But Seriously...

I'm not saying these guys aren't dumb asses, they shouldn't have been there in the first place. If you're not there to help/support, stay the hell away because nothing good will come from it, as this proves.

However, they were standing across the street from a public protest taking video. That's all I've seen in any of the videos BLM themselves have posted online, they were off by themselves taking pictures.

For this they were assaulted. As they tried to retreat, they were assaulted again. As they were retreating yet again, the attackers kept after them. You're not allowed to do that.

And that's not just my take on the events, this timeline comes courtesy of two of the people involved in the attack.

IF the dumb asses were legally carrying, they have a very viable self defense claim.

 

Hey look a strawman! The problem with your response is simple: Motivation. The students do not have the same motivations or goals as the people who enacted Jim Crow laws (or Slavery, or Black Codes or cultural erasure or the KKK). There is not a belief that black people are better, white people are lesser, or it is disgusting for dirty dirty white people to drink out of the same fountains. That doesn't exist. There is a zero percent chance that it can go any further. America is a country controlled by white people (financially), white leaders (House, Senate, Governors, military, police forces etc...but yeah Obama blah blah blah) and nothing like that will ever happen. The slippery slope argument does not apply here, it's impossible. Even more importantly it is not what the students want or any black/minority person wants.

Yes these students are shouting shit at people and acting like assholes because they're angry. They are asking for safe spaces because they're angry and afraid. They are angry, afraid and confused because they just got done studying about 300 years of Slavery, 66 years of Black Codes, 96 years of Jim Crow laws, 50 years of Civil Rights, 30 years of the War on Drugs and 20 years of Rodney King to Trayvon Martin to Eric Garner to now LaQuan McDonald, while at the same time a white drug dealer caught with an illegal pharmacy is called adorable by the media. They are terrified is that this shit started when boats were made out of wood and is still going on as we land robots on Mars. They are absolutely baffled, beyond all comprehension that there are still people who just think they need to shut up, go home because there is nothing wrong, and nothing to see here. No idea what they think about how people can take all of the above and think asking for safe spaces is the exact same thing. Probably ridiculous.

Also "Déjà vu is caused by erroneous familiarity and déjà vécu (the feeling of having "already lived through" something) by erroneous recollection." Yep, that answers that.

 

It's .001% of our timeline overall since slavery started is what it is. Everything else in that sentence "There is a zero percent chance that it can go any further. America is a country controlled by white people (financially), white leaders (House, Senate, Governors, military, police forces etc...but yeah Obama blah blah blah) and nothing like that will ever happen." has been true since this countries inception, and will be true with the exception of being 99.999 true for 8 years. Then it goes back to it 100%.

 

This is a great article for many reasons, the primary one is that there is a lot of room for discussion here. First let's strip down the narrative aspects of one concept before getting into the bigger picture narrative/opinion stuff. That is the concept of opportunity vs denied opportunity. This last year, there was a big conversation about not a lot of black people playing baseball, it didn't become a big thing because of a very simple question. Does baseball not appeal to black people at it's core OR are black people being prevented from playing baseball? It's unfair to say that there is racism in baseball if black people just don't want to play professional baseball. It's even harder to say that when there are quite a few Hispanic and Latin players who look black that are playing baseball. Now when that question is applied it to women in tech/engineering or black people in investment banking, it becomes interesting. Anytime something like this comes the question that has to be asked is "How many of X group wants to join Z group, but can't because of prejudice/racism/sexism?" I'm not going to look it up for Yale, but in fields of education this has been a topic of professors of certain races not getting tenure vs. getting tenure.

Now there needs to be a diversity of thought and freedom of speech/thought in this country. Every idea is a hard rock that can sharpen other ideas to create the best idea. The issue is when you start talking about the ideas. What is getting lost in this argument is the value of the ideas that create diversity. If there are people who like dogs, they shouldn't be able to silence those who like cats. One of those does not affect the other. Dogs and cats interact beautifully.

