Portland Protests

[Missing]

6 minutes ago, Mostly Peaceful Ryan said:

It doesn't have to be one or the other, the bill that republicans put forth had largely the similar things in it as well as the chance to amend it, the bill put forth has no room for amendment. This bill is likely designed to fail as there is no room for amendments, once it fails in the senate Democrats could campaign on needing the seats in the senate.

 

If Democrats cared about the issue and wasn't playing a political games, they would have let the senate bill pass with a majority of things they want, and then debate the rest of the other issues. Either way in this case they get a majority of what they want.

I have no comment on this point of view. I was just wanting to provide extra context to the bill being shot down for those who might be interested. I'm glad we're talking about both bills now, though.

[Fraggle Underdark]

I think it'd help to review the concept and history of tokenism. If you'd like to consult an independent source here is the Wikipedia article on it. But for convenience I'll be describing it briefly. Quoting from the article:

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Tokenism is the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to be inclusive to members of minority groups, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of racial or sexual equality within a workforce.

So that's the idea, but is it offensive to say someone is being used as a token? Let's look at how civil rights leaders have used the term:

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 In the book Why We Can't Wait (1964), civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. discussed the subject of tokenism, and how it constitutes a minimal acceptance of black people to the mainstream of U.S. society.^[6]

 

When asked about the gains of the Civil Rights Movement in 1963, human rights activist Malcolm X answered, “What gains? All you have gotten is tokenism — one or two Negroes in a job, or at a lunch counter, so the rest of you will be quiet.”^[7][8]

These leaders wanted people to be aware of this practice (tokenism) and to discuss it more broadly. The people being used as tokens were obviously minorities (or else they couldn't be used as tokens) and both civil rights leaders were aware of this and still wanted to talk about the practice. What about current discourse? Are allegations of tokenism used in polite, academic settings? Here is Wikipedia's section on tokenism in politics:

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In politics[edit]

In politics, allegations of tokenism may occur when a political party puts forward candidates from under-represented groups, such as women or racial minorities, in races that the party has little or no chance of winning, while making limited or no effort to ensure that such candidates have similar opportunity to win the nomination in races where the party is safe or favoured.^[25] The "token" candidates are frequently submitted as paper candidates, while nominations in competitive or safe seats continue to favor members of the majority group.^[26]

 

The end result of such an approach is that the party's slate of candidates maintains the appearance of diversity, but members of the majority group remain overrepresented in the party's caucus after the election — and thus little to no substantive progress toward greater inclusion of underrepresented groups has actually occurred.^[26]

People are still talking about tokenism as a real problem. Doing so necessarily involves suggesting that some candidates or politicians are being used as tokens.

[Mostly Peaceful Ryan]

7 minutes ago, Mackenzie Holiday said:

I have no comment on this point of view. I was just wanting to provide extra context to the bill being shot down for those who might be interested. I'm glad we're talking about both bills now, though.

I'm not trying to discount bringing up the bill, I just have known people that worked on the Hill, they do political games like this to get donors and votes. They will put forth bills, that are dead on arrival.  Meaning they know it will not pass, but will uses it for re-election. Btw I am not meaning to swipe at just democrats here, republicans play the same games. I am more upset, that it seems for once the country is united in wanting to bring some good reform to police, and instead of taking an easy win for everyone, Democrats are playing these games. We could be focusing on more healing, instead we are going to have to wait for an election.

[Rare Aztec Whstling Chickn]

I had a friend that attended, and as peaceful as they were, she was both tear gassed and flashbanged. Nice job.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Elise Jennings said:

Don't you think giving them more funding and putting more police out there defeats the purpose of what people are trying to do? 

Giving the police more funding, is critical to address major issues in the force. 

 

IE body cameras, deescalation training, and the like. In some countries where most cops aren't armed, they are forced to heavily rely on deescalation.

 

Removing funding, is essentially stating all cops are bad. They must collectively be punished, for the actions of few.

 

This ignores the unintended consequences from removing a police presence from communities. 

 

Put it this way. Police was removed from some areas in major cities. 

 

What happened? 

 

Vandalism, looting, and murder in some cases. 

 

You must uphold law and order, and funding must be put into place to endure the best possible personnel and programs to do the job. 

 

I think it's crazy, that some in crime infested cities think that less police will help them. 

