Headlines “Politics” [read the OP before posting]

[Divine Retribution]

The alternatives to policing in situations such as runaways and pedophiles that were brought up itt are organized citizen groups made up of members of the community willing to intervene in situations involving such things as pedophiles or runaway children. The community needs to be empowered to organize itself rather than give up this power to a police force with legal impunity. These types of organizations already exist in places where the police are corrupted to the point of being just another criminal organization.

Great.

What about communities dominated by white supremacists, fascists, and racists? Are you telling me you want to give them the power to police themselves? What kinds of oversight do you want put into place to ensure this system doesn't devolve into mob justice where people of color get lynched because a white person thinks they looked at them wrong?

Police reform, not police abolition. The system is broken; it isn't broken irreparably, and "organized citizen groups" (isn't that almost verbatim what the Proud Boys call themselves? lmao) is a terrible solution that is bound to lead to even more frequent violations of human rights than we're currently seeing. Cops need more training in de-escalation and handling citizens in mental health crises, more money should be sunk into development of less-than-lethal tools and training in use of said tools, and maybe we shouldn't be locking people up for stupid shit like petty drug offenses in the first place, slapping felonies on their records and giving them a reason to violently resist in future encounters with the police.

Combine this with efforts to lift certain communities out of poverty and you'd see a dramatic reduction both in crime rates and in police involved shootings, justified or unjustified, and everyone would be better off for it.

 

[ManOfMany]

Higher amounts of police do actually have a preventative effect on crime, and this has been consistently confirmed. The fact that the U.S. has high amounts of violent crime as well is heavily militarized is a correlation, but it does not imply that the militarization causes the problem. Poverty is closely linked to violent crime and the U.S. has massive wealth inequality as well as a lack of social safety nets, mixed with readily available firearms- a terrible combination.

Of course, police in this country are highly corrupt and have cause horrific deaths. We know the system in the U.S. incarcerates too many people for petty crimes like weed, and will shoot at the slightest provocations. There needs to be serious change. But to straight up say that police do not help deal with violent criminals at all is just trying to oversimplify the issue because it makes you feel better.

As has been said in the thread, the best ways to reduce violent crime are to invest in communities. Education and social services that elevate people out of poverty will lower crime rates. Reducing police presence will not help with this process, and will likely have the opposite of intended effects.
You cannot ignore the problem of violent crime until you reach this hypothetical world where there are no factors that would drive someone to kill. Eradicating poverty-based crime is not a quick process. The only way the current system can be dismantled if it is replaced with fairer community-based policing organizations willing to use force when necessary, as Myzozoa stated earlier. People in high-crime areas will absolutely not support defunding the police without a law-and-order alternative.

sources

The research is clear: more cops = less crime
In a 2005 paper, Jonathan Glick and Alex Tabarrok found a clever instrument to measure the effects of officer increases through the terrorism “alert levels” that were a feature of the early to mid-aughts. During high-alert periods, the Washington, DC, police force would mobilize extra officers, especially in and around the capital’s core, centered on the National Mall. Using daily crime data, they found that the level of crime decreased significantly on high-alert days, and the decrease was especially concentrated on the National Mall.

Critically, the finding was not that adding police officers leads to more arrests and then locking up crooks leads to lower crime in the long run. It’s simply that with more officers around, fewer people commit crimes in the first place. That seems to be the criminal justice ideal, in which fewer people are getting locked up because fewer people are being victimized by criminals.

This sounds a little paradoxical, but the reality is the size of the prison population is driven largely by the harshness of the sentencing, not the number of police stops. The criminologist Lawrence Sherman has observed that the United States is very unusual in spending much more money on the prison system than on our police departments. This suggests the possibility of switching to a formula Tabarrok has summarized as “more police, fewer prisons, less crime”: uniformed officers patrolling the streets stopping crime before it starts rather than working in prisons surveilling convicts.

