From the New York Times, August 19, 2014: “Encouraging more participation in the democratic process in a community that feels alienated from political power – hence the demonstrations – seems like an obviously good idea; and one that’s particularly compelling because it’s so simple. Voting is an alternative to protesting in the streets.” The establishment, especially Democrats, are starting voter registration drives and using Ferguson as a rallying cry in black communities. According to the statistics, blacks are 7% short of no longer falling prey to trigger-happy white cops.
The 7% Solution
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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And how many of the mayors of these towns are Democrats already?
The only town specifically mentioned was Ferguson – the mayor there is a Republican & former cop himself.
Google is your friend.
And Bill “law is the law” DiBlasio? IIRC, we’ve been over that one already.
NYC is a town?
«East side, west side, all around the town …» 😉
Henri
“My kinda town…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx06XNfDvk0
Nice try, but that figure only measures those who voted. 93% of Blacks WHO VOTED voting for Obama is not the equivalent of 93% of Blacks voting for Obama.
More political participation is always the solution. Those who discourage political participation are encouraging and perpetuating the problem.
«More political participation is always the solution.» Indeed ? When «political participation» means choosing between voting for Barack Hussein Obama on the one hand, and Willard Mitt Romney on the other ? To just what problem would more of that type of «political participation» be the solution ?…
Henri
LOL. Typical “progressive” impatience- “A problem that I’ve made worse since the 70’s has led to choices I don’t like. I know, the answer must be to complain and keep doing the thing that made the problem worse!”
Lack of political participation is what led to the choice between Obama and Romney. You want better choices? Participate MORE, and you will slowly but certainly get better choices.
Or you can do what you’re doing- keep advocating non-participation by complaining about the choices non-participation gave you.
As usual, the “progressives” miss the point entirely. Sad, but not surprising.
Good to see you’re capable of laughing, «Whimsical», as other things, such as rational argument, seem quite beyond you. But then you do seem to feel, unlike those whom you so derisively call «progressives» that «participation» in a political system that is dominated by big money, is the solution to a problem you are unwilling and/or unable to define. According to US Census Bureau figures (http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-568.pdf) some 66.2 % of eligible black voters cast their ballots in the 2012 presidential elections (a higher proportion than that of any other group presented in the Census Bureau’s statistics) ; thus, assuming that 93 % of blacks participating in the elections voted for Mr Obama, a majority (61.6 %) of all eligible blacks did indeed vote for him. Would they have had more alternatives than Messrs Obama and Romney from which to choose if the one-third of the eligible black voters who did not vote had done so ? Permit me to doubt it….
«[P]olitical participation»is, as Ted’s cartoon points out, not merely a question of participating in elections between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. You may be unaware of the fact, «Whimsical», but there do exist other forms of «political participation» ; protesting police murders by demonstrating in the streets happens to be one of them….
Henri
Henri, protesting also happens to be far more effective than voting.
Whimsical, “perpetuating the problem”? I don’t think we agree on what the problem IS. For me, a big part of the problem is that the political system doesn’t actually have any politics in it.
Which, of course, is the point, Ted, and why it is allowed.. Politics is for our beloved leaders ; best that ordinary people don’t mess with it, unless responding to strings pulled from above….
Henri
If voting could change anything, they’d make it illegal.
Emma Goldman
No, Ted we agree on the problem: the political system no longer represents the will of the people.
Where we disagree is that I’m proposing the best, most workable solution to that problem, while you’re proposing silly fantasies that will achieve the opposite of your stated goal (revolution) or continuation and escalation of the very thing that caused the problem in the first place (voter non-participation).
As for your laughably ridiculous claim that protesting is far more effective than voting- yes I noticed that all those protests stopped Bush from starting the Iraq war. Whereas had the left wised up and abandoned their “Delivery me the impossible immediately or be punished” election strategy that they’ve been using since the early 70’s Bush never would’ve been able to steal the election in the first place.
Protesting is utterly USELESS unless there are people in office prepared to listen to your protests. I don’t deny it’s a useful tool, but it will ALWAYS be secondary to voter participation.