 

Rioting is unacceptable. 

 

Guaranteed the bulk of the rioters are not from the communities that they are destroying. 

 

When we had BLM protests in my city, I heard of pockets of people who were coming from other cities to "f*** shit up!" 

 

They likely left disappointed in seeing the entire protests being law abiding, peaceful and incredibly powerful as a result. 

 

You weaken your message when you stray form it, opting for crimes of opportunity instead and use an otherwise good cause to sew discord and the seeds of destruction. 

[Madelise]

4 hours ago, Perspektiv said:

Removing funding, is essentially stating all cops are bad. They must collectively be punished, for the actions of few.

You're right, not all cops are bad, but it's not "just a few" that are bad. The majority of cops are bad. Even if you're one of those cops that doesn't do anything harmful directly, being compliant and not standing up to the bad cops just makes you one of them. For example, if you have 10 bad cops and 1000 good cops, but the 1000 good cops don't turn in the 10 bad cops, you have 1010 bad cops. Silence is compliance.

[Guest]

30 minutes ago, Elise Jennings said:

You're right, not all cops are bad, but it's not "just a few" that are bad. The majority of cops are bad. Even if you're one of those cops that doesn't do anything harmful directly, being compliant and not standing up to the bad cops just makes you one of them. For example, if you have 10 bad cops and 1000 good cops, but the 1000 good cops don't turn in the 10 bad cops, you have 1010 bad cops. Silence is compliance.

Removing funding, increases their workloads, pressure and creates worse policing. 

 

Remove funding from a school system  and see what happens. The best (RE most costly) programs often disappear first. The students are the ones who get hurt, with a subpar education.

 

I agree, the silence of the majority, makes them complicit. You're accepting the behavior, due to fear of retribution. Same thing that keeps a gang member silent.

 

I personally know police officers who complained about actions of some, only to be blacklisted. 

 

Main reason I didn't join the RCMP in Canada. I had heard horrible things from within the force. 

 

I would be that vocal guy who would get blacklisted and short change on opportunities.

 

You can't eradicate that mindset with less funding. 

 

That's daydreaming. 

 

That's like thinking you can stop illegal immigration with a taller wall, when the bulk just overstay their vacations. 

 

Per the alleged father of the policing design:

 

One of its principles (of policing) is that

 

The ability to perform their duties is dependent on public approval and police actions. 

 

The latter can only be fixed with cash and training.

 

[Madelise]

Just now, Arodash said:

This is just blatently false

How so?

[AspieAlly613]

7 minutes ago, Elise Jennings said:

How so?

My own take on this:  The majority of people are well-meaning, or at least reasonable.  

[Madelise]

4 minutes ago, Arodash said:

you have no idea what monsters exist out there because you dont see them, our police take care of them for you

Actually, I know some personally. But I won't go into my family history right now and how there are some people who still haven't gotten what they deserve.

 

2 minutes ago, Arodash said:

you wanna know why good cops dont turn on bad cops? Fear, fear of being orstisized or retaliated against.

Which is sad. I feel like doing the right thing is more important.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Arodash said:

And cops are people too, under that uniform they are the same as you and I

No they aren't, most of them are selected for their quality for obey'ing superiors without questioning and thinking for themselves.

 

https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-court-ruled-you-can-be-too-smart-to-be-a-cop/5420630

 

Well, yes people... but.... ... sigh...

[Madelise]

15 minutes ago, Arodash said:

Our streets are safe thanks to them

It's nice to know that you feel like you're safe where you live. There was a shooting down the street from my house when I was a sophomore in high school (so 2018 I think). I don't feel safe where I live, at all really, and I've lived here my whole life. Things have gotten worse as time has gone on. I guess that's what happens when you live in a place that's ghetto so...but yeah. I feel like the police here at least don't really do what they're supposed to do to keep people safe. Most of the time, they just camp to see who's speeding, so they can give out tickets.

[Kasseb]

14 hours ago, Elise Jennings said:

Real change hasn't been made yet. Police reform needs to happen, if not that, then defunding.

 

I explained that in the reply to the statement "We the people."

 

Yeah, it is true. Are you really going to act like oppression doesn't exist? That privilege doesn't exist?

Everyone has privilege, blacks, whites, everyone. It's not to the level you made it out to be. No, it's not true. 

