Dallas

Thoughts from Leon Wolf about the cause:

…people’s willingness to act rationally and within the confines of the law and the political system is generally speaking directly proportional to their belief that the law and political system will ever punish wrongdoing. And right now, that belief is largely broken, especially in many minority communities.

And it’s the blind, uncritical belief that the police never (or only in freak circumstances) do anything wrong that is a major contributing factor to that.

We should also consider it in the broader context of an administration, and future president, who think themselves above the law. When people decide the system is rigged against them, the social compact breaks down, and it doesn’t end well.

[Update a few minutes later]

Earlier thoughts from Radley Balko last year. Note the irony of this happening in one of the most enlightened police departments in the country.

[Update a while later]

Is it 1968 again? I don’t think the music is as good.

And Apollo 8 wasn’t the only good thing about the year. It was a World Series for the ages, that helped Detroit heal from the riots the summer before.

[Update a few minutes later]

Yes, part of the solution is to end police unions (along with all public-employee unions) and sovereign immunity.

[Update a while later]

More thoughts from Richard Fernandez:

Was terrorism involved? Were the ideas of Ferguson taken to their final, frightening conclusion? While the individual culprits of the shooting have yet to be identified, the factors which have turned the summer of 2016 into a witches’ brew were clear for all to see. It is the culmination of decades of identity politics, the fruit of open borders, the outcome of an unwarranted disdain for Islamic extremism, the destruction of everything once held in common. Most of all it is the product of a collapse in legitimacy that has soured the public on nearly every institution: the political parties, the Supreme Court, the presidency, the police and the FBI. Now at the very moment when the public needs to trust someone the question is: whom can you trust?

It’s depressing.

110 thoughts on “Dallas”

  1. “…people’s willingness to act rationally and within the confines of the law and the political system is generally speaking directly proportional to their belief that the law and political system will ever punish wrongdoing. ”

    Actually it’s worse than that:

    The Obama’s Pelosis Reids, Lerners, Kostkinens and Clintons of the world get away with anything and everything…..

    …but the little people get away with nothing. THAT disparity is worse than the situation where people think that no wrongdoing (by anyone) will ever be punished. That creates anger (and gives you Trumps).

  2. “We should also consider it in the broader context of an administration, and future president, who think themselves above the law. When people decide the system is rigged against them, the social compact breaks down, and it doesn’t end well.”

    Yep. The social compact began breaking down a long time ago. It used to mean a stable job, a family, and chance at owning your own home; now it means training your own H-1B replacement and a chance at welfare and losing everything you have in the divorce.

    When we are, as a people, bitterly divided along every possible fault line, I fear this sort of thing is going to become less uncommon.

    1. I have to wonder about the circumstances where hiring H-1B workers to replace existing employees makes financial sense.

      1. It makes excellent financial sense. H-1B visas are a form of indentured servitude. The sponsoring company is the only entity allowed to employ the recipient. If the recipient quits or is fired, he has to return to his country of origin. The main lure is the possibility of achieving permanent residence status. That’s enough of an incentive to many foreigners to make them willing to put up with low pay, living 6 or 8 at a time in tiny apartments and subsisting on ramen noodles for several years.

  3. Firstly I want to express my condolences to the families of the officers killed in Dallas, killing people always deeply hurts someone.

    In light of your last link it’s tempting to say that it’s especially unjustified and terrible that it happened to the Dallas police considering their successes, but of course in fact it would be just as horrific if it had happened anywhere else in America because the victims were all innocent of committing any wrongful killings and that would have been the case for police randomly killed like this in any US city.

    I agree with your first link, after the two earlier shootings by police I had a look on wiki for some statistics on convictions of police officers for murder, wiki has a list of just 14 US officers convicted for murder, most are for domestic related murders, few of the convictions are for murders committed while acting on duty, none for the murder of black men.
    It’s certainly an incomplete list, but it’s probably a good indication of just how hard it is to get a conviction of a police officer who kills without legal reason.

    Sometimes it seems like America is a war with itself.

    1. Murder has a specific legal definition and there are even different “degrees” of murder. For example, First Degree Murder is deliberate killing someone with premeditation. Looking online, I find: Second Degree Murder is ordinarily defined as: 1) an intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned, nor committed in a reasonable “heat of passion”; or 2) a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender’s obvious lack of concern for human life. Voluntary manslaughter: (also referred to as third-degree murder), sometimes called a crime of passion murder, is any intentional killing that involves no prior intent to kill, and which was committed under such circumstances that would “cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed”.

      My point with all of this is that you probably won’t find may examples of cops convicted for committing murder on the job. If you broaden your search to other homicide definitions, you might find more examples.

      Black people have been complaining about brutal cops for decades, probably with some good justification. There has always been some bad cops out there. With the widespread availability of video surveillance and smart phones, I think many more cases are coming to light today than ever before.

      Those cops murdered last night had nothing to do with those black men killed in Louisiana and Minnesota this week. The people walking in the protest last night in Dallas were peacefully exercising their first amendment rights. The fact that they were protesting the police at the same time that the police were there to ensure they could protest is significant. From the sketchy and conflicting information released so far, it seems the shooter had nothing to do with the protest. He just saw it as an opportunity.

  4. And it’s the blind, uncritical belief that the police never (or only in freak circumstances) do anything wrong that is a major contributing factor to that.

    Another big factor is the Democrat’s identity politics, their lies, and distortion of data to support racial chauvinism among minority groups in an effort to pit them against other ethnicities for votes.

    When people on the right reached out to Democrats when BLM got started by saying police misconduct affects everyone, look at how many white people are killed by cops too, the response was no, no, no.

    There is always the effort to scapegoat the innocents. They blame the KKK on Christianity. They blame Segregation and Jim Crow on Republicans. The blame the violence in Chicago on the NRA.

    When the Democrats protested in Minnesota, they went to the Republican Governor’s mansion and not the Democrat Mayor of St Paul’s residence.