About a year ago, Stephen Mello of Princeton University assessed the Obama-era increase in federal police funding. Thanks to the stimulus bill, funding for Clinton’s Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) hiring grant program surged from about $20 million a year in the late-Bush era to $1 billion in 2009. The program design allowed Mello to assess some quasi-random variation in which cities got grants. The data shows that compared to cities that missed out, those that made the cut ended up with police staffing levels that were 3.2 percent higher and crime levels that were 3.5 percent lower.

This is an important finding because not only does it show that more police officers leads to less crime, but that actual American cities are not currently policed at a level where there are diminishing returns. Instead, reductions in crime seem to be about proportional to increases in the size of police forces.

A larger historical survey by Aaron Chalfin and Justin McCrary looked at a large set of police and crime data for midsize to large cities from 1960 to 2010 and concluded that every $1 spent on extra policing generates about $1.63 in social benefits, primarily through fewer murders.

note this comes from an article published on Vox. The media site may not the the most unbiased source but they did present the evidence which appears credible to me.

 

[lilyhollow]

Combine this with efforts to lift certain communities out of poverty and you'd see a dramatic reduction both in crime rates and in police involved shootings, justified or unjustified, and everyone would be better off for it.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/officer-involved_shooting

Originally used by police departments and adopted by journalists, the term has been criticized as an intentionally misleading euphemism that obscures police agency.

your use of 'police-involved shootings,' a regurgitation of a police term designed specifically to avoid criticism for their many racist murders, should make you wonder about whether there are other things in your post that are just naked pro-police talking points.

(@whoever i dont really know how much more i can improve this post, if it's still not good enough just let me know and i'll like leave or whatever, sorry i just dont see the problem with it! ;_;)

 

[Myzozoa]

Great.

What about communities dominated by white supremacists, fascists, and racists?

You can't really tell me that such communities aren't also filling their ranks of police officers with the same ppl. I live in portland and most of the police have trump tattoos so... I am so confused honestly, someone tell me whats going on with this post here. I am really unsure what I am supposed to understand from this post. Like, maybe 'organized community groups' would be better and used the word 'citizen' too quickly but beyond that I don't know what I understand in this post.

as for many's post, I do not think I agree with this notion: more police does not prevent crime, there is almost no police presence in the suburb of LA where I grew up and also nearly no crime. crime stems from people trying to survive under capitalism as you noted in more or less words. Increasing funding so that the big thief can catch more little thieves would seem to be contradictory to the premise that we should try to prevent crime by making it possible for people to take an easier path. Incarceration and increasing police funding goes against, or as it least irrelevant to the overall concepts I see in your post.

Finally there is still the basic problem, not touched on in many's post and given a smokescreen talk ("oversight") in divine retributions post. This is the problem of the average police officer being indistinguishable from criminals. Continuing a system based in raising the legal status of a certain group of people over the rest of the population in order to control them seems bad to me. Since such a system as the one we have cannot last forever one way or another, I think it is appropriate and necessary to imagine how communities can protect themselves from crime in the absence of any police officers. I know it is very scary and difficult to reckon with this scenario. It may be helpful to consider it from the perspective that the goal of the brainstorming is to figure out how a community can protect itself from crazy men with guns without giving more crazy men guns (or badges).

I will perhaps return to many's post after I have time to go through the study listed in vox with the thesis that looks at terror alert levels, I am looking forwards to reading it I guess cause ppl talking about the minutia of terror alert level effects is a special interest of mine because it really shows the affective and situational side of politics.

 

[ManOfMany]

I am really on board with what you said regarding the police being a status above the citizens. No one should fear cops. We fear them though, not only because of the violence and racism we see in the news or face personally, but because we feel they are unquestionable authority. They are above the law, literally because they enforce it and have qualified immunity. Repairing relations with our law enforcement starts with them recognizing themselves as ordinary citizens who can do wrong. As has been said many times before, all the duties that armed cops normally do that could be phazed out with social workers should be done so.

In high crime areas though, you are still going to need people trained to catch violent criminals (at least temporarily) so that people feel safe. They should be extremely well trained at de-escalation, but they have to be armed to some degree so things are going to wrong. The problem is making sure they do not abuse their power. It has been done before, for example The Garda Sochiana in Ireland. There is definitely no easy solution though.