Mhenri-
In your rush to insult me rather than present a cogent argument, you’ve once again utterly missed the point.
Ill try and use a simpler analogy: You’re the 3 pack a day, 40 year smoker with cancer. I, as your doctor, try and explain to you how your 40 years of bad choices led you this point – and because you don’t want to look at the consequences of your bad decisions, you try to blow me off my going “So you’re saying if I wouldn’t have had that last cigarette, I wouldn’t have gotten cancer? Yeah, right”. When of course, any rational person can see that’s not what I’m saying at all.
If the left had wised up in the early 70’s when it was clear that the “Deliver me the impossible immediately or be punished” strategy didn’t work, wasn’t working, and would never work; would the choices in the 2012 election have been far more progressive than Barack Obama and Mitt Romney?
Permit me to assert it as a certainty.
Oh and Glenn-
Why do you think that the Republicans are trying to make voting as illegal as possible?
Because they realize if the left wakes up and stops buying the useless election strategy that “progressives” are selling, Republicans are toast.
@ Ted Rall (also Glenn, and others of like mind) –
I’ve followed discussions on this site for a number of months and have yet to see “the best, most workable solution”; so perhaps someone can enlighten me. All I’ve seen from THE TROLL is the hypothesis that what you’re suggesting has not ever and will not ever work (negativism at its finest)! Tangible solutions have not been forthcoming. I don’t know, but my training involved the concept that should I disagree with something (in the education field, or in the chemistry lab, or wherever and whatever) I should offer an alternative solution, rather than just knocking the other folks’ ideas down. Have I missed something?
Please excuse me. I should have added that pointing to the cause of cancer doesn’t cure it. (?)
Ah, mein verehrter Lehrer, our favourite (at least on these threads) Troll does indeed propose a solution ; namely, that continuing to vote for – and presumably, to volunteer in the campaign activities of – the bomb ’em «liberals» would have led «us» (i e, people residing in the US) to the paradise which «the left»’s lack of wisdom (snakes, trees, apples/pomegranates, women, etc) in the 1970s has now precluded, presumably forever. If only Time’s arrow were reversible, and «we», with the new knowledge vouchsafed us by that brilliant intellect, «Whimsical» could return to the 1970s and correct our egregious error ! But alas, not even «Whimsical», towering giant that s/he is, has yet to devise a way to erase what the Moving Finger has writ (although there are many that earn a good living obfuscating it). So we shall have to play the hand that has been dealt us now, in the second decade of the 21st century, never forgetting that the road to Elysium is «voter participation» and nothing else. Consider : he turnout in the federal elections of November 1932 in Germany was some 80.58 %, that in March 1933, some two months after the Nazis, with the help of people like von Papen, von Schleicher, Hugenberg, and von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, came to power, the turnout was some 88.74 % of those eligible, and in the elections held in November 1933 (when all opposition parties had been banned), it increased to a stupendous 95.30 %. It can thus be seen that Germany was rapidly approaching Paradise in an asymptotic fashion, and indeed, in the next election-cum-referendum held in March 1936, some 99 % of the electorate participated, while the proportion participating in the elections (and referendum on the Anschluss of Austria to the Reich) in April 1938, a turnout of 99.50 % was recorded. Paradise Regained !…
Thus history demonstrates, in a manner which can hardly be gainsaid, that it is «voter participation» and only «voter participation» that is the secret to good politics….
Permit me to assert it as a certainty. 😉
Henri
@ mhenriday –
As I read through your post, I kept thinking, “But voting is mandated by law in Germany.” (At least, when I lived there in the mid-1970’s it was; I can’t speak for today’s situation.)
Speaking to the gist of your post (that “voting” and “participation in campaigns” will cause significant change) I have a few thoughts on that, as well. (That WAS the point, wasn’t it?)
I had the opportunity to encourage Governor Bill Clinton to run for U.S. President (which I did, personally); and I saw all the signs that he was going to be the nominee from the Democrat Party. I attended the celebratory party in North Little Rock when he won.
I also learned from active participation in the National Education Association that what the “little guy” wants is irrelevant in politics. Candidates are chosen well in advance of any campaign or election; behind-the-scenes manipulation predominates. It’s really very discouraging.
