Fox News mocks Obama's tears over gunned down kids

http://www.alternet.org/media/fox-hosts-absurd-claim-about-obamas-tears-during-gun-speech

Maybe you saw Obama's powerful (and both emotional and logical) speech about exec. action for gun control. Even Trump called it sincere and that Obama's meant well (but of course disagrees with his proposal). But the shock-and-awe attention-whore pseudo-anchors at Fox insinuated that Obama faked the tears to be more convincing, and that he should cry about other problems like ISIS terrorism as much as he cries for gun victims.

Well, if you have that degree of bias and hate, there's nothing more to say really. We've had way too many threads about gun violence, but I'll offer this position:

• In a society, you implicitly or explicitly give up some personal freedoms/liberty/resources/happiness for the greater good (according to our values, but of course "good" can be subjective)
• Seat belt laws, hunting licenses, child abuse laws, etc.
• No society manages this sacrifice/balance perfectly, but the US is relatively low corruption, fairly transparent, and at least maintains some public channels for change/redress
• The US is already one of the most libertarian nations on earth due to our laws, Constitution, and culture
• We are accustomed to bitching about "the gov't", but really we don't know how spoiled we are vs. places like France or god forbid, Iran
• And so we have our 2nd Amendment and the modern warped interpretation of it... but no right is absolute
• The gov't can take away your right to vote, or your right to life if you are convicted of a certain crime
• We can debate the prudence of such policies, but some gun control is sound and lawful
• I don't know why pro-gun folks are so defensive; gun laws have generally relaxed more than strengthened since Sandy Hook
• Therefore, the pro-gun arguments about standing up to gov't tyranny and upholding freedom & the Constitution are pretty much invalid
• That crap is mostly NRA propaganda; a majority of gun owners do want the things Obama proposed (universal bkgd. checks, closing of the gun show loophole - and plenty of other loopholes still remain)
• But I suppose the NRA's position is that they can't give an inch, or the US will start to accept/see the benefits of gun control and want more (similar to how the GOP feels about Obamacare)
• Some minority groups get the "short end of the stick" for socially-beneficial decisions:
• Alcoholics might lament that some bars must close at 2AM
• Speed freaks could be disappointed that the limit is 65 mph
• So gun sellers (either businesses or hobbyists) should accept more paperwork/oversight due to the social threat of their wares
• And some gun nuts should compromise that while they might prefer 50-round magazines on their assault rifles, people really shouldn't have those things
• And there are still plenty of lethal and less controversial alternatives like semi-auto shotguns and .44 magnums they can own instead
• The "rights and freedoms" of the pro-gun camp need to be subordinate to the right to life of gun victims, within reason
• But some people are selfish pricks and they want the status quo to persist, even if it contributes to innocents getting killed (i.e. someone else's problem)
• In other words, they don't mind if others suffer as they benefit (externalities)
• Now to the next issue: most of us agree that innocents should not get murdered, but will more or fewer guns (or less mass-murder-capable guns) reduce that problem?
• The gun lobby has prevented public research and data collection on the issue, but there is literally zero credible evidence that more/deadlier guns makes us safer, and a decent amount of trustworthy evidence to the contrary
• So even if the research is partly flawed/wrong, how much social harm is there to limit magazines to 10 rounds, with the potential upside of preventing dozens (or hundreds, or more) of murders a year?
• Same goes for better background checks/tracking, assault weapons bans, more oversight of online/private sales, etc.
• It is way harder to get a student loan than to get an assault rifle - is that the type of society we want?
• In some cases, the atmosphere of regulation can deter crime, even if the actual laws and enforcement are flawed
• E.g. how much tax fraud is avoided just by the mere specter of the IRS, even though they may not audit and catch much of the fraud?
• In other words, what do we have to lose, apart from pissing off a privileged minority group of gun nuts, gun makers/sellers, the NRA, and the politicians who enable/benefit from them (and remember, they will still have the right to buy and sell plenty of other types of weapons)?
• Since the gun violence problem is so large (~30K killed per year in the US), it's possible that these new regs won't make much of a dent. But as Obama said, isn't it worth it to save even a few kids (some of whom might grow up to be the next Einstein or Obama)?
• So gun control is legal and responsible (see points above), economically justified (limiting guns might reduce some revenue/taxes, but will likely pay for itself through social cost savings), and morally good (in many people's minds)
• Anyone who opposes gun control on these grounds does not have their arguments based in facts and logic (likely emotional/ideological instead)
• But that's the problem, in Polarized America, you can't persuade anyone with facts and logic; you just have to ram your agenda through and not care about your opponents' wishes
• So that is what we should do re: gun control, stop letting the minority terrorize the majority

"Prayer shaming" after the CA mass shooting

http://www.npr.org/2015/12/03/458361194/god-isnt-fixing-this-politicians-reactions-to-san-bernardino-shooting

The tweet from this CT Senator sums up the issue: https://mobile.twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/672176555859296256?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

Forgive me for ranting and using foul language here, but for "religious pro-gun conservatives" who find prayer-shaming "offensive and dismissive of their faith," I say... go F yourselves.

We don't have to respect your so-called faith if you don't even show respect for the tenets of the faith. I'm no expert in Christianity, but WEAPONS ARE UN-CHRISTIAN. I know that the history of organized Christianity is barbaric and violent (some periods make ISIS look like pacifists), but the beliefs are pretty clear:

• Do not live by the sword; violence of any kind is unequivocly wrong
• Defeat your enemy with love, not with violence
• Protect the vulnerable, even if it kills you
• Blessed are the peacemakers

So for the conservative leaders who claim to be Christians, if you don't espouse the most obvious, fundamental teachings of Christ, then you're not really a Christian and your prayers don't mean squat. There is absolutely zero way to justify gun rights and gun ownership through the lens of Christianity (on paper).

These leaders are religious, but they seem to worship guns, money, and themselves more than they love Jesus' teachings.

http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2013/03/03/What-kind-of-gun-would-Jesus-carry/stories/201303030208

"Why would ISIS attack Paris?"

http://www.vox.com/world/2015/11/14/9735512/paris-attacks-isis-why

Obviously the events in Paris are sickening, and our thoughts are with those affected.

If you happened to read this thread from Feb (wow, time flies and I think most Western leaders believed ISIS would be finished by now), G Woods felt that ISIS was not that concerned with attacking the West vs. solidifying their caliphate in the Mideast and carrying out their apocalyptic vision. However, recent events may have motivated ISIS to change their tune, or Woods was wrong from the start.

One factor could be ISIS' "competition" with Al-Qaeda for recruiting and waging violence against "the enemies of Islam". While many have come to Iraq/Syria for the allure of joining ISIS ranks and fighting enemies on Muslim lands, maybe it is a sexier recruiting tool if ISIS brazenly attacks the homelands of its enemies or other soft targets - to a lot of media coverage (they are recently implicated in the Russia plane bombing and suicide attacks in Lebanon). While their focus is still fighting enemies in Iraq and Syria, it seems plausible that they would allocate some attn/resources towards overseas plots.

Which leads to the second point - maybe ISIS has found that "victory" in Iraq-Syria is not within its grasp, and it's getting harder and harder to hold onto land and withstand constant coalition air attacks (especially with Russia now directly supporting Assad, although it has not targeted ISIS much if at all until the Egypt bombing). But now that ISIS has supposedly maddened the bear, they might be in for a tough slog with NATO and Russian air forces gunning for them. They are believed to desire a face-to-face showdown with Crusaders on their home turf (like the Mujahadeen/Taliban in Afghanistan), but it's possible that they bit off more than they can chew. Though as we already know from several past wars, bombing alone won't defeat a foreign army (but it might bring them to the bargaining table, as in the case of Serbia), and I doubt that we will see boots on the ground even after the Paris attack. Even if we do successfully invade a-la-9/11, it may not "defeat" ISIS. Their key members will melt into the populace, just like the Ba'athists and AQI leaders did last decade. We will eventually leave, the gov't we put in place will be a mess, and an ISIS-type movement will rise up again in the chaos. "Defeating ISIS" is just a GOP campaign slogan at this point, though of course I hope I am wrong.

The most tragic part of this is that one of the Paris attackers seems to have had a Syrian passport that was stamped in Greece as part of refugee asylum. Yes, there were concerns earlier that terrorists were infiltrating the West as refugees. But one known example out of millions of deserving refugees does not make the security junkies right. The majority of the 9/11 attackers were Saudis, but we didn't do anything to that country. We made immigration/visas tougher, and maybe that is a valid thing to do with Syrians now, but we didn't close our doors to them 100%. I hope we remember it is possible to be humane and give help to refugees, while also maintaining tight security re: who we grant asylum and how they are monitored once accepted.

Sure, conservative leaders on both sides of the pond are predictably "blaming" the EU's open door policy (it is hardly that), or the refugees themselves, for the Paris attacks, but they're missing the bigger point. ISIS wants Europe to close its doors, so that the masses have nowhere to flee to. It makes ISIS stronger and scarier - is that what we want to enable? I'm not saying we should accept our current policies and feel that everything is fine (e.g. better internal monitoring of at least fighting age male refugees is needed), but we shouldn't play into ISIS' hand either. Remember that 99.99% of the refugees hate ISIS and are fleeing from them. Do we want to cut them off, and force them into potentially serving or supporting ISIS against their will at home? Do we want to risk their families getting radicalized and recruited because they were unable to flee?