I am curious as to what you think about the Camden City Police Overhaul. Camden is a high-violence city, and still remains one, but rates have dropped drastically after they laid off the entire police department and rehired them with new training. This may also be partially due to this policy, "The initial strategy was to have as many officers walking and biking the streets as possible to discourage drug traffickers; as citizens felt safer and began occupying public spaces again, a critical mass of well-intentioned citizens was sufficient to keep the drug traffickers away and police pulled back on their presence." At the same time, reports of excessive force by the police are far down. It is interesting because while they are really still the same police, in practice they seem to function more as trusted members of the community, at least far more than before because of a few policy changes.

as for many's post, I do not think I agree with this notion: more police does not prevent crime, there is almost no police presence in the suburb of LA where I grew up and also nearly no crime.

I am not sure about this anecdote. I can confirm the accuracy of it: I also live in a safe suburb right now and rarely see police, but while I was in Greenbelt which is much more dangerous, I regularly saw cops. But I disagree with the conclusion you got from this, it seems backwards.

The wealthier suburbs have nearly no crime due to the lack of poverty. Therefore, there is also less police presence there out of a lack of necessity. Poorer neighborhoods have more crime. Therefore, more police are there to catch criminals. However, among poorer high-crime neighborhoods, what some research is saying is that having higher amounts of police presence has a preventative effect on crime. Its not necessarily higher amounts of police total, its police patrolling the area and making themselves visible. Even that argument isn't really an argument for increased police funding, it's an argument for changing the tactics of the police (or community guard) to make themselves more visible and involved in the community.

 

[lilyhollow]

The Camden stuff does a great job of showing what's at stake in the 'reform vs abolish' debate, and how easy it is to convince well-meaning people that what we need to solve our policing problem is more policing (under the guise of 'reform'). You see this too with like, diversity initiatives. 'We need a more diverse police force (aka we must hire more police)!'

Well-meaning reformists need to be extremely cautious with this. Any 'reform' that may lead to the further entrenchment of policing in the united states should be viewed with intense skepticism at best.

https://www.wired.com/story/disbanding-police-really-meant-camden/
https://theappeal.org/camden-police-george-floyd/

 

[Inflikted]

I see some old faces itt, hi

News today reported Trump gaining ground in polls following the RNC. Candidate X or Y gaining or losing points is normal, but how a notable shift can follow something like the RNC is beyond me. I watched clips of speeches at the Convention in my limited free time because I clearly hate myself. The amount of lies I heard is stunning. Some were so blatant that I didn't have to spend more time googling stuff to know it was bullshit (Italian mainstream media do a terrible job of covering US news, so if you want to really know something, you have to actively look for it). One guy even said something along the lines of "the pandemic was awful, but presidential leadership acted quickly to successfully fight Covid", which is mind boggling. Even cave dwellers know that only Brazil did worse, and they are ruled by a corrupt nutjob that tweeted gay porn to condemn homosexuality, so there was never much hope there. Then there was the usual wave of fear mongering over the "radical left". To this day I don't understand what's radical about the bulk of the Democratic party.

The fact that this degree of malicious lying seems to be so accepted and normalized is depressing. If you point lies out to supporters, the responses always seem to follow the rationale of "hmmm maybe he was wrong about that, but those guys I don't like are far worse, I can't do them a favor". People have become worse than hardcore sports teams supporters. I'm no political science major, but something has always looked very clear cut to me: if you are intentionally lying about easily proven facts in order to gain something, you are a fraud and a sack of shit. This is not the standard politician behaviour of promising things and failing to deliver. Some are totally lying when they do it, but as long as the promise isn't outlandish, they have the benefit of the doubt. They could have tried to implement some reform and things went wrong in the process. It's normal (not great) for politicians to be more or less underwhelming. RNC speakers are not doing that, they are spewing their "alternative facts" in front of millions, and they gain votes for it.

