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"This doesn't happen" (shows a video of it happening) "This isn't widespread" So how many videos do you need to see? 2? 10? 15???

by vb6sp6 6y ago

lawnchair_larry 6y ago
Would you find it acceptable to shoot some footage of a handful of looting/arsonist incidents and proclaiming “protesters are doing X”, just like we are complaining that “police” are doing X? Or would you correct someone and say that isn’t happening, and when confronted with a video of someone somewhere doing a bad thing, inform them of the fact that a few cherry picked anecdotes do not represent the activity of the broader population? You don’t have to answer.
- yazaddaruvala 6y ago
  No one disagrees that in any group only a small number of bad actors are causing this issue. However, when a civilian acts inappropriately there are legal consequences. When a police office acts inappropriately there are few legal consequences and they are very-very-rarely enforced. I'll ask the question differently, "Is destruction of property what you expect from rioters?" Yes, 1% or less of rioters are going to be stupid. "Should they be reprimanded?" Sadly yes, and we have specialized government entities that can utilize appropriate-force to reprimand them. "Is destruction of property what you expect from police?" No, not even from the 1% or less that want to be stupid. That is unacceptable, their job is to protect and serve. Even from each other. "Should they be reprimanded?" Yes! but we as civilians have no legal way to do this, and even the "good cops" have no good way to do this. What are your answers to these questions lawnchair_larry?
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    Aha, but the analogy that you made with those questions has a critical error. The correct analogy would be questions that read: Is destruction of property what you expect from civilians? Yes, sadly, 1% or less[1] of civilians are are going to be stupid and riot instead. And that is unacceptable. Should they be reprimanded? Absolutely. And we have specialized government entities that can utilize appropriate-force to reprimand them. Is unwarranted destruction of property what you expect from police? Yes, sadly, 1% or less[1] of police are going to be stupid and abusive. That is unacceptable, their job is to protect and serve. Even from each other. Should they be reprimanded? Yes! but we as civilians have no legal way to do this, and even the "good cops" have no good way to do this. [1] We do not have data for either of these figures, so 1% is being used as a placeholder, and is not meant literally. I suspect that the percentage of criminals in the general population is far bigger than the number of police who destroy property for no reason, but I admit that I have no data for that.
    - yazaddaruvala 6y ago
      From what I can tell your only change was to add the word “unwarranted” before destruction. Could you please help us understand your position on “Should abusive officers be reprimanded?” And if we agree they should be reprimanded, what are your thought on how we build that system? The system where we the civilians who witness or are victims of the abuse and other “good cops” who witness the abuse, can get legal ways to highlight and reprimand those few abusive police officers[0]? [0] such that the person/people accusing (with evidence) the abusive police without worrying other police officers will “hold it against” the accuser.
      - bigiain 6y ago
        He seems happy to accept that 1% (as a placeholder) of cops are murderers, and there's nothing we can do about that. (He claimed that in the context of property damage, which hides the actual implications of that carelessness, because it wasn't police property damage that triggered this current unrest...) I _strongly_ disagree. A cop committing assault or murder, while on the job, is a thing society needs to take great care does not happen. It's abhorrent to me to take a "shit happens" attitude to cop killings.
        lawnchair_larry 6y ago
        Parent said property damage, not me. So your uncharitable assumptions about my intentions are way off on that point. If you want to reframe the issue from property damage to killing unarmed civilians, take it up with the parent. We were talking about the video of the cop randomly smashing windows. Not surprisingly, your straw man is just as bad. Nobody said or implied anything remotely close to a “shit happens” attitude. Did you just not read the next sentence or something?
        bigiain 6y ago
        You said "stupid and abusive". Not the sort of terminology usually used for "property damage". And yeah, I read (and just reread) your next sentence, and it still reads as a "shit happens" attitude to me. As I read it, you're saying there's nothing we can possibly do to ensure that rate of "stupid and abusive" cops is any lower than the rate of "stupid and rioting" civilians. (Or the most optimistic reading of it I can see is that you think we can't do any better a job of ensuring a lower rate of stupid and abusive cops than we have now.) I think we need to do a _way_ better job of screening cop applicants before giving them a badge and gun, and hold them to a way higher standard that is currently the case.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  Perhaps you missed the note that got passed around that said something like: "The police have been acting, and continue to act, with impunity. This needs to change ASAP". If you genuinely missed that, then we're letting you know this is the problem. And it's a widespread problem across many countries. If you're intentionally being dishonest, then piss off.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > Would you find it acceptable to shoot some footage of a handful of looting/arsonist incidents and proclaiming “protesters are doing X”, just like we are complaining that “police” are doing X? It's very easy to attribute actions to the police, since they very commonly wear easy-to-identify uniforms and it's illegal to impersonate them. The video above was of a uniformed police officer in the company of maybe a hundred others. It's the literal job of police to stop crimes, so if you see an officer commuting a crime and his colleagues see and don't intervene, you can assume some level of assent to the officer's criminal activity. Even if you found a video of a looter/arsonist, how do you know they're a protester at all? If they are a protester, how do you establish what their faction is (BLM, anarchist anti-capitalist, Neo-nazi agitator, etc.)? How do you judge the attitudes of the other protesters to to their actions, given protesters aren't equipped to enforce the law and don't have the mandate to do so?
- Thorrez 6y ago
  It's well known that some people in society are crazy, so an occasional video of someone acting crazy doesn't really mean much. Police though need to be held to a higher standard. So a video of police doing something bad is much more impactful. And this isn't just a police officer doing something all alone, there are a ton of officers surrounding him and not stopping him.
monoideism 6y ago
Yeah, at least 5. I've seen >50 videos of rioters destroying and looting, maybe 5 of them engaging in violence, and maybe 10 of police engaging in excessive force, so I feel pretty comfortable having established that there's a pattern in those activities. I'd like to see about 4-5 of such videos. The more the merrier. I'm totally open to changing my mind.
- therealcamino 6y ago
  There's no point in telling us how many videos you've watched in those categories, because "number of videos someone personally watched in each category" tells us more about that person's viewing preferences than the prevalence of those incidents. For example, here's a twitter thread of 170 (so far) videos of police excessive force. If you watch all of these then your updated statement has a different tone. https://mobile.twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266751520055459847 https://mobile.twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/126675152005...
  - monoideism 6y ago
    I wasn't providing those numbers to prove "my side", or any side. I was providing them as a benchmark for how many instances of an event became a pattern in my mind. If you had read the comment carefully instead of rapidly responding with a "rebuttal" based on your ideology, you might have realized that.

"This doesn't happen" (shows a video of it happening) "This isn't widespread" So how many videos do you need to see? 2? 10? 15???

by vb6sp6 6y ago

"This doesn't happen" (shows a video of it happening) "This isn't widespread" So how many videos do you need to see? 2? 10? 15???

lawnchair_larry 6y ago

Would you find it acceptable to shoot some footage of a handful of looting/arsonist incidents and proclaiming “protesters are doing X”, just like we are complaining that “police” are doing X? Or would you correct someone and say that isn’t happening, and when confronted with a video of someone somewhere doing a bad thing, inform them of the fact that a few cherry picked anecdotes do not represent the activity of the broader population? You don’t have to answer.

yazaddaruvala 6y ago
No one disagrees that in any group only a small number of bad actors are causing this issue. However, when a civilian acts inappropriately there are legal consequences. When a police office acts inappropriately there are few legal consequences and they are very-very-rarely enforced. I'll ask the question differently, "Is destruction of property what you expect from rioters?" Yes, 1% or less of rioters are going to be stupid. "Should they be reprimanded?" Sadly yes, and we have specialized government entities that can utilize appropriate-force to reprimand them. "Is destruction of property what you expect from police?" No, not even from the 1% or less that want to be stupid. That is unacceptable, their job is to protect and serve. Even from each other. "Should they be reprimanded?" Yes! but we as civilians have no legal way to do this, and even the "good cops" have no good way to do this. What are your answers to these questions lawnchair_larry?
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  Aha, but the analogy that you made with those questions has a critical error. The correct analogy would be questions that read: Is destruction of property what you expect from civilians? Yes, sadly, 1% or less[1] of civilians are are going to be stupid and riot instead. And that is unacceptable. Should they be reprimanded? Absolutely. And we have specialized government entities that can utilize appropriate-force to reprimand them. Is unwarranted destruction of property what you expect from police? Yes, sadly, 1% or less[1] of police are going to be stupid and abusive. That is unacceptable, their job is to protect and serve. Even from each other. Should they be reprimanded? Yes! but we as civilians have no legal way to do this, and even the "good cops" have no good way to do this. [1] We do not have data for either of these figures, so 1% is being used as a placeholder, and is not meant literally. I suspect that the percentage of criminals in the general population is far bigger than the number of police who destroy property for no reason, but I admit that I have no data for that.
  - yazaddaruvala 6y ago
    From what I can tell your only change was to add the word “unwarranted” before destruction. Could you please help us understand your position on “Should abusive officers be reprimanded?” And if we agree they should be reprimanded, what are your thought on how we build that system? The system where we the civilians who witness or are victims of the abuse and other “good cops” who witness the abuse, can get legal ways to highlight and reprimand those few abusive police officers[0]? [0] such that the person/people accusing (with evidence) the abusive police without worrying other police officers will “hold it against” the accuser.
    - bigiain 6y ago
      He seems happy to accept that 1% (as a placeholder) of cops are murderers, and there's nothing we can do about that. (He claimed that in the context of property damage, which hides the actual implications of that carelessness, because it wasn't police property damage that triggered this current unrest...) I _strongly_ disagree. A cop committing assault or murder, while on the job, is a thing society needs to take great care does not happen. It's abhorrent to me to take a "shit happens" attitude to cop killings.
      - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