🙁
@derlehrer on August 30, 2014 at 1:36 PM
“I don’t know, but my training involved the concept that should I disagree with something (in the education field, or in the chemistry lab, or wherever and whatever) I should offer an alternative solution, rather than just knocking the other folks’ ideas down.”
If a lead balloon won’t fly should we keep on trying different gases till we find one that will work? If all we have after applying over two hundred years of elections to the day’s problems, and all we have to show for it is this despicable POS, will another hundred years of supplying the same remedy make it better? Sounds like that famous definition of insanity to me, expecting a different result from the same experiment.
Is it wrong to diagnose a disease before there is a cure? How do you find a cure if you can’t acknowledge the existence of a disease.
Life is not like a TV show where the solution to the problem must be presented within time allotted for the telecast so as to not disappoint the spectators with a “to be continued…” at the end of the show.
If you think voting for the plutocrat with the best marketing campaign will solve the problems down here in the commons, good luck.
@ Glenn –
I’m afraid you have me confused with someone else, but I’ll try to respond to your last post respectfully, addressing the points in order of presentation.
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1) “If a lead balloon won’t fly should we keep on trying different gases till we find one that will work?”
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It worked with the Hindenburg, didn’t it? (You’ve misinterpreted my statements. Maybe you had THE TROLL’s posts in mind?)
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2)”Sounds like that famous definition of insanity to me, expecting a different result from the same experiment.”
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No, actually your analogy is fallacious in that the methodology is rational and only the components (candidates) change over time. Those components need to be altered.
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3) “Is it wrong to diagnose a disease before there is a cure?”
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That was not my point, and I believe you are intelligent enough to recognize that fact. Nothing I have written can be misconstrued to make such an allegation. Look again. The point was that THE TROLL has continuously torn down Ted’s (and others’) points, without suggesting an alternative solution.
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4) “Life is not like a TV show where the solution to the problem must be presented within time allotted for the telecast so as to not disappoint the spectators with a ‘to be continued…’ at the end of the show.”
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Ditto the above. I think you’ve misunderstood what I posted as a rebuttal to THE TROLL.
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5) “If you think voting for the plutocrat with the best marketing campaign will solve the problems down here in the commons, good luck.”
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Double ditto the above. You should work on continuity and comprehension skills. Take what I’ve written in context and try again.
😀
Well, mein verehrter Lehrer, I doubt that voting was mandatory in die Weimarer Republik, which was the historical example I chose to present ; if it had been, then the nearly 30 % of the electorate that abstained from voting in the federal elections of July 1932 (those in which the Nazis peaked) would have been sanctioned. I know that in certain other European countries voting is or at least was, mandatory – Greece is one example that comes to mind, as a charming young lady and I had to delay taking the ferry to the little island we had chosen for our holiday so that she could vote in her district in Athens (this was many years ago, when charming young ladies and I were interested in taking holidays together). But neither the experience of Germany in the 1930s or that of Greece half a century later would seem to support «Whimsical»’s prescription of «voter participation» as an – and the only – effective solution to a defective political system….
Henri
@ mhenriday –
I certainly didn’t mean to imply that history was altered by a law that mandated voting back then – merely that in my (limited) experience it was administered in the 1970’s and it seemed to be effective in getting the People to the voting booths. (After all, my expertise is languages, not history.) 😀
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“But neither the experience of Germany in the 1930s or that of Greece half a century later would seem to support «Whimsical»’s prescription of «voter participation» as an – and the only – effective solution to a defective political system…”
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Exactly my point.
🙂
hi Ted .. i’m a fan of your work..
but can you comment on the overuse of the tired standard argument … “because he’s black”
maybe it’s not the color of his skin, it’s the goals of his collective culture: violence, lawlessness.
‘because he’s black’ is like saying of a bear.. “hey, you harrassed him just because he’s a bear. not all bears attack people.” the big flaw in that analogy of course is that bears rarely kill other bears…
also, calling mike brown an ‘unarmed teenager’ …about a criminal who is 6’4 290lbs who just assaulted a cop in his own car, and who threatened an old store owner minutes before… is, um, bullshit.