I could just sip my coffee and pretend I don't care because it's an American problem. But no, wait, I can't. We seem to have imported this unbelievable intoxication of the political climate. More specifically, the "Lock Her Up" thing.
After the end of the lockdown, rightwing Italian politician (and former minister) Matteo Salvini called for the prosecution of the Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte for the covid deaths in the worst affected areas. There was some delay in the response, but Italy was the first western democracy to implement measures that were unthinkable before, and that Salvini wasn't really calling for. Some days later he stated Conte should be arrested for "holding Italians hostages" which is even more ridiculous in light of his previous tirade. Both of these calls were made during rallies where social distancing rules were not respected and people who wore masks correctly appeared to be a minority. Salvini himself routinely took selfies with people who would come close to him without wearing any masks.
Salvini's political ally Giorgia Meloni also called for Conte's arrest for "high treason" because, according to her and with no factual basis, he sold Italy out during EU negotiations. High treason doesn't really exist here outside military law.

I'm no fan of Conte. I just don't understand how it's become normal to call for arrests of political opponents over imaginary crimes, with no consequences whatsoever. I'm not even saying they should be fined or prosecuted, even losing some percentage points in polls would be something. But the news reported it like it was just another legitimate opinion. Nobody seems to notice we're regressing by giving up on civil discourse. Now as long as your guy says something negative about people you don't like, then it's ok.

It's easy for us Europeans to watch the news, see protests and riots in the US and say "huh Americans going insane, who would have thought". But whether we like it or not (I don't) the US often sets trends, and this seems to be the case, even if our issues are different. The trend of intoxication of the political climate in particular doesn't show any signs of stopping and I have no idea how it can be reverted. Americans electing Biden most likely won't do that. But maybe not having someone that actively tries to make the situation worse in such a prominent position on the world stage would be one less step towards the precipice. I'm not too optimistic though.

 

[MZ]

So today I've seen 3 completely different cases of Republicans doctoring footage or taking comments completely out of context for really dumb attacks on Biden and like, this is really scary? Sorta feels like the misinformation pipeline is just ramping up hard with nobody really willing to do anything about it aside from maybe marking a tweet as being misleading after it racks up 2 million+ views. Don't know that I have a larger point here, it's not like this is even new. A basic look at Ben Shapiro can show that a lot of Republican strategy for a long time has just been pumping out lies and dishonest arguments and racism. But such naked and obvious manipulation 3 times in < 24 hours is just so scary when you know there's millions of people who took this stuff at face value. And I don't know what a reasonable solution could be either, what with massive distrust in and failures by lots of the journalist and media establishment and the fact that social media companies really really do not want to moderate any of the bullshit and often actively take sides in political fights. And while right now this is more of a right wing thing solutions can't really favor the left either, I don't really doubt that Democrats would be getting in on this if they needed to. It's just that there's literally no need to take things Republicans say out of context. Anyway here's links to the 3 things.

idk how to not make twitter posts stretch out

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-...oe-biden-video-fake-dan-scavino-a9697791.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/31/steve-scalise-doctored-biden-video-405926

https://twitter.com/x/status/1300503671239774211

 

[Myzozoa]

I am really on board with what you said regarding the police being a status above the citizens. No one should fear cops. We fear them though, not only because of the violence and racism we see in the news or face personally, but because we feel they are unquestionable authority. They are above the law, literally because they enforce it and have qualified immunity. Repairing relations with our law enforcement starts with them recognizing themselves as ordinary citizens who can do wrong. As has been said many times before, all the duties that armed cops normally do that could be phazed out with social workers should be done so.

In high crime areas though, you are still going to need people trained to catch violent criminals (at least temporarily) so that people feel safe. They should be extremely well trained at de-escalation, but they have to be armed to some degree so things are going to wrong. The problem is making sure they do not abuse their power. It has been done before, for example The Garda Sochiana in Ireland. There is definitely no easy solution though.

