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Re: Defunding Police

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 12:01 am
by commonsense
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Fri Jul 10, 2020 11:35 pm
commonsense wrote: Fri Jul 10, 2020 8:48 pm
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Fri Jul 10, 2020 7:14 pm
Here, every time we get a so-called 'neo-liberal' govt. (aka social eugenicism) the standard of living goes down, homelessness and poverty escalate, borrowing goes through the roof (with nothing to show for it), the environment suffers, services are 'cut back', there's less money for health and education (but more for their Big Business friends), more corruption.....
What you’re describing is generally what we would call the landscape of the Republican Party in the States.

You wondered why people would vote this way. They’re not bad people. They just have a different viewpoint.

In some ways it all mirrors the rugged individualism of the old time American West.

As enthusiastic individualists, who believe their fortunes are the result of their efforts alone, they may view social programs as handouts to people who may be too lazy to make it on their own.

For roughly 80% of the American population the standard of living becomes eroded while the other 20% are able to advance their lot.

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class is transformed into the so-called working poor. The top 1% have all the wealth.

Personal debt (credit cards and other loans) increase because the 80% try to maintain former levels of living.

The environment is under attack because the rich make more money when corporations make more profits, which often requires a loosening of environmental protections.

:mrgreen:
In other words it's short-sighted, self-centred arseholes who vote 'neo-lib'. That's what I've noticed too.
A couple of examples are the UK govt. (Conservative) and Australian (Liberal). The Australian govt. seems to be made up of science-denying religious fuckwits (but apparently that's not 'bad'; it's just a 'different point of view' :roll: ). New Zealand at the moment has a Labour majority govt. which is the Party that's considered 'left'.
Interesting to note that as soon as a crisis came along, in the form of this pandemic, the 'neo-lib' parties turned 'left', showing that so-called 'neo-liberalism' is unworkable if you want your country to survive and ultimately thrive.
While NZ was busy helping out small businesses and out-of-workers, Australian has put 300 billion into preparing for war with China.
Funny how 'wild west neo-libs' never mind how much of THEIR precious taxes go on the military.
Amen, Sister. Amen.

Re: Defunding Police

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 1:49 am
by Gary Childress
RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 10, 2020 6:48 pm
Gary Childress wrote: Fri Jul 10, 2020 5:16 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 10, 2020 4:36 pm

It is not the question you are addressing, but I'm not interested in the politics, only the principle. I would love to see police, "defunded," meaning not payed for with money extorted from those who have no interest in supporting a gang of thugs payed to support government oppression. I have no objection to anyone paying someone else to protect themselves and their property, so long as it is by choice and they actually get what they pay for.
I don't know. Sounds like a pretty radical departure from what most civilized countries have. I mean, there are a few places like Somalia that don't have large organized governments. It's a bit like the Wild West. Warlords simply take over and there's plenty of piracy. It doesn't seem like what I would call "civilization"; more like the so-called "dark age" in Europe between the fall of Rome and the rise of Charlemagne. But maybe that "dark age" wasn't such a bad time?
Civilized country? Where is one of those today (or, actually, ever was).

I Grew up in the forties and fifties in what was, at that time, the largest leather manufacturing city in the world. It was about as cosmopolitan as possible in those days. I lived at the intersection of two residential streets. In almost every house there was a family of different ethnic background, Jewish, Polish, English, Finish, Irish, French, Chinese, Turkish, Black, and Labonese. Their children were all my friends and school mates. My grandfather was a barber in that city (considered a very respectable business in those days, with eight chairs and tables where men spent afternoons playing checkers and discussing business, philosophy, and technology). My grandfather walked the mile home from the Barbershop every Saturday night through unlighted streets with the weeks receipts in his bag. There were no police and he was perfectly safe.

No one locked their doors and left keys in their cars parked on the street at night. Children and women could safely go anywhere in that city, night or day, and children enjoyed a level of freedom that would horrify anyone today. I spent frequent afternoons in one of the leather factory chemical labs when I was in grade school (already a nerd), hopped freight trains going slowly through the center of town (when the conductor waved us on) to go swimming in an abandoned quarry.

Everyone was polite, and everyone had a job, and though every imagineable religion and ethnic background was represented there was little conflict (except for, some reason, between the Turks and the Greeks, and they kept that to themselves).

That was pretty close to civilization, but it didn't last. By the early seventies it was gone, and there is no real civilization left in the US today. Most people today have no idea what freedom and civilization are, partly because they have never experienced them.
Sounds like a Norman Rockwell painting.

