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Does this honestly surprise anybody? We are standing by as thousands are killed in the streets of Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, etc. Can we provide solutions to

Does this honestly surprise anybody? We are standing by as thousands are killed in the streets of Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, etc. Can we provide solutions to our murder problems at home, before turning attention abroad?

intopieces 9y ago
>Can we provide solutions to our murder problems at home, before turning attention abroad? Fallacy of relative privation ("not as bad as") – dismissing an argument or complaint due to the existence of more important problems in the world, regardless of whether those problems bear relevance to the initial argument.
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  OP didn't "dismiss" the complaint. Rather, they prioritized it according to proximity
- PatientTrades 9y ago
  > Fallacy of relative privation ("not as bad as") At no point was the initial argument or complaint dismissed. Also, it was never claimed that there are more important problems in the world than the initial problem... You are applying a fallacy to a comment that does not merit that label.
lazyasciiart 9y ago
Your use of the present tense is odd in a conversation about what happened in the 1960s.
- PatientTrades 9y ago
  My apologies if it confused you. The present tense was in response to the article written in 2017, not the event in the 1960s.
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    I fail to see why it's ever appropriate to suggest we only discuss one issue at once. Neither society nor government are monolithic entities. If you're genuinely concerned about a topic and think it should be a higher priority, solicit attention for it on its own rather than derailing discussions of other topics.
danso 9y ago
What about the inverse of your question? That our inaction in Indonesia (and action in various other places, such as Vietnam) means that we should be relatively undisturbed by the thousands "killed in the streets of Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, etc"? I'm guessing that's what you don't mean but it's absurd to think that the U.S. government, even in the same year, is a single entity, and that all issues dealing with death are the same.
otakucode 9y ago
It does not surprise me, no... but I don't see the killings in Indonesia and our inaction there as related to the gang wars in Chicago or domestic killings in other places. In the US we have the ability to fix the conditions which give rise to the domestic violence, but not the will. With Indonesia, simple non-involvement of the CIA in Indonesia probably would have prevented bloodshed, but that's not the issue in Chicago, Detroit, etc. In Indonesia there was the growth of a population of people negatively disposed to the US and positively disposed toward Communism. Either case draws the CIA like flies, and you get coups and puppets or tyrants installed who can be relied upon to take "aid" bribes and leave the country accessible to US (and allies) businesses. In the USA, economic disparity leads to violence. There has never been a society with great economic disparity which did not produce high levels of violent crime, and there likely never will be. But the US, both the public and the leaders, are not willing to even consider doing anything about such disparity, and thus violence and suffering will increase.
merpnderp 9y ago
Standing by? Since BLM started, police have pulled back patrols as was demanded of them. There has now been a massive spike in young black males being murdered, almost certainly linked to the lack of police presence. "We" aren't standing by as those thousands are killed, "we"'re doing as those neighborhoods have demanded. If you've got some awesome solution, I suggest you contact Rahm Emanuel asap.
- macintux 9y ago
  > police have pulled back patrols as was demanded of them That's an ungenerous interpretation of what BLM and sympathetic parties want. Maybe BLM is demanding the police go away, but most of the rest of us want the police to learn how to deal with people, especially minorities, without shooting them.
- PatientTrades 9y ago
  > Since BLM started, police have pulled back patrols High murder rates in inner cities have been occurring long before the BLM. Not sure why they are being inserted in this discussion
  - merpnderp 9y ago
    Because, exactly like I just said, the rate spiked spectacularlly since 2014. A near 20% increase in the murder rate, almost entirely in inner cities, at the same time police have drastically toned down the extra attention they gave crime ridden neighborhoods, is hard to explain away.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  > police have pulled back patrols as was demanded of them Can you substantiate this? I've never seen anyone demand that, and I doubt any significant number of people did. Demanding police do their jobs correctly is not at all the same as demanding they stop working. I demand my local police do their job correctly (and as they have some sense of responsibility and pride, they demand the same of themselves); if they did it poorly, I would tell them to do it better, not quit, take their ball and go home like a child. Driving a handcuffed man around in a van until he breaks his back and dies or shooting a 12 year old is bad performance for those officers and organizations. Quitting is not an option for the police; they have responsibilities and need to do a better job.
michaelmrose 9y ago
The murder rate in Indonesia was aprox 25 times the current rate in the US as a whole and consists of a wholesale government approved action taken on in an organized fashion over a relatively short time frame. Its really an apples and oranges comparison.