    The black populace has been mistreated by the Democrats they vote for for generations. In order to deflect from how terribly they are represented the Democrats create scapegoats to channel the anger toward. Then cops start getting assassinated and “peaceful protesters” try to lynch people outside Trump events.

  5. There is a lot of rage in the underclass, who have seen their prospects decline precipitously over the past 8 years. Official unemployment among blacks is twice what it is for whites, and it’s not good for whites. Real unemployment is even worse.

    Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. Add in some not-so-subtle encouragement of racial division by the White House, and you’ve got a tinder box waiting for the match.

    1. It’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them…

      1. Yep, so how do you change that? Are they justified in their antipathy, if they’re not, how do you demonstrate that to them?

        1. Andrew, did you miss Thales point? Those were charges by Obama against whites which you just agreed applied to blacks… and I really hate referring to black and white unless I’m talking about books, not people.

          1. I admit I missed the reference, Thales makes a sound point and I still agree with him. How do you change deep and entrenched beliefs? I’d start by toning down the rhetoric, building bridges etc, absolutely not by building up the rhetoric, increasing tensions, burning bridges.

            But I think recognizing the nature of the problem might be a necessary start, even though that itself might be unpalatable.

            Which has for some reason just reminded me of a couple of quotes:
            The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.—Max DePree

            A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves. —Lao Tzu

            First define the issue and then facilitate change through actions that people can support.

  6. Looking at the More thoughts from Richard Fernandez part.

    It is as if Americans (more than most) needs someone to hate or fear, internationally you’ve moved from the Soviets to the Islamists and the Chinese, domestically it’s Republicans vs Democrats, White vs Black.

    From here it’s as if you all think that those who’ve a different opinion to yourself do so because – EVIL!

    Is it your religiousness – other religious groups also go big on “they’re EVIL” as an answer to other people with different opinions.

    Does it have something to do with the political system, where, because of the electoral primaries system, there’s a push for people to identify themselves as Republican OR Democrat, in a lot of other countries most people just aren’t forced to think in those terms, the average person is less tied to any particular party (less than 1% of Kiwi’s have anything in writing linking them to a political party).

    Is it the importance race has played in US history, even today the divide between the black and white races seems larger in the US than similar racial divides in many other countries – compare the rates of interracial marriage in the US with those of other mixed race developed countries.

    Then you’ve got the GUNS issue, other countries don’t see guns as a right, a matter of principle, outside of America they’re a tool, they’re defined by their purpose.

    1. There’s a strong historic record, when the general public is disarmed they become fodder for murder by agents of government, and easy victims for criminals who evade or buy off law enforcement.

      1. There’s a strong historic record, . .
        Which developed democracies would you offer as examples?

        1. The U.K. would be one. Murders with guns are rare, but hardly unknown. Other forms of crime have exploded since the British all but outlawed private gun ownerhip. “Hot burglaries,” where the perpetrator(s) deliberately enter an occupied dwelling, are rampant. Legitimate occupants fear using even non-firearm weapons to defend themselves lest they be sued by the criminals for any injuries imparted.

          1. Other forms of crime have exploded since the British all but outlawed private gun ownerhip.

            Absolute nonsense:
            “violent crime has been declining in Britain since the mid-1990s, and it continued to do so without interruption after the 1997 Firearms Amendment went into effect.”

            http://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2013/01/12/fact-checking-ben-swann-is-the-uk-really-5-times-more-violent-than-the-us/

            Crime rates in the UK are similar to those in the US (they’ve been dropping in both countries) with homicide rates in the UK significantly lower than those in the US.

          2. Turns out the UK isn’t so great at keeping stats. https://www.americas1stfreedom.org/articles/2015/7/17/how-the-uk-covers-up-murder-stats/

            In the USA, crime of all kind has been falling while gun ownership has been increasing. Clearly guns are not the problem. Unfortunately, there are a few cities where organized crime skews homicide rates. In most places in the USA, crime is low, homicides are low, and we don’t have to worry about the types of crimes suffered in the UK.

          3. Turns out the UK isn’t so great at keeping stats.
            Even the title of that article screams BS.

            The when comparing the rates between countries the usual method, to reduce biases is to use the rates of intentional homicides, conviction rates don’t come into it.
            http://www.unodc.org/documents/gsh/pdfs/2014_GLOBAL_HOMICIDE_BOOK_web.pdf

            Unfortunately, there are a few cities where organized crime skews homicide rates. In most places in the USA, crime is low, homicides are low,

            That can be said of any country, there are high and low crime areas.

            we don’t have to worry about the types of crimes suffered in the UK.

            Really? What types of crime does the US not have?

          4. A “libertarian” defending guns being restricted to “special” people? I call B.S.

            Would homicide rates in the US significantly drop with stricter gun control, would they rise in the UK with more relaxed gun laws?

            I’m not convinced either way, I think the homicide rate is as high as it is in the US primarily because US society is as divided as it is. With many still believing there are high levels of injustice and few fair opportunities, there’s a lot of anger with people taking because living their lives within the law isn’t seen as a viable path to a better life.

            That’s pretty much the same as is the case in a lot of countries with minorities, I think it’s just more so in parts of the US.

          5. All your arm-chair psychoanalyis aside, the murder rate in the US is primarily driven by the War on (Some) Drugs. And because it’s mostly black on black, the political establishment doesn’t like to talk about it, because it doesn’t feed the desired narratives.

          6. People turn to drugs because their lives are crap and they see no alternative, what’s the alternative? What’s the way out?

            Fuk, maybe there’s no answer but time.

          7. What types of crime does the US not have?

            Here in Springerville (“John Wayne country”) we don’t have roving gangs of thugs harassing people (I don’t guess Mormon ‘elders’ are into that?) In Phoenix it’s a pandemic with many of my stepfather’s family a member of various gangs. I’ve been threatened by a punk nephew bolstered by his gang members. You can find a crack head almost anywhere in Phoenix within a stones throw of most neighborhoods and extending out beyond the suburbs.

            I would not live anywhere near any bigger city in these last days. Instead, make friends with some rancher with a coyote problem so they have plenty of practice with their rifles.