Whatever happened to those days, they are unfortunately gone. These days we have pretty rampant crime. You can't leave a lawnmower sitting out in the yard overnight without it getting carted off by someone. And I live in a relatively decent neighborhood on the far outskirts of the city. Defunding police doesn't sound very realistic to me, not these days.

As far as "no police", maybe you lived in a time of greater social cohesion. These days people are very individualistic and more isolated. they don't go to church or the bowling alley to socialize as much, and when they go to the barbershop, they generally don't stick around and chat a whole lot. It's not exactly the Andy Griffith show with Floyd the barber anymore. It's a shame. Something happened to our society to change it to what it is today. I'm not sure what, though.

Re: Defunding Police

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 2:20 am
by RCSaunders
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 1:49 am Sounds like a Norman Rockwell painting.

Whatever happened to those days, they are unfortunately gone. These days we have pretty rampant crime. You can't leave a lawnmower sitting out in the yard overnight without it getting carted off by someone. And I live in a relatively decent neighborhood on the far outskirts of the city. Defunding police doesn't sound very realistic to me, not these days.

As far as "no police", maybe you lived in a time of greater social cohesion. These days people are very individualistic and more isolated. they don't go to church or the bowling alley to socialize as much, and when they go to the barbershop, they generally don't stick around and chat a whole lot. It's not exactly the Andy Griffith show with Floyd the barber anymore. It's a shame. Something happened to our society to change it to what it is today. I'm not sure what, though.
There's a reason for the change but it's unlikely what you would believe it is, but I cannot go into it now. So I just have one comment about this:
These days we have pretty rampant crime. You can't leave a lawnmower sitting out in the yard overnight without it getting carted off by someone. And I live in a relatively decent neighborhood on the far outskirts of the city. Defunding police doesn't sound very realistic to me, not these days.
So, what are the police doing? Obviously they aren't stopping the crime. Do you own a gun, Gary? (Please do not answer that question here. No one else needs to know.) If you wait for the police to protect you or your property, it's not going to happen. When seconds count, the police are only minutes away, and if you call them, I guarantee you will be sorry. You have no idea how much trouble they can make for you no matter how innocent you are, especially if you call them during their coffee break.

Re: Defunding Police

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 3:56 am
by Gary Childress
RCSaunders wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 2:20 am
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 1:49 am Sounds like a Norman Rockwell painting.

Whatever happened to those days, they are unfortunately gone. These days we have pretty rampant crime. You can't leave a lawnmower sitting out in the yard overnight without it getting carted off by someone. And I live in a relatively decent neighborhood on the far outskirts of the city. Defunding police doesn't sound very realistic to me, not these days.

As far as "no police", maybe you lived in a time of greater social cohesion. These days people are very individualistic and more isolated. they don't go to church or the bowling alley to socialize as much, and when they go to the barbershop, they generally don't stick around and chat a whole lot. It's not exactly the Andy Griffith show with Floyd the barber anymore. It's a shame. Something happened to our society to change it to what it is today. I'm not sure what, though.
There's a reason for the change but it's unlikely what you would believe it is, but I cannot go into it now. So I just have one comment about this:
These days we have pretty rampant crime. You can't leave a lawnmower sitting out in the yard overnight without it getting carted off by someone. And I live in a relatively decent neighborhood on the far outskirts of the city. Defunding police doesn't sound very realistic to me, not these days.
So, what are the police doing. Obviously they aren't stopping the crime. Do you own a gun, Gary? (Please do not answer that question here. No one else needs to know.) If you wait for the police to protect you or your property, it's not going to happen. When seconds count, the police are only minutes away, and if you call them, I guarantee you will be sorry. You have no idea how much trouble they can make for you no matter how innocent you are, especially if you call them during their coffee break.
I'm curious about what the reason is for how our society is today so I'll wait for your response on that before posting further in our conversation.

