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

salon.com

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

#181

Post by Camillo »

mcantelon wrote: post #151
nateabele wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the conclusion of the article nails what's at the heart of the issue. Most of the country is either left or right, and is perfectly comfortable with paramilitarized police forces being used against 'the other side'.

America's polarization is likely deliberately promoted by the elites. When a society is occupied by infighting over wedge issues it's not looking at the big picture and power can be more easily consolidated. In Rwanda, the colonialists arbitrarily split the population into Hutus and Tutsi "ethnicities" then showed favoritism to one group. They eventually got infighting which diverted energy from possible insurgence.

The colonialists emphasized the split for political gains, and there must have been some arbitrariness in assigning each person to exactly one category, but they certainly didn't pull the distinction out of thin air. Just look at the pictures in the infobox in their respective Wikipedia articles.

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

#182

Post by mathattack »

"In January 2011, the Culosi family accepted a $2 million settlement offer from Fairfax County. That same year, Virginia’s government spent $20 million promoting the state lottery."

Lotteries like this are a tax on people bad at math. How is this morally superior to an office pool?

Though I do think viewing this as a "hit" enters the realm of tinfoil hats,

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

#183

Post by Camillo »

speeder wrote: post #180
mmagin wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a tangent (but hopefully quite relevant): Does anyone else feel that perhaps a lot of what we're seeing is a case of "Those who do not know history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them"? As I look back on all of the history education I received in school (the compulsory part, not college), it occurs to me that it was largely a lot of propaganda. With the exception of black slavery, a brief mention of WWII internme…

Here in Brazil even the black slavery part is propaganda, using half truths and exaggerations to portray slavery as result of monarchy and monarchy as absolute evil. Professional historians already found out that slavery here is not a black and white issue, but also found that the republican government made law that schools were to teach anti-monarchy propaganda, even if it meant using half-truths about how slavery w…

As far as I know, the last Brazilian emperor Pedro II fought against slavery all his life, and slavery was abolished during his reign. At which point the rich planters turned to republicanism and instigated a military coup that deposed the emperor and made Brazil a republic. I find it amazing that republican propaganda would attempt to blame the monarchy for slavery!

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

#184

Post by Nrsolis »

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 surprised to hear that a 17-year veteran of the Fairfax County Police was the one that shot him. Apparently, he said he was bumped and accidentally discharged his gun DIRECTLY INTO SAL'S CHEST.

The police department eventually settled with the family for negligent homicide. That was only after they fought tooth and nail to protect a cop that didn't know how to control a deadly weapon.

In the end, I think the cop got a 3 week suspension. AFAIK, he's still on the FCPD.

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

#185

Post by lostlogin »

strathmeyer wrote: post #93
mds wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he meant "training in dealing with barking dogs"

No American police are generally resistant to training of any type, such as firearm training. They don't like other people telling them they don't know how to do their jobs, that would make them lose confidence. It's why they need to shoot at you sixty times in order to hit you once.

A refusal to take advice is asking for trouble and paints a bad picture of any profession. Always take the advice, you don't have to use is, but you do have to take it in. How do people get like that?

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

#186

Post by speeder »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #127
smky80 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do not "like" it. It's just that, to be very blunt, most people are basically peasants at heart. They're going to go along with whatever the king says. Twenty years ago, on that side of the line on a map, the people believed in capitalism, while on the other side the people believed in communism. On this side of the line people believed in this god, on that side, they believe in that god. It has nothing to do wi…

This is a somewhat ugly and self-aggrandizing view. It's easy to let people you don't know and will never meet become sub-human, but it's dangerous and harmful. The relevant xkcd is of course, http://xkcd.com/610/ . I don't presume to know why most people are not particularly vocal on these matters, but it's certainly not because they lack critical thought.

Here in Brazil not only people are usually like that (the "shocking" protests here, were still a minority... 1 million people in total, spread over the entire country, when the country has 200 million people... Compare that with european countries with a history of population fueled government changes, that regularly do protests with more than 1 million people and have less population), but people in Brazil are PROUD of it.

Here when you attempt to talk about politics, a common reply is: "Dude, I don't care, and I like it that way, don't come with that politics bullshit toward me."

This applies even during the elections...

