7 ms·

Americans are slowly becoming more radical as a reaction to economic pressures. With each side's policies alien to the other, compromise becomes impossible.

Americans are slowly becoming more radical as a reaction to economic pressures. With each side's policies alien to the other, compromise becomes impossible. Eventually one side will have to win out and then things will get very interesting.

mschuster91 9y ago
> Eventually one side will have to win out and then things will get very interesting. Well things are pretty violent already, with the deadly class war the police is fighting against the population (~1k in 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2017/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo...) plus the countless arrests, macing, tasering and other violent actions of police against peaceful demonstrators, plus all the violence committed by Nazis (e.g. the Heather Heyer murder and the other actions counted as right-wing domestic terrorism). Add in the huge number of weapons circulating in the US... when the poor people (or the armed rednecks) finally feel desperate enough that will be quite a bloodbath.
- marcoperaza 9y ago
  Police fighting a class war? The vast majority of those 1000 deaths are unambiguously from the justified use of force, in self-defense and the defense of others. Believe it or not, there’s a lot of violent and bad people out there.
  - brohee 9y ago
    There are countless youtube videos of police arresting violent individuals in Europe where they would just be gunned down in the US. If you want another comparaison, look up dog shooting in the US and in Europe, unless you really believe dogs are somewhat more dangerous in the US, the inescapable conclusion is that American cops enjoy the power trip of gunning down living creatures... And why shouldn't they, it's almost risk free for them, which is the root of the issue.
    - xya3453 9y ago
      Or taking Hanlon's razor, Americian cops have been institutionalised to use force, almost as if they're operating in a country with more guns than citizens (unlike anywhere in Europe, or the world for that matter).
    - raguuu 9y ago
      It's because we don't have guns. It's absurd to think police could act like that there knowing there are so many armed people. The gun thing is a chicken and egg problem, of course.
  - gambiting 9y ago
    >>The vast majority of those 1000 deaths are unambiguously from the justified use of force There's two problems with this. 1) if you define "justified use of force" like Americans do, then yeah, of course it's justified, a guy pulling up his pants while being dragged on the ground is now "reaching for a weapon" so an officer is fully justified to shoot him dead. He was practically asking for it, and it shows up as such in all official statistics. 2) It doesn't explain how is it that other countries can get through the entire year without police murdering a single person, despite having the same or worse crime rates as US.
    - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
      A significant difference is, that American police are arresting Americans. They are likely armed, while in other countries that may not be the case.
      - sidlls 9y ago
        They are not likely armed. Fewer than half of all households have even a single gun. Most of those aren't households where the gun owners carry in public: they're the kind of household where the "responsible gun owner" leaves his kit where the two year old can get it and accidentally shoot his 6 month old sister to death.
        mschuster91 9y ago
        > They are not likely armed. But definitely way, way more likely than in any other civilized country in the world, and that's the problem.
        sidlls 9y ago