Re: Defunding Police

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 5:29 am
by Gary Childress
Elsewhere in BLM news, we whites are apparently genetic "defects", "sub-human" (sorry that's "sub-humxn", we can't say "man" anymore) and could be wiped out if black people really wanted to do so.

https://torontosun.com/2017/02/11/black ... cfe73d1e52

I guess two wrongs really do make a right? :oops:

Re: Defunding Police

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 12:07 pm
by Sculptor
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 11:49 am
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 5:29 am Elsewhere in BLM news, we whites are apparently genetic "defects", "sub-human" (sorry that's "sub-humxn", we can't say "man" anymore) and could be wiped out if black people really wanted to do so.

https://torontosun.com/2017/02/11/black ... cfe73d1e52

I guess two wrongs really do make a right? :oops:
She's a classic wanker. Wankers have taken over the asylum.
No - its defective white supremacists, like you that are in charge of the asylum, sadly

A few black activists might be crazy as bat shit, but they are pissing in the wind, she ain't "in charge", and you know it. But she is saying nothing more than many whites have been saying about blacks for a thousand years.

Re: Defunding Police

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 2:20 pm
by Gary Childress
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 12:07 pm
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 11:49 am
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 5:29 am Elsewhere in BLM news, we whites are apparently genetic "defects", "sub-human" (sorry that's "sub-humxn", we can't say "man" anymore) and could be wiped out if black people really wanted to do so.

https://torontosun.com/2017/02/11/black ... cfe73d1e52

I guess two wrongs really do make a right? :oops:
She's a classic wanker. Wankers have taken over the asylum.
No - its defective white supremacists, like you that are in charge of the asylum, sadly

A few black activists might be crazy as bat shit, but they are pissing in the wind, she ain't "in charge", and you know it. But she is saying nothing more than many whites have been saying about blacks for a thousand years.
Why do you say Veg is a white-supremacist? I don't think I've ever seen her post anything even remotely like whites being superior to black people. In fact, I'd say it's more like the opposite--that she's as much for justice and equality as any other progressive person.

Re: Defunding Police

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 3:27 pm
by Gary Childress
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 12:07 pm A few black activists might be crazy as bat shit, but they are pissing in the wind, she ain't "in charge", and you know it. But she is saying nothing more than many whites have been saying about blacks for a thousand years.
I suppose you are right. But it's a bit unnerving to hear talk like that.

Re: Defunding Police

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 3:48 pm
by RCSaunders
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 5:29 am Elsewhere in BLM news, we whites are apparently genetic "defects", "sub-human" (sorry that's "sub-humxn", we can't say "man" anymore) and could be wiped out if black people really wanted to do so.

https://torontosun.com/2017/02/11/black ... cfe73d1e52

I guess two wrongs really do make a right? :oops:
Two thoughts:

1. What anyone associated with BLM, or any other radical political, "movement," says does not matter at all. What matters is that anyone is stupid enough to listen to anything they say as though the rantings of two-year-olds should be taken seriously. If the world was not full of idiots who live for sensation and are gullible enough to fall for every lie they are told, BLM would be the obvious irrelevant trash they really are.

2. I have never understood racism. I do not mean I do not know what it is or how it is manifest, I mean I cannot even imagine what goes on in the mind of someone who is racist. I have long believed one of the worst aspects of racism is the irrational separation of individuals according to some people's view of difference. Except for that false separation, so-called inter-racial marriage would have prevailed and today there would be no way to differentiate individuals by means of superficial genetic differences. If everyone were a mongrel, like me, racial prejudice would be impossible. Human beings, being predominantly idiots, would find other things to base their irrational prejudices on, but at least racism would be eliminated.

Re: Defunding Police

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 4:10 pm
by Gary Childress
RCSaunders wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 3:48 pm
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 5:29 am Elsewhere in BLM news, we whites are apparently genetic "defects", "sub-human" (sorry that's "sub-humxn", we can't say "man" anymore) and could be wiped out if black people really wanted to do so.

https://torontosun.com/2017/02/11/black ... cfe73d1e52

I guess two wrongs really do make a right? :oops:
1. What anyone associated with BLM, or any other radical political, "movement," says does not matter at all.
Yes. I suppose that is also true.

Re: Defunding Police

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 6:41 pm
by RCSaunders
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 3:56 am
RCSaunders wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 2:20 am
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 1:49 am Sounds like a Norman Rockwell painting.

Whatever happened to those days, they are unfortunately gone. These days we have pretty rampant crime. You can't leave a lawnmower sitting out in the yard overnight without it getting carted off by someone. And I live in a relatively decent neighborhood on the far outskirts of the city. Defunding police doesn't sound very realistic to me, not these days.