You’re either a liar or a fool, let’s find out which:
I challenge you do a duel. I get a car, a taser, a club and a gun – you get bare hands. Take ten paces, turn and fire.
Deal or no deal?
I get it.
Black men are bears.
Ha! Ha! HA!
Shoot the bears.
…
No. My mistake.
I get you.
The constitution guarantees us the right to arm bears.
Can bare bear arms still bear arms?
We must be clear here.
@ Glenn –
I don’t think so – but bare arms can still bear arms.
😀
You may be unaware of the fact, «positrakd», but the adjective «unarmed» says nothing about a subject’s height or weight, but rather that he or she is not carrying a firearm, knife, baseball bat, or other such implement, which, it is agreed, Michael Brown was not. Thus he was unarmed at the time of his shooting by Darrel Wilson. Mr Brown was born on 20 May 1996, which means that when he was shot to death on 9 August 2014, he was 18 years of age, i e, a teenager. The young man had no criminal record, so referring to him as a «criminal» is tendentious, to say the least. The claim that he «assaulted a cop in his own car» is disputed by witnesses – see, e g, http://www.vox.com/cards/mike-brown-protests-ferguson-missouri/mike-brown-shooting-facts-details – and smells to me like, to use your own terminology, bullshit. The claim that he had taken a few cigars from a convenience shop a few minutes before the shooting is an allegation which has not been proven and which in any event is utterly irrelevant to the fact of the shooting ; not even in suburban St Louis are police allowed to summarily execute a petty larceny suspect in the street….
As to the relevance of what you term «the tired standard argument», you might want to consider the (understated) facts presented here : http://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6051043/how-many-people-killed-police-statistics-homicide-official-black, It is obvious that the proportion of black victims of police shootings in the US is far greater than the proportion of black people in that country. The «argument» may well be «standard», but the facts with which it deals are anything but «tired»….
It would seem that your knowledge of these matters is as superficial as your knowledge of the ethology of ursine species ; anybody who could write that «bears rarely kill other bears» should perhaps not be writing about either bears or humans….
Henri
Well spoken as usual Henri. However, I must take issue with one of your assertions. So far as I can tell, police are allowed to summarily execute anyone they damn well please.
CrazyH, not that I want to sound like a certain cigar-smoking (or otherwise employing) master of deception, but it all depends upon what one means by «allow». From what I understand, when a police officer murders someone «in the line of duty», he – it’s almost always a «he» – must go through a process of ritual purification, marked by being placed on paid administrative leave, after which a grand jury investigates whether there is cause to indict him for a felony. Usually the case is dismissed at this point, it being obvious to all right-thinking people that the officer in question only fired because he felt, with good cause, that his life was in danger (that dastardly criminal grabbed for his gun !), or, in the rare case that he is required to stand trial, a jury of his peers (i e, with an ethnic/racial composition weighted towards his own, rather than to that of the victim) will find him not guilty and give him absolution. Thus, while it may be said that the police are allowed to summarily execute anyone they damn well please (and generally speaking, they avoid executing people from ethnic groups and social classes in which such an action could be considered problematic), that allowance involves a penitential period (purgatory, anyone ?), during which a purification process must be consummated before the officer in question can be restored to the status of member of good standing of the corps, and thus ready to shoot the next chap who gets in his way. It’s not a simple process and can take quite some time….
Henri
here’s another option for you ted…
you can draw ‘the single dead black man due to cops’ in cartoon… if you also draw the ‘multiple dead black men due to black men’ also laying in the road in the same cartoon.
so in that cartoon… single guy laying there by the cops… and a PILE of corpses laying over near the protesters. that would be a much better cartoon, ironic truth of the situation which is the goal of a political cartoonist right? instead of pandering to a mob.
Okay, show of hands – how many people here think that a racist can show us the solution to racism?
The flaw in your analogy is that the ‘multiple dead black men due to black men’ weren’t killed by those who have a duty to “Serve and Protect” and draw a salary from taxpayers’ money. See?
😀
The logic is quite simple – allow me to demonstrate.
