Another "I can't breath" death: Police Reform & Protests in the USA

[Felya]

Patrisse Khan-Cullors does have 4 houses with a combined valuation in the ballpark of $3.4 million, but there isn't any proof to the claims of fraud.

Stop the steal campaign generated over 170 million, on an election claim, his former lawyer claims no one in their right mind would believe. Trump also pardoned Steve Bannon, from litigation involving ripping off people who donated to Build The Wall fund. Trump is supposed to be a billionaire, who didn’t accept his presidential salary. After 4 years of being the first president to never stop campaigning, Trump has yet to campaign outside Florida, since the tax payer stopped paying for his trips.

Considering the focus of GOP convention, as well as Trump campaign, to besmirch the concept of BLM... If someone wants to see fraud... it’s within the scope of BLM being viewed by the country... but, not quite the way @Daedius implied.

In fact, his assertion is a repeated tact, that was made about Biden, by Trump jr. Who seemed to omit that Biden built up a run down house and then resold it, to buy the new, more expansive house. Something a real estate mogul, should have been a bit more keen to notice... if not for...

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Oh and how is that WLM day going? April 11 was to be the day? Can’t move it to the 20th, too obvious...

Sucks how antifa infiltrated their ranks and now has a lot of recipes about attracting normies, so hiding fascist and white supremacy imagery to trick them, might not be as easy. I got a little joy, from one of their leaders talking about optics and to keep this nazi shit private... then in a brief moment of self awareness... realizes he sounds just like a liberal cock...

Womp womp?

Leaked Chats Show ‘White Lives Matter’ Movement in Shambles After Antifa Infiltration
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88n4...a-infiltration

[Themius]

People on your side of the pond are stuck with these loons too.

What's loony about that?

[Spectral]

What's loony about that?

Literally everything. The whole article reads like a parody.

[Themius]

Literally everything. The whole article reads like a parody.

You have a soft spot for slaver statues? What an unsurprising thing.

[Spectral]

You have a soft spot for slaver statues? What an unsurprising thing.

No, I have a soft spot for this:

Colston supported and endowed schools, houses for the poor, almshouses, hospitals and Anglican churches in Bristol, London and elsewhere. His name features widely on Bristol buildings and landmarks.[7][14] Colston used his money and power to promote order in the form of High Anglicanism in the Church of England and oppose Anglican Latitudinarians, Roman Catholics, and dissenter Protestants.[15]

In Bristol, he founded almshouses in King Street and Colstons Almshouses on St Michael's Hill, endowed Queen Elizabeth's Hospital school, and helped found Colston's Hospital, a boarding school which opened in 1710 leaving an endowment to be managed by the Society of Merchant Venturers for its upkeep.[3] He gave money to schools in Temple (one of which went on to become St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School) and other parts of Bristol, and to several churches and the cathedral.[3][16]

David Hughson, writing in 1808, described Colston as "the great benefactor of the city of Bristol, who, in his lifetime, expended more than 70,000L. [£] in charitable institutions",[17] equivalent to £5,499,471 in 2019.[18]

Replacing it with a black power statue is darkly hilarious. Anyway, Daedius's notion that Europe gets to escape from the dumbest parts of American political culture is mostly a fantasy. For better or worse, European culture is downstream of American culture now.

[Themius]

No, I have a soft spot for this:

This isn't an argument at all...

There are statues to other important figures who gave lots of money to their charitable causes... while also owning slaves and taking advantage of people.

"Look the dude may have enslaved and killed thousands in the name of god, but he also donated millions to the church... which also incidentally had the aim that they should dominate the world so it's all good!"

Like how fucking myopic do you have to be?

Like say there's a person who goes to the Americas to enslave, kill, and convert people for the glory of god... and then donates to the church... do you think the donations somehow negate the negative that was done?

Say a person has charitable cause for Buddhist places of worship, and just so happens to also back and play a role in the extermination of others in the name of Buddism... does donating to build Buddhist places of worship somehow mean it was a good thing then?

[Spectral]

This isn't an argument at all...

There are statues to other important figures who gave lots of money to their charitable causes... while also owning slaves and taking advantage of people.

"Look the dude may have enslaved and killed thousands in the name of god, but he also donated millions to the church... which also incidentally had the aim that they should dominate the world so it's all good!"

Like how fucking myopic do you have to be?

Like say there's a person who goes to the Americas to enslave, kill, and convert people for the glory of god... and then donates to the church... do you think the donations somehow negate the negative that was done?

Say a person has charitable cause for Buddhist places of worship, and just so happens to also back and play a role in the extermination of others in the name of Buddism... does donating to build Buddhist places of worship somehow mean it was a good thing then?

Anyway, this is what I'm telling Europeans that they can look forward to. Personally, I like historical tributes to people that were important to a given locale. Obviously my position is a losing position and our British friends can look forward to their statues being torn down and replaced with black power monuments.

[Mayhem]

Anyway, this is what I'm telling Europeans that they can look forward to. Personally, I like historical tributes to people that were important to a given locale. Obviously my position is a losing position and our British friends can look forward to their statues being torn down and replaced with black power monuments.

Well, we should put up some Hitler statues then because woah was that guy important to places in Europe.

[Spectral]

Well, we should put up some Hitler statues then because woah was that guy important to places in Europe.

Yeah, just like that

[Noxx79]

Yeah, just like that

How is it different?

[postman1782]

People on your side of the pond are stuck with these loons too.

Doesn't look like loons to me. Getting rid of a slave trader sounds like a good idea.

[Rozz]

Doesn't look like loons to me. Getting rid of a slave trader sounds like a good idea.

How else will they remember their favored years of slaughter and racial/culturally charged hubris?

If there was a statue of Obama that some migrants hit by his drone policy tore down, I wouldn't choose the path of ignorance and ask dumb questions.

