Ferguson, MO

Post Reply New Topic

/\ Remember what George Washington said about government being a dangerous servant and a fearful master....

Well, if Libertarians have been championing those things - as have liberals! - then God bless them. But the most vocal Libertarians such as Rand and Ron Paul and their friends in the tea party have, if anything, been racially insensitive if not offensive. In fact, your hero Rand Paul and company only spoke out against the police crackdown in Ferguson because they had been shamed into responding.

Ironically, someone shooting at a moving police car during the late night festivities missed and hit another patron of the night. Seriously injuring said individual.

I'm pretty sure it's during this video (police car driving past, someone shooting):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOZJukLBXBI[/youtube]

I'm sure there's going to be a heap of outrage over this attempted murder (which inflicted serious injury). Heh.

As for the people not having to pay taxes - that has nothing to do with the case at all. And the shooting of that Brown character was more of the proverbial last straw rather than the actual cause. Blacks in Ferguson have been assumed to be guilty of criminality, from violent crime to traffic infractions - and the lines waiting at the docket are long and filled with black faces, despite the fact that whites are just as likely to commit such offenses. It was only a matter of time for it to blow up, and the Brown shooting was the match that lit the fuse.

Well no longer true assuming it was at the time!

I don't have any problem with the police having the tools to fight a riot. Riots can be very ugly.

Instead of funding weapons of war for cops, why not fund body cameras? It is better for everyone involved besides the cops that abuse their authority or **** off all day until they have to fill their quotas. Rialto, CA did it and complaints against police dropped 88% and use of force by 60%. It's crazy how police act in this country, they're no different than the Gestapo.

BTW Kraichgauer, really dude, you were cheerleading the potential murder of Cliven Bundy and his family earlier this year and defend the police action in Ruby Ridge and Waco. You're so blinded by partisanship it's ridiculous, you've been called out on it so many times so to come in here and don't even acknowledge it. Lay off the MSNBC dude, start questioning your leaders.

Body cameras seem like a brilliant idea. Police hate sousveillance, we should force it on them. The innocent have nothing to fear mwuahaha. Of course, I imagine they'd just end up deleting anything suspicious...

I think I am right in saying that the answer to your question is that the ridiculous equipment police forces in America have is surplus from the Bush wars?

Yeah, just like that cop who pumped some rounds from an MP5 into an incapacitated murderer in the UK (the two murderers of the British soldier). An MP5 is ridiculous, right? And shooting someone on the ground is similar to what some allege happened in Ferguson.

Triple standards be fun.

I do not think they are comparable, and I also think you are probably mixing up two separate incidents or at least misremembering the one you refer to.
The two murderers were both armed and threatening police. One of them was pointing a gun; the other ran at an officer with a meat cleaver. The office pulled out a taser, and simultaneously an armed college fired their gun. The shot from the gun sent him flying, indicating that he was not "on the ground".

I would prefer it if none of our police were armed, but incidents like this one show the need to have some armed police. If we didn't then the chances are that more people would have died.

That is a world away from the heavily reinforced vehicles that are now commonplace in American towns.

There have been multiple incidences of police brutality in the UK in recent years. I condemn them all. I do not have double standards in this regard; if anything, I have higher standards for Britain because we're more civilised.

(that final remark is obviously a joke)

Cliven Bundy is an assh*le who thinks the law doesn't apply to him, and has surrounded himself with racist radicals who have threatened local elected officials, law enforcement, and reporters. No one, but NO ONE, unleashed the might of the federal government on Bundy, even though Fox and the rest of the right wing media was practically begging for it, so they could turn Bundy and his minions into saints.
As far as the Weavers at Ruby Ridge and the Davidians at Waco are concerned - sure, it's always sad when people die by violence. But the right is presenting the two situations as if they were everyday people who the government had decided to randomly attack. Well, that is fantasy. Ruby Ridge is not far away from where I live on the other side of the Washington/Idaho state line, and I can tell you that the local sheriff had called the feds in after Weaver had threatened his life, and the lives of several of his neighbors. This was in the days when dangerous racist radicals had gravitated to the forests and mountains of north Idaho, with all their collected guns, and viewing not just minorities and the government as their enemies, but all society as well. Randy Weaver and his family were of that group. And no, it's not just a matter of a liberal like me disapproving of the Weaver's eccentric ideology, but rather, it was about people like them who had convinced themselves that an armed conflict with the federal government, liberals, blacks, Jews, etc. was about to start. Do you remember the Order, or the Phineas Priesthood who had robbed banks to finance their coming race war? Well, it's still fresh in my mind, as one of the Phineas Priesthood's bank robberies had taken place just a few blocks from where I presently live. And it wasn't just about outlandish politics, as there was a definite religious angle to it all which gave those people a dangerous fanaticism, of which Vicki Weaver was hardly out of the ordinary believing she had had visions sent by God directing her and her family to the mountains in the west in order to survive the coming apocalypse. The same kind of apocalyptic theology shared by the Branch Davidians, by the way. So yeah, I can concede that the government had used excessive force as people had died, but to say that the Weavers, and the larger group of racist fanatics they belonged to, had just wanted to be left alone to live how they wanted to live, is nothing but bullsh*t dreamed up by the right. Because they had absolutely no interest in leaving the rest of us alone.

That doesn't mean we can't still benefit from government.

Someone could just as easily say and plenty are that Mike Brown was a violent criminal who was fleeing the scene of robbery. It doesn't matter who you are be it criminal or racist or a cultist, no American citizen should be murdered by their government. I don't just care when the victim aligns with me politically, rights don't just apply to people you like. You buy into any government, political, or media narrative that fits your worldview, you seem incapable critical thinking when it comes these issues. I wish you'd stop seeing things in red or blue, you've been programmed to think that way by the powers that be in a game of divide and conquer. You're so caught up in this left-right Republican-Democrat paradigm that you can't see the forest for the trees.

^^^
As a matter of fact, I conceded that Brown was an assh*le who had committed robbery and assault. And sure, he no more deserved to die than did Vicki Weaver and her kid, or the Branch Davidians. But the fact remains, whether we like it or not, people who engage in crime, in violent racist politics, or apocalyptic cultist religion are more likely to come to a bad end than the rest of us because of their behavior.

We don't have all the facts yet. The officer's face was apparently swollen after he took a punch through the window. Something happened at the window. There is also a slightly ambiguous account from a witness talking about Brown turning around and coming back at the cop. Which jibes with what the cop's friend says the cop is saying. That Brown first assaulted him, fled, then turned and charged again.

We'll need the toxicology report and the full police account before anyone has a fuller view. I'd say the punk hit the cop and pissed him off but I don't know.

I just got sent the message that this thread no longer exists. Obviously, that was misinformation.