Do we want less gun violence, or don't we?

980+ mass shootings (defined by 4 or more dead, non-drug/gang/war related) in the US since Newtown. That says it all. And keep in mind that the vast majority of gun deaths do not occur in mass shootings, but the less-reported suicides and "regular" homicides.

http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/10/02/445379809/stuff-happens-comment-creates-firestorm-for-jeb-bush

And the typical tone-deaf, uncompassionate, guns-before-people response from GOP leaders (in this case, my favorite guy to hate, Jeb). Basically after a national tragedy relating to guns: "shit happens." But when Muslims attack us: "Bomb them to hell!" I hope Jeb's rivals and the MSM call him out on this.

http://gawker.com/you-dont-pass-a-pool-fencing-law-after-a-child-drowns-1734383068

Jeb is saying we shouldn't rush to impulse legislation after a tragedy. But after a kid fell and drowned in a pool in FL, Jeb's gov't rushed to create a pool fence law. Was that such a bad thing? How many people and pets were saved by that knee-jerk reaction? Like Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow," sometime you want to think fast for your survival. Don't let the trauma fade away so you delude yourself into thinking that it's not a big problem and it won't happen again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/books/review/thinking-fast-and-slow-by-daniel-kahneman-book-review.html?_r=0

And for those who say it's a mental health issue and not a gun issue, I disagree. The vast majority of mentally ill or "weird loner" people are not violent. So unless you want to infringe on the rights of millions of innocents (in a Minority Report style preventative action), I don't see how this will help. Sure it's better safe than sorry to report to authorities if someone you know is concerning you, and those authorities have to respond to legit threats effectively (like how we're trying to deal with suicide prevention warning signs). Of course we as a society should pay more attention/resources to mental illness, hate ideology, and isolated youth. But it won't prevent most mass shootings.

Only locking up guns will do that. Some would say that the Oregon shooter purchased his guns legally and no bkgd. check would have blocked him. So maybe that's the problem: properly interpret the 2nd Amend. (how the courts did pre-NRA) and strictly limit private ownership of guns (or ammo, or both). Maybe people can still buy them, but must store them with 3rd party highly regulated gun locker companies (so it's not the evil gov't controlling our guns). In order to check out the guns, the owner has to be lojacked and have a witness legally vouch for their mental/emotional state. Maybe critics would say that such a system would leave us vulnerable to criminal attacks. Then buy a dog or mace, or support leaders/laws that address the root causes of crime like poverty, education, and racism.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/so-you-think-you-know-the-second-amendment

Alternatively, some people think that the gun culture in SUI "works" because of a deep tradition of safety and personal responsibility (hard to measure). Like how strongly Americans feel about personal freedoms (and football), if we placed a similar or larger emphasis on gun safety, peaceful conflict resolution, and accident prevention, then maybe we could have our guns but not the tragedies (but we have a long way to go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBIOJJkEQT4). Keep in mind that SUI's gun deaths per capita are still one of the highest in the 1st world too.

http://world.time.com/2012/12/20/the-swiss-difference-a-gun-culture-that-works/

Virginia shooter and destructive payback psychology

https://gma.yahoo.com/virginia-shooting-suspect-vester-flanagan-did-leading-air-213449674--abc-news-topstories.html#

Like the shooting of NYC cops after Ferguson, if this violence is tied to race and Charleston, it blows my mind. I wonder what these shooters want for their legacy, or what they want the public to take away from their crimes. Maybe Flanagan's manifesto will shed some light, but his atrocious actions pretty much invalidate anything insightful he may have written.

Although racial violence is still vastly disproportionately black victims and white perpetrators, events like this may just perpetuate the stereotype that young black men are all thugs and the black people you work with are unstable and could go off on you any moment. Those perceptions of course do great daily harm to African Americans as a whole - even if it's mostly subtle aggressions that are imperceptible to non-blacks.

I suppose there is a fixation in the American psyche (or human nature in general) about getting payback and taking matters into our own hands. If others have hurt you or those you associate with, how is it is "justice" to commit violence against totally unrelated people who just happen to be of the same broad, arbitrary social category or geography? When Hamas sends some rockets into Israel, why does the IDF bomb and bulldoze homes and hospitals full of women and kids who never touched a rocket? Does that make them feel better, or feel safer? Of the 45M blacks in the US, did Roof think that killing 9 would "set things right" for Obama being president and all the other terrible things blacks have done to whites? And then Flanagan killing 2 whites 300 miles away from SC somehow settles that score too? Obviously this lunacy never ends, so such beliefs should never materialize into action in the first place.

More police killings of black men

This stuff is literally happening EVERY WEEK in the US. Imagine if minority people were killing a white millionaire (or a cute Jonbenet Ramsey-ish white baby girl) every week - what would the public and gov't reaction be? All people are created equal with the same unalienable rights under the Constitution and our creator, right?

Senior citizen volunteer sheriff tries to taze suspect in cuffs (you guessed it, an unarmed urban African American male), but kills him with his sidearm instead (a la Oscar Grant). Pleads not guilty to manslaughter and judge grants him permission to leave the country for a Bahamas vacation. I am sure a Cripp accused of manslaughter would get similar treatment. How did the geezer become a deputy participating in a sting when he should have been playing bingo at the Senior Center instead? He donated vehicles to the Tulsa Sheriff's Office and is likely rich.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee0o4zZobZg
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/04/21/oklahoma-reserve-deputy-pleads-not-guilty-in-fatal-shooting/

6 Baltimore cops are suspended after they put an asthmatic suspect (and yes, another unarmed urban African American male) in their van to go to the station, and when he got out, he had a major spinal injury (cause unclear, and he died in the hospital a few days later). He told police that he was having trouble breathing, but they didn't call any medical staff. Like with Darren Wilson, the cops are now the only ones alive who know what really happened. No camera in the van.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/04/22/401436003/former-baltimore-police-head-sees-sliver-of-hope-in-freddie-gray-case

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Economist has some data on police use of deadly force. The FBI reports that US cops kill over 400 people a year (justifiable cases, and it is on the rise since the '90s), but it is voluntary self-reporting, so the true # is probably higher. In comparison, usually less than 50 cops are killed by gunfire/year (less than the # cops killed in vehicle incidents). Cops in Japan+UK+Germany (cumulatively about the same pop. as the US) kill less than 20 people/year.

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21636044-americas-police-kill-too-many-people-some-forces-are-showing-how-smarter-less?fsrc=scn/fb/te/pe/ed/dontshoot

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/dec/30/nation/la-na-nn-police-deaths-20131230

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The BAL DA is pressing charges (murder, manslaughter) against the 6 officers who were present when Gray suffered his lethal spinal injury. She also declared that Gray's arrest was illegal.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/05/01/403496063/freddie-gray-update-new-speculation-on-his-death-and-peaceful-protests?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150501

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Apparently, it's not just black/brown victims of police violence and stupidity. A fairly non-threatening drunk woman on St. Patrick's Day was taken into custody by BART police and taken to Santa Rita jail. There was footage of the cops slamming her to the floor (or letting her fall hard). They said that they were "guiding" her to the ground. The victim was seriously injured, and is a model so the damage to her face was significant and she is suing. But a review board cleared the officers.

http://abc7news.com/news/bart-officer-cleared-in-takedown-of-woman-at-east-bay-jail/684535/

Here are some conservative responses to the Baltimore unrest:

• Rush said the cops should be commended for the 18 times they arrested Gray in the past (for minor drug offenses) and DIDN'T KILL HIM. Yes, they deserve a medal for their restraint.
• Cruz said it's Obama's fault for inflaming racial tensions. Yeah, by being a successful half-black man who won't pretend racial injustice is over, he's more to blame than the cops that do the beating and shooting.
• A TX Congressman Flores blames Baltimore on gay marriage and the deterioration of family values.

As you can see, Baltimore is attributed to just about everything except police dysfunction and racial/economic injustice. The sad thing is, if you gave some conservatives truth serum, they would probably say that the BAL tragedy is due to the inherent faults of black people (maybe not in so many words).

The staggering social costs of gun violence in the US

This was a good interview about a Mother Jones article on the indirect costs of US gun violence: http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201504300930

The author's team performed an established economic analysis to estimate the total costs of gun violence - not just the direct costs of law enf., ER visit, and justice/penal system processing, but also lost productivity and diminished quality of life from long-term disability, incarceration, and death (affecting not just the victim but their family, workplace, and community). The article estimates that of the ~30K gun murders each year, on average it costs America $500K each. Add to that the ~80K cases/year of serious injuries from guns, and the total price tag is over $200B/year. That is 1/3 the value of Apple's stock, and more than US medicine spends on obesity each year. It's freaking huge.

But we're not talking about this because the NRA and others make the data so hard to access. And if people do try to study it (like the CDC and Harvard School of Public Health and Obama's recent nominee for Sgn. General), the gun lobby paints them as gun-control activists with a political agenda. Conservatives want to cut waste and spending left and right (social programs, research, etc.), but somehow the military and guns are exempt?