          8. People turn to drugs because their lives are crap

            That is not why people do drugs. Here is a hint, doing drugs is fun. People like to have fun, even if it is detrimental to their lives.

          9. That can be said of any country, there are high and low crime areas

            Then why claim all of the USA is violent and prone to murder?

            Really? What types of crime does the US not have?

            People being prosecuted for defending themselves.

            I am not seeing anything in the methodology section of your link that refutes the poor statistics practices of the UK.

    2. Is it your religiousness – other religious groups also go big on “they’re EVIL” as an answer to other people with different opinions.

      What do you think the “answer” should be to “Islamists” (your word) who’s “opinions” are “death to unbelievers”? Ignore them and they’ll go away?

      Stop calling them “EVIL” and THEN they’ll go away?

      Do you think that’s New Zealand’s secret? “We don’t call them EVIL and you see, they leave us alone!”

      You’re right, we need more reasonable-minded Kiwi’s here. Our lottery visa rules need to be adjusted.

      Thanks.

      1. What do you think the “answer” should be to “Islamists” (your word) who’s “opinions” are “death to unbelievers”?

        Obviously if they’re dedicated to those ends they should be neutralized, but prior to that the first step would be not to create the perceived injustices than motivated them in the first place.

        Do you think that’s New Zealand’s secret? “We don’t call them EVIL and you see, they leave us alone!”

        Do you think that’s what I’m saying?

        1. Given that the normative Muslim seems to regard any interference with their bloody designs on the rest of the world as “injustices,” that’s not much of a solution. What “injustices” has the U.S. inflicted on Muslims, exactly, that justify all the current jihadist hoo-raw? We helped Israel stand off the implacable Muslim hordes once or twice. The other times, Israel managed pretty well on its own. Simply because some people feel a sense of grievance against the U.S., there is no reason to assume they are justified, or even rational, in holding that belief. Lord knows, in the case of Muslims, rationality has never exactly been a hallmark of the tribe. You come at me and my family for no good reason, I’m going to do my level best to kill you. Kill enough of them and the rest will stop – at least for awhile. That’s what we should be saying and doing.

          1. What “injustices” has the U.S. inflicted on Muslims, exactly, that justify all the current jihadist hoo-raw?

            2003. The “current jihadist hoo-raw” is based in the Sunni population of Iraq.

          2. “The “current jihadist hoo-raw” is based in the Sunni population of Iraq.”

            So, you were pro-Saddam? Disgusting.

          3. So, you were pro-Saddam? Disgusting.
            What’s disgusting is you finding it ok that the US invaded a country, removed the government and replaced it with an anarchy, the whole proses to date killing hundreds of thousands of people.

            Disgusting doesn’t begin to describe the cost in lives.

          4. Syria and Iran bear the responsibility for what you are talking about. The Iraqis didn’t spontaneously start butchering each other.

            Syria was running proxy terror groups into Iraq to kill Shia, not Americans. Iran was running proxy terror groups into Iraq to kill, not Americans.

            Iran and Syria did this because it takes very little effort to get Sunni and Shia killing each other because of and centuries and centuries of intense hatred.

          5. Syria was running proxy terror groups into Iraq to kill Shia, not Americans. Iran was running proxy terror groups into Iraq to kill, not Americans.

            I think you’ve swallowed a lie.

            The US tipped over a relatively stable country, to replace a dictatorship, but failed to establish a form of government that would be stable. It wasn’t the Syrians or Iranians or Cook Islanders or anyone else, it was the US.

            Iran and Syria both have Sunni populations and have nothing but problems from a Sunni – Shia civil war on their borders.

          6. I think you’ve swallowed a lie.

            Nope, try reading some actual accounts of the events that took place over there.

            The terror from Syrian and Iranian proxy groups was directed at Iraqi civilians in order to foment a intra-religious civil war in Iraq. The vast majority of Iraqis killed in Iraq were killed by these groups, not Americans.

          7. Iran and Syria both have Sunni populations and have nothing but problems from a Sunni

            Ya, ISIS turned on their former master Assad. Iran has taken over Iraq with their proxy groups and is brutalizing the Sunni populace.

            Iran is fighting wars all over the ME. Why would Iraq be any different?

          8. The terror from Syrian and Iranian proxy groups was directed at Iraqi civilians in order to foment a intra-religious civil war in Iraq. The vast majority of Iraqis killed in Iraq were killed by these groups, not Americans.

            I’ve no doubt the majority of the deaths have been from the violence between Sunni and Shia.

            If you tell me that the current violence in Iraq is a far more important issue for the Iraqi’s than for Americans and therefore the Iraqi’s need to take the lead in solving it I’ll agree.

            I’m still skeptical that Iran has had a significant part in the violence, they would be on the governments side. Often the sites you link to are I think more motivated by ideology than evidence.

            But fire me some links and I’ll read them.

          9. Andrew_W @ July 9, 2016 at 10:28 AM

            “What’s disgusting is … that the US … replaced it with an anarchy…”

            I agree with that. But, the anarchy didn’t come about until the precipitous withdrawal by our disgusting left-wing politicians.

            “…the whole proses to date killing hundreds of thousands of people…”

            Before the war, the line was that the sanctions had killed hundreds of thousands of children who otherwise would not have died. So, the Left was against the sanctions, and it was against removing Saddam. The only possibilities are: A) the Left was objectively pro-Saddam B) the Left is reflexively anti-American. Either way, it’s disgusting.

          10. I’m still skeptical that Iran has had a significant part in the violence

            They were the patron of the Shia militias, the same militias now being used to fight ISIS. This isn’t a secret.

            During the war, Iran was the source of EFP’s.

            Iran and Syria are partners. They wanted the USA to fail in Iraq and the way to do that wasn’t to defeat the USA militarily, they couldn’t, but politically by causing the Iraqis to fight each other.

            they would be on the governments side.

            Yes, they are now as they are making Iraq into their vassal with the cooperation of Obama.

            But fire me some links and I’ll read them.

