Because people took the easiest low-hanging fruit: stores. You know they’re empty, you know they’ve got shit.
Because very, very few people are just waiting for an opportune moment to start raping/murdering. The people who can’t resist that are already problems. A much higher percentage of the population will take shit from other people if they know they can get away with it then will kill people or rape.
You’re talking about a few hours that most people don’t know about in advance. The reason it happens with protests is because it’s major news, everyone sees what’s going on, and then people realize they can get away with it. I mean, if your point is that it takes an angry mob to throw the first brick through the first window… maybe.
But I’m talking about like low level criminals realizing they can get away with a lot more, and I’m not even talking about physically harming other people.
You know, we took the racism==capitalism chat to another thread because it is ‘meta’ to the news of viewing of these protests. Handicapping (and ~puke~ the mindless second-guessing of ‘messaging’) POTUSBOWL 2020 is also ‘meta’ to the news and viewing of these protests. Have you considered taking these voteHarder™ hot takes to another thread?
I assume those of you advocating for the complete removal of police are also for absolute de-regulation of the corporate world?
The current police system is absolutely broken and needs to be fixed. But an environment without oversight means that antisocial behavior becomes a competitive advantage. Without some force that encourages the public good, sociopaths run roughshod over those of us who actually care about each other.
No I have not. Seems to me if we want to actually accomplish anything, winning more elections than we lose is pretty key. Seems to me that putting together a plan we can sell so that we can get people who support it into office to enact it is pretty key.
But sorry to clutter this thread up with all my mindlessness, and get in the way of your extremely mindful plans and ideas.
Oh, right, there aren’t any of those. End this, abolish that, replace it with nothing or anything or who cares, just get rid of it. How? Well, however, that’s not for you to say.
Like environmental regulations? Show me some police doing anything about that. Last thing I can think of is when some people tried to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline and the police shot them with rubber bullets, tear gas and water canons. Police are there to help the corporate world run roughshod.
Peaceful but passionate march and vigil in Glendale, CA, once the headquarters of the German-American Bund and a seat of the KKK. Much larger crowd than expected with amazing diversity. Was almost enough to give a guy a little hope.
This George Romney v Malcom X’s opinion of him is a bit a derail. But to clarify:
If you listen to X’s Ballot or the Bullet speech, you’ll hear him explaining why he thinks his audience is being duped by men like Romney in general. His point of view can be compelling while simultaneously in line with someone else believing that G Romney was marginally better than a Dixiecrat.
It’s interesting to note that Romney was a mormon, and the mormon church had an official no blacks allowed policy until the 70’s. So, probably pretty racist.
Trump got people to vote for him by telling them that the things needed to change and asking what did they have to lose by picking him. Right now, I think it makes more sense to drive people’s emotions and get them mad and believing that things have to change. Once you start getting too wonky about what that change looks like, you start to lose votes.
The Democratic line should be that the current situation is untenable and Republicans can’t fix it. Vote for Democrats and let them figure out what to do.
That being said, agitating for abolishing the police is part of the process of putting together a plan. We can’t divine the perfect plan through Platonic reasoning. We should be responsive to people’s wants and needs and that requires encouraging them to be vocal about those wants and needs and then listening. And maybe, in the end, the majority of people won’t want to abolish the police, but they should be allowed to know that is an option on the table and encouraged to think about it so that they can make an informed choice.
Not saying I have bad feelings towards people who think this way, I get that we all have different ideas, but the feeling that without controls there will be huge amounts of wild violent chaos is painfully frustrating to me. I do not get the level of fear people have who walk around thanking their lucky stars that the police are stopping this tidal wave of violence anymore than I get people who feel they need to be clutching an AR15 at all times in order to feel safe.
It’s possible I’m not making the point clearly enough. I’m not justifying police in order to keep corporations honest - and I absolutely concede that this isn’t currently happening. I see two separate issues here:
We need corporate oversight to keep antisocial corporations from winning.
We need societal oversight to keep antisocial people/groups from winning.
I can’t guarantee I know the optimal model for either, but a model that relies on “self-policing” in either domain means the 99% of well-intentioned people/businesses just get absolutely boned by the 1% willing to screw everyone else.
I understand and you do have a point. But, the world now is being absolutely boned by corporations who have the police on their side. I don’t contend that there should be no defense against those taking advantage of others, but we’re really far from optimal right now.
Army veterans created an alternative to the police in order to maintain order. A group called the “Labor War Veteran’s Guard” forbade the use of force and did not carry weapons, and used “persuasion only.” Peacekeeping proved unnecessary… Major General John F. Morrison, stationed in Seattle, claimed that he had never seen “a city so quiet and orderly.”
The methods of organization adopted by the striking workers bore resemblance to anarcho-syndicalism, perhaps reflecting the influence of the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest
