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America was founded on the rule of law and respect for authority. Rioting and any other violent means are simply inexcusable under any circumstances. We have no

by Kaizyn 11y ago

America was founded on the rule of law and respect for authority. Rioting and any other violent means are simply inexcusable under any circumstances. We have non-violent means to redress problems with the political and civil leadership. These people in Baltimore should be met with overwhelming (and lethal if necessary) force by the government. If the city is incapable of restoring order, then the national guard needs to be called in to do the job.

pjc50 11y ago
And that's why America was founded by the non-violent and peaceful process of legal independence. And when there was a dispute as to whether state independence included the right to keep other humans as slaves, that was resolved without recourse to violence, leading to an America where nobody need fear for their life due to the colour of their skin. /s
- Kaizyn 11y ago
  Unless my memory of history is mistaken, armed revolution was a last resort after more reasonable means of redressing political wrongs failed. As for the civil war, the South refused to abide by the outcome of the political process and they were brought back in line through the use of overwhelming force by the lawfully-established government.
Singletoned 11y ago
Surely if America was founded on the rule of law and respect for authority, they wouldn't have committed treason and overthrown the King? It would seem to me that America was very much founded on the opposite. A lot of the constitution seems to be focussed on limiting the power of law, not limiting the power of the people (the right to bear arms being the clearest example).
- Kaizyn 11y ago
  One of America's great strengths has always been its respect for authority and commitment to law and order. The founders of America were also realists and they knew that governments tend to accrue power when left the opportunity to do so. Having an armed citizenry serves as a protective measure of last resort and was based on the model of Switzerland. The intent is not to allow people to run around shooting people up as a form of protest against lawful government action; but as a means to protect against unlawful government tyranny.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    There's a sneaky distinction there between lawful and unlawful. The problems in US policing seem to involve killings by police that are declared to be lawful after an inadequate process of investigation and prosecution. Not to mention that until Loving v. Virginia inter-racial marriage was unlawful. Presumably the enforcement of that would not itself count as "unlawful tyranny"? Despite actually being a serious impairment to social freedom. (The 2nd amendment setup is in practice very different to the model of Switzerland, and is used to justify private gun ownership for private security reasons and private fears of black crime, not public/state security) Edit on lawfulness: man fires unregistered handgun into crowd, kills one injures one, is not convicted of anything. Guess why. http://crookedtimber.org/2015/04/28/no-justice-for-rekia-boyd-either/ http://crookedtimber.org/2015/04/28/no-justice-for-rekia-boy...
  - atom-morgan 11y ago
    > but as a means to protect against unlawful government tyranny. We're at that point.
  - meandthebean 11y ago
    > Having an armed citizenry serves as a protective measure of last resort and was based on the model of Switzerland. The intent is not to allow people to run around shooting people up as a form of protest against lawful government action; but as a means to protect against unlawful government tyranny. From the article: > It used to be said — correctly — that the patrolman on the beat on any American police force was the last perfect tyranny. Absent a herd of reliable witnesses, there were things he could do to deny you your freedom or kick your ass that were between him, you, and the street. The smartphone with its small, digital camera, is a revolution in civil liberties. Unlawful government tyranny, in the form of cops doing whatever they want, is exactly what the riots are about.
- Kaizyn 11y ago
  With respect to your other point about the King. The American colonists adopted the position that the unrepresentative government of the King was illegitimate and needed to be abolished. The United Kingdon has since acknowledged that this was correct by granting local representative government to Canada and Australia among other places.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    It was still - at the time it happened - unlawful. (Also, rule of law and respect for authority come into direct conflict when the authorities act unlawfully, which is what you're covering for)
- rhino369 11y ago
  America had the most conservative, violent revolution I can think of. The rule of law at the colony level was never really challenged. Each colonial government, which did the day to day governing, stayed in power. Even the Declaration of Independence occurred via a vote of the government. And it was written as an indictment against the King. It made legal arguments. He was violating their rights as English subjects. Americans have a very strong respect for the rule of law. The Supreme Court is unelected, has no power, no money, no army, no police force or agents to carry out it's will. Yet it the absolute final word and Americans follow it. The constitution isn't an example of the limitation of the power of law, it's the greatest example of the extreme power the law has in America. The rule of law is so strong that the constitution (a law) can override the will of the President, the congress and the people.
privong 11y ago
> We have non-violent means to redress problems with the political and civil leadership. I am not advocating violence, but in your mind, what should people do when (many of) those non-violent means of redress are ineffective at solving the problems?