            This many years in, you should already be aware of basic facts regarding the war in Iraq. Feel free to go educate yourself. I have found that many leftists fall back on ideology rather than knowing anything about what actually took place in Iraq.

      2. You’re right, we need more reasonable-minded Kiwi’s here.

        Try the reverse, it’s hard to immigrate to NZ.

        1. Currently we’re taking around 55,000 immigrants a year, about 1.2% of NZ’s population, about the equivalent of the US taking in 3.8 million a year.

          1. What are the requirements for membership?
            Membership?
            Do you still have weight based restrictions?
            ?

            There’s a complex formula around needed skill sets, wealth, family currently in NZ and I don’t know what else.

          2. Americans are called racists for wanting orderly immigration and yet our standards for entry are so much lower than many of the countries that call us racist.

          3. I’ve absolutely no problem with a country selecting whatever immigrants it wants from the available pool, I do have a problem with ruling out an entire nationality or race or religion and banning the lot from consideration.

          4. Just no fat people or poors or unskilled. That’s totally better.

            They don’t need to have family and skills and be rich, one of those will often do.
            One indication of the diversity of immigrants to NZ is that 7% of the population is of Pacific Island ancestry.

          5. 7% isn’t very diverse. Non-Hispanic Whites make up only 45% of the Texas population. In New Zealand, that percentage is over 66%. Texas has more international foreign born residents than New Zealand has people. Your ethnic diversity high horse is petty and small.

            But don’t worry, we get tired on New Hampshire and Vermont residents calling us racist too.

      1. Both the links in the article to Pew are to the politics and policy home page, I’ve had a good hunt but haven’t been able to find a pew survey comparing US rates with those in other countries.

        I agree that Brazil has higher rates of interracial marriage than the US, but so do a hell of a lot of other countries with similar large minority populations. Mexico and many other Latin American countries have populations with a majority of mixed race, New Zealand and Singapore also have higher rates of interracial marriage than the US, so I don’t know what abc based their claim on.

        1. The Pew article said the ratio of new interracial marriages to all new marriages in the U.S. is about 1 in 6. The proportion of all interracial marriages to all marriages in the U.S. is roughly half that. Rates of exogamous marriage among U.S. minorities – with the notable exception of blacks and Indians (the East Asian kind) – are pretty high. Almost one in five Asian-American women, for instance, marry outside their race. The Pew figure of 1 in six new marriages being interracial in recent years is almost certainly correct. That rate was just under 15% in 2008 and has doubtless increased incrementally by an additional percent or so since.

          I don’t think Mexico is a particularly useful example of a society with a high interracial marriage rate. A large majority of the Mexican population is mestizo – of mixed Spanish and Indio ancestry with the Indio fraction obviously dominant. The “interracial” character of this mixing occurred centuries ago. There are still significant minority populations of nearly pure Indio ancestry in Mexico, some of whom don’t even speak Spanish as their birth tongue. But I think it’s stretching a point to call even an Indio-dominant-mestizo-to-pure-Indio marriage “interracial.” Cross-cultural, in some cases, maybe. Interracial, not so much.

          1. It’s the black/white divide that’s causing the problems, and as you point out, “Rates of exogamous marriage among U.S. minorities – with the notable exception of blacks . . . are pretty high.

        2. Your claim was that the US was aberrant in the industrial world. You have failed to make your case.

          1. You have failed to make your case.

            The US has a homicide rate 5 times that of similar countries, has a population of 320 million people to choose from, yet ends up with Hillary and Donald as the presidential candidates.

            Case closed.

          2. Misdirection. The question was about mixed-race marriages.

            As for the other, we have a higher murder rate than other homogenous industrial democracies in specific areas of the country. Most of the US has a murder rate comparable to those other countries.

            Why? Because we are not those other countries, and the notion that we would get the same results by importing their policies is ingenuous.

            You are cherry picking. Brazil has tough gun laws, and is the murder capital of the world. It’s not any one factor that drives violence, but a whole host. Palliatives, like the confiscation of guns, for the comfort of the feeble minded will not do anything to change that.

            Instead, it would just ensure that innocents have no means to protect themselves against the predators in their midst. I’d rather 10 gang-bangers shoot each other than have a single innocent who stood up to them die at their hands.

          3. we have a higher murder rate than other homogenous industrial democracies in specific areas of the country. Most of the US has a murder rate comparable to those other countries.

            Isn’t that just cherry picking? Compare the lower crime areas in the US with other countries total crime rate and then argue that the US is similar?

            Why? Because we are not those other countries, and the notion that we would get the same results by importing their policies is ingenuous.

            I’m not advocating that the US import policies, I’m trying to ascertain 1. if the US is a more divided society than other similar countries, and 2. If so why?

            Generally in most democracies credit is given by most people to an incumbent government if they’re doing a good job, and most people recognize if they’re doing a bad job. I don’t see that happening in the US, few people seem to be able to cross that divide, a hell of a lot of Republicans blame Obama and Democrats in general for everything imaginable, never giving credit (eg Obama’s support for COTS) when it’s due, and I guess the opposite happens with Democrats blaming Republicans for everything.

            I don’t see such an entrenched divide in other similar countries (developed countries).

    3. Americans don’t need anyone to hate and fear. Amerian-ness is not defined in a negative way as opposition to some rotating cast of “others.”

      Unfortunately, that “malice toward none” has rarely been shared universally. America feared the Soviets as we had the Nazis before them because they were aggressive, expansionist and saw the U.S. as obstacles to their goals of world domination. They saw that correctly. We were obstacles to their illegitimate ambitions. So we opposed first the one, then the other. We defeated one and outlasted the other. Until the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, the American Left was firmly opposed to U.S. opposition to the Nazis. After the Nazis were gone, the American Left was firmly opposed to American opposition to the Soviets. “No enemies on the Left,” and all that.

      In more recent times, Islam has come boiling out of its pestilential desert hidey-holes – as it seems to every so often (see Mahdi, Khartoum, “Chinese” Gordon) when we were incautious enough to treat the made-up countries the old European colonialists arbitrarily created there as real nation states and allowed them to get rich on unearned oil revenue. The only thing a Muslim “country” with money ever seems to do with it is make bigger trouble than they could previously afford.