BTW - the study also found a correlation between states with weak gun laws and higher gun violence costs per capita (LA, WY are the worst, while HI and MA are some of the best - also with stricter gun laws). It's a no-brainer to us, but the 2nd Amendment crowd clings to the myth that more guns make you safer. They might also argue - what about the economic savings from all the crimes prevented by conscientious citizens with guns? Well there's just no data to support that claim, if it's even true (which is doubtful). You're much more likely to hurt yourself or a loved one than prevent a crime with your gun.

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This is pretty heartbreaking stuff about the effects of violence on Oakland's youth:

http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/04/29/violence-causes-ripple-effects-for-thousands-of-oakland-students

For a kid who turned 18 this year in Oakland, he or she lived through 111 kids getting killed in that city, not to mention the trauma that caused for everyone else. At least Alameda County is deploying more mental health resources for them now - but really this is an issue that no kid should have to deal with. Especially if they're under 10, children often can't deal with the difficult emotions generated from experiencing violence, so their ability to learn is impaired and they may lash out in negative ways.

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NPR did a story based on this article and the most persuasive outcome, to me, was that there needs to be science and data applied to this stuff.  One of the guests was talking about the idea that if you even ask for data you are anti gun.  That there is this all or nothing approach.  Why wouldn't the dates show all the loves being saved if guns are great?  Couldn't we also find that, for example, people with lots of gun training have better outcomes related to fun violence?  It seems weird to assume data can only be anti gun.

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Agreed. I guess it's like climate change and cop racism issues - if one side of the argument is confident in their position, they should have no problems whatsoever with full data transparency. When you are "trying to hide something" and suppressing info, that is a tell-tale sign that your argument has a problem. Actually if those folks really love gun rights and "freedom", then they should welcome data transparency to help improve gun use and gun culture in America (like a majority of NRA members favor better background checks, but NRA leaders don't). Or do they think that everything is OK? Don't they know that the most successful (legit) companies and gov'ts in the last 50 years are obsessed with data to help them succeed and improve?

Bottom line, the gun industry/lobby's only goal is to sell more product. Gun ownership in the US (as % of households) is on a huge decline since WWII, partly driven by urbanization, less interest in hunting, and I would like to believe social progress. But the # of guns in circulation may have gone up, so someone is buying them. There are fewer gun owners now, but they own more guns (and more deadly ones) per capita. Police departments upgrade their guns more frequently, and lord knows where their used guns go (I think there are accounts of cartels/gangs using former US police firearms).

So to accomplish their goal, the gun lobby has to oppose anything that would potentially hurt sales, and of course social costs data is a big threat. And when the costs are so obvious (even without hard data), they pull the freedom and liberty card. Sure guns are destructive, but the costs are "worth it" because we have to sacrifice to keep the communists from taking our freedoms. We have to tolerate the side-effects of guns because I need to protect my family from the bad guys. And when it's poor/black people shouldering most of the costs, it's easier to ignore - until incidents like Columbine and Sandy Hook happen, which affected affluent whites and jarred the nation.

I use data to put food on the table, so I'd like to think that I have some sense of "data ethics" and best practices. When the pro-gun side decides to actually use data in their arguments, I can honestly say that they are the worst in terms of ethics and rigor. Total intellectual dishonesty (or maybe ignorance). I have not read any NRA white papers (if there are any non-laughable ones), so I am basing my judgment mostly on the sound bites you hear in the gun debate.

Examples:

• "Chicago has strict gun laws, but they still have plenty of gang violence and murders, so gun laws don't work!" Because we don't have borders. Thugs just have to buy a gun 30 miles away in easier places like Indiana, and then drive back to the city to shoot someone.
• 
  
• "Since the Brady Bill/Assault Weapons Ban expired, there have been fewer mass shootings, so assault weapons in the hands of 'the good guys' is an effective deterrent." Not enough sample size to assess a trend, and what defines a "mass shooting"? Public mass shootings are fortunately still pretty rare (it's much more common for someone to slaughter their family in a private residence). But Mother Jones and Harvard ran a statistical analysis to handle rare events, and they concluded that mass shootings are actually more frequent after the loosening of gun laws. Of course correlation is not causation, but it invalidates the pro-gun claim.
• 
  
• "Guns don't kill people; people kill people - address the mental health and anger issues instead." But guns kill people A LOT more effectively than a knife or bare hands. Yes there will always be a baseline level of violence and murder intent in any society, but if you restrict access to the murder tools, people won't be able to carry them out as effectively. Look at AUS/UK vs. US. Fairly similar culture, demos, etc., but we have all the guns and murders. Canada is an exception (many guns, few murders), but there will always be outliers.

#MuslimLivesMatter

https://news.vice.com/article/three-muslim-students-shot-dead-in-north-carolina?utm_source=vicenewsfb

On Tues a lone gunman killed 3 Muslim university students in NC (all from the same family). Vice reported that the killings were possibly a hate crime because the alleged shooter had posted atheist, anti-religious commentary on social media. The shooter also turned himself in, so maybe we will get to hear his motives. FYI he was white and was not killed by the police.

There was some online criticism that major Western media outlets were not following this tragedy with as much concern (if at all) as they showed for the Charlie Hebdo massacre, or the ISIS executions. So the #MuslimLivesMatter theme emerged to counter this potential bias. And let's not forget that the vast majority of victims of Islamic terrorism (plus the innocents killed during Western anti-terror ops) have been Muslims.

It's not like the NC victims were vocally Islamic and critical of America. AFAIK, they were just dental students who actually helped a nonprofit that tries to provide dental care to the 100K's of Syrian refugees from their civil war. As usual, violent cowards target totally unconnected victims. This event is unusual though, because we haven't seen many incidents of "violent atheism" before. I am not sure if the shooter was opposed to Islam specifically, or all faiths.

What causes drug abuse and how to stop it?

http://chasingthescream.com/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/portugal-drug-decriminalization/

I saw this guy (J Hari) on Maher last night and was pretty impressed with his reporting on the Western approach to the drug war, and how we totally botched it. It's pretty well-established that the US method of heavy-handedly attacking the supply and harshly punishing the consumers is an utter, expensive failure. We need to address demand, but what is the right approach - education, medical treatment, intervention?

Hari is saying that those responses could help, but they don't get at the root cause. Drug abuse is mostly driven by psychological distress due to environmental-social factors. Racism, violence, lack of economic opportunity, low self-esteem, alienation, and other negative influences lead an individual to turn to drugs for escapism, pleasure, release, etc. If a person has a comfortable home, decent job, loving family and community, and safe/positive surroundings, there is a very low chance that they will abuse drugs (unless they happen to be the minority of us who truly have an addictive biology, but then they would likely become addicted to something legal like booze or shopping).

Why is it that US drug abuse is highest in lower-income, at-risk communities and the youth? I think Rx drug abuse (which is a much bigger problem than illegal drug abuse) could be a different story, because that might be driven by over-prescription of those drugs by our health system. And since they're synthetic compounds, it's possible that the drug companies have engineered them to be very potent (and potentially addictive). But I'm not sure. Heroin is unanimously seen as the most addictive illegal drug, yet people get it legally all the time in the form of medical morphine. Anyone who has had an operation doesn't become a heroin addict, so the drug itself is not inherently the problem.

Portugal used to be the European nation with the worst drug problem (an estimated 1% of the adult pop. using). It is also a fairly poor and underdeveloped nation by EU standards. They tried the "US way" for fighting drugs, and it failed of course. So in 2001 they decided to scrap it - decriminalize ALL drugs and use the law enf. money on rehab and social development instead. Of course the conservatives predicted that all hell would break loose. But a decade later, needle drug use was down 50%, and so were OD deaths and drug-related HIV infections. Abusers were given medical rehab, but also given access to jobs, education, housing, etc. The former abusers were treated like humans and given a life, not like American convicts who are labeled as junkies and thrown in with the murderers and rapists. The Portuguese who employed and housed addicts were compensated by the gov't. It can work. A lot of the previous detractors came around and admitted that they were dead wrong.

Look at the countries with the worst substance abuse problems:

• Iran (heroin) - crippling sanctions and a repressive, fundamentalist gov't
• Russia (booze) - huge wealth inequality, corruption, and poor life prospects for many (interestingly the UK is also a big booze abuser)
• Latin America (meth) - huge wealth inequality and gang-police violence
• Afghanistan (heroin) - war, poverty, corruption, and fundamentalism
• US (mixed) - fairly large wealth inequality, some communities with racism/violence

So maybe the solution for winning the war on drugs has nothing to do with drugs. Just fix society to be more just, inclusive, safe, and prosperous - even for the most lowly among us. Actually I think a lot of ills could be indirectly fixed with that approach.