I am curious as to what you think about the Camden City Police Overhaul. Camden is a high-violence city, and still remains one, but rates have dropped drastically after they laid off the entire police department and rehired them with new training. This may also be partially due to this policy, "The initial strategy was to have as many officers walking and biking the streets as possible to discourage drug traffickers; as citizens felt safer and began occupying public spaces again, a critical mass of well-intentioned citizens was sufficient to keep the drug traffickers away and police pulled back on their presence." At the same time, reports of excessive force by the police are far down. It is interesting because while they are really still the same police, in practice they seem to function more as trusted members of the community, at least far more than before because of a few policy changes.



I am not sure about this anecdote. I can confirm the accuracy of it: I also live in a safe suburb right now and rarely see police, but while I was in Greenbelt which is much more dangerous, I regularly saw cops. But I disagree with the conclusion you got from this, it seems backwards.

The wealthier suburbs have nearly no crime due to the lack of poverty. Therefore, there is also less police presence there out of a lack of necessity. Poorer neighborhoods have more crime. Therefore, more police are there to catch criminals. However, among poorer high-crime neighborhoods, what some research is saying is that having higher amounts of police presence has a preventative effect on crime. Its not necessarily higher amounts of police total, its police patrolling the area and making themselves visible. Even that argument isn't really an argument for increased police funding, it's an argument for changing the tactics of the police (or community guard) to make themselves more visible and involved in the community.

k I did some fact checking on Camden and it simply doesn't align with the narrative you propose in your post https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...t-is-being-misused-debate-over-police-reform/ It seems that it is simple revisionism to make any other claim than that the disbanding of the Camden police involved a re-entrenchment of broken windows policing. The quote in your post about the initial policy ought not to be taken at face value and does not seem to be consistent with the facts of the matter.

I am also very against this notion that increasing people's encounters with police will lead to a reduction in serious violent crimes. This sort of analysis by broad statistic brush stroke has set the agenda for urban policing for decades and largely resulted in the increasing criminalization of people of color especially children. Although it might lead to some type of statistical reduction in violent crimes and thus prison population if viewed in a narrow time frame and in a narrow demographic/institutional sample (i.e not including juvenile offenders or offenders that are otherwise forced into a non-prison legal consequence such as being forced to go to a drug treatment etc). In fact in NYC crime has continued to go down even as the officer count went down (https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/...e&pagewanted=all&login=email&auth=login-email and this is an article that actually argues for more police so really i dont even know where these ideas come from anymore and I will not respond if you try to re-read this article back to me as a reply js, not that you would do that of course). This is because the amount of police does not affect crime, social and economic factors drive crime downwards or upwards. You already know this, just in 50% of your posts' content you seem to decide to forget this inexplicably. Ask yourself if it makes any sense to say that incarceration is appreciably decreasing if more people than ever are getting misdemeanors that, although carrying a short sentence to not overcrowd the prison, follow people around for their whole lives? Why should we believe that arresting more people for jaywalking or selling untaxed cigarettes is going to lead to a reduction in violent crime? There is no substantial causal connection and no analysis by statistical engineering or analysis rooted in selective or unwitting omission should be taken as sufficient for anyone to buy into this notion. But we already agreed that economic and social factors have a clear effect because we all know that people without opportunities for mainstream advancement will be lured or forced into careers of criminality. For example people in street gangs feel a sense of social belonging and opportunity for prosperity that mainstream society never gave them a chance for.



now you get to read because I spent way too much time verifying your claims which turned out to be rather lacking so it's only fair imo

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/...t-solve-the-problem-they-are-the-problem.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html

https://populardemocracy.org/news/p...12&lvl=100&ite=122&lea=23632&ctr=0&par=1&trk=

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/upshot/unrest-police-time-violent-crime.html?smid=tw-share

Victor M Rios- Stealing a Bag of Potato Chips https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1536504212436496 -starts being relevant about 2 or 3 pages in iirc

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-dont-mean-less-crime-experts-say/2818056002/

ps: I wrote it without my contacts in so I didn't want to spend too much time on the editting so i didnt spend much time on fixing typos or grammars

 

[Charmflash]

The left needs to actively start condemning riots and destruction of non-government property. It is literally the only path to victory Trump has. What do you think moderate lefties think when they see cities on fire day after day after day after day? Burning down some dude's bakery won't make systemic racism disappear, and neither will stealing electronics from a decently well-sized business. Covid made Trump's ineptitude apparent to everyone who isn't from fucking Qanon & handed democrats a free win, don't ally with any self-righteous douchebags who have a BLM sticker on their shirt.