        It's a problem, agreed. It's not "the" problem. Police in other countries don't have the same problem with individuals they apprehend that are armed. So I'd argue the prevalence of firearms is problematic, but the militarization of our police forces is much more so.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Could we not exaggerate? It doesn't help the discussion. plus all the violence committed by Nazis (e.g. the Heather Heyer murder and the other actions counted as right-wing domestic terrorism) "all of the violence", you listed one death. One death is a tragedy, but it's not a massively systematic problem unless we act like it is and turn it into one. You also act like there isn't such a thing as left-wing domestic terrorism. That terrorism killed more people in a single event, 7/7/16, than that nutjob running someone over did. What about the mob of nazis and anti-facists getting into fights in Berkeley? If you're not committed to one of those groups, it's just as bad. It's mob violence either way. Nazis suck, but please try to be objective. When you frame the argument as you are, you are setting up flamebait. Some nazi will use your exaggerations against you.
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    > One death is a tragedy, but it's not a massively systematic problem unless we act like it is and turn it into one. It is a systematic problem. 150 incidents between 1993 and 2017, an average of 6 terrorist incidents a year or once every two months. 255 people died, 603 people were injured. Source: https://www.adl.org/education/resources/reports/dark-constant-rage-25-years-of-right-wing-terrorism-in-united-states https://www.adl.org/education/resources/reports/dark-constan... Note: this is just the violence that got counted as terrorist violence, not your ordinary Nazi running around and slapping PoC.
    - aaron-lebo 9y ago
      It is a problem, but not the way you are exaggerating it to be. You act as if there is a nazi army ready to march on the nation, but that's not happening. We do have pockets of bigots and racists and god knows what else, but they don't have huge bases of support unless we act like they do. Nazis want to feel important, they want people to get riled up and fight them. That's what the actual nazis did. ordinary Nazi running around and slapping PoC There are a lot of bigots and racists doing thaT, but unless we're being really loose with the term nazi, we don't actually have that many nazis running around. Their worst acts were in the mid 1990s (OKC). Hell, in 1999 in Jasper, some racists lynched a man. 1999! Those people have always been around, they always will be around. There's always going to be some number of incidents. That does not mean they have real power nor should people act like they do. This is a decent read: https://www.npr.org/2017/06/16/533255619/fact-check-is-left-wing-violence-rising https://www.npr.org/2017/06/16/533255619/fact-check-is-left-...
mikejb 9y ago
Interesting isn't the word I'd use, but I understand what you mean. I really hope that a third party will start to grow. Whilst it may have benefits, I think the two-party-system feeds a lot into the "with me or against me" concept.
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  > I really hope that a third party will start to grow. Third parties don’t thrive in countries with first-past-the-post voting and without a tradition of coalition-making. In order for the USA to reach a point where it could have more than a two-party system, it would have to completely remake its governmental structure, and “very interesting” is an appropriate euphemism for what things would be like if it ever came to that.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    And it would have to get rid of money in politics.
- balthasar 9y ago
  A third party is not necessary. Both of the current U.S. political parties are very easily co-opted.
lumberjack 9y ago
>With each side's policies alien to the other This is just an symptom of economic inequality. If you do not belong to the same economic class anymore, then what might make the country better for you, might make the country worst for the other person. There is no way to avoid this.