Attack at Charlie Hebdo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zATVidAh81g

I just don't get it, why does an almighty being and his prophet need you (the gunmen I mean) to avenge their honor? If he really didn't like their Muslim jokes, can't he just use his power to smite them? Why does he need to wait for a few young men to plot and execute a cowardly attack, years after the Danish cartoons? And of all the "threats to Islam", is Charlie Hebdo really the most pressing one? At least I give ISIS and Al Qaeda more credit for going after corrupt dictators and NATO, who have killed Muslims by the hundreds of thousands. Not that I am supporting those groups and their actions either.

I think that just demonstrates the logical bankruptcy of militant religiosity (Islamic or otherwise). So god needed some inbred, corrupt monarchs to spend a ton of resources (thereby neglecting the poor and sick) to amass armies of rapists, murderers, and pillagers to retake Jerusalem on his behalf? God delivered the Jews out of Egypt with a bunch of plagues/"miracles", yet now he is counting on the IDF to use its warplanes and bulldozers to make sure all of ancient Judea is under Jewish control? I don't think religious leaders ever take the time to question how utterly ridiculous these concepts sound. If an elected public official were to say such things (without draping himself in the flag of faith), he would be laughed off stage.

I suppose freedom of expression means that we must fight to the death to permit the most despicable among us to engage in the most ugly speech known to man, and damn the consequences. But that is like a 2nd Amendment supporter feeling compelled to defend the most perverse uses of guns possible. I think we can love freedom without making a travesty out of it.

Probably Charlie Hebdo was fairly tame in the grand scheme of things - they weren't that blasphemous and they definitely weren't hatemongers. But I really wish there was a way to defend freedom without protecting the most irresponsible beneficiaries of that freedom. Like we would oppose any sort of bigotry and persecution of course, but if a party "incites" anger/conflict from unwise behavior, well then - they made their bed and they can lay in it. We obviously don't want to see them killed, but we are not going to risk more lives to protect them. It's like if you violate the terms of your insurance, you void your policy and coverage.

I know it's not so simple, but I don't see the point in risking a lot to protect some fringe uses of freedom by a minority that may not represent the general interests and opinions of the public. I don't think Charlie Hebdo is a fringe case, but maybe "The Interview" was - a crappy film that added no value to society, and we have thousands of other films to take its place.

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Regarding "what were they thinking?" type questions towards religious fanatics there is a quote "You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into" or something similar.  Logic has no place in a fanatical religious organization.  Sad but true.

The other thing is I REALLY REALLY don't like the idea you are pushing that annoying, inconvenient, ugly, etc uses of freedom of speech are somehow less worth protecting.  The ounce of legitimacy this brings to the crazy (as in literally crazy) people who think it is ok to kill someone bothers me but it also smells an awful lot like the first step on a slippery slope.  Look at abortion for example.  A legal right of women that, in some states, has walked its way back to practically illegal under the guise of women's health and safety.  That is how rights are taken from us, one step at a time, slowly.

So if we don't have people who stretch comfort in the other direction then the fanatics and the extremes of the viewpoints get to keep pushing the line.  Already no major network will show/print images of Mohammed (CNN took down the cartoon the Titanic showed earlier today, southpark episode still not shown on comedy central, etc etc).  

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That is a pretty good quote, thx for sharing. How do we "unteach" religious extremism and fundamentalism then? They have some "Jihadi rehab" in Afghanistan - not sure how successful they've been. Sometime folks didn't volunteer for extremism, but were pushed in that direction by others. For some stories about NK defectors or Mormon cult escapists, what seemed to mentally "set them free" was the truth and asking questions. So logic has a part in that. Those folks were brainwashed at some point, but their experiences and thoughts got them out of it. It's probably not easy though.

I do feel that some speech is inherently more "valuable" than others. The Pentagon Papers and Declaration of Independence were subversive, maybe "illegal" publications. So are child porn and neo-Nazi materials (in some nations). I just think it's more reasonable to ask journalists and others to put their lives on the line to protect the ideas in documents like the DOI and PP (and make sure the world knows of them), rather than the other type. Think about the cop assigned to guard Charlie Hebdo who was murdered - is it much comfort to his family that he died protecting their right to make religious cartoons? I wouldn't want my loved ones to die protecting a porn peddler or neo-Nazi. But for the brave folks who risked/gave their lives for civil and labor rights, or for blowing the whistle on gov't/corporate crimes, at least their sacrifices led to greater justice and living conditions for all.

It's not like we have absolute freedom of speech now, and that Muslims, NK, and bleeding-heart liberals are slowly chipping away at it. We already can't threaten or slander people, we can't lie about some products, we can't pitch stocks without a license, etc. Maybe it's because the potential harm from speech like that outweighs the loss of freedom from prohibiting it. Societies make trade-offs all the time; I'm not saying that the status quo is perfect, but what degree of prohibited speech should we be comfortable with? I do think blasphemous speech should be legal. But if such speech has a high probability to elicit a violent reaction from extremists, maybe it is in the public interest to consider restrictions. Maybe that is the crazies holding us hostage and we cowardly agree to censorship, or maybe it's just prudence.

If we hold firm and protect free speech, are we prepared to also protect the people who may be at risk? Because we can't be everywhere at once; some terrorists are well trained, patient, and know how to exploit soft targets. So if we believe in free speech, we have an obligation to oppose extremism and dissuade people from using violence to express their anger and get even. But hate speech is still speech, so where does that leave us? Seems like a paradox. 

 

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I don't want to get into semantics on how free "free speech" is wrt to slander and such.  I don't think there is any merit to the argument that because those aren't allowed blasphemous speech is on the table.  But we can go there if you choose.

As to dying for a dutch cartoonist, that seems silly to me.  Should be feel better or worse than the person who did for Pepsi as a trucker?  Or for Mott's as a farmhand?  Or for Exxon as a rig worker?  People die all the time for no reason, bad reasons, etc.  And they aren't in professions that expect to be in harms way.  So why should anyone feel extra bad given how he died?  Why should the cartoonist share any blame?  You think he enjoys requiring armed security?

And ultimately if we accept that extremists aren't logical, then what insult can we be sure won't become dangerous?  How can anyone shirt and say one is ok to die for and another is not?  Boko haram (sp?) Kills to stop women from being educated in the name of Islam, can we criticize them?  Are we only allowed to criticize them in word not picture?  

I guess I don't really believe we get any safer by restriction.  Do you really believe those terrorists exist only because of a dutch cartoonist?  Any contrivance will do to recruit and kill.  And REALLY don't believe the govt is good at choosing where that line is.  Think post 9/11 and how it has taken nearly 14 years and we still can't get rid of some of the bad decisions made as a result.

Oh yeah and I have no clue how to un-religious-ize fanatics. 

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Thanks, I think this is a very nuanced and important issue (sorry that my responses are pretty long). Ideally, speech should be unrestricted and everyone is sufficiently civil to not get violent over disputes. And the courts exist to sort out matters of slander, deception, etc. So the threat of lawsuits or other punishment does deter some people from criticizing/lampooning certain people/entities - is that already too much censorship? I do think it is in the public interest to preempt some dangerous speech before it has a chance to cause widespread harm (overt fraud like claiming some poison is actually a miracle diet pill that thousands of people will want to try). Obviously the gov't is not the ideal decision maker in terms of judging speech, but unfortunately we don't have a better enforcer at this point.

Sorry, maybe it was a bad argument for me to claim that dying for certain forms of free speech would be more or less valiant. As you said, workers in most jobs expect to be safe as they perform their jobs. Sure, some crazy accidents happen, and those who perform explicitly hazardous work usually sign some waivers and are comped accordingly. It is possible (but unlikely) that an average worker at a gas station will be killed by an environmental fanatic, or a federal paper-pusher will be killed by an anti-gov't nut. I suppose there is always some reason why a violent, imbalanced person would want to kill us over our profession, and fortunately we live in a society where many people understand that it's unacceptable to use violence that way.

So I agree that speech is not inherently the problem, but instead we need to teach some people that violence is not an appropriate means of self expression. Maybe those terrorists would "still exist" if Charlie Hebdo didn't exist, but they would focus their hate on other targets (Assad, Israel, the US military, etc.). I do not think mere cartoons "created" those killers; maybe a range of factors created them - Jihadist brainwashing and military training, lack of civic education, socioeconomic marginalization. But the cartoons may have incited them to action, or at least gave their imam/mentor a straw man to blame and preach hate against.

It's like a raging bull - the animal is out of control and wanting to gore someone. There's a crowd of people nearby who see the bull coming for them. Many will run away and disperse, and the bull might eventually settle down or chase some other poor chap instead. But it would be pretty silly for some in the crowd to start waving red flags and taunting the bull, right? Especially if the bull might also gore innocent bystanders who happen to be next to the guy with the red flag.

Does our desire to exercise free speech entitle us to put associates in harm's way, when they may or may not agree with our actions? Some in France and all over the world are standing by Charlie Hebdo in solidarity, even making new cartoons mocking the killers and vowing that they will not be silenced. That is brave I suppose, and well within their rights. But now France is more of a target for Jihadis (they already were somewhat, for their actions against ISIS, treatment of immigrants, etc.). I am sure there are some in France who don't want this extra attention and would rather keep a lower profile. But since they are French, they are also targets because of the actions of their countrymen. Is that fair? Maybe some cartoonists are willing to put themselves at risk for their art and politics. But can/should they speak for their whole society, and condemn all of them to a higher level of danger? Even though these killers were born in France, it's possible that other angry killers in Muslim nations may now preferentially target French tourists, etc. France put its embassies on high alert. All I'm saying is that there are global repercussions; it's not just a simple cartoon and the exercise of free speech.