But, if there is a group that is pro-Slavery and a group that is pro-Freedom, it is very hard to ask for a diversity of thought because one directly impacts the other. It's hard truly support one group that says 'Hey, we're not getting to say our opinion, we're getting bullied here.' when they have historically bullied the other group. [Incoming Exaggeration] Group A thinks murdering people for no reason i no big deal. Group B thinks it is wrong, and is oppressing Group A...is that really a problem? Do we need to invite Group A to speak their mind to have diversity of thought? Every idea can't be right, because that means nothing is right.

Now to be more concrete about this as that blog is starting "The Problem" is that academics is taken a very liberal turn and non-liberals are getting discriminated against in various ways. The flip side of that is that non-liberals/conservatives have been associated with (italics to be clear it's a current strong association, not stating it is 100% fact or true) with positions/beliefs that negatively impact the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness when it comes to other parties. If non-liberals voicing their opinion, discriminates against or harms liberals in anyway, is silencing Group A actual discrimination? The answer to that depends on if liberals start opening up what is considered discrimination and harms them, which is a very fair and possible fear. It's impossible to have a real conversation about this because non-liberals have been directly or indirectly shitting on liberals for the last few centuries. Now liberals are pushing back and now non-liberals feels discriminated against, silenced or whatever. How does this ever come to something that's fair?

TL;DR - Arguing about diversity of thought when all of the thoughts are not equal to everyone or fair is the wrong way to look at the current situation. We should be examining the thoughts that aren't being accepted and discuss why.

 

What I am talking about is if this moronic idea gains traction and society at large picks up the banner and runs with it. You think the students will still control where it goes from there? C'mon, you are smarter than that, look at our Government, there are too many examples of things that start out with good intentions and then go off the rails. This is talking about limiting peoples freedom of movement/thought/speech and it is ludicrous to even think that way. You say the slippery slope doesn't apply, I disagree. I never underestimate the incompetence of Government, I spend too much time around it to ever underestimate it. By calling my statements a strawman and then repeating yourself, you really aren't providing a good explanation as to why safe spaces are a good idea. I'm not seeing it. Why would the law give preferential treatment to people of color for hurt feelings?

They are angry about 300 years of slavery, 96 years of Jim Crow.....they are angry about the past without seeing what progress has been made. Nobody apparently teaches them that slavery didn't happen only in Africa and that it still goes on today? That's great, we are producing a whole generation of kids without any frame of reference, only that it is so bad here. Well, that is patently not true and people who argue that are woefully misinformed. To compare the plight of people of color in the times when boats were made of wood to modern people of color in America is laughable. Are things great now? No, people of color are better off here than anywhere else in the world. Here's the part where I could be a dick and use SJW-Fu and say that to state otherwise is offensive, self-centered and disgusting because you further marginalize women held in sexual bondage as well as other groups around the world who are much less free than American people of color because they are being excluded from the slavery discussion.....but I would never argue like that.

That brings me to a question and something to consider: What are the stated goals of these protests? What outcome are they looking for? Is there one? Surely they must want something beyond safe spaces. Don't try to tell me this is about opening up a dialogue either because that is nonsense and all we do is continue to sit and spin. What do they want? Or what is their solution to the problem you are presenting? The reason I ask is not to be argumentative, to the contrary really, I do this for a living. In Engineering and many other businesses you don't go to those in control and say there is a problem, that is whining. You go to them and say here is the problem and here is the proposed solution and explain what the ramifications are and what it will take to implement the solution.

 

I didn't know this before and had to hear it on a podcast, but that article that Net linked, with the snapping of fingers, people do that because clapping is apparently a micro aggression. Not even joking a bit. I'm sorry, but you can't have a rational conversation, debate, coming together of ideas with people like that. It's never going to happen.

It's simple. They want everything and nothing less. Regardless of what they "get" it will never be enough. Their mindset is just as bad as any other radical group that wants to convert every person to the their way of life. Anything less is unacceptable.