intopieces 9y ago

>Can we provide solutions to our murder problems at home, before turning attention abroad? Fallacy of relative privation ("not as bad as") – dismissing an argument or complaint due to the existence of more important problems in the world, regardless of whether those problems bear relevance to the initial argument.

wu-ikkyu 9y ago
OP didn't "dismiss" the complaint. Rather, they prioritized it according to proximity
PatientTrades 9y ago
> Fallacy of relative privation ("not as bad as") At no point was the initial argument or complaint dismissed. Also, it was never claimed that there are more important problems in the world than the initial problem... You are applying a fallacy to a comment that does not merit that label.

lazyasciiart 9y ago

Your use of the present tense is odd in a conversation about what happened in the 1960s.

PatientTrades 9y ago
My apologies if it confused you. The present tense was in response to the article written in 2017, not the event in the 1960s.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  I fail to see why it's ever appropriate to suggest we only discuss one issue at once. Neither society nor government are monolithic entities. If you're genuinely concerned about a topic and think it should be a higher priority, solicit attention for it on its own rather than derailing discussions of other topics.

danso 9y ago

What about the inverse of your question? That our inaction in Indonesia (and action in various other places, such as Vietnam) means that we should be relatively undisturbed by the thousands "killed in the streets of Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, etc"? I'm guessing that's what you don't mean but it's absurd to think that the U.S. government, even in the same year, is a single entity, and that all issues dealing with death are the same.

otakucode 9y ago

It does not surprise me, no... but I don't see the killings in Indonesia and our inaction there as related to the gang wars in Chicago or domestic killings in other places. In the US we have the ability to fix the conditions which give rise to the domestic violence, but not the will. With Indonesia, simple non-involvement of the CIA in Indonesia probably would have prevented bloodshed, but that's not the issue in Chicago, Detroit, etc. In Indonesia there was the growth of a population of people negatively disposed to the US and positively disposed toward Communism. Either case draws the CIA like flies, and you get coups and puppets or tyrants installed who can be relied upon to take "aid" bribes and leave the country accessible to US (and allies) businesses. In the USA, economic disparity leads to violence. There has never been a society with great economic disparity which did not produce high levels of violent crime, and there likely never will be. But the US, both the public and the leaders, are not willing to even consider doing anything about such disparity, and thus violence and suffering will increase.

merpnderp 9y ago

Standing by? Since BLM started, police have pulled back patrols as was demanded of them. There has now been a massive spike in young black males being murdered, almost certainly linked to the lack of police presence. "We" aren't standing by as those thousands are killed, "we"'re doing as those neighborhoods have demanded. If you've got some awesome solution, I suggest you contact Rahm Emanuel asap.

macintux 9y ago
> police have pulled back patrols as was demanded of them That's an ungenerous interpretation of what BLM and sympathetic parties want. Maybe BLM is demanding the police go away, but most of the rest of us want the police to learn how to deal with people, especially minorities, without shooting them.
PatientTrades 9y ago
> Since BLM started, police have pulled back patrols High murder rates in inner cities have been occurring long before the BLM. Not sure why they are being inserted in this discussion
- merpnderp 9y ago
  Because, exactly like I just said, the rate spiked spectacularlly since 2014. A near 20% increase in the murder rate, almost entirely in inner cities, at the same time police have drastically toned down the extra attention they gave crime ridden neighborhoods, is hard to explain away.
forapurpose 9y ago
> police have pulled back patrols as was demanded of them Can you substantiate this? I've never seen anyone demand that, and I doubt any significant number of people did. Demanding police do their jobs correctly is not at all the same as demanding they stop working. I demand my local police do their job correctly (and as they have some sense of responsibility and pride, they demand the same of themselves); if they did it poorly, I would tell them to do it better, not quit, take their ball and go home like a child. Driving a handcuffed man around in a van until he breaks his back and dies or shooting a 12 year old is bad performance for those officers and organizations. Quitting is not an option for the police; they have responsibilities and need to do a better job.

michaelmrose 9y ago

The murder rate in Indonesia was aprox 25 times the current rate in the US as a whole and consists of a wholesale government approved action taken on in an organized fashion over a relatively short time frame. Its really an apples and oranges comparison.