As you said, maybe restrictions are not the answer (I concede that censorship could be a knee-jerk reaction to our revulsion over violent incidents like what we just saw). We outlaw speech X, and some other crazies will get upset over speech Y. It's whack-a-mole, and I don't know where it ends. For people who are willing to engage in violent terrorism, they will always be able to find a target or someone that they disagree with if they want to look hard enough. We live in a fairly free speech society, but billions of other people don't. They may not agree with our values, they may not have good education systems and rule of law, and they have access to weapons and training. Some spiritual and political leaders fill their heads with misinformation, telling them that it's their duty to defend the faith and kill blasphemers. So we become targets, even though we really meant those people no harm.

How do we deal with that? We can't interfere in the affairs of so many other nations, and we can't force them to adopt our values. Maybe tolerance and rejection of violence are universal human values, but no one can enforce that globally, and violations abound. So until we figure all that out, we do our best to protect our freedoms and our people, and accept that sometime violent extremists will attack us? This is just the cost of our way of life? I know some people are more than willing to bear that cost, but others among us are not. I guess that is why we have civil debate and a gov't of the people, so we can collectively decide what degrees of risk and freedom we want for ourselves?

 

The police's persecution complex

Oh for F sakes, the hits just keep on coming. Don't blame me for the spam, blame them. ;)

http://news.yahoo.com/police-union-pushes-for-cops-to-be-included-in-federal-hate-crimes-law-183729328.html

So now the cops want violence against them to be classified as hate crimes. And of course the violence that they perpetrate on others (who disproportionately happen to be brown/black) are not. I don't know the full history, but I think hate crimes laws were created (on top of regular criminal laws) as an extra deterrent against such bias-driven crimes.

But there is already a ton of deterrent to violent crimes against cops: (a) angry cops will kill you with great prejudice (remember Dorner), and may kill you first before you have the chance to shoot them, (b) cops have a lot of protection and weapons, (c) the justice system will already come down on you like a ton of bricks (and maybe your family too). So I don't think the extra risk of a hate crime conviction on top of that will affect anyone's behavior.

You know what will stop people from attacking cops? Cops behaving better. It's not the only way, but it's probably the most impactful one, and one that they can control without asking the Feds to change the laws (which is slow and uncertain).  

“Enough is enough! It’s time for Congress to do something to protect the men and women who protect us,” Chuck Canterbury, the president of the [police] union, said in a statement Monday. The group has long lobbied for harsher punishment for those who harm law enforcement officers.

Ah, so now the cops are the ones saying "enough is enough"? That's pretty insulting, since that slogan was recently used by the victims of cop violence (that greatly outnumber cop deaths)?

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This is so dumb on so many levels I don't know where to begin. I did some cursory research on the typical punishment for killing a cop, and (correct me if I'm wrong) but it appears that in most states this is punish-able basically by only a life sentence or death penalty. Hate crime laws tend to "only" add 5-10 years to sentences, so I don't really get the point of this.

But this also speaks to what police/police apologists don't get about this whole conversation. If you kill a cop, you get punished. I know in the more recent case the guy shot himself, but people don't get to kill cops and walk away scot-free. Cops on the other hand, as we have seen, kill people in unjust situations and receive no punishment or even the slightest bit of accountability. The delicate flowers that cops have turned into when it comes to any sort of criticism is crazy.

Quick thing on hate crime laws: my understanding is that they are applied to crimes that affect communities, not just the person injured/murdered/whatever. For example, if it's determined that a gay person was murdered for being gay, that's classified as a hate crime because that sends a threatening message to the whole gay community, not just the person killed. So based on my understanding, it's even more than just an extra deterrent against bias driven crimes.

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Some statistics from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics 2012.

Law Enforcement Workers:   97 deaths, 30 from homicide, the rest from roadway accidents and slips & trips

Supervisors, Sales workers: 100 deaths, 46 from homicide, the rest from roadway accidents and slips & trips

Police apparently kill at least ~400 people per year in the US.  About 100 of those black.  This is excluding justifiable homicide and unreported killings.  

Law enforcement is not in the top 10 most dangerous occupations.  And it is worse if you include compensation for the risk since police are relatively well compensated (compared to say, fisherman or agriculture workers).

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Agreed with both of you.

Yeah being a cop is statistically a better-than-average job for fatality risk. And as you said, they get huge risk comp in the form of earlier retirement (after 15-20 years I think), generous pensions (except broke places like San Jose and Detroit), and a lot of time off (to "de-stress" - I guess that is good for public safety). I hate to sound so harsh, but they are acting like "cry babies" as D alluded to. It's sadly getting to be like the police are a separate society/class with their own interests and rules. In no job should you have to put up with being shot at, but cops were not conscripted into the force - they volunteered with eyes open. OTOH, the uneducated poor more-or-less have no choice but to join the armed forces.

As D said, try to kill a cop or actually kill a cop, you are finished. Get beaten or killed by a cop, he probably won't be affected much, or he might get "early retirement" if there is enough media attention.

This is probably too expensive and controversial to implement, but why should cops have a monopoly on law enforcement? Even in wars, the US hires allies and mercs. Should we be able to pay for private professional security to keep the peace, as well as protect us from and watch the cops? I guess the rich can and already do have that, but the most at-risk communities can't afford it.  

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"Law Enforcement Workers:   97 deaths, 30 from homicide, the rest from roadway accidents and slips & trips

Supervisors, Sales workers: 100 deaths, 46 from homicide, the rest from roadway accidents and slips & trips

Police apparently kill at least ~400 people per year in the US.  About 100 of those black.  This is excluding justifiable homicide and unreported killings.  "

I want to emphasize that last part, because the more people look into it the more it seems that there is a significant number of unreported killings, the very idea of which is insane to me.

http://regressing.deadspin.com/were-compiling-every-police-involved-shooting-in-americ-1624180387

http://regressing.deadspin.com/deadspin-police-shooting-database-update-were-still-go-1627414202

http://gawker.com/what-ive-learned-from-two-years-collecting-data-on-poli-1625472836

Two separate sections from that last article:

"The biggest thing I've taken away from this project is something I'll never be able to prove, but I'm convinced to my core: The lack of such a database is intentional. No government—not the federal government, and not the thousands of municipalities that give their police forces license to use deadly force—wants you to know how many people it kills and why.

It's the only conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence. What evidence? In attempting to collect this information, I was lied to and delayed by the FBI, even when I was only trying to find out the addresses of police departments to make public records requests. The government collects millions of bits of data annually about law enforcement in its Uniform Crime Report, but it doesn't collect information about the most consequential act a law enforcer can do.

...

This is the most most heinous thing I've learned in my two years compiling Fatal Encounters. You know who dies in the most population-dense areas? Black men. You know who dies in the least population dense areas? Mentally ill men. It's not to say there aren't dangerous and desperate criminals killed across the line. But African-Americans and the mentally ill people make up a huge percentage of people killed by police.

And if you want to get down to nut-cuttin' time, across the board, it's poor people who are killed by police. (And by the way, around 96 percent of people killed by police are men.)"

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Yeah I don't think it would work out well - look at the case of private prisons in the US:


https://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/private-prisons

I'm not sure what the answer is either. But overseas generally cops are a lot better behaved than in the US. Part of it I think is the training culture. They are trained as and are seen as a customer service job, not a paramilitary job where you occasionally have to talk to the plebs, and have much more oversight: http://www.quora.com/How-do-UK-police-compare-to-US-police

I know everyone is for states rights or whatever, but I honestly think they ought to federalize police or at least turn it over to the states and increase the professionalism of the police force.

Another aspect to look at is that if you give officers the option of deadly force, some will resort to it as a first resort rather than a last resort. They did a study where solo cops were much less likely to get into firefights with the bad guys and wait for backup than when cops went together, as one officer alone is more cautious. Likewise, when things get rough in the field (say a crazy guy that isn't listening to commands reaches into his pants), if you have a gun some will use it. Result: crazy guy dead because he was pulling a toothbrush out. A good cop would assess the situation, try to reason with him, and defuse it. Rambo cops will just shoot and claim they felt threatened (which is the bar for use of deadly force).

I'd think that increased professionalism, breaking down of old boy cop networks (in the UK they rotate police, for example), and tighter control over implements of deadly force would be really helpful here.

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I guess when the public is dependent on some sort of paid entity with little oversight (whether it be for a ride home or law enforcement), corruption and abuse are bound to occur. For the more recent police killing in STL (of an armed black teen this time), I think the cop had a body cam but it wasn't on. I don't understand why the officer should have the ability to control the camera - that defeats the purpose.

That is a good initiative about compiling shooting data. If Waze & its users can track all the car accidents in the US, then the crowd should be able to do the same for shootings (that usually attract onlookers, unless it's a corrupt cover-up killing). I agree with you that the lack of transparency is likely deliberate. Just as the gun lobby has blocked most efforts to create a national gun registry/database/etc. Ironically the cops are against the gun lobby on that issue, but likely engage in the same practices when it suits them. 