As far as "no police", maybe you lived in a time of greater social cohesion. These days people are very individualistic and more isolated. they don't go to church or the bowling alley to socialize as much, and when they go to the barbershop, they generally don't stick around and chat a whole lot. It's not exactly the Andy Griffith show with Floyd the barber anymore. It's a shame. Something happened to our society to change it to what it is today. I'm not sure what, though.
There's a reason for the change but it's unlikely what you would believe it is, but I cannot go into it now. So I just have one comment about this:
These days we have pretty rampant crime. You can't leave a lawnmower sitting out in the yard overnight without it getting carted off by someone. And I live in a relatively decent neighborhood on the far outskirts of the city. Defunding police doesn't sound very realistic to me, not these days.
So, what are the police doing. Obviously they aren't stopping the crime. Do you own a gun, Gary? (Please do not answer that question here. No one else needs to know.) If you wait for the police to protect you or your property, it's not going to happen. When seconds count, the police are only minutes away, and if you call them, I guarantee you will be sorry. You have no idea how much trouble they can make for you no matter how innocent you are, especially if you call them during their coffee break.
I'm curious about what the reason is for how our society is today so I'll wait for your response on that before posting further in our conversation.
I'm afraid I have given you a very wrong impression of the city in which I grew up. I'll just add that it was hardly a country town. It was a major industrial city, Peabody, Massachusetts, culturally varied and very sophisticated, with many millionaires and a very large laboring middle class. It was named for America's most famous philanthropist of the time, George Peabody.

I wrote a long series of fourteen articles around 2007 entitled, "Marxist Revolution of the West" which explored the entire question of the demise of Western civilization, and that was not a complete explanation. I can hardly explain the loss of civilized culture in a couple of paragraphs.

I will say this, the level of civilization of any society is determined entirely by the level of integrity of the individuals that make up that society. The difference in the highly civilized nature of the culture of the city I grew up in between the forties and fifties and what that society (and most societies of today) is the kind individuals that made up those societies. Any society is whatever the individuals that make up that society are, so, what changed is the kind of people who populated the city of my youth, and the kind of people who populate the world today.

From the third article in the series I mentioned, "Characteristics of Civilized People," I described the kind of people I grew up surrounded by. I named six specific characteristics: Independence, Ambition, Courteousy, Decency, and Privacy, and I explained them.

So briefly:

If there was one characteristic that distinguished people of the fifties from people of today, it was their independence. Self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and competence were virtues individuals pursued in their own lives and admired in others. ... They recognized a person's life is their own to be lived as they chose, but that the individual was responsible for that life, both to support it and to bear the consequences of how it was lived.

Not being able to "stand on one's own two feet" and to support one's self and one's family was considered a disgrace. Though people in the 50s were incredibly generous and would leap to help someone whom circumstances had knocked down through no fault of their own, most would do anything rather than take someone else's help, and would work to get themselves back on their own feet and to repay anyone who had helped them.

Their lives were marked by ambition, and an almost insatiable desire to accomplish things, from improving their work to improving their homes to improving their minds, they were always doing something productive.

The word polite has the same root as polished and one definition of polite is civilized. "Please," "Thank you," and "excuse me," salt and peppered everyone's conversation in the 50s. Children were taught, "manners," and were required to be courteous, which included never addressing an adult by their first name, saying "yes, Sir," and "no, Ma'am," and making requests in the form, "may I please ...?"

Courtesy is not conforming to social convention and not a limit to free speech. It is the conscious recognition of the dignity and privacy of others, an affirmation of their personhood and their value as individual human beings. Those who have not lived in a courteous age seem to have the impression it was stiff and formal and in some way restricting, but in fact, it was the opposite. Common courtesy made social relationships much easier because people knew the appropriate way to interact and deal with one another and the words appropriate to polite conversation came to the lips of the well-mannered with all the ease and naturalness with which the vilest profanities fill the mouths of today's ignorant and ill-mannered louts.

That nowadays rare word, "decency," is often associated with sexual behavior or dress, but its meaning, as applied to the people of the fifties, is much broader than that. It's meaning has to do with another word rarely used these days, "propriety," which, like courtesy, is mistaken for some kind of social conformity, but in fact means that which is appropriate to human beings, that is, to civilized human beings. Civilized human beings do not eat with their hands or perform certain bodily functions in public, for example.

The decency of the fifties came from a sense, if not explicitly than implicitly, of what was proper to beings who have grasped the importance and necessity of principles and values—principles by which one understands the purpose and meaning of life; values by which one descerns the difference between the vices that are a waste of that life and the virtues by which it is lived successfully and happily. This was the source of the vitality that dominated the fifties, the belief that life is worth living and living well, because there are things worth living for, things with real meaning and importance, things one can love and give themselves to totally, things one can hold sacred and revere. The view of life in the 50s was one of infinite possibilities in a world where anything could be achieved by anyone willing to make the effort, and the certainty that a life of such potential was worth taking seriously.

