand your sentiment but if there's anything positive to hold onto it's that we're not the cliche frogs in water that slowly comes to a boil. Snowden alerted us in stark terms almost overnight that the water was boiling. We were in 1984 but the reality of our world was classified as top secret. In the tech community many of us saw the water slowly coming to a boil since about 2003. I think to most Americans th…

Not disagreeing with your entire post, but

> I really don't think anyone is the US gov't has malice or ill will or a truly evil side.

Of course it depends on what you call "truly evil", but I believe that in any sufficiently large government (not just US) exist a significant number of sociopaths. It's just that, sociopaths exist, smart sociopaths also exist, and those are qualities that make it easy to find their way into politics. (and on an even more cynical note, a combination of qualities of particularly evil + intelligent + sociopathic, sounds like an even more likely profile to find itself in a position of power)

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#225

Post by yogo »

sneak wrote: post #221
Nrsolis wrote: post #184

I knew Sal Culosi. He was a nice enough guy that used to hang out at Fast Eddies Sports Bar in Fairfax, VA. I saw him there often just tending a beer and minding his own business. If you can believe it, he was an optometrist at a Wal-Mart that just measured eyeballs and wrote prescriptions. If he was a bookie (as alleged) then I never saw anything that gave him away. I followed his story in the paper and was surprise…

It's shit like this that flies in the face of all those "but most cops are not bad guys" arguments. If an organization fights to protect bad guys, I don't care how much good they do: they are complicit in furthering criminal behavior. And they're in a position of trust, at that! It's an open secret that cops lie to protect other cops. Why do we allow this? Any other person in a special position of trust and responsib…

These things are still pretty rare. Unfortunately, once you start raiding barber shops and pool halls with so much heat something like this is bound to happen. I still find it to be an honorable job with honest guys that put their lives on the line; however, statistically there's always going to be some hot-headed trigger-happy guy involved. Plus even if they're not on the force they're in some neighborhood as the unofficial neighborhood watch.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#226

Post by vacri »

tsotha wrote: post #192
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the America you paid for. Three trillion dollars on a decade of war does not just vanish, it does not stay abroad. Demobbed soldiers, private training and supply companies, attitudes and expectations - they have to go somewhere, do something, affect someone. You have the America you paid for.

This has nothing to do with war.

lifeisstillgood is talking about the cultural expectation that problems are solved by throwing overwhelming force at them.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#227

Post by btilly »

hammerzeit wrote: post #211
btilly wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I believe that our brains are wired to work from anecdote to theory, not from statistics to theory. In a small group this is a pretty good strategy. Where it breaks down in life is that the odds that we hear about an anecdote depend on the anecdote. This leads to all kinds of bias. I know the limits of my conscious analysis. I therefore have come to accept that there is value for me in filtering out "somethi…

Epistemology is not my strong suit so please excuse me here, but how can you reasonably advocate for your positions in a worldview that specifically privileges personal experience? I tend to agree that we infer theory from anecdotes not data and even that that is a good thing. But don't we have a responsibility after developing a theory to evaluate it before making claims about it?

Epistemology is not my strong suit so please excuse me here, but how can you reasonably advocate for your positions in a worldview that specifically privileges personal experience?

Epistemology is about how we know what we think we know. This is very separate from rhetoric, the art of trying to convince others with your words.

I personally focus on epistemology, which includes clarifying what I believe, why I believe it, how strongly I believe it, and what different things I could reasonably believe in different circumstances. Knowing these things often leads me to conclude, "I believe X, you seem to believe Y, there is no way that I am going to change your beliefs." This seems to me to be a feature, not a flaw.

I am unable to be friends with strongly religious types who are unable to muster the same feature.

I tend to agree that we infer theory from anecdotes not data and even that that is a good thing. But don't we have a responsibility after developing a theory to evaluate it before making claims about it?

In my world view, yes.

If you see me failing to properly qualify what I claim, then please call me on it.

That said, when I make a claim, I'm almost never going to give my full supportive reasoning for my world view. Life is too short.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#228

Post by vacri »

fmstephe wrote: post #222

Is there a place where we can get this fact checked. I ask because this is cementing my opinion about, and fear of, the United States and I would love to know how true this all is.

Search for the names on the internet and find credible corroborating sources.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#229

Post by kdeberk »

etherael wrote: post #82
kdeberk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This argument is spectacularly stupid because based on the rise of exactly these kinds of incidents, you could justify the production and distribution of automated turrets to negate the use of current SWAT tactics. Then it's a good thing that most states have laws that prohibit owning fully-automatic firearms then. > You can't just stop at the perceived consequences of your supposed equilibrium point, you have to f…

An automated turret is not at all the same thing as a firearm with an automatic fire mode. An assault rifle with an automatic fire select might indeed increase the likelihood the operator is killed. An automatic turret on the other hand doesn't have an operator, making it potentially quite a good deterrent to thuggish humans jacked up on authoritarianism with guns storming an area. I assume though since you're automa…

I'm not sure what you are trying to tell me. You told me that you can use my spectacularly stupid argument to justify a conclusion that you don't like, well that is your problem, not mine.

I only attempt argue that, 1) given the fact that people are free to own lethal firearms within their own homes, 2) given the fact that police officers are wont to die if they get shot, 3) and given the assertion that presented with a police force, SWAT or otherwise, within the safety of their own home, threatening the suspect with arrest, the suspect can resort to irrational and sometimes violent behavior, I conclude that to maximize their self-preservation, police forces have to ensure an imbalance of power while making the arrest.

You are calling this argument spectacularly stupid, so you are going to, without having to resort to logical fallacies, show to me why my conclusion is wrong.

> I assume though since you're automatically painting opposition you don't understand with the same tired old bullshit labels typical of mainstream statist standard leftists, correcting your mistakes is liable to just annoy you with more cognitive dissonance.

That you are quick to associate me with a political position that I am not inclined to support merely betrays your confused dichotomous outlook on politics. I can't even begin to guess what a "mainstream statist standard leftist" is. I only asked the question because to my knowledge, FOX News often uses the slippery slope argument as a rhetorical device. You turn it into a political debate.

> My apologies, I won't be replying again.

Right.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#230

Post by Steuard »

stcredzero wrote: post #99
mtgx wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the public thinks that those being targeted are all dirty evil criminals, and I also think America as a whole doesn't have an "innocent before guilty" mentality. It's not just the American leaders that have corrupt minds. It's also a lot of Americans, who are supporting this sort of stuff. The media is also not helping at all, and making the problem worse, because they are usually on the government's s…

The presumption of innocence is not directly enshrined in the constitution, and in the case of some crimes, like rape, has been deliberately and explicitly weakened.

This is a bit off topic for this thread but given that you brought it up:

It is hard for me to look at, say, Steubenville[1] (to take just the most publicized of several examples that I've seen in the news lately) and understand how anyone can suggest that accused rapists aren't given a presumption of innocence in our society. The blame heaped on rape victims is often tremendous, even when everyone knows that it happened.

(In the Steubenville case, there were widely shared photos documenting what happened to the young woman in question and at least one video of a guy at the same party laughing about what his friends had done to her, and most of the local community evidently still strongly sided with her rapists.)

[1] http://sports.yahoo.com/news/highschool--steubenville-high-s...

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