- Kaizyn 11y ago
  If the police are a menace, then protest to the mayor and city council. If the city council and mayor are not responsive, then vote them out of office. There is also recourse to the state government and the media as needed. Ghandi faced a much worse situation in India and succeeded without looting or rioting.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    On Ghandi, a very different situation: http://flavorwire.com/516442/mahatma-gandhi-baltimore-and-the-myth-of-nonviolence http://flavorwire.com/516442/mahatma-gandhi-baltimore-and-th...
  - soylentcola 11y ago
    Well, as someone who lives in Baltimore, I can say that this is exactly what has been happening for the overwhelming majority of people. Just last night, thousands of people poured into the streets in peaceful marches through town and to city hall. It also happened last weekend. I'm not excusing violence or suggesting that it is productive...but I get it. Human beings have tipping points. It's different for every individual but when pressure builds and crowds start moving, brawls and riots aren't uncommon to see. This happens even when people are happy about something (like a home team winning a championship game). So you can imagine that when the media starts freaking out and spreading some viral "meme" about planned riots and sends in a couple hundred riot cops (and a tank!) to corral a couple hundred high school kids at their bus stop, preventing them from going home, there might just be some of those people who are a little more pissed off than the rest and have a little less impulse control and decide to start throwing water bottles and rocks. And once shit starts rolling that way and the situation escalates, you can see why some people who might have been shit on and beaten up by cops all their life might just see this as a chance to hit back. So you get a few hundred cops fighting with a few hundred pissed off citizens and the broken cars and windows we all saw on TV. But those few hundred people who went the violent route are still a few hundred out of tens of thousands who live here. The vast majority of us (many of which have had it MUCH better than the people in West Baltimore) haven't been angry or frustrated enough to resort to violence. Thousands of us have marched and petitioned and protested. But it doesn't surprise me in the least that for a few hundred of us, a bat to the cop car seemed like a bit of payback for generations of a boot to the throat.
silentmars 11y ago
You are perhaps trolling/satiring but there are certainly people who feel this way, even if they don't state it in such up-front absurd ways. Our founders responded to taxes they didn't like by seizing the contents of cargo ships and dumping them into Boston Harbor. If we described that in the same terms as many are talking about Baltimore, the headline would read, "rioters loot ships, smash cargo". Compare the circumstances: "the government is taxing us and we don't like it" vs. "the government is killing us with impunity." America was founded on a fundamental distrust of government, and certainly not on the idea that law and order is of higher importance than justice and liberty. "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants," is what America is about. When agents of government are systematically brutalizing and killing people, America is not a "sit back and ask nicely for it to stop" kind of country. America has always been about taking it to the streets It's white hypocrisy alone that lets us pretend that if the situation were reversed and whites were the victims of this kind of pervasive government brutality, we would be just sitting at home and drinking tea while writing letters to the editor and blanching at the thought of doing anything violent. Bullshit! We used to do this all the time, until we set up minorities to take the abuse for us.
- happyscrappy 11y ago
  >It's white hypocrisy alone that lets us pretend that if the situation were reversed and whites were the victims of this kind of pervasive government brutality Blacks lined up to protect the Police in Baltimore because they realize, unlike SJWs, that most violence against blacks is done by black criminals, like the rioters.
cgearhart 11y ago
Surely you're joking. > America was founded on the rule of law and respect for authority. Are we talking about the same nation that was formed in an armed rebellion against a monarchy? > These people in Baltimore... Which people, exactly? As in, how many mistakes are you willing to tolerate as the authorities attempt to positively identify and subdue just the rioters? > ...should be met with overwhelming (and lethal if necessary) force by the government. So your solution to a problem that started when authorities allowed a citizen to die in their custody is to double down and wield more violence against those citizens -- and then to raise the stakes by dropping all pretext of justice and simply killing everyone involved in order to bring them back in line? I honestly hope you're trolling -- the alternative is terrifying.
pdkl95 11y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis Those "non-violent means to redress problems" work great in theory. I would even agree that society ought[1] to work that way. Unfortunately, a working political[2] system is not a fundamental law of nature. Far too many people seem to think it is, which leads to the common belief that the law on paper has any reliable mapping to what happen in reality. [1] somebody call Hume [2] or economic

by Kaizyn 11y ago

pjc50 11y ago

And that's why America was founded by the non-violent and peaceful process of legal independence. And when there was a dispute as to whether state independence included the right to keep other humans as slaves, that was resolved without recourse to violence, leading to an America where nobody need fear for their life due to the colour of their skin. /s