      With respect to the United States, this habit goes back to the founding of the Republic when the Barbary Corsairs figured that America, freshly separated from England and no longer under the protection of the Royal Navy, would be an easy mark for a bit of extortion and slave-taking. Fortunately, we had already invented the U.S. Navy and the USMC, both of which were required to administer a little lesson in applied international civics to the Mohammedan malefactors.

      The general antipathy of Islam for America hardly ended with the era of Decatur and O’Bannon, though. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1925, largely as the result of one unreconstructed Muslim tribal barbarian’s experiences of America in the Jazz Age.

      More recently, the U.S. aided Muslims in their fights with atheistic Soviet imperialism in Afghanistan, Serbian Orthodox ethnic cleansing in parts of the former Yugoslavia and green-on-green imperialism by fellow Muslims in Kuwait. But, gee, we’ve also done a lot of favors for Israel so we’re still the Great Satan.

      As for the Chinese, the current Chinese regime has been an avowed enemy of America since its violent founding in 1949. The United States opposed the expansion of Soviet Communism into China just as it had opposed the same into Western Europe, just with less success. The Chinese outlasted their Soviet tutors, but continue – correctly – to see the U.S. as their main obstacle to domination of, at the very least, all of Asia and the Pacific.

      In short, the opposition of the U.S. to a long rogue’s gallery of ambitious despotisms, past and present-day, has been a consequence of those regimes’ aggressions, not some restless and motiveless hostility within the United States that simply has to find release in the occasional war.

      Similarly, right-wing politics are not based on fear and hate. That would be left-wing politics. Without some identified “oppressor” class to fulminate against on behalf of some “downtrodden” class, Leftist politics lacks any logical basis for existence. Right-wing conservatism, on the other hand, neither requires nor particularly seeks enemies. It is simply prepared to recognize and deal with any that happen to crop up.

      The United States has always been a sore trial to people of an essentially European leftist worldview. The “proletariat” here has always suffered from the “false consciousness” that America is not an oppressive, imperialist monstrosity. This ideological blindness is so bad that even unlettered peasants in the 3rd world are so foolish as to actually want to come here and (yuck!) “seek their fortunes.” Madness! As if some swarthy foreigner would ever be allowed to succeed in Fascist AmeriKKKa! Yeah, like that ever happens!

      The Left are nothing if not resourceful on their own behalf, though. If there is insufficient real oppression to support “the revolution,” then some will be manufactured to suit. Thus, Trayvon Martin, who seemed to wish passionately to be regarded as a “bad n****r,” went out seeking trouble and, to his ultimate cost, found it. Thus Michael Brown, a dim-witted, vicious thug, bully and habitual criminal, was – after exercising spectacularly poor judgement in charging an armed cop – transmogrified into a rump martyr in the Civil Rights Hall of Fame next to Martin Luther King and Medger Evers.

      Despite having been told otherwise by Democrats for the last 50 years, it is not the case that white people in general, and Republicans in particular, hate and fear black people and are all secretly scheming to do them injury. Truth to tell, the only time a normative white person thinks about “black people,” per se, is usually when some fresh atrocity perpetrated by someone black happens to “cross the wires.” The rest of the time, we’re too absorbed in our own affairs to give much thought to “black people” except peripherally when, say, a favorite sports team with one or more high-profile black star players wins a national championship or when listening to popular music. We don’t hate black people. For the most part, we ignore them.

      1. That’s a hell of a long comment just to say; Atheistic Commies are Evil, leftists are Evil, Muslims are Evil, Chinese are Evil, Democrats are Evil, Black people would be Evil but luckily we can just ignore them most of the time.

        Your whole comment is just an illustration of the point I was making, people who think like Dick Eagleson see themselves as the good and virtuous while everyone else is evil.

        Another American, for example a lefty, might well have similar views of you as you do of them, they’d see themselves as the virtuous and you as the evil.

        Do most Chinese and Muslims see the US in the terms many Americans see them? I don’t think so, certainly not to the same extent, though if their country was invaded by the US and innocent (innocent of being aggressors, obviously guilty of being Muslims) family members killed even you might understand them not being big fans of the US.

        My point was that the depth of the divisions between people within America and between America and other peoples is the problem, but you don’t get it do you? That’s because, consistent with what I’ve been saying, your first reflex is to label me as the Evil enemy.

        1. I don’t think you’re an evil enemy, just an idiot who always wants to blame the US for all the world’s ills, and will find any excuse to do so, even if you have to make it up out of whole cloth.

          1. A lot of Americans are wondering how their country got to where it is, I’m offering what I see as possible reasons, you don’t like those reasons. Instead of ad hominem attacks on me, why don’t you try to be useful and show them they’re wrong and everything is hunky dory, or offer your own explanations?

          2. Your arguments for how we got how we are comes off as ad hominem.

            Most of us live here, we have a better handle on American society than you do.

            We Americans are used to foriegner’s bigoted stereotypes.

          3. Most of us live here, we have a better handle on American society than you do.

            I should bite my tongue, but given America’s propensity to save other countries over how they live . . .

            Can’t see the forest for the trees

            It’s an outside perspective, I’m not forcing it on you, take it or leave it.

            Regarding the aspects of the political divide I mentioned earlier (the president selection system that works to advance populist left and right candidates rater than centrist candidates) , there’s an interesting parallel with how the British and New Zealand Labour parties have changed the formula for selecting their leaders in parliament, it used to be the leader was selected by the Labour MP’s, now the party outside of parliament gets to have a big say in who get selected as the parliamentary leader – the person who is or would be the Prime Minister.

            The result has been a shift from that person being the most likely to succeed in winning elections to the person most representative of the labour left. The result has been that the chances of the labour parties in both countries winning elections and getting into government any time soon gone.