White men kill white men, therefore it’s perfectly acceptable for a black cop to kill an unarmed white teenager. If it happened to positrakd’s son or brother, he wouldn’t complain in the least.
@ CrazyH –
Oh….
mia culpa
.:)
Obama is such a comedian. His sense of timing is impeccable. I love his dry humor.
He puts the mock in democracy.
I find it very interesting that the NY Times article separates “demonstrations” from the political process.
Thanks Ted for posting my remarks .. controversial as they may be. As with most posts, they came from the hip and should be taken for the quants they are. I appreciate the responses from the other posters… which show me that I did not communicate my intended message very well at all. I was not trying to portray the furgeson rioters as ‘bears’… but rather to illuminate the logical fallacy that ‘because he’s black’ represents.
let me try again. new analogy: bears… white, brown, red, pink… attack people.. at night… unseen.. but bear tracks everywhere.. people afraid.. of bears.. one day, (giant) (unarmed) pink bear walks into a yard towards a warden (who is tasked to stop bear attacks)… and allegedly smacks the warden … and pink bear gets shot.. bear lays in yard and says ‘it’s because i’m pink!”
not because pink.. but because of pattern of violence from bears.. observed consistently over time by the wardens who are under tremendous pressure to stop bear attacks.
i would just like them to understand that living life like they’re in a Tupac song (“soldier”, “thug”… from lyrics) generally does contribute to the responses they get. people base their actions on observed patterns and make instant predictions based on that. and the patterns and experiences of cops are more acute than ours.
if you take the position that the cop just did it because MB is unarmed and black… as the rioters are saying. well, that’s just not reasonable in my mind. it’s more reasonable to believe there were some extreme circumstances involved. same with TM. i can’t be certain. i can only imagine what probably happened, with the framework of my own experiences and observations and trying to imagine what would make a 6 year veteran who never fired his weapon decide to use lethal force.
the connotations of ‘unarmed teenager’ imply ‘harmless boy’… it’s technically true that he’s 18 and does not have a weapon, but it’s sensational at the same time…. when youre actually talking about 6’4” 290lb man that walks in the middle of the street, takes what he wants from stores, and beats a cop in his own car. bears are unarmed.
The first reports of this “murder” had me demonizing the cop who shot this defenseless kid – I confess.
I’m waiting for the final report, as I’ve seen my reasoning take a sharp turn. I really cannot envision an armed police officer “executing” a youth without provocation.
I’ve read on internet news reports that juvenile records, which normally could not be released, have been subpoenaed – they might give a true picture of the character of the “victim,” although that might be irrelevant to the incident.
If I had been beaten nearly unconscious by a bear (regardless of color) who was coming at me to do more damage, I probably would have used a firearm which was in my possession. The final verdict is not in.
Oh, you communicated just fine (although it might not have been what you intended.) You’re a racist, plain and simple. A bigot. A hypocrite espousing a double standard. A lowbrow lowlife who is obviously unworthy to associate with decent people. A living testament as to why abortion should not only be legal, but retroactive.
Sure, SOME black people commit violent acts, just like SOME white people commit violent acts. But here you are, ready to condemn an UNARMED TEENAGER to death just because of his racial heritage. SO WHAT if he was 290 pounds – is that supposed to make a difference? If he was only 289 pounds would it then be wrong to shoot him dead? 288? Where do you draw the line?
You’re all primed to believe the worst, certain that some fact will surface which will justify your prejudice. It doesn’t matter one whit to you what he did or didn’t do, how big he is, or anything else. All that matters is that somebody got to shoot himself a darkie. Go Team!
Tell me with a straight face that you’d accept the same kind of justice if a black cop heard a rumor that you’d stolen some cigars or saw you :: gasp :: JAYWALKING!! No trial, no jury, no defense, just a bullet to the head. That’s fine with you, right? If not you, then your father, your son, your brother – no problem. You wouldn’t complain in the least, you’d simply accept the cop’s word that he felt threatened and shrug it off.
Hey, you’re a white American – YOU’VE got a culture of violence. Just look at the NRA. Look at your movies. Look at your foreign policy. Look at examples like Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgeway and George Bush. It’s obvious that YOUR KIND is incapable of living peaceably with other people.
