5 ms·

It certainly is. As shown with BLM, the MAGA-teens and now the Smolett-case, people will even manufacture things to be outraged about, just to justify their ow

It certainly is. As shown with BLM, the MAGA-teens and now the Smolett-case, people will even manufacture things to be outraged about, just to justify their own virtue. While I consider that scary enough by itself, what I fear even more are the (guaranteed to come) counter-reactions. It’s not going to be pretty.

pjc50 8y ago
Do you think all of BLM is manufactured? Smolett it now seems was faking it, but what conclusions are you drawing from that?
- throwaway20998 8y ago
  Black people have some very legitimate complaints they can make about the police. Laquan McDonald is the first one that comes to my mind. BLM as an activist group was really built on two cases though: Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. In both cases, the truth of the situation was grossly distorted in the initial media reports, and never really got corrected in most people's minds. The summary truth of Michael Brown is that he was in the process of being caught for a robbery, he fought with the officer for his gun, and got shot. The summary truth of Trayvon Martin was that he was in the process of being caught for burglary, he fought with the neighborhood watch guy, banged his head against the concrete, and then the neighborhood watch guy pulled out his gun and shot him. The criminal justice system actually worked in all three of these cases. Darren Wilson was not charged, George Zimmerman was acquitted, and Jason Van Dyke was convicted of 2nd degree murder.
  - brianpgordon 8y ago
    Where did you get the idea that Trayvon Martin was committing burglary when he was shot?
- leereeves 8y ago
  What I find disturbing about events like the Smolett case (also Covington Catholic, "A Rape on Campus", etc) isn't that one person would fake such a thing, but that so many would eagerly promote and support a claim that fit their agenda without questioning it.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    How many of the people promoting it do you think knew, or should reasonably have believed, it was falsified?
    - leereeves 8y ago
      In the case of Nathan Phillips and the students from Convington Catholic, video evidence was available if they'd cared to investigate. In other cases, they should have withheld judgement until they did know.
      - mikepurvis 8y ago
        Isn't part of the outrage though that only straight white males enjoy the benefit of "withheld judgment" and an expectation of getting a fair hearing? And I'm not just talking about the court of public opinion here— the point of BLM is that many POC don't even get the benefit of the doubt from law enforcement when lethal force is in play.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        leereeves 8y ago
        Let's not be sidetracked by BLM and all the surrounding controversy. Focusing on the issue, not the politics: are black people less likely to "get the benefit of the doubt from law enforcement when lethal force is in play"? One does get that impression from a superficial examination of the stats, but Roland Fryer, professor of economics at Harvard and himself a black man from an underprivileged background, looked deeper and concluded that, if all other factors are the same, police are actually more likely to shoot white people: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/why-a-massive-new-study-on-police-shootings-of-whites-and-blacks-is-so-controversial/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f13ee3250f65 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/why-a... (Postscript: in my personal opinion, this divisive issue is unproductive. Why can't we oppose the aggressive policing of America (a problem that undeniably affects people of all races to some degree) without making it a racial issue?)
- josteink 8y ago
  The initial reason for the first BLM rally was a lie. This was well known and well documented early on, yet the BLM movement kept repeating it. https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/18/lies-black-lives-matter/ https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/18/lies-black-li...
  - pjc50 8y ago
    Ah, the impartial source of (checks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Sadler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Sadler ) Special Assistant to President Trump?
    - yellowapple 8y ago
      The article does seem to cite quite a few third-party sources (and some first/second-party ones like WaPo). Are you suggesting those sources are automatically invalid because of the person citing them?
      - 50656E6973 8y ago
        Yep its just an ad hominem attack with no critique of the content/facts
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Yeah. BLM keeps picking the wrong hill to die on with respect to the specific examples of police brutality they try and protest but the core message of "police need to stop being so trigger happy" is hard to disagree with.
odorousrex 8y ago
You've specifically picked left-wing examples, but let's not forget that the right is equally as guilty at manufacturing faux outrage as well. See the non-existent border crisis and migrant caravans as the most recent example. Other things I can think of run from Obamaphones to endless Benghazi investigations to "But her e-mails" This is amplified on the right not just by social media, but by self-styled provocateurs like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. The left doesn't really have any comparable outrage provokers. (Rachel Maddow maybe?)