Kaizyn 11y ago
Unless my memory of history is mistaken, armed revolution was a last resort after more reasonable means of redressing political wrongs failed. As for the civil war, the South refused to abide by the outcome of the political process and they were brought back in line through the use of overwhelming force by the lawfully-established government.

Singletoned 11y ago

Surely if America was founded on the rule of law and respect for authority, they wouldn't have committed treason and overthrown the King? It would seem to me that America was very much founded on the opposite. A lot of the constitution seems to be focussed on limiting the power of law, not limiting the power of the people (the right to bear arms being the clearest example).

Kaizyn 11y ago
One of America's great strengths has always been its respect for authority and commitment to law and order. The founders of America were also realists and they knew that governments tend to accrue power when left the opportunity to do so. Having an armed citizenry serves as a protective measure of last resort and was based on the model of Switzerland. The intent is not to allow people to run around shooting people up as a form of protest against lawful government action; but as a means to protect against unlawful government tyranny.
- pjc50 11y ago
  There's a sneaky distinction there between lawful and unlawful. The problems in US policing seem to involve killings by police that are declared to be lawful after an inadequate process of investigation and prosecution. Not to mention that until Loving v. Virginia inter-racial marriage was unlawful. Presumably the enforcement of that would not itself count as "unlawful tyranny"? Despite actually being a serious impairment to social freedom. (The 2nd amendment setup is in practice very different to the model of Switzerland, and is used to justify private gun ownership for private security reasons and private fears of black crime, not public/state security) Edit on lawfulness: man fires unregistered handgun into crowd, kills one injures one, is not convicted of anything. Guess why. http://crookedtimber.org/2015/04/28/no-justice-for-rekia-boyd-either/ http://crookedtimber.org/2015/04/28/no-justice-for-rekia-boy...
- atom-morgan 11y ago
  > but as a means to protect against unlawful government tyranny. We're at that point.
- meandthebean 11y ago
  > Having an armed citizenry serves as a protective measure of last resort and was based on the model of Switzerland. The intent is not to allow people to run around shooting people up as a form of protest against lawful government action; but as a means to protect against unlawful government tyranny. From the article: > It used to be said — correctly — that the patrolman on the beat on any American police force was the last perfect tyranny. Absent a herd of reliable witnesses, there were things he could do to deny you your freedom or kick your ass that were between him, you, and the street. The smartphone with its small, digital camera, is a revolution in civil liberties. Unlawful government tyranny, in the form of cops doing whatever they want, is exactly what the riots are about.
Kaizyn 11y ago
With respect to your other point about the King. The American colonists adopted the position that the unrepresentative government of the King was illegitimate and needed to be abolished. The United Kingdon has since acknowledged that this was correct by granting local representative government to Canada and Australia among other places.
- pjc50 11y ago
  It was still - at the time it happened - unlawful. (Also, rule of law and respect for authority come into direct conflict when the authorities act unlawfully, which is what you're covering for)
rhino369 11y ago
America had the most conservative, violent revolution I can think of. The rule of law at the colony level was never really challenged. Each colonial government, which did the day to day governing, stayed in power. Even the Declaration of Independence occurred via a vote of the government. And it was written as an indictment against the King. It made legal arguments. He was violating their rights as English subjects. Americans have a very strong respect for the rule of law. The Supreme Court is unelected, has no power, no money, no army, no police force or agents to carry out it's will. Yet it the absolute final word and Americans follow it. The constitution isn't an example of the limitation of the power of law, it's the greatest example of the extreme power the law has in America. The rule of law is so strong that the constitution (a law) can override the will of the President, the congress and the people.

privong 11y ago

> We have non-violent means to redress problems with the political and civil leadership. I am not advocating violence, but in your mind, what should people do when (many of) those non-violent means of redress are ineffective at solving the problems?