            So if the Republican party wants it’s presidential candidate to be a shoe in they should throw the primaries open to all voters.
            The down side is that the final nominee would be a more centrist politician, so all those on the right of the party would hate him – but they and half of the rest of the country would end up voting for him/her and while the more leftist Democrat candidate (assuming they stick with their current system) would be buried.

          4. the president selection system that works to advance populist left and right candidates rater than centrist candidates

            What is centrist? It is rather subjective. It also doesn’t mean a person will do a good job on any specific policy issues.

            So if the Republican party wants it’s presidential candidate to be a shoe in they should throw the primaries open to all voters.

            Many of their primaries were open. Those ones trended toward Trump. Trump isn’t a conservative. He is a centrist establishment type of candidate that is running as an outsider. The very thing you claim to want.

            Trump could even do a good job, or a bad one, but one thing for sure is that the mass hysteria from leftists about him is without merit.

            I should bite my tongue

            No but some of the stuff the foreigners, especially the global leftists, say about the USA is crazy talk.

          5. What is centrist? It is rather subjective. It also doesn’t mean a person will do a good job on any specific policy issues.

            I would define it as “in the middle” espousing middle of the road policies.

            Trump isn’t a conservative. He is a centrist establishment type of candidate that is running as an outsider.

            I wouldn’t call him a centrist, many of his policies are extremist, I’d argue that his popularity a product of the very things we’re talking about, I shouldn’t draw the comparison but his popularity reminds me of that which brought Hitler to power, he’s not a Hitler, it’s the similar wave of populist nationalism I’m referring to.

            Someone like Trump would never get as far as he has in politics in any other stable Western country.

          6. Doesn’t that beg the question of what is a “stable Western country”? How surprised will you be when Marine LePen becomes PM of France?

          7. Doesn’t that beg the question of what is a “stable Western country”?

            I’m including the US in there, how about regular fair elections, a stable economy, free-ish markets?

            How surprised will you be when Marine LePen becomes PM of France?

            She’s not her father, I would have been surprised if he’d become the French PM.

          8. “…you don’t like those reasons.”

            No, I do not like your reasoning, or rather, lack thereof. Eight years ago, Americans were happy with how things were going. Today, they are not. What could possibly have changed their attitudes? Oh, what could it be?

          9. I wouldn’t call him a centrist, many of his policies are extremist

            Enforcing current law is now extremist? Many countries have much stricter immigration systems than ours and no one ever calls them extremists.

            Someone like Trump would never get as far as he has in politics in any other stable Western country.

            So anyone who isn’t a socialist is some sort of extremist? Moderate, middle, and centrist are all meaningless terms if you think they all apply to socialists and leftists in general.

            Trump is literally a centrist. It is so crazy that someone who is a centrist is vilified as Hitler, who was a socialist. And saying his popularity is due to racism? Disgusting. Your evidence for this is his popularity? Anyone you don’t like who can draw a large crowd is Hitler?

            What about Bernie Sanders’ large crowds? Obama’s? They have ideologies very similar to Hitler’s. They are not moderates or centrists. The global left celebrates them and they could get elected all over Europe. Who are the extremists?

          10. Eight years ago, Americans were happy with how things were going. Today, they are not. What could possibly have changed their attitudes? Oh, what could it be?

            Is what you claim true of America as a whole or are you actually just speaking for yourself and those of your political persuasion?

            http://www.gallup.com/poll/116479/barack-obama-presidential-job-approval.aspx

            Unemployment in the US seems to have been declining steadily since the financial crisis:

            http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

            As has the crime crime rate:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

            You say that Americans were happier 8 years ago, I find that hard to believe given that that was at the height of the financial crisis, just before Obama became president.

          11. Unemployment in the US seems to have been declining steadily since the financial crisis

            Of course it did. Unemployment generally declines after a spike in it. The problem is that it’s the worst recovery since the end of the Depression, wages are stagnant, jobs aren’t being created fast enough for the work force, and it’s artificially low because so many have given up. The economy has been terrible under this president, largely due to his and the Democrats’ policies.

          12. Wodun
            July 10, 2016 At 1:34 PM

            Thanks for all the straw men.

            Is immigration the only thing Trump has a policy on?

          13. Is what you claim true of America as a whole or are you actually just speaking for yourself and those of your political persuasion?

            It would never be as a whole since some benefit from the welfare state. Naturally the people that are unhappy would be those burdened by the increasing size of the welfare state. This is just another example of an argument that completely falls apart with just the tiniest bit of thought.

          14. Ken, as is usual you’ve ignored context, Bart asserted that “Americans were happy with how things were going” eight years ago, clearly he was expressing his opinion that overall most Americans were happier. My point was that perhaps he wasn’t expressing the views of most Americans but just those he most closely associates with.

          15. What are Trump’s extremist positions? He didn’t support the Iraq war? That he doesn’t drink?

      2. Great comment Dick. You have this problem, perspective, that many people lack. Andrew doesn’t believe in good and evil… except that America is evil without using the word.

        I’m so tired I can’t tell if I’m spouting word salad but wanted you to know I really appreciate your laying out the perspective.

        Andrew, for what it’s worth I think you’re a good guy that wants to believe something so strongly that no fact will make a dent in your edifice. You’ve accused others of being unpersuadable and you are intelligent enough to make arguments worthy of consideration. The problem is you fail to believe that anyone is giving due consideration to your arguments when they plainly are. It’s not that people fail to understand you. It’s because people understand you.

    4. compare the rates of interracial marriage in the US with those of other mixed race developed countries.

      Americans hump like bunnies. No one cares what someone’s race is.

      Also, America is a big country and the people’s families who live here have taken different migratory routes. There are places where most of the populace is white. This isn’t because they are racists but because minority groups took a different migration route. Just like places with high asian, hispanic, and black populations are not due to the racism of those groups but rather the migration routes these groups have taken over time.

      You might be interested in this demographics map based on the 2010 census. Notice how the red dots are spread out all over? You might be interested in watching The Search for General Tso to find out why that is.