mschuster91 9y ago

> Eventually one side will have to win out and then things will get very interesting. Well things are pretty violent already, with the deadly class war the police is fighting against the population (~1k in 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2017/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo...) plus the countless arrests, macing, tasering and other violent actions of police against peaceful demonstrators, plus all the violence committed by Nazis (e.g. the Heather Heyer murder and the other actions counted as right-wing domestic terrorism). Add in the huge number of weapons circulating in the US... when the poor people (or the armed rednecks) finally feel desperate enough that will be quite a bloodbath.

marcoperaza 9y ago
Police fighting a class war? The vast majority of those 1000 deaths are unambiguously from the justified use of force, in self-defense and the defense of others. Believe it or not, there’s a lot of violent and bad people out there.
- brohee 9y ago
  There are countless youtube videos of police arresting violent individuals in Europe where they would just be gunned down in the US. If you want another comparaison, look up dog shooting in the US and in Europe, unless you really believe dogs are somewhat more dangerous in the US, the inescapable conclusion is that American cops enjoy the power trip of gunning down living creatures... And why shouldn't they, it's almost risk free for them, which is the root of the issue.
  - xya3453 9y ago
    Or taking Hanlon's razor, Americian cops have been institutionalised to use force, almost as if they're operating in a country with more guns than citizens (unlike anywhere in Europe, or the world for that matter).
  - raguuu 9y ago
    It's because we don't have guns. It's absurd to think police could act like that there knowing there are so many armed people. The gun thing is a chicken and egg problem, of course.
- gambiting 9y ago
  >>The vast majority of those 1000 deaths are unambiguously from the justified use of force There's two problems with this. 1) if you define "justified use of force" like Americans do, then yeah, of course it's justified, a guy pulling up his pants while being dragged on the ground is now "reaching for a weapon" so an officer is fully justified to shoot him dead. He was practically asking for it, and it shows up as such in all official statistics. 2) It doesn't explain how is it that other countries can get through the entire year without police murdering a single person, despite having the same or worse crime rates as US.
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    A significant difference is, that American police are arresting Americans. They are likely armed, while in other countries that may not be the case.
    - sidlls 9y ago
      They are not likely armed. Fewer than half of all households have even a single gun. Most of those aren't households where the gun owners carry in public: they're the kind of household where the "responsible gun owner" leaves his kit where the two year old can get it and accidentally shoot his 6 month old sister to death.
      - mschuster91 9y ago
        > They are not likely armed. But definitely way, way more likely than in any other civilized country in the world, and that's the problem.
        sidlls 9y ago
        It's a problem, agreed. It's not "the" problem. Police in other countries don't have the same problem with individuals they apprehend that are armed. So I'd argue the prevalence of firearms is problematic, but the militarization of our police forces is much more so.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
aaron-lebo 9y ago
Could we not exaggerate? It doesn't help the discussion. plus all the violence committed by Nazis (e.g. the Heather Heyer murder and the other actions counted as right-wing domestic terrorism) "all of the violence", you listed one death. One death is a tragedy, but it's not a massively systematic problem unless we act like it is and turn it into one. You also act like there isn't such a thing as left-wing domestic terrorism. That terrorism killed more people in a single event, 7/7/16, than that nutjob running someone over did. What about the mob of nazis and anti-facists getting into fights in Berkeley? If you're not committed to one of those groups, it's just as bad. It's mob violence either way. Nazis suck, but please try to be objective. When you frame the argument as you are, you are setting up flamebait. Some nazi will use your exaggerations against you.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > One death is a tragedy, but it's not a massively systematic problem unless we act like it is and turn it into one. It is a systematic problem. 150 incidents between 1993 and 2017, an average of 6 terrorist incidents a year or once every two months. 255 people died, 603 people were injured. Source: https://www.adl.org/education/resources/reports/dark-constant-rage-25-years-of-right-wing-terrorism-in-united-states https://www.adl.org/education/resources/reports/dark-constan... Note: this is just the violence that got counted as terrorist violence, not your ordinary Nazi running around and slapping PoC.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    It is a problem, but not the way you are exaggerating it to be. You act as if there is a nazi army ready to march on the nation, but that's not happening. We do have pockets of bigots and racists and god knows what else, but they don't have huge bases of support unless we act like they do. Nazis want to feel important, they want people to get riled up and fight them. That's what the actual nazis did. ordinary Nazi running around and slapping PoC There are a lot of bigots and racists doing thaT, but unless we're being really loose with the term nazi, we don't actually have that many nazis running around. Their worst acts were in the mid 1990s (OKC). Hell, in 1999 in Jasper, some racists lynched a man. 1999! Those people have always been around, they always will be around. There's always going to be some number of incidents. That does not mean they have real power nor should people act like they do. This is a decent read: https://www.npr.org/2017/06/16/533255619/fact-check-is-left-wing-violence-rising https://www.npr.org/2017/06/16/533255619/fact-check-is-left-...

mikejb 9y ago

Interesting isn't the word I'd use, but I understand what you mean. I really hope that a third party will start to grow. Whilst it may have benefits, I think the two-party-system feeds a lot into the "with me or against me" concept.

Mediterraneo10 9y ago
> I really hope that a third party will start to grow. Third parties don’t thrive in countries with first-past-the-post voting and without a tradition of coalition-making. In order for the USA to reach a point where it could have more than a two-party system, it would have to completely remake its governmental structure, and “very interesting” is an appropriate euphemism for what things would be like if it ever came to that.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  And it would have to get rid of money in politics.
balthasar 9y ago
A third party is not necessary. Both of the current U.S. political parties are very easily co-opted.

lumberjack 9y ago

>With each side's policies alien to the other This is just an symptom of economic inequality. If you do not belong to the same economic class anymore, then what might make the country better for you, might make the country worst for the other person. There is no way to avoid this.