 

[vonFiedler]

The left needs to actively start condemning riots and destruction of non-government property. It is literally the only path to victory Trump has. What do you think moderate lefties think when they see cities on fire day after day after day after day? Burning down some dude's bakery won't make systemic racism disappear, and neither will stealing electronics from a decently well-sized business. Covid made Trump's ineptitude apparent to everyone who isn't from fucking Qanon & handed democrats a free win, don't ally with any self-righteous douchebags who have a BLM sticker on their shirt.

I can't speak for Wisconsin but here on the west coast the riots and destruction were a short term problem. What's happened since then is long-term protests, police brutality, secret police action, and now vigilante mobs being told by the president to come in and stir up more trouble. The idea that we've been rioting since May is complete propaganda and that's what people need to be condemning.

Now perhaps Biden needs to send a stronger message that he is going to bring us back to normalcy and that all of this is a result of Trump's poor leadership and his desire to fan flames.

 

[Bughouse]

...hasn't Biden literally said exactly that?

 

[vonFiedler]

...hasn't Biden literally said exactly that?

Yes, it just needs to be really hammered in up until the election.

 

[Finchinator]

don't ally with any self-righteous douchebags who have a BLM sticker on their shirt.

I don’t support any violence. Rioting and looting aren’t right at all. We should condemn those behaviors! Peaceful protecting, however, is a great tool that many genuine individuals are employing currently. The BLM movement is not filled with “self-righteous douchebags” — there are certainly some (which can be said for anything of this size), but making generalizations like this are a large part of the problem (helping fuel systemic racism). All lives matter is full of crap, by the way.

Trump and the right clearly are dismissive to racial injustice and valid claims of incompetence directed at a corrupt system. Biden is not perfect here either, but at least he recognizes that there is a problem and doesn’t actively promote harming peaceful protesters. BLM is a necessary movement because of the position our society is in and taking it as anything less than that is a disgrace.

 

[Tenshi]

I feel it's also necessary to make the distinction between blm the marxist organization and blm the movement against racial injustice. A lot of hate is honestly because the org is kinda shit and the movement gets hit by association of the same name.

 

[Charmflash]

BLM is a necessary movement because of the position our society is in and taking it as anything less than that is a disgrace.

I never stated anything to the contrary. Any peaceful protesting in the name of BLM I have no quarrel with whatsoever, you could probably morally justify as far as destroying government-owned property right now (in the name of proportional response), although I wouldn't exactly recommend doing that.

The BLM movement is not filled with “self-righteous douchebags” — there are certainly some (which can be said for anything of this size), but making generalizations like this are a large part of the problem (helping fuel systemic racism). All lives matter is full of crap, by the way.

The main issue I have isn't that there are some bad apples between genuinely good-meaning people. I dislike the way some media outlets do not condemn those bad apples while demonizing people defending themselves / their property. It is sending the wrong message and it is doing nothing useful, only helping Trump. I would absolutely hate to see the guy who can't utter a single truthful statement and tells people to inject disinfectant into their bodies win the election because of the aforementioned self-righteous douchebags (far and few in between as you say they are, they make headlines and the way you cover them is crucial).

Let me ask you this: do you think Kyle Rittenhouse was justified in defending his communities shops? Was he justified in putting out fires & should he have defended himself when attacked by a grown ass man / mob of people because of that? The leftist media is absolutely ripping him a new one, but I cannot seem to see him as the aggressor from the videos available online & he seems to be pretty consistent with wanting to help people when you look up what he was doing before.

Oh and all the anti-capitalist people definitely need to pick another day to push their agenda, this is a movement about racial injustice against black Americans, stop polluting it with your bullsh*t.