      The map also shows that most of the large concentrations of minorities live in Democrat controlled cities. They don’t get to interact much with non-Democrats and thus are highly susceptible to the racial stereotypes that Democrats inculcate. People should be suspicious whenever Democrats blame white people for the problems in Democrat run cities.

    5. You know what Americans really need.

      More dime store psychoanalysis by witless foreign nationals. That’s just so rare.

      Thank you Andrew for having the courage to be very, very first to provide some.

      1. Well, I guess America should just keep on doing what she’s been doing then, maybe it’ll work next time.

        1. Oh. That was an invitation to introspection?

          With such a masterful analysis of the American mind, it must be frustrating to have missed that you were really just being a jerk.

          After a careful analysis of the Kiwi psyche I suspect it is because an inferiority complex with respect to Australia.

  7. Until the overall issue of black culture being anti-police, anti-education, and anti-family unit are addressed, nothing changes. The black community largely exists on subsidies from ‘white’ america, but continually attack the hand that feeds (except for those Democrats who continue to give handouts). They sensationalize any time police use violence, justified or not, for political gains and wanting more and more given to them. They don’t care that they just make their own inner cities more dangerous to the one real enemy, their own young, black men who kill for no reason other than they want to make money, get disrespected, or just don’t like how someone looks at them.

    They better pray that the majority of good, law-abiding gun owners don’t wake up and fight back – it would be a real blood-bath.

        1. While the individual culprits of the shooting have yet to be identified, the factors which have turned the summer of 2016 into a witches’ brew were clear for all to see. It is the culmination of decades of identity politics, the fruit of open borders, the outcome of an unwarranted disdain for Islamic extremism, the destruction of everything once held in common. Most of all it is the product of a collapse in legitimacy that has soured the public on nearly every institution: the political parties, the Supreme Court, the presidency, the police and the FBI. Now at the very moment when the public needs to trust someone the question is: whom can you trust?

          I’ve had a go at trying to find causes, I’ve tentatively advanced the hypothesis that the history of race relations and details of the political structure have contributed to America being a more divided society compared to other Western countries, with there being a greater tendency for people to play the blame game, find fault, accuse others of stupidity or evilness or blindness. I argue that because of those historical and political factors Americans have a lesser inclination to build bridges between themselves and try to make reconciliations than the people of other Western countries. I could be totally wrong, way off board, but if I am the replies I’ve had sure don’t point to my being wrong. With only one exception the people here have demonstrated that they’re only interested in playing the blame game, finding fault, accusing me of stupidity or of hating America.

          Maybe it’s just this forum.

          I’ve long been of the view that a society is more influenced by its history and the laws, the customs and the political structures it inherits and that (outside of dictatorships) the leadership at any given time has little impact on a society. That to change a society at the basic level it’s those hard(wired) things that need to be changed.

          I guess it’s a bit like challenging core values, telling a true believer “actually that might not be quite right”.

          1. America being a more divided society compared to other Western countries

            Decent Americans don’t play the ‘us or them’ game. People are just people. But some people do self identify as the bad guys and we’re not going to look for others to blame. Certainly not ourselves when our entire day to day life refutes that assertion.

          2. I’ve had a go at trying to find causes

            With only one exception the people here have demonstrated that they’re only interested in playing the blame game

        2. No one’s stopping you.

          Self control is. While marching can serve a purpose, it’s mostly used today by morons that can’t make a cogent argument.

          You do know that Dallas is not Texas, as Phoenix is not Arizona. Both have democrats destroying the places.

          1. Actually, we have jobs. Which harkens back to my earlier comment. Idle hands are the devil’s playground. And, Obama has idled many workers, causing a pustulant boil of resentment and grievance nursing, the likes of which we have not seen in more than half a century.

        3. I don’t live in Chicago and I don’t think it would be safe for me to protest there.

          Its not safe for anyone to protest against Democrats because they always mobilize mobs to do violence against people they don’t like.

          In my own community, I don’t need to protest against rampant gang violence. I can vote for people who enact policies to deal with it rather than work with the gangs in a criminal enterprise.

        1. Very few examples and none of the constant activism used by BLM to attack white college students and non-Democrats. Certainly not with the same vigor that is employed in Democrat’s anti-police, anti-American, and racist protests.

  8. What a coincidence that this took place the day after the FBI announced its findings about the Hildabeast and her illegal private email server. You’d almost think someone planned it, to get her and her crimes off the front page. You’d almost think there was a pattern of this kind of thing happening whenever a high-ranking Democrat gets caught with his hands in the cookie jar.

    Or if nothing suitable happens, the Kenyan goes on television to talk about an unremarkable and completely lawful use of lethal force against some thuggish “unarmed teen” and tries to start riots–once again, to push something embarrassing off the front pages. Can’t have people talking about Hillary’s manifest contempt for the law and unfitness for high office, now. Can’t have that. And his lapdogs in the newsmedia are always happy to help change the subject.

    1. You’d almost think someone planned it, to get her and her crimes off the front page.

      Not in this case. The media and the Democrats don’t need to stage violence to remove the spotlight from Hillary, they are more than happy to seize on smaller issues.

  9. People turn to drugs because their lives are crap and they see no alternative

    People turn their lives into crap because they like drugs and the alternative, responsibility, doesn’t appeal to them. FIFY.

    Again Andrew, your worldview is it’s someone else’s responsibility (evil awful Americans.) I wish I had the mechanical genius my brother has, but he prefers to only being concerned with his next high. He likes being a jerk (just add beer.)

    1. People turn their lives into crap because they like drugs and the alternative, responsibility, doesn’t appeal to them. FIFY.

      If a relatively few people act contrary to what the majority see as reasonable or sensible I’ll work on the assumption that it’s due to issues specific to them, if a sh!t load of people start acting that way I’ll look for generic problems.

      Ask your mechanical genius brother about it, if a bit on a machine fails while the same bit on other machines don’t, the bit was probably faulty. If lots of those bits on different machines fail, don’t blame the bit, look for a fault in the design of the machine.

    2. Generic problems certainly do exist. Let me identify one for you. Pampered idiots that blame others and not themselves.