Kaizyn 11y ago
If the police are a menace, then protest to the mayor and city council. If the city council and mayor are not responsive, then vote them out of office. There is also recourse to the state government and the media as needed. Ghandi faced a much worse situation in India and succeeded without looting or rioting.
- pjc50 11y ago
  On Ghandi, a very different situation: http://flavorwire.com/516442/mahatma-gandhi-baltimore-and-the-myth-of-nonviolence http://flavorwire.com/516442/mahatma-gandhi-baltimore-and-th...
- soylentcola 11y ago
  Well, as someone who lives in Baltimore, I can say that this is exactly what has been happening for the overwhelming majority of people. Just last night, thousands of people poured into the streets in peaceful marches through town and to city hall. It also happened last weekend. I'm not excusing violence or suggesting that it is productive...but I get it. Human beings have tipping points. It's different for every individual but when pressure builds and crowds start moving, brawls and riots aren't uncommon to see. This happens even when people are happy about something (like a home team winning a championship game). So you can imagine that when the media starts freaking out and spreading some viral "meme" about planned riots and sends in a couple hundred riot cops (and a tank!) to corral a couple hundred high school kids at their bus stop, preventing them from going home, there might just be some of those people who are a little more pissed off than the rest and have a little less impulse control and decide to start throwing water bottles and rocks. And once shit starts rolling that way and the situation escalates, you can see why some people who might have been shit on and beaten up by cops all their life might just see this as a chance to hit back. So you get a few hundred cops fighting with a few hundred pissed off citizens and the broken cars and windows we all saw on TV. But those few hundred people who went the violent route are still a few hundred out of tens of thousands who live here. The vast majority of us (many of which have had it MUCH better than the people in West Baltimore) haven't been angry or frustrated enough to resort to violence. Thousands of us have marched and petitioned and protested. But it doesn't surprise me in the least that for a few hundred of us, a bat to the cop car seemed like a bit of payback for generations of a boot to the throat.

silentmars 11y ago

You are perhaps trolling/satiring but there are certainly people who feel this way, even if they don't state it in such up-front absurd ways. Our founders responded to taxes they didn't like by seizing the contents of cargo ships and dumping them into Boston Harbor. If we described that in the same terms as many are talking about Baltimore, the headline would read, "rioters loot ships, smash cargo". Compare the circumstances: "the government is taxing us and we don't like it" vs. "the government is killing us with impunity." America was founded on a fundamental distrust of government, and certainly not on the idea that law and order is of higher importance than justice and liberty. "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants," is what America is about. When agents of government are systematically brutalizing and killing people, America is not a "sit back and ask nicely for it to stop" kind of country. America has always been about taking it to the streets It's white hypocrisy alone that lets us pretend that if the situation were reversed and whites were the victims of this kind of pervasive government brutality, we would be just sitting at home and drinking tea while writing letters to the editor and blanching at the thought of doing anything violent. Bullshit! We used to do this all the time, until we set up minorities to take the abuse for us.

happyscrappy 11y ago
>It's white hypocrisy alone that lets us pretend that if the situation were reversed and whites were the victims of this kind of pervasive government brutality Blacks lined up to protect the Police in Baltimore because they realize, unlike SJWs, that most violence against blacks is done by black criminals, like the rioters.

cgearhart 11y ago

Surely you're joking. > America was founded on the rule of law and respect for authority. Are we talking about the same nation that was formed in an armed rebellion against a monarchy? > These people in Baltimore... Which people, exactly? As in, how many mistakes are you willing to tolerate as the authorities attempt to positively identify and subdue just the rioters? > ...should be met with overwhelming (and lethal if necessary) force by the government. So your solution to a problem that started when authorities allowed a citizen to die in their custody is to double down and wield more violence against those citizens -- and then to raise the stakes by dropping all pretext of justice and simply killing everyone involved in order to bring them back in line? I honestly hope you're trolling -- the alternative is terrifying.

pdkl95 11y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis Those "non-violent means to redress problems" work great in theory. I would even agree that society ought[1] to work that way. Unfortunately, a working political[2] system is not a fundamental law of nature. Far too many people seem to think it is, which leads to the common belief that the law on paper has any reliable mapping to what happen in reality. [1] somebody call Hume [2] or economic