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I totally agree with you about the private prisons (and also mercs) - but remember that those "service providers" were hired because the gov't orgs were not equipped to do the job on their own. They were called in as spare capacity. But for the "private cops", they would be a hedge or alternative to the public cops. And since they would be hired by the community, they could be fired at any time. Of course all this sounds wonderful and perfectly smooth on paper, like libertarianism in general. :)

Ah - I forgot to make a joke about M's comments on mercs: Blackstone and Treadrock... "Treadstone" was the illegal CIA program in the "Bourne" movies, and BlackRock are the guys who have all our retirement cash. :) Blackwater are the corrupt mercs from Iraq, but they have been renamed to Xe, and then Academi (gotta love rebranding).

I agree about the rush to deadly force - when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Of course cops aren't shooting indiscriminately into crowds (usually), but they are empowered (and probably encouraged) to forgo de-escalation and end conflicts with guns. I guess a similar pathology to the stand-your-ground and mass-shootings phenomena in the US. So it comes back to the 2nd Amendment issue - fewer guns on the street and better regs will reduce the violence potential of the public. That in turn will likely make the cops less paranoid and trigger happy, or even justify patrolmen to be unarmed and backed up by armed specialists for hostile situations (like the UK). Maybe the gutting of public services and budget cuts are also contributing to this problem. Cops are the last ones to endure cuts, but they have had them. Now maybe more patrolmen have to go on duty solo. I would be curious to know what % of questionable cop shootings occurred when the cop was solo (but as we now know, stats are hard to come by).

A major reform is needed; I think the cop-first mentality and culture is too deeply ingrained that small changes won't help (esp. if they turn off their body cams). New training, hiring criteria, and oversight are needed - but who is going to write those laws? Any change-oriented candidate would get a lot of heat from the cop lobby, and his/her opponent would get their contributions.

I agree with you about federalizing the cops, since smaller police forces have poorer training/oversight, and likely contribute disproportionately to misconduct problems. Standardizing the police would create a lot of efficiencies (and sharing of best practices, etc.), but the states rights crowd would raise hell as you said.

Also agreed about changing the mentality from occupying army to service provider. Very few people complain about FDs, and there is much less misconduct. The PDs that have the best rep with the public (even among minorities), fewer violent incidents, and have shown the most reforms/improvements, all have robust community outreach programs. But currently they are recruiting and giving badges to macho/meathead/blindly loyal types, not empathetic/thoughtful/fair types.

http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201412230900

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It seems like somehow police have been lumped in with the military as a must support or no chance of political office entity.  On the radio this morning Ryan seacrest (don't judge me!) Was complaining that there was crazy pressure to wear some "I support the police" hat during his new years eve show.  And subsequent death threats when he didn't.  If even seacrest thinks it is overboard imagine what your everyday douchebag must think.

And if you were an app maker, Waze for cop shootings would be a great release about now.  Now we just need a catchy name.  Raze?  hYelp?  

I'm hopeful that mandatory body cameras help and Los Angeles is implementing them which might help on the national level.

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That's an interesting observation. I think it's very offensive (and undemocratic) for special interest groups to "pressure" the general public to show support for them - lest we be labeled as unpatriotic, soft on crime, etc. "If you're not with us, you're against us." That is another form of intolerant bullying. If you are so great, you don't need to convince anyone with slogans and shirts. It reminds me of a dictator's thugs forcing the citizens at gunpoint to come out and cheer at the dictator's parade, when they all actually hate his guts.

Already the cops get disproportionate support, resources, and political power. They want our love and admiration too? During the War on Terror, I didn't like those bumper stickers that said something like "USMC, thank me for protecting your freedom." My freedom was in pretty good shape without you shooting and bombing anyone. I didn't ask you to go over there, and I do show my thanks by paying taxes and doing other civic duties (incl. protesting when some leaders want to send soldiers to fight unnecessarily).

Cops mostly take evidence after crimes occurred, harass suspicious looking people, and enforce traffic laws. They rarely "prevent crime", except for the deterrent effect of their presence. It's not like Batman swooping in to thwart a bank robbery. So for the cops to imply that they are heroes tirelessly watching over the helpless masses, and keeping the rapists/murderers at bay, is getting it twisted. Violent crime has been on the decline in the US for the past 60 years or more, and policing may not be even a top 3 driver of that (more like economics and other social forces). But still, our gun violence rates are much worse than the EU and east Asia, but as we've discussed, it's concentrated on mostly poor minorities and not the rich (or the cops). If the police go out of their way to protect those folks with the least power, and who are the most at risk, then I would give them props. But they mostly just leave those "animals" to their own devices, keep the riffraff caged in prisons/ghettos and away from the suburbs and malls.

Yeah for all of the LAPD's past sins (and they still have many lingering problems), they have shown a lot of leadership in reforms like community policing, hiring and promoting minorities/women, and the use of some technologies.

The psychology of police bias and violence

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/between-the-lines/201204/studies-unconscious-bias-racism-not-always-racists

http://rt.com/usa/217239-black-police-racial-profiling/

These were some interesting stories about detrimental police psychology and practices.

Phillip Goff from UCLA studied a sampling of police deadly force incidents (not sure the date range and selection criteria), and over 80% of those incidents involved the shooting victim making direct "threats to the officer's masculinity." So it wasn't just a disrespect for his authority ("F you, pig!"), but a challenge to his manhood. In the case of Ferguson, it was alleged that Brown told Wilson, "You're too much of a [pansy/fag/etc.] to shoot me." If true, obviously that was a bad move on Brown's part, but also reveals the dangerous attitude that some officers feel the need to demonstrate their toughness/masculinity/etc. to the public (like Marty McFly when he's called "chicken"). This is not Tombstone where gunfighters call each other out to defend their names and settle scores in the street. The bigger man is sometime the one who doesn't respond, and cooler heads need to prevail (not to mention cops are legally bound by certain restraints, though it's very hard to prosecute excessive force). Cadets and officers who display this inferiority complex, insecurity, and prideful behavior should never be permitted to have a badge and gun.

This part is a little fluffy - but this behavior could reflect the stereotypical white-black male tensions of more racist eras: white men may feel especially threatened by black strength, black genitalia, black revenge for slavery, black men taking their white women away, etc. Again, this is not evidence-based and mostly the domain of racial humor, but I think these fearful undercurrents may still be alive in the American psyche. How much of an effect they have on police actions is unclear.

Also, incidents of police-on-police violence were also studied. In cases where an on-duty officer shoots an off-duty plain-clothed officer, the victims are overwhelmingly black/brown and the shooters are overwhelmingly white. Sorry that is so vague; Reuters got the data from a police internal study, but did not provide the #s. So it's not just a cops vs. civilians thing - cops are killing each other and it seems that race is a major factor associated with the decision to shoot. Much more numerous than shootings are of course the racial profiling for routing traffic stops, stop-and-frisk, harassment, etc. Again, this is much more of a problem for plain-clothed minority officers than white officers. And these incidents may lead to tempers flaring and a violent incident.

The Horne case with Buffalo PD

Sorry to keep harping on this, but there's a lot of material out there. I guess this was going on all the time, but it's only reaching our eyeballs now due to the media attention and high-profile cases.

https://news.vice.com/article/buffalo-cop-loses-job-and-pension-after-she-intervenes-with-fellow-officer-choking-a-suspect?utm_source=vicenewsfb

I think this episode summarizes what is wrong with police accountability (or lack thereof). According to this Vice report, Cariol Horne, a female black officer with the Buffalo PD (19 years tenure) saw another white male officer striking and choking a suspect who was already in handcuffs. She told him to stop, and may have put her hands on the other officer. The other officer punched her in the face in the presence of 9 other officers. Sounds open and shut, right? She was charged with obstructing an arrest, was fired, and got her pension annulled. Meanwhile, the alleged abusive officer was unpunished.

He later was implicated in 2 violent incidents with other officers (which led to his "forced retirement"), and was recently indicted for past civil rights violations relation to treatment of black youths. Horne is still trying to recover her pension.

So let me get this straight, a violence-prone racist cop gets no discipline and full pension from his department, but the "whistleblower" cop who tried to look out for the rights of a suspect gets fired with no pension? Cops and crooks both seem to espouse the philosophy that "snitches get stitches." Some PDs seem more interested to root out disloyalty/threats rather than actual misconduct. It's a cop's "duty" to look out for each other and cover up crimes if necessary. If they don't, and if they dare go against the blue line, then their career is finished. For the benefit of doubt, there could be more to this story. But still, Horne must not have been that bad if she was on the job for 19 years. As a black female cop, she had a much smaller margin for error on the job. So I don't think this is a case of her just crying wolf.

Obviously, this is not how a public agency (or any org) should function.