 

You can't just defund the police, you need to find a better way to handle the problem. In Portland, it's not so much a police issue. These "peaceful protestors" have directly called for the death of those they protest against. 

[Kasseb]

13 hours ago, fragglerock said:

It's an underhanded tactic to assume someone is lying and/or secretly agrees with you. Nor does it impress anyone who can see the sincerity and reason of their points. It just gives the impression that you're either overconfident in your ability to read people or dishonest.

I never said anyone was lying or that they secretly agree with me. That's a strawman. Making baseless emotional claims can be dismissed without evidence; Hitchens' Razor.

 

Try actually providing something of use. 

[Kasseb]

10 hours ago, Sally said:

Fox News and National Review are conservative-focus media.  I've been watching live videos of these protests (from Seattle, know some of the Portland people) and the federal agents from Homeland Security have magnified these protests and essentially kidnapped protesters and shoved them into unmarked vans.  

That's not all true, Sally. The protestors they are trying to get are violent, they're calling for the death of police and fed agents. They openly spray painted on the women's bathroom near the CLAP "Shoot back, BLM" one even saying "Kill cops, not pigs." 

 

They put up a fence to stop the vandalizing and destruction of fed property, protestors attacked the fence, hence why they fired. They're not just randomly attacking protestors because "lol fascism".

 

[Kasseb]

 

 

 

 

[Madelise]

1 minute ago, Autumn McJavabean said:

Everyone has privilege, blacks, whites, everyone. It's not to the level you made it out to be. No, it's not true.

Everyone has privilege in certain ways, yes. But things like white privilege and male privilege are a thing. I've witnessed this stuff first-hand. I have been seen as less than just because I'm female. I've seen family members get treated unfairly just because of the fact that they're black. Straight privilege is indeed a thing as well. Same-sex marriage wasn't even legal until 2015 in the US.

[Kasseb]

Just now, Elise Jennings said:

Everyone has privilege in certain ways, yes. But things like white privilege and male privilege are a thing. I've witnessed this stuff first-hand. I have been seen as less than just because I'm female. I've seen family members get treated unfairly just because of the fact that they're black. Straight privilege is indeed a thing as well. Same-sex marriage wasn't even legal until 2015 in the US.

No one denied WP and MP doesn't exist, but to the levels you made them out to be? Yea, that's not valid. I have witnessed many of this first-hand, too, I have directly seen even whites get the rod for being white or being male. 

 

Same-sex privilege? 

[Kasseb]

1 minute ago, Arodash said:

Remember Mayor Ted Weeler going out and making worse?

I know Ted, he's an idiot. He was out there only for votes.

[Madelise]

1 minute ago, Arodash said:

should see what its like being a male and people not believing you could be sexually assaulted or raped simply because your a man XD 

That's unfortunate that stuff like that happens. Double standards do suck. Still doesn't mean men aren't put higher up than women are.

[Madelise]

2 minutes ago, Arodash said:

We can agree to disagree

Sure...And that's why women haven't always been able to vote. Or even fully have the rights to their own bodies, but yeah, sure. You can say men aren't put higher up than women, but I won't believe it.

[Madelise]

5 minutes ago, Arodash said:

Like I said, agree to disagree there are other threads to discuss gender issues and I dont wanna derail this one

Okay. Fine.

[Fraggle Underdark]

31 minutes ago, Autumn McJavabean said:

I never said anyone was lying or that they secretly agree with me. That's a strawman.

I'm not sure how to respond to this. Do you really want me to walk you through it? I feel it would be insulting to any other readers. But perhaps I can make this sufficiently clear: you quoted Elise and said "That's not true and you know it." What is lying? Saying things you know to be untrue. 

 

Incidentally, I expect you are knowledgeable enough to know what lying is and what strawmen are.

32 minutes ago, Autumn McJavabean said:

Making baseless emotional claims can be dismissed without evidence; Hitchens' Razor.

We share, perhaps, an opposition to baseless emotional claims. Hitchens' Razor is an excellent principle, I'll quote it here for the convenience of others: "the burden of proof regarding the truthfulness of a claim lies with the one who makes the claim; if this burden is not met, then the claim is unfounded, and its opponents need not argue further in order to dismiss it."

 

I encourage everyone to consider whether it's worth their time to argue with those who make baseless emotional claims.