 

[MZ]

Let me ask you this: do you think Kyle Rittenhouse was justified in defending his communities shops? Was he justified in putting out fires & should he have defended himself when attacked by a grown ass man / mob of people because of that? The leftist media is absolutely ripping him a new one, but I cannot seem to see him as the aggressor from the videos available online & he seems to be pretty consistent with wanting to help people when you look up what he was doing before.

Hi there's a lot of weird stuff here worth breaking down but I'm honestly just wondering what bit of traveling to a different state with an illegal gun and shooting people who throw plastic bags at you or try to stop you from shooting more people is helping people and/or community defense.

 

[Charmflash]

Hi there's a lot of weird stuff here worth breaking down but I'm honestly just wondering what bit of traveling to a different state with an illegal gun and shooting people who throw plastic bags at you or try to stop you from shooting more people is helping people and/or community defense.

First of all he didn't shoot "people who were throwing plastic bags at you". He shot the guy charging him with a bottle after he displayed lethal intent. It is pretty fair to assume the guy charging you also has lethal intent. Same is true for the mob of people screaming "get his ass". I recommend you watch this video as they probably already had the debate we are going to have but between two better-articulated individuals.

 

[cellerino]

 

[Finchinator]

Kyle Rittenhouse is a sick individual with a twisted sense of "justice" who acted in a horribly irresponsible fashion and deserves to be held accountable for the consequences of his actions.

 

[MZ]

First of all he didn't shoot "people who were throwing plastic bags at you". He shot the guy charging him with a bottle after he displayed lethal intent. It is pretty fair to assume the guy charging you also has lethal intent. Same is true for the mob of people screaming "get his ass". I recommend you watch this video as they probably already had the debate we are going to have but between two better-articulated individuals.

No. I'm not going to watch an hour and a half video to try to source your claims or frame this as a "debate" when, insofar as I can tell, your version of events is inaccurate. If it turns out people were very obviously trying to kill him and then he shot back, great cool I've been hoodwinked good on that guy for murdering people in self defense I guess? Like it'd still be his fault for crossing state lines with an illegal gun and then shooting more than just this one bottle murderer but w/e. But that doesn't seem to match up with any version of events I've seen or can find by googling these details. I've seen some video of the event and the charging document prosecutors wrote up and that doesn't sound like it matches with this at all. I at least understand the intent of your original post, if you really think this is what happened then your framing of Rittenhouse as being a good citizen and acting in self defense makes sense.

 

[nui]

Let me ask you this: do you think Kyle Rittenhouse was justified in defending his communities shops?

He murdered people. He went across state lines with a rifle he legally did not own and decided it was a good idea to brandish his weapon in a high tense area where there are protesters. You can't in good faith argue that this dude's actions are redeemable in any stretch of reality when you do things like this. Vigilante justice is not self defense.

 

[PDC]

if only....

 

[Charmflash]

I directed you to the video because it will literally take the same amount of time to explain why exactly I am not convinced (by the evidence that's come out so far) he is the sick individual the leftist media portrays him as. I do believe he is stupid for open carrying in that area as that puts himself and others at risk. But those are two very different arguments.

If you are interested to learn more than the leftist headline Finchinator so kindly put into this thread for us, please do check out the video I posted, it is between two well-known leftist online personalities who I respect and follow quite a bit.

 

[chimp]

I think most of the outrage against Kyle Rittenhouse has less to do with the 'justified self-defense' or 'cold-blooded murderer' debate, and everything that do with the difference between how he, someone with armed weapon at a protest who just shot and killed more than one person, was treated by the police vs. how other peaceful protesters/POC are treated by the police. The bulk of the outrage I've seen against him is on the basis of 'white vs. nonwhite privilege' and he is used as an example of why our police need to be reformed.

Anyway, and this is a genuine question, how big is the 'undecided' voter-base this election, anyway? I feel like we, as a country, are more polarized than ever. People don't just 'dislike' Trump, they VEHEMENTLY HATE his guts. And the contrary is seems to be true, too. I think Biden's best shot at winning is pulling people who don't usually show up to the polls- like the younger generations. I could be wrong, though.