This rant is going right over your head, isn’t it? The problem with you morons is that you simply do not have the mental capacity to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. As far as I’m concerned, that makes YOU a subhuman who should be treated differently from us. You’re obviously incapable of knowing right from wrong and so you should not be allowed to vote, own guns, or go out in public without a human being holding your leash.
I think I communicated my intended message very well indeed.
@ CrazyH –
*The problem with you morons is that you simply do not have the mental capacity to put yourself in someone else’s shoes.*
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That works both ways, doesn’t it????
All allegations based upon hearsay are invalid; that’s why judges won’t allow them in court.
I wasn’t there to see what happened, so I’m reserving final judgment until I am able to determine a rational explanation. There are conflicting eye-witness accounts, so a definite reliable report is pending. Let’s hold off on prejudging and wait until we have the pertinent information, okay?
🙂
My response to the bigot is based on his bigotry, and is applicable regardless of what woke him up this time around.
True that I wasn’t there in Ferguson – but the facts we do know are enough to raise serious suspicions. Deadly force is only justifiable in the face of a deadly threat. You’re going to have a hard time convincing me that an armed cop sitting inside a car saw a deadly threat from an unarmed man outside the car. Tase him, pepper spray him, hell, shoot him in the leg if that’s what it takes – but six shots including two to the head? The autopsy shows that the shot that killed him was the last one, fired when he was already bending over. That’s not self defense by any stretch of the imagination.
But I do believe in the Rule of Law. The cop in question should be given a fair and impartial trial* of the same sort he denied his victim.
Unfortunately, in these cases we usually see an ‘investigation’ which clears the officer of any wrongdoing and coincidentally lasts just long enough for the public to forget all about it.
*… followed by a fair an impartial execution 😉
One fact I meant to include: several shots went through Brown’s arms at an angle which shows that he was, indeed, holding his hands up in the air at the time he was shot.
I’ve probably read as much as you have about this incident (as well as viewed videos), and my mind still isn’t made up about what actually happened.
Also, I am unaware of Missouri state law, but in some states an officer is authorized to use deadly force if he believes that he is facing the threat of death or serious bodily injury.
According to some accounts, he had already suffered bodily injuries. And it is possible that he feared more of the same, if MB was advancing – even with his hands in the air (a ploy?).
As I said previously, i wasn’t there – so I can’t say without any doubt. However, it just doesn’t make sense that this particular officer would use deadly force without provocation. Therefore, I refrain from judging anybody or anything until the investigation is complete.
«… it’s technically true that he’s 18 and does not have a weapon,» I appreciate that «technically true», «positrakd», which is to be taken to mean that it’s not really true ; i e, that it’s false, and the cop was justified in shooting the boy. «Wal[king] in the middle of the street» is hardly a capital offence (there can’t have been much automobile traffic or else this boy and his companion would hardly have been walking in the street ; automobiles weigh considerably more than 132 kg) – «taking what he wants from stores» is an claim which hardly corresponds to what he is accused of by an obviously biased police department – i e, of purloining a few cigars – and the claim of his having «beat[en] the cop in his own car» is patently absurd – who would «beat a cop in his own car» and leave that cop with his weapon ?…
Unlike unsere geschätzten Lehrer, I have no difficulty whatever envisioning an armed police officer executing a youth «without provocation» – depending, of course, upon what one means by «provocation». Some reports have claimed that the two youths refused to move to the sidewalk when admonished by the police officer in question to do so ; alas, I suspect that a banal incident of this type could be regarded by a certain type of police officer as a «provocation» ; indeed, a sufficient «provocation» to justify his employing his service weapon, especially when he knows that he can do so with impunity (as I pointed out in an earlier post, he will be placed on administrative leave with full pay and be tried in court, with an inevitable verdict of not guilty)….