2 NYPD officers "executed" by black man, possibly for revenge

This is terrible news: 2 NYPD officers "executed" by black man (motive possibly revenge for Brown, Garner, etc.).

http://news.yahoo.com/two-nypd-officers-shot-in-patrol-car-in-brooklyn-212637751.html

It won't help the "Black lives matter" movement (may turn off the centrist public to their plight), and will probably make the cops even more angry, fearful, and aggressive. The alleged killer (a younger black man) seemed to be a desperate, distressed person who was wanted in connection with another shooting. What he did was abominable. For all we know, those 2 officers were excellent public servants, and totally nonviolent and nonracist (one Asian, one Latino, both with wives and one with kids).

Sadly, it reminds me of the even more terrible recent Pakistan school massacre. Let me repeat - both attacks were totally unjustifiable and barbaric. But for background, the Pakistani Army had been heavy-handedly raiding and bombing Taliban-held villages as part of a crack-down. Women and children were killed without hesitation. The Taliban fighters were obviously upset and wanted to strike back at a soft target, to make the Army "hurt like they were hurt". When a powerful force shows contempt for you and treats you like a subhuman, and you have no channels for peaceful redress and no one seems to care about your pain, there's only so much a human can take. Eventually some unstable members of that community (with training and weapons) will lash out and strike back to try to get even, because they have nothing to lose. Would they rather just die a slow death and fade away in silence? Or would they rather get some satisfaction that they struck fear and suffering in the hearts of their enemy? Oppression breeds desperation, which could be a catalyst for atrocity.

So for urban black America, day in and day out many deal with prejudice, mistreatment, and in some cases violence (murder rate for US blacks is over 4X that of whites). Obama even said that every successful black professional like him has been mistaken for the help at a fancy event. I can't imagine what it feels like to be constantly surrounded by that negativity, disrespect, and hostility - even though you just want to live and let live, and didn't cross anyone. It's just because you exist. Maybe the media inflamed the racially-sensitive situation, but with unpunished killing and beating after unpunished killing and beating, everyone has a breaking point. To be honest, I'm in awe of the restraint that black America has shown this year. But there are just so many guns in America, and so many temporarily or clinically unstable people going through hard times, and so many soft targets, that an incident was bound to happen unless the gov't and law enforcement made a serious effort to empathize, be contrite, communicate honestly, and reform (which they didn't).

This is the first time a NYPD cop has been killed on duty since 2011, which is pretty amazing considering they have a staff of 49K (not sure how many of those are beat cops). I think the # of civilian killings the NYPD has committed over that time span is far greater (at least 19). There will be national coverage, life insurance payouts, and full dress funerals for the slain officers. Far less respect was given to the victims of NYPD violence. It's obviously wrong to kill cops, but America mourns deaths differently and values life differently, which is also wrong. It's wrong to keep your boot on the throats of people and expect them to just take it forever, like dogs. It's a tragedy for all sides. Look, being a cop can be a damn hard job. Being black in America can be a damn hard life too. I wish both sides could understand that and show compassion, to make things easier on each other instead of more and more negativity. Otherwise the cycle of revenge and distrust will just go on forever, with more innocents suffering along the way. Sadly, it's the same for most protracted conflicts like Israel-Palestine, India-Pakistan, etc. But if the Northern Ireland factions could forgive and achieve peace, it's possible elsewhere. But it has to start with the two sides giving a shit about each other's plight. 

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This is a pretty sobering and effective analysis by The Economist on America's violent law enforcement practices. Actually the NYPD, LAPD, and police from larger cities are not the biggest problem (misconduct per capita is lower). They have made huge reforms since Rodney King, although they still have a way to go (Stop and Frisk, though it was recently suspended). It's the small police forces like Ferguson and Albuquerque that are the problem, where the officers are often far less diverse, less competent, having worse leadership, and under far less public/media scrutiny.

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21636044-americas-police-kill-too-many-people-some-forces-are-showing-how-smarter-less?fsrc=scn/fb/ed/pe/DontShoot

# of killings by cops last year in Japan, Germany, and the UK combined (pop. ~270MM): 8

# in the US (pop. ~316MM): 458

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I am not totally surprised, but pretty dismayed by some reactions to the NYPD slayings:

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/12/220614-wake-two-slain-nypd-officers-people-take-twitter-show-disdain-al-sharpton/
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/12/220680-tweet-proves-divide-nypd-mayor-reached-crisis-level-two-cops-die/

Some major sources, like police unions and former NY governor Pataki, are literally blaming Mayor DeBlasio and Al Sharpton for Brinsley's attack on the 2 officers ("Blood is on your hands" - pretty disrespectful stuff). Probably the NYPD have marked DeBlasio as an enemy, and will do what they can to unseat him. While I haven't been following every single statement DeBlasio and Sharpton have made on police violence, I am fairly sure that they did not say anything remotely resembling race-baiting and a call for revenge. And in all of Brinsley's social media posts, I don't believe he mentioned that his actions were motivated by a public figure. But I suppose if you don't declare that you support everything the cops do 100%, and they are always in the right, then you are "anti-cop". That is how Tel Aviv and AIPAC respond to any sort of criticism of Israeli actions and policies (no matter how reasonable and fact-driven). If you're not fully supportive, then you're a vile anti-Semite. There's no place for that rubbish in intelligent conversation.

I suppose that some people want a simple, clear explanation for traumatic events that disturb them. Muslims hate us for our freedom, Marilyn Manson caused Columbine, etc. But that approach is often too reductive, inaccurate, and unhelpful. People are understandably upset and what to focus their anger on someone. But to irresponsibly blame public figures, whose only sins were to show some compassion for the families of police violence and dare to suggest a review of police policies, is not that different from Brinsley lashing out at 2 random beat cops over the Garner and Brown cases. And heaven forbid, but what if an angry, disturbed ex-cop decides to take a shot at DeBlasio or Sharpton over this uproar? Would we be justified to blame the people who called out DeBlasio and Sharpton for inciting violence against them?

No indictment for Eric Garner's killer either

Unfortunately the NYC grand jury will not indict the white officer (and his accomplices) who choked the unarmed, nonthreatening Eric Garner to death. And they have video! "I can't breathe, I can't breathe!" What was his crime - being big and black and male and upset in NYC? Did he "deserve" it too, like Brown? Did the officer have no choice?

The officer probably didn't have intent to kill, but he was using a prohibited tactic (chokehold) and I have trouble believing that this was all by the book. No manslaughter, no negligence, nothing? Would the ruling be the same if the deceased was famous? And they wonder why people are upset - totally tone deaf and living in their bubble.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/nyregion/grand-jury-said-to-bring-no-charges-in-staten-island-chokehold-death-of-eric-garner.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1ka4oKu1jo

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Why Commonwealth nations have done away with grand juries - they are ineffective for justice and too easily manipulated by the prosecutor

http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-12-04/england-abolished-grand-juries-decades-ago-because-they-didnt-work

The NY grand jury may have failed to indict the chokehold cop (because he got to defend himself for 2 hours in court and professed that it was an accident), but they have indicted the man who filmed the incident (on an unrelated weapons charge), plus his wife. Coincidence or petty cop retribution?

http://ringoffireradio.com/2014/12/grand-jury-indicted-the-man-who-filmed-eric-garners-killing/

The fascinating psychology behind bias, how it sometimes still gets the better of people who are actively trying to not be biased. This is good material for another thread, so let me know if you'd like to discuss.

http://billmoyers.com/2014/12/02/science-cops-shoot-young-black-men/

Cleveland child shooting by police

http://gawker.com/video-cops-shot-12-year-old-two-seconds-after-arriving-1663814827

Re: the Cleveland shooting - the video doesn't tell the whole story (at least there is a video though) and I am not familiar with all the facts, but...

The initial 911 caller told police that he/she thought the firearm was "probably fake", but that info never got to the officers on scene. The shooter was a rookie cop on the job less than a year (of all the officers in the area, why dispatch him to a potential firefight situation?). So lapses in police procedure seem to be contributing. If the officer killed the kid within 2 sec of the vehicle coming to a stop, when exactly did they ask the kid to put his hands up and observe that he didn't comply? Maybe they asked him from their loudspeaker before 0:21? Either way, to me it makes no sense for the other officer to drive the car into the park within 10 feet of the potentially dangerous suspect. Again, that is an act of escalation rather than diffusion that frankly is putting his partner on the driver's side at undue risk. What is the benefit of doing that? I don't mean to be a Monday morning QB, and I am ignorant on police rules-of-engagement, but it doesn't seem logical/effective. So is poor training/procedure also to blame (in addition to poor judgment)?

Why not use their loudspeaker at distance (handgun shooters generally have low accuracy beyond 25 yards) to ask any bystanders in the area to withdraw? Then from behind cover, they can have time to converse with the suspect, evaluate the risk, and discuss with HQ if needed. Why the need for such immediate violent response; the suspect was seated and not posing a threat to anyone at the time (i.e. there was no Hollywood style hostage standoff)? Shouldn't deadly force be the last resort? All of this seems to be circumstantial evidence supporting the theory that black life is not valued by some Americans (esp. in law enforcement). They wouldn't act this way if the suspect was a relative or friend, right? 

For perspective, the Richmond PD has not killed anyone in 7 years, despite the fairly dangerous climate in their city (but that PD is known for good community outreach). And they average  less than 1 officer shooting incident per year. So obviously there is a choice and violence is avoidable, unlike what Wilson claimed.