Privacy is the hallmark of a civilized society. One gauge of the level of civilization in any society is the degree of individual privacy chosen and enjoyed by it's citizens.

It is difficult to imagine, if one has not experienced it, what that sense of privacy that dominated the 50s was like. People were jealous of their privacy which they regarded a recognition of one's own being as an independent individual. To have one's own privacy violated or to violate another's was tantamount to physical assault. One's thoughts, one's body, one's business were their own, to be shared or not by their own choice. People minded their own business, and expected others to mind theirs—it was part of their decency. A person's private affairs were just that; intimacy had a real meaning and had to be earned; one only shared the most private aspects of their life with those whom they loved and who had earned it.

The regard people had for other's privacy came from a profound respect for other's integrity and individuality, the unquestioned sense that others owned their lives, as one owned their own.

Those are some of the things that were different between the people of the fifties and the people of today. I might have mentioned honesty, personal integrity, and a high sense of what was really important and what was not. I know you'll want to know why people are different today, but I cannot tell you. I know others who have those values today, although there are fewer and fewer of them every day. People choose what they are. You'll have to ask them why they have chosen to be what I regard as subhuman.

Re: Defunding Police

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 7:40 pm
by vegetariantaxidermy
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 2:20 pm
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 12:07 pm
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 11:49 am

She's a classic wanker. Wankers have taken over the asylum.
No - its defective white supremacists, like you that are in charge of the asylum, sadly

A few black activists might be crazy as bat shit, but they are pissing in the wind, she ain't "in charge", and you know it. But she is saying nothing more than many whites have been saying about blacks for a thousand years.
Why do you say Veg is a white-supremacist? I don't think I've ever seen her post anything even remotely like whites being superior to black people. In fact, I'd say it's more like the opposite--that she's as much for justice and equality as any other progressive person.
Sculptor is under the delusion that he's intellectually superior to everyone on here, and when his idiocy is exposed he lashes out--as all PC religious fanatics do. You are the one who is spot on.

Re: Defunding Police

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 9:02 pm
by commonsense
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 7:40 pm Sculptor is under the delusion that he's intellectually superior to everyone on here, and when his idiocy is exposed he lashes out--as all PC religious fanatics do. You are the one who is spot on.
Veg, ad hom’s are so much beneath you, as you are a person with so much more to say (not that I ever agree with it). Besides, personal attacks make it look like the attacker has run out of intelligent arguments to make.

Re: Defunding Police

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 10:57 pm
by Gary Childress
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 4:28 pm
Gary Childress wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 2:20 pm
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 12:07 pm
No - its defective white supremacists, like you that are in charge of the asylum, sadly

A few black activists might be crazy as bat shit, but they are pissing in the wind, she ain't "in charge", and you know it. But she is saying nothing more than many whites have been saying about blacks for a thousand years.
Why do you say Veg is a white-supremacist? I don't think I've ever seen her post anything even remotely like whites being superior to black people. In fact, I'd say it's more like the opposite--that she's as much for justice and equality as any other progressive person.
She's a closet racist. With delusions that black people are in charge.
Well, you must have powers of perception that I don't. I don't know what goes on in the "closet" of people's minds. So I try not to speculate other than give them the benefit of the doubt. And what does believing black people are in charge have to do with "white supremacy"? I would think supremacy would be indicative of the opposite belief.

Re: Defunding Police

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 12:02 am
by vegetariantaxidermy
commonsense wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 9:02 pm
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 7:40 pm Sculptor is under the delusion that he's intellectually superior to everyone on here, and when his idiocy is exposed he lashes out--as all PC religious fanatics do. You are the one who is spot on.
Veg, ad hom’s are so much beneath you, as you are a person with so much more to say (not that I ever agree with it). Besides, personal attacks make it look like the attacker has run out of intelligent arguments to make.
How is that an 'ad hom'? It's all true. How is him calling me a 'white supremacist' not offensive and insulting? Sculptor feels that he is way above having to argue rationally and logically--like all of his ilk. Why do you think they shriek 'racist' and 'bigot' every time someone backs them into a corner with a vastly superior argument? It's because they have nothing.