Let me also add that using the term «bear» to metaphorically refer to this youth as a «bear» leads, just as it is designed to do, our thoughts astray ; one can hardly reason with a bear, but one certainly can with an 18 year-old teenager, not least if one is holding one’s service weapon in one’s hand. But if one would rather shoot that weapon (six times !) than reason, then …
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Henri
*I have no difficulty whatever envisioning an armed police officer executing a youth «without provocation»*
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The key word here is “envisioning”; I, too, can “envision” it – but that doesn’t make it so, nor does it make sense.
I’m well-trained in the use of firearms, and I guarantee you that I could have stopped this man with one well-placed shot. There’s no reason to believe that this officer couldn’t have done the same (unless, of course, he was nearly blinded by the beating he purportedly received).
That’s why I’ll reserve judgment until the facts are in.
It strikes me, mein verehrter Lehrer, that you are arguing against your own thesis when you write that «[t]here’s no reason to believe that this officer couldn’t have done the same [i e, «stopped this man with one well-placed shot»] (unless, of course, he was nearly blinded by the beating he purportedly received), although you do provide yourself with an out by referring to this tale of a beating which strikes me as more than a tad contrived – who would beat up a cop and then leave him with a functioning service weapon ? But reserving judgement until the facts are in – if, indeed, they do come in in a not too highly adulterated form – does not at all sound like a bad idea….
Henri
Unless one were present and observed the goings-on, everything one says is conjecture (guess-work).
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I can guess that MB beat the cop and left him with his pistol. I don’t know. What I do know is that in highly-emotional circumstances, individuals do not always act rationally.
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No one can guess what happened with any degree of credibility, nor can one know what was in the minds of the individuals involved.
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As long as we’re engaging in questioning actions and engaging hypothetical possibilities, why not ask: “How can a six-year veteran of the police force have a need to discharge his weapon six times to bring down a perpetrator,” considering police officers must qualify with the weapon on a regular basis? That defies logic. Possibly, he couldn’t see very well as a result of an eye injury.
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There is no inconsistency in what I’ve presented, but I still reserve the right to withhold a final opinion until the facts are in.
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🙂
Well, we seem to be repeating ourselves, mein verehrter Lehrer, which indicates that we have exhausted our arguments and that there is thus little reason to continue the discussion. As I said above, «reserving judgement until the facts are in – if, indeed, they do come in in a not too highly adulterated form – does not at all sound like a bad idea». However, when I read your posts, it strikes me that you, rather than reserving judgement, are searching for arguments – the one more absurd than the other (i e, that Michael Brown had beaten Darrell Wilson in the latter’s own cop car, but (irrationally) left the beaten man in possession of his service weapon, or that Mr Wilson found it necessary to shoot Mr Brown six times to bring him down, due to an «eye injury») to demonstrate the lack of culpability of the police officer. Admittedly you refer to these as hypotheses, not proven facts, but the impression I get from the words you use, i e, «perpetrator» for a youth who had been stopped by a police officer for walking in the middle of the street with a friend. leads me to believe that you’ve already made up your mind. I hope I’m wrong….
Henri
*I hope I’m wrong.*
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Of course you are. The difference between our two perspectives is that I’m willing to look at both sides and all possibilities before making a final judgment.
🙂
N.B. –
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perpetrate
Well, mein verehrter Lehrer, I’m happy to learn that I’m wrong and that one of us, at least, is willing to look at both sides and all possibilities before making a final judgment…. 😉
As a matter of fact, I, too, am familiar with the dictionary definition of «perpetrator». I still find it inapt to apply the term to a chap walking in the middle of the street. At any rate, in Ferguson – and alas, elsewhere, it would seem that the only good perpetrator is a dead perpetrator – at least from the local cops’ point of view….
Henri
Case closed.
🙁
I hate to return to this matter, mein verehrter Lehrer, but considering your standpoint –
«… but I still reserve the right to withhold a final opinion until the facts are in.»
«The difference between our two perspectives is that I’m willing to look at both sides and all possibilities before making a final judgment.» –
I find it incumbent upon me to point out that it seems unlikely that «the facts», on the basis of which, you say, you wish to make your «final judgement» are going to come in – at least if what Dana Milban reports in the WaPo is true : http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-ferguson-tragedy-becoming-a-farce/2014/09/12/e52226ca-3a82-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e_story.html….
Henri