Ferguson grand jury decision and police use of force with blacks

http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201411250900

This was a pretty good panel discussion about the Ferguson decision. To be clear, based on how our laws are written, what evidence was available, and how our justice system "works", Zimmerman and Mesherle were not guilty, and there was not enough here to indict Wilson. Whether that is right or acceptable is another story.

No one really expected an indictment of Wilson, however there was some concern about how the process unfolded: the prosecutor seemed to focus on the officer's perspective, the prosecutor's dad was a cop killed by a black suspect (and didn't recuse himself), Brown's family was not called to testify (but Wilson was - highly unusual), the convenience store crime footage was released, and AG Holder was indirectly involved. There is also the over-arching issue of the proximity between law enforcement and the DA's office, and whether impartial oversight of alleged police misconduct is possible. Was this g. jury just a "show trial" as justice theater, to go through the motions when no one really wanted to investigate Wilson. And maybe Wilson in fact broke no laws.

We've spoken about these issues before, but obviously if police were not armed (like in the UK, Norway, and many other places), that precludes the risk of violent altercations. We know that's not going to happen, so maybe police resources could be allocated to community outreach and rules-of-engagement/de-escalation policy analysis and training rather than ridiculous military exercises that they will never (or should never) use domestically. And instead of buying tanks and sniper rifles, maybe law enforcement could invest in officer and vehicle cameras - which have been shown to deter violence and misconduct from both officers and public. Convictions were possible in the Rodney King case because of footage, otherwise we all probably believe that the verdict would have been different.

There are "ambiguous" cases where an officer can rightfully shoot or not shoot - it's up to their discretion. The data show that when the suspect is black or brown, shooting is a lot more likely outcome. Assuming that minority suspects are no more dangerous than white suspects, this may be a manifestation of traditional racism, lack of sensitivity training, and/or unconscious fear (particularly of large black urban men). Ferguson's police force is under 10% black, yet the community is 2/3 black. Why was the actual white cop-killer in PA apprehended with little harm to him (and maybe no shots fired), but kids, mentally challenged, and unarmed/poorly armed minorities are beaten to a pulp or shot 10 times?

Would white America think it was OK if the tables were turned? Imagine if blacks were 60% of the population, had all the wealth/power (and Obama would still be president because he's half white), and most of the guns. Would they be OK with young white man after young white man (unarmed) killed by black cops or black neighborhood watchmen, with no convictions or even indictments? And all of this met the letter of the law?

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Maybe there has been some sensationalism and race baiting by the media and others over Ferguson, but this crap isn't much better:

https://gma.yahoo.com/exclusive-police-officer-darren-wilson-explains-feared-life-233000976--abc-news-topstories.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/25/darren-wilson-testimony_n_6216620.html

I guess Wilson is on his PR tour, and lucky for him he's the only one left alive to tell the world what happened that day. He took a punch from Brown, and then "feared for his life". He is 6'4" 210 lbs, but he said he was like a boy vs. "Hulk Hogan" - that's how big that "man" was (Brown was 6'4" 292 lbs). Either Wilson's stupid or melodramatic, but it's pretty hard to die from one or two punches. He was in a motor vehicle. If he feared for his life, why not just hit the gas and escape (assuming the car was running)? Only when he went for his gun did it become a "life and death" struggle. During his grand jury testimony (when he was not subject to cross-examination), he said Brown was a "demon". Is that to evoke sympathy and/or an admission of his hysteria?

Wilson's recounting of the incident could be accurate, but it's quite peculiar. I don't know their stories, but I believe that Brown did not have a history of violence, erratic behavior, or aggression. I am not sure about Wilson's record on duty. But the way Wilson described Brown, the kid seemed to be crazy. I'm not saying it's impossible, but why would a teen, when ordered by a cop authority figure to get off the road and then approach the patrol car, suddenly attack the armed officer without provocation? It's like Trayvon - did he suddenly just decide to kill an adult stranger on a whim? Then instead of finishing Wilson off in close quarters, somehow the hulk-demon Brown ends up 35-40 feet away from the police car, turns around, and charges back at Wilson - ostensibly with intent to kill (even though the kid already passed up an easier opportunity to kill Wilson)? At that point, Wilson said that the thought in his mind was, "Legally can I shoot this guy? I have to." If he was attacked by a "demon" and fearing for his life before, it's not likely that Wilson could be so conscientious and analytical in that moment. This makes me really suspicious of his version of events.

Wilson repeated that he has a clear conscience because he followed his training to the letter and did nothing wrong. To me, that's like Bush saying that he can't think of a mistake he made as president. Honest people can always admit they could have done something better - it doesn't require deep introspection and intellect. And if you are truly in the right, that doesn't mean that you are not allowed to be sub-perfect. Any time someone kills someone else, something obviously went wrong. But for Wilson to be so sure and culpability-free, that suggests he is on the defensive and hiding something. Maybe he is (rightfully) worried that if he is open and contrite, his words will be twisted and turned against him. He is not out of the legal woods yet. However, I don't think it's very persuasive to neutrals or skeptics when you show very little to no empathy or remorse, and just keep maintaining that you did everything right and you are actually the victim.

Wilson is the professional peace officer with the firearm and the training. He has the power of life and death, not Brown. Maybe he wielded that power in accordance with the laws of the land, but don't tell us that all this was 100% unavoidable and 100% of the blame is on Brown. Is conflict ever so black and white?

"Is there anything you could have done differently that would have [avoided the killing]?"

"No."

"Nothing?"

"No."

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When you speak of intellect and police, please keep this in mind:

http://www.mintpressnews.com/can-someone-be-too-smart-to-be-a-cop/192106/

Bottom line:  They're smart enough to know their own limits, which makes them feel inferior.  Give him a gun and that inferiority goes away.  The police are poorly trained and intellectually ill-equipped to do a job like policing.  Police (in a civilized society) need to read a situation and determine the way to de-escalate it to protect everyone, not just themselves.  Instead, they exacerbate and intimidate.

If Brown was a 'demon', a police officer should know how to deal with them.  You cannot tell me that Brown wouldn't understand that if he punched a cop in the face, he'd be killed.    Every black child is told that he is perceived as a threat in society just because the color of his/her skin.  It is the 'talk' black parents have to have with their kids in order to hope they might not land in jail or get killed. 

Once again, it's bullshit cop story and because the american society is so racist, they believe it.

How long ago did we watch Rodney King get beaten?  Same as it ever was.  

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Yeah, "the talk" is a good point; most black American men know not to do anything remotely aggressive towards the cops. Yet Wilson admitted to firing his gun 12 times at the unarmed Brown. As you said, I am pretty sure Wilson did/said something offensive to provoke Brown, who responded like a testosterone-fueled teen might, and then Wilson probably escalated because he felt that his petty ego/authority was challenge and he wanted to put this punk in his place. Like Jack Reacher said, people join the armed forces either because they're legacy, unable to get a better job, or want to legally kill people. I think some people become cops because they have inferiority complexes and want to wave the gun/badge around and intimidate (like Denzel's depiction in Training Day).

Maybe I'm way off base about Wilson, but I know this applies to some cops over the years based on the long record of misconduct and corruption (and those are only the cases that saw the light of day). Teachers and gov't workers get blasted by the right all the time, but they always apologize for the cops. They are all supposed to be public servants, but yes, there are structural and psychological reasons why they may put their own interests over the public's at times. But when cops do that, people can get hurt and justice suffers.

The way Wilson, Zimmerman, and some in right-wing media/politics describe, young black men are a ticking time bomb of primal rage that can't be reasoned with. That is racism to me, with tragic effects. Same thing with some Muslims - they are accused of embracing a culture of martyrdom and death. "We love life and freedom, they hate it." They're barely human, so they need to be caged and killed like dogs. So sure, when a psychotic 300 lb black guy wants to tear you limb-from-limb, of course you regretfully have to protect yourself with deadly force. Poor Wilson. I acknowledge that some blacks and Muslims fit these descriptions, but the vast majority don't. And plenty of whites exhibit this behavior and worse (the majority of mass murderers in US history were white men, often educated and not that poor). So we're profiling all wrong. But maybe the error stems from, and is reinforcement of, the centuries-old stereotypes about white man's burden and black savages.

One thing I also wanted to comment on was the criticism over the rioting and looting in black neighborhoods in the wake of Ferguson, Rodney King, Watts, Katrina, etc. This is somehow validation for conservatives that blacks are the problem. I am not condoning the behavior, but when people are given no better outlets for redress, and day-after-day subject to mistreatment and negativity all around, they are going to react poorly during times of strife. It is not inherent to blacks - it is what happens when you marginalize people and leave them with no hope/future. The discrimination, harassment, and violence (economic violence too) that some black people face (often from non-blacks) are significant disadvantages that others often dismiss because they haven't experienced it themselves. I also think Obama was too dismissive and unsympathetic of the protesters' perspective in Ferguson (esp. compared to Trayvon), but I assume he is being extra cautious so as to not get blamed/associated with the racial anger/violence.