[DarkTZeratul]

If there was a statue of Obama that some migrants hit by his drone policy tore down, I wouldn't choose the path of ignorance and ask dumb questions.

I think is is more on the order of 200 years from now, someone tears down a statue of Obama because his drone policy sometimes killed migrants so regardless of what good he also did we're not allowed to celebrate him.

People are complicated. Very few of us are all good or all bad. Sometimes, we stop celebrating someone because the good they did was exaggerated/fabricated, and the bad significantly downplayed (like Christopher Columbus). Sometimes it's because the "good" they did was entirely subjective, being intentionally at the expense of other people (like most of the "heroes" of the Confederacy). But sometimes, someone was generally a good person, but also did some bad things. Maybe they engaged in something that was considered fine then, but isn't considered fine now. Maybe they were even bothered by it at the time. Is it right to let the evils they committed outweigh the good that they did? Is it right to judge the men of yesterday by the morals of today? Is it fair to hold people who are no longer alive to defend themselves to an impossibly high standard purely so we can pat ourselves on the back and tell ourselves we're good people for holding them to account?

[s_bushido]

Is it right to judge the men of yesterday by the morals of today?

Yes.

Especially if you expect to keep a statue celebrating them on display today. It's not as if "slavery bad" was some sort of shocking revelation that people 200 years ago couldn't have possibly fathomed. Given the...you know...abolitionism.

I'll never understand why people think that's some sort of profound question.

[Endus]

Is it right to judge the men of yesterday by the morals of today?

Those are the morals we have to work with.

Would it be right to say "oh, Jimmy grabbed the ass of every girl within grabbing distance! But it was the time, so we can't judge Jimmy to be a shithead creep for doing that back then!"

Or worse; "oh, Werner was a detention camp administrator, and sure, he signed off on the deaths of some 28,000 Jews personally in his time there, but it was the time, so we can't judge him to be a Nazi!"

Of course not.

It doesn't become a more-defensible argument the further back we push the events in question. It just means we should consider that society to be pretty amoral and abusive, over and above the individuals within it. That society doesn't make people do those things, it just allows it.

This is how history is written. We don't judge whether Genghis Khan was a monster based on the standards of Mongol culture of his time. We judge his actions from our current perspective. And his society's mores, from that same perspective. Moral relativism isn't the idea that you can't make moral judgements, it's the acceptance that others might have differing perspectives, particularly across such gaps in time and space. Even that there may have been circumstances or lacks of understanding that led to certain views in the past that, while not defensible today, cannot really be faulted in their context. But slavery, specifically? I can't see how it falls under that umbrella.

Is it fair to hold people who are no longer alive to defend themselves to an impossibly high standard purely so we can pat ourselves on the back and tell ourselves we're good people for holding them to account?

"Don't enslave people" is by no means an "impossibly high standard". Come the fuck on.

[Rozz]

I think is is more on the order of 200 years from now, someone tears down a statue of Obama because his drone policy sometimes killed migrants so regardless of what good he also did we're not allowed to celebrate him.

People are complicated. Very few of us are all good or all bad. Sometimes, we stop celebrating someone because the good they did was exaggerated/fabricated, and the bad significantly downplayed (like Christopher Columbus). Sometimes it's because the "good" they did was entirely subjective, being intentionally at the expense of other people (like most of the "heroes" of the Confederacy). But sometimes, someone was generally a good person, but also did some bad things. Maybe they engaged in something that was considered fine then, but isn't considered fine now. Maybe they were even bothered by it at the time. Is it right to let the evils they committed outweigh the good that they did? Is it right to judge the men of yesterday by the morals of today? Is it fair to hold people who are no longer alive to defend themselves to an impossibly high standard purely so we can pat ourselves on the back and tell ourselves we're good people for holding them to account?

Think about it this way: The people who were always bothered or harmed by the actions of an individual, may not have the voice they will in the future. When you ask "why did we change how we view things?", first think about who is speaking in the first place. It's not that people are judging others with modern standards, but a case of pre-existing concerns having enough voices to be heard. Those who may be changing their minds are the groups that a 'hero' once represented, who may feel different due to their current values.

People's values aren't stagnant, so it's not at all strange for a guy from even 5 to 500 years ago to no longer resonate with the current populace. That's not strange in the slightest and especially not strange for groups that the same person hurt to despise them. So where do we go from there? I don't know, since how much you idolize or want to celebrate a figure is a personal matter. How much you identify with them and the amount of supposed guilt you feel for it is a personal matter too.

Most major figures aren't all good or all bad, so someone is bound to justifiably hate them. I accept it, that's natural. Look at my country, would I blame people for hating it? Nah, If I was a victim of our foreign affairs I would too.

[Felya]

If there was a statue of Obama that some migrants hit by his drone policy tore down, I wouldn't choose the path of ignorance and ask dumb questions.

That’s part of the irony about those slaver statues in the south being torn down... Remember how GOP keeps reminding us that Democrats were the ones supporting slaves? Yeah, those are statues of Democrats being torn down...

[alexw]

How is it different?

It isn't.

"Monuments to this mass murdering slaver are OK because he built schools and churches!"

"Monuments to this mass murdering slaver are OK because he built the autoban!"

[Rozz]

That’s part of the irony about those slaver statues in the south being torn down... Remember how GOP keeps reminding us that Democrats were the ones supporting slaves? Yeah, those are statues of Democrats being torn down...

Yup! Polarising figures are polarising and statues once built can easily be torn down.

[Endus]

Yup! Polarising figures are polarising and statues once built can easily be torn down.

It also bears pointing out that statues and such aren't really "for" the people they portray. They're for the people of today. And which statues and figures we celebrate should, thus, reflect the mores of that modern society, regardless of their historical relevance.