34 minutes ago, Autumn McJavabean said:

Try actually providing something of use. 

Also not sure how to respond to this, but I have to say you've provided me with a change of pace  It's been a long time since I've seen someone say something like that. Did you honestly miss that I was arguing against baseless emotional claims? 

[Mostly Peaceful Ryan]

1 hour ago, Phoenix the II said:

No they aren't, most of them are selected for their quality for obey'ing superiors without questioning and thinking for themselves.

This is wrong Phoenix and actually kinda offensive to those hired as officers, an officer does need the ability to be led, but that is not why they are selected. They also need the ability to think on their feet, and ability to reason. I'm going to guess that you didn't read that article you just linked, because no where did it say anything about "Obeying superiors without questioning and thinking for themselves" being the concerned. It specifically said "Those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training".

 

 

[gisiebob]

2 hours ago, Autumn McJavabean said:

I never said anyone was lying or that they secretly agree with me. That's a strawman. Making baseless emotional claims can be dismissed without evidence; Hitchens' Razor.

 

Try actually providing something of use. 

it's strawmen all the way down, sure.

[Fraggle Underdark]

45 minutes ago, Mostly Peaceful Ryan said:

This is wrong Phoenix and actually kinda offensive to those hired as officers

People can be offended by valid critique. That doesn't mean the critiques aren't valid.

45 minutes ago, Mostly Peaceful Ryan said:

I'm going to guess that you didn't read that article you just linked

I didn't read the article when Phoenix posted it and assumed that it backed up her claim, at least roughly. After you said this I went to read the article. It does indeed back up Phoenix's claim, at least her claim that police officers are filtered in a way the general population is not. It is about someone's application to the police force being rejected because they scored too high on an intelligence test.

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The average score for police officers was a 21-22, or an IQ of 104. New London would only interview candidates who scored between 20 and 27.

You mentioned:

45 minutes ago, Mostly Peaceful Ryan said:

It specifically said "Those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training".

I agree with you, the article said that. It did so to explain the court's decision that it was legal to reject an applicant for being too smart. 

[Mostly Peaceful Ryan]

@fragglerockI did read it, that is not what Phoenix claimed. "most of them are selected for their quality for obey'ing superiors without questioning and thinking for themselves." What you quoted doesn't support that claim. It is based on an IQ test and has nothing to do with likelihood to "obey orders without questioning them". A person can be smart and obey orders and a person can be dumb and refuse to obey orders.

[Guest]

17 hours ago, Arodash said:

the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

 

Ah, so, cops and those feds beating up the peaceful protestors. Amongst the rioters...

 

Great great, let's twist definitions around...

 

How about this, The government is the true terrorist.

 

 

----

 

54 minutes ago, Mostly Peaceful Ryan said:

an officer does need the ability to be led, but that is not why they are selected. They also need the ability to think on their feet, and ability to reason.

I'll disagree with this:

 

  

2 hours ago, Arodash said:

you wanna know why good cops dont turn on bad cops? Fear, fear of being orstisized or retaliated against. 70% of the time its supervisors who pressure regular street cops not to report things, we need to address THAT issue and make sure our police have a voice to safely report bad cops. 

 

[Guest]

Totally me right now:

 

[Fraggle Underdark]

1 minute ago, Mostly Peaceful Ryan said:

@fragglerockI did read it, that is not what Phoenix claimed. "most of them are selected for their quality for obey'ing superiors without questioning and thinking for themselves." What you quoted doesn't support that claim. It is based on an IQ test and has nothing to do with likelihood to "obey orders without questioning them". A person can be smart and obey orders and a person can be dumb and refuse to obey orders.

You are correct. I noticed this when I looked back on my post, right after posting it, and then removed that section from my response. Of course it's entirely valid for you to bring this up, especially since you saw my original response before I could edit it. Phoenix's article only showed that a police department filtered out some applicants based on high intelligence and does not directly demonstrate the hiring motivations she mentioned. Her linked article was related, in that it showed a police department was not hiring for high intelligence, but as for what they are hiring for, this is left up to interpretation. In my experience Phoenix argues in good faith and so, personally, I find it reasonable to assume her link was meant only as supporting evidence, not direct evidence.

 

Although some people consider this nit-picking I encourage people to investigate exactly which claims are being put forward and whether references support those claims.