      I’m dirt poor and dying. That doesn’t mean I give up and blame anybody but myself. I take responsibility. I’m not unsympathetic of others. Many lack the qualities that allow me to face reality.

      Very few people that avoid reality have any justified excuse. That includes from mean Americans invading their country. Some of those people we invaded (and never in the conquering sense which I could argue we should… for their ultimate benefit) have become our friends, allies and even fellow Americans. I wasn’t surprised when my stepson naturalized. I was a bit surprised when my ex-wife did (years later.)

      You’re absolutely right that it is a load of people. And you’re absolutely right that outside influence is a factor. But everybody faces those same outside influences and it is character that determines the result. I love my brother, but he and millions of others lacks the character. Did you ever see the movie ‘the blind side?’ The family that took him in certainly helped his situation, but without his strength of character there would have been no story. …and millions of people have overcome worse (did your father beat your mother unconscious on numerous occasions? Or throw you into the street when you were a teenager before graduating high school to start your life? Or force you up from a sound sleep to mediate arguments before the eventual divorce or to drive the stolen cars he chained up off the street?) That was my life. Not as bad as some, but don’t freakin’ tell me people are justified in not taking responsibility.

  10. I’m seriously pissed off.

    There’s a thread on this site that to my mind should be a tribute to a friend of Rand’s, a wonderful person who was brutally murdered, stabbed to death while out for a walk. A person whom has had nothing but praise and good words spoken of her by the people who knew her.

    There are at the moment 4 comments on that thread, and while the other three commenters at least pay lip service to the tragedy, they just cannot resist turning her death and the thread into an opportunity to play politics. To them her death is an opportunity to criticize Maryland gun laws.

    How the fuck can people be so insensitive?

    1. Perhaps because a senseless murder makes people angry. Especially when politics is a contributing factor.

      Burke said she will no longer walk alone at night on the road where the incident took place.

      Anticipating potential future danger is a correct response to an incident like this. Being armed would be another correct response, but they are deprived of that option. Live long enough and your friends will die. Some good can come of it if it prompts us to be prepared for what may come.

      I lost a friend this year. It was a shock. It is sad. People grieve in their own way.

      1. I went through the the comments on the article in the Baltimore Sun, then I checked on wiki, just to make sure the Sun was MSM.

        I’m certain that no MSM paper in Europe or Australasia would attract the political and racial comments that were there.

        In other countries in an MSM paper there would be a lot of comments about how terrible for her family, how terrible the crime rate was, a few on the dangers of walking at night.

        There is a case that in other countries the paper would edit out the most inflammatory and offensive comments, but even without the paper doing that, I just don’t see people going political.

        Another example is the killing of MP Jo Cox in Britain during the Brexit campaign, how Britain reacted, very unpolitically – even suspending the campaigning on Brexit for a day, was very different to how America would have reacted in similar circumstances.

        1. “America, [sob] you’d be so much a better country if your newspapers would just delete insensitive comments from your web sites [sniff]. [Moan] We know you can be so much better. We… [voice break] j…j…just KNOW it!”

          Why don’t you just sod-off you repugnant turd.

        2. Oh, don’t worry. Our MSM engages in a lot of censorship. Censorship is becoming very popular with the left in the USA. Twitter and Facebook are just a couple platforms that fully embraces censorship, aside from any number of news outlets.

          Censorship is just a way to ignore and disenfranchise people you don’t like. What if BLM wasn’t allowed to post videos on YouTube? What if BLM wasn’t allowed to be on TV?

          It is better to have all of this out in the open. And besides, who gets to be the censor and decide what is and isn’t permissible?

          1. As I said above to Bart:
            I’m trying to ascertain 1. if the US is a more divided society than other similar countries, and 2. If so why?

            Generally in most democracies credit is given by most people to an incumbent government if they’re doing a good job, and most people recognize if they’re doing a bad job. I don’t see that happening in the US, few people seem to be able to cross that divide, a hell of a lot of Republicans blame Obama and Democrats in general for everything imaginable, never giving credit (eg Obama’s support for COTS) when it’s due, and I guess the opposite happens with Democrats blaming Republicans for everything.

            I don’t see such an entrenched divide in other similar countries (developed countries).

            You’ve missed my point (again) people in most developed countries don’t seem as keen as Americans to turn tragedies into opportunities for political points scoring, even without censorship I don’t believe that the sniping that happened in the Baltimore Sun comments mentioned would happen.

            It is better to have all of this out in the open.

            That reminds me of those couples therapy sessions in which the two parties are encouraged to show their anger at each other, I think rather than yelling and swearing at each other things work better if the people try express why they’re angry, rather than just show that they’re angry.

          2. Plenty of people say why they are angry and if they don’t, just ask them and I am sure they will tell you.

            One has only to look at Brexit, WTO protests, or Europe’s reaction to the war in Iraq or anything else they think about the USA to know they aren’t the little angles you seem to think they are.

            Maybe you get strange notions because someone decided you don’t deserve to know what is going on?

    2. Stop the Earth, Andrew is SERIOUSLY pissed off. Five innocent law enforcement officials are murdered in cold blood and he decides it’s appropriate to opine endlessly about America’s ills. One innocent academic is murdered in cold blood and mentioning the fact that had she been allowed to legally defend herself she might be alive today is… fucking insensitive.

      What an incredible piece of work you are. You play politics to your heart’s content from the pedestal of intergalactic moral superiority that is New Zealand, and then decide: NO, NOW it’s time to do a mallard duck impression by morally preening to all. If you don’t follow my purity-test chest-pumping lead, you are sub-human.

      The universe is incapable of containing the level of disgust you deserve.

  11. New Zealand ethnically diverse prison population: 51% Maori (15% of national population), 12% Pacific Islanders (7% of national population), 33% European (74% of national population). Data from New Zealand Government 2012/2013 census.

    Since the topic no longer seems to be about 11 officers shot, but rather racism as seen from a nationalist Ameriphobe in New Zealand.

Comments are closed.