In fact, here vote is mandatory, because when it wasn't, less than 5% voted at all, but making vote mandatory only made the thing poisonous, people vote because they must, usually on whoever they see most on TV, or some random candidate or another, if you ask a random brazillian who he voted for as representative, most of them don't remember at all, not even the party they voted for.

Also we have plenty of proof, that all elections since electronics ballot were introduced here, were cheated, and people DON'T CARE. I show videos of people hacking our machines and showing how they can steer election to whatever way they want, and most people react with complete apathy, they feel that politics is irrelevant, that all politicians are the same, thus it does not matter if whoever wins won cheating or not, because the result is not important to them.

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

#187

Post by pyre »

mmagin wrote: post #175
mikeash wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, yes, it is the America that America wants, as far as I can tell. I think this is where efforts to fight these problems fall down. They're almost all based on the assumption that the populace doesn't want this stuff to happen, but that the government pushes it through by abusing power, subverting democracy, etc. But from what I see, this is not the case. Most Americans want this. Whether it's gun-wielding mania…

On a tangent (but hopefully quite relevant): Does anyone else feel that perhaps a lot of what we're seeing is a case of "Those who do not know history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them"? As I look back on all of the history education I received in school (the compulsory part, not college), it occurs to me that it was largely a lot of propaganda. With the exception of black slavery, a brief mention of WWII internme…

It is this way. I think largely in part due to the way that the textbooks and curriculums are put together. It all seems to funnel through some group in Texas for 'approval,' IIRC. I'll bet that sticking to much about the bad things that America has done.

Anecdote time:

1) I remember reading about what US did to the Native Americans, but I remember it being rather dry reading. It was presented more as a series of facts rather than, "this was an evil thing that we shouldn't do again." "Oh yea, by the way, all of the women and children were slaughtered. Moving on..."

2) We never discussed anything more recent than maybe WW2 in history. The only exception here is that in high school you could choose, Pre- or Post-Civil War US History. I ended up choosing pre-Civil War.

3) One of my history teachers in 7th or 8th grade would add some flavor to the texts. Things like disagreeing with the book's assertions that Ben Franklin modelled the Contintental Congress after Native American political organization. His assertion was that the Native Americans were seen as inferior, so even if there was influence from them, it wasn't conscious, or openly admitted to.

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

#188

Post by tsotha »

smky80 wrote: post #110
mikeash wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, yes, it is the America that America wants, as far as I can tell. I think this is where efforts to fight these problems fall down. They're almost all based on the assumption that the populace doesn't want this stuff to happen, but that the government pushes it through by abusing power, subverting democracy, etc. But from what I see, this is not the case. Most Americans want this. Whether it's gun-wielding mania…

They do not "like" it. It's just that, to be very blunt, most people are basically peasants at heart. They're going to go along with whatever the king says. Twenty years ago, on that side of the line on a map, the people believed in capitalism, while on the other side the people believed in communism. On this side of the line people believed in this god, on that side, they believe in that god. It has nothing to do wi…

They do not "like" it. It's just that, to be very blunt, most people are basically peasants at heart.

I don't see any reason to believe this is true. The problem is most people don't have any contact with the police, and they're using a mental model that's about fifteen years out of date. They don't know what's happening out there. It's hard to imagine, but most normal people still get their news from television.

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

#189

Post by tsotha »

stcredzero wrote: post #98
mikeash wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, yes, it is the America that America wants, as far as I can tell. I think this is where efforts to fight these problems fall down. They're almost all based on the assumption that the populace doesn't want this stuff to happen, but that the government pushes it through by abusing power, subverting democracy, etc. But from what I see, this is not the case. Most Americans want this. Whether it's gun-wielding mania…

> Sadly, yes, it is the America that America wants, as far as I can tell. Many young people coming out of school seem to have no conception of rights. To them, it's excusable for rights to be violated if they feel enough justified anger. They are unclear on the concept that rights apply to people and situations in ways they may not like.

They also believe anything that makes them unhappy is a violation of their own rights.

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

#190

Post by lifeisstillgood »

Ovid wrote: post #23

Is this really the America that America wants? The article mentions one case where a judge refused to issue a search warrant for a narcotics investigation and instead the police brought representatives from the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and raided the place with a swat team to conduct an alcohol inspection. What did they find? Two sample bottles of beer that weren't labeled as samples and a bo…

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.

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