 

I actually just read an article about this today; I'm trying to find it. (EDIT - Found it) But basically some of the overall goals are this:

1. Comprehensive accounting and tracking of all instances of civilian homicides committed by law enforcement to include cause of death (firearm, tazer, etc), circumstances (was the victim armed, etc) and demographic information of those involved. This tracking by departments would be mandatory and submitted to a national database.

2. Better training for law enforcement, with emphasis on mediation and conflict de-escalation.

3. State-level, independent investigations of LE committed homicides, which will have authority to press and prosecute charges against LE if appropriate.

4. Mandatory video recording of police interactions with civilians as well as laws that protect citizens' rights to record police in public.

On a more local level, many of the protests have demands specific to the incident they're protesting against. In Minneapolis they're protesting because they want the police footage of Jamar Clark's death released.

 

What you're saying here is pretty much the issue I had with Haidt's article. He says, "Schools that value freedom of thought should therefore actively seek out non-leftist faculty, and they should explicitly include viewpoint diversity and political diversity in all statements about diversity and discrimination." but does that go both ways? Should institutions such as Liberty University be compelled to hire faculty who are pro-choice and ensure pro-choice or gay marriage arguments get equal airtime? And when they refuse, how do you address that? Because personally, I'm not going to support any forum where one side has to be inclusive of other viewpoints but another side gets to be exclusionary.

 

Easy. Stop teaching dogmatic shit to college aged kids. It infects ever part of our society when we are instilling the type of thinking that "My opinion is right and everyone else is not" into generation after generation of people.

 

And I ask again, what was the problem to begin with? Slavery and Jim Crow laws they never lived through doesn't cut it. We have a weird guy making a swastika with poop, and a blatant liar saying someone off campus yelled slurs at him while driving by. The BLM movement has really danced around the line of reasonable protests, but at least they have some pretty awful shit to point towards. Whether it's flagrant racism, whether some of those victims did or didn't earn a bullet is debatable, but there's at least some cases that were downright inexcusable. These college kids are just full shit.

 

I just want to address this for a minute, because this is exactly what the political right and conservatives have been doing since Fox News came into existence. They find news outlets or political communities online that reinforce their beliefs, and then never leave that bubble. When they do, arguments start and shit goes down.

Now, it seems like liberals saw that and went "oh, fuck, we can do that!?" And started doing it themselves. Now we have two sides living in bubbles, or safe spaces, and of course they're going to constantly clash. Unless both sides see their bubbles and safe spaces go away, no real discussion will ever happen. Everyone will stay on their side and shout at the other, while the people in the middle give them both the finger and walk away.

This isn't to bash conservatives, it is to say that this isn't some new phenomenon. It's existed for years, only on one side. Now, people with a more conservative bent (who didn't really think they were in a bubble, cause once it exists it is hard to see it when you're in it) are seeing the other side do the same thing they've been doing for a decade, and they're calling foul. Both sides are wrong to insulate themselves from any possible dissenting opinion, I just find it interesting that it's only becoming an issue NOW when it has existed for a long time.

 

It's amusing how this whole topic of conversation boils down to people relentlessly whining about having to listen and care and think about the other people's opinion while simultaneously berating them for not wanting to have to listen and care and think about other people's opinions.

 

Question: Now that Chicago has released the video of the shooting of Laquan Howard, how do they get a jury of non biased jurors?

I mean, from the looks of the video the only real question is death or life in prison without parole. I really can't fathom any other outcome.

And second, how could they sit on this for a year without doing something? Is the Chicago PD really that corrupt?

 

I think it only points to that. This killing happened over a year ago, and only now after a court-ordered video release they decide to charge him? That's not a coincidence, they were obviously doing everything they could to squirm out of this.

Guaranteed if the video wasn't released they wouldn't be charging him at all. Hell, that video was released of the cop CLEARLY murdering that kid in his car and he isn't being charged, so who knows.