pjc50 8y ago

Do you think all of BLM is manufactured? Smolett it now seems was faking it, but what conclusions are you drawing from that?

throwaway20998 8y ago
Black people have some very legitimate complaints they can make about the police. Laquan McDonald is the first one that comes to my mind. BLM as an activist group was really built on two cases though: Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. In both cases, the truth of the situation was grossly distorted in the initial media reports, and never really got corrected in most people's minds. The summary truth of Michael Brown is that he was in the process of being caught for a robbery, he fought with the officer for his gun, and got shot. The summary truth of Trayvon Martin was that he was in the process of being caught for burglary, he fought with the neighborhood watch guy, banged his head against the concrete, and then the neighborhood watch guy pulled out his gun and shot him. The criminal justice system actually worked in all three of these cases. Darren Wilson was not charged, George Zimmerman was acquitted, and Jason Van Dyke was convicted of 2nd degree murder.
- brianpgordon 8y ago
  Where did you get the idea that Trayvon Martin was committing burglary when he was shot?
leereeves 8y ago
What I find disturbing about events like the Smolett case (also Covington Catholic, "A Rape on Campus", etc) isn't that one person would fake such a thing, but that so many would eagerly promote and support a claim that fit their agenda without questioning it.
- pjc50 8y ago
  How many of the people promoting it do you think knew, or should reasonably have believed, it was falsified?
  - leereeves 8y ago
    In the case of Nathan Phillips and the students from Convington Catholic, video evidence was available if they'd cared to investigate. In other cases, they should have withheld judgement until they did know.
    - mikepurvis 8y ago
      Isn't part of the outrage though that only straight white males enjoy the benefit of "withheld judgment" and an expectation of getting a fair hearing? And I'm not just talking about the court of public opinion here— the point of BLM is that many POC don't even get the benefit of the doubt from law enforcement when lethal force is in play.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - leereeves 8y ago
        Let's not be sidetracked by BLM and all the surrounding controversy. Focusing on the issue, not the politics: are black people less likely to "get the benefit of the doubt from law enforcement when lethal force is in play"? One does get that impression from a superficial examination of the stats, but Roland Fryer, professor of economics at Harvard and himself a black man from an underprivileged background, looked deeper and concluded that, if all other factors are the same, police are actually more likely to shoot white people: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/why-a-massive-new-study-on-police-shootings-of-whites-and-blacks-is-so-controversial/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f13ee3250f65 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/why-a... (Postscript: in my personal opinion, this divisive issue is unproductive. Why can't we oppose the aggressive policing of America (a problem that undeniably affects people of all races to some degree) without making it a racial issue?)
josteink 8y ago
The initial reason for the first BLM rally was a lie. This was well known and well documented early on, yet the BLM movement kept repeating it. https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/18/lies-black-lives-matter/ https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/18/lies-black-li...
- pjc50 8y ago
  Ah, the impartial source of (checks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Sadler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Sadler ) Special Assistant to President Trump?
  - yellowapple 8y ago
    The article does seem to cite quite a few third-party sources (and some first/second-party ones like WaPo). Are you suggesting those sources are automatically invalid because of the person citing them?
    - 50656E6973 8y ago
      Yep its just an ad hominem attack with no critique of the content/facts
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Yeah. BLM keeps picking the wrong hill to die on with respect to the specific examples of police brutality they try and protest but the core message of "police need to stop being so trigger happy" is hard to disagree with.

odorousrex 8y ago

You've specifically picked left-wing examples, but let's not forget that the right is equally as guilty at manufacturing faux outrage as well. See the non-existent border crisis and migrant caravans as the most recent example. Other things I can think of run from Obamaphones to endless Benghazi investigations to "But her e-mails" This is amplified on the right not just by social media, but by self-styled provocateurs like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. The left doesn't really have any comparable outrage provokers. (Rachel Maddow maybe?)