        Parent said property damage, not me. So your uncharitable assumptions about my intentions are way off on that point. If you want to reframe the issue from property damage to killing unarmed civilians, take it up with the parent. We were talking about the video of the cop randomly smashing windows. Not surprisingly, your straw man is just as bad. Nobody said or implied anything remotely close to a “shit happens” attitude. Did you just not read the next sentence or something?
        bigiain 6y ago
        You said "stupid and abusive". Not the sort of terminology usually used for "property damage". And yeah, I read (and just reread) your next sentence, and it still reads as a "shit happens" attitude to me. As I read it, you're saying there's nothing we can possibly do to ensure that rate of "stupid and abusive" cops is any lower than the rate of "stupid and rioting" civilians. (Or the most optimistic reading of it I can see is that you think we can't do any better a job of ensuring a lower rate of stupid and abusive cops than we have now.) I think we need to do a _way_ better job of screening cop applicants before giving them a badge and gun, and hold them to a way higher standard that is currently the case.
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
Perhaps you missed the note that got passed around that said something like: "The police have been acting, and continue to act, with impunity. This needs to change ASAP". If you genuinely missed that, then we're letting you know this is the problem. And it's a widespread problem across many countries. If you're intentionally being dishonest, then piss off.
ardy42 6y ago
> Would you find it acceptable to shoot some footage of a handful of looting/arsonist incidents and proclaiming “protesters are doing X”, just like we are complaining that “police” are doing X? It's very easy to attribute actions to the police, since they very commonly wear easy-to-identify uniforms and it's illegal to impersonate them. The video above was of a uniformed police officer in the company of maybe a hundred others. It's the literal job of police to stop crimes, so if you see an officer commuting a crime and his colleagues see and don't intervene, you can assume some level of assent to the officer's criminal activity. Even if you found a video of a looter/arsonist, how do you know they're a protester at all? If they are a protester, how do you establish what their faction is (BLM, anarchist anti-capitalist, Neo-nazi agitator, etc.)? How do you judge the attitudes of the other protesters to to their actions, given protesters aren't equipped to enforce the law and don't have the mandate to do so?
Thorrez 6y ago
It's well known that some people in society are crazy, so an occasional video of someone acting crazy doesn't really mean much. Police though need to be held to a higher standard. So a video of police doing something bad is much more impactful. And this isn't just a police officer doing something all alone, there are a ton of officers surrounding him and not stopping him.

monoideism 6y ago

Yeah, at least 5. I've seen >50 videos of rioters destroying and looting, maybe 5 of them engaging in violence, and maybe 10 of police engaging in excessive force, so I feel pretty comfortable having established that there's a pattern in those activities. I'd like to see about 4-5 of such videos. The more the merrier. I'm totally open to changing my mind.

therealcamino 6y ago
There's no point in telling us how many videos you've watched in those categories, because "number of videos someone personally watched in each category" tells us more about that person's viewing preferences than the prevalence of those incidents. For example, here's a twitter thread of 170 (so far) videos of police excessive force. If you watch all of these then your updated statement has a different tone. https://mobile.twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266751520055459847 https://mobile.twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/126675152005...
- monoideism 6y ago
  I wasn't providing those numbers to prove "my side", or any side. I was providing them as a benchmark for how many instances of an event became a pattern in my mind. If you had read the comment carefully instead of rapidly responding with a "rebuttal" based on your ideology, you might have realized that.