US Politics: Stamping out Chauvinism

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Still trying to understand when you consider lethal force justified.

I'm not a professional, so it's difficult to come up with a general rule. But "when it doesn't make things worse than they already are" seems like a decent start.

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Is this case also a police failure? He only had a knife, and had only killed one police officer. Shouldn't several police be able to apprehend him without killing him?

I wasn't there and have no footage to look at (thankfully, too), so I can't say. But if police officers had a chance to stop the attacker without killing him, they certainly should have tried. The police's job is to neutralize violent criminals, not to execute them. And as far as would-be terrorists are concerned, it's a pretty good idea to capture them alive whenever possible in order to obtain information that can help prevent other attacks.

It should be easy to see how any theory of justice that justifies police officers executing civilians when they are a threat to others will result in a lot of unnecessary deaths. That split-second decisions can be correct does not change the fact that they can just as easily be wrong. Thus, training that gives multiple shots to the chest as the best way to neutralize a violent person seems terribly flawed to me: the number of tragic mistakes will surely end up being larger than the number of cases in which the immediate death of the aggressor was absolutely necessary. Was it even the case here? Does anyone seriously believe that Bryant would have remained standing and managed to stab her victim if she'd taken those shots to the leg instead? Wouldn't a 16-year-old girl immediately drop to the ground screaming? I know some people can be shot and continue whatever it is they were doing, but I find it hard to believe that any random person can do that, at least not if it is their first time.

I'm curious now. Does the police's readiness to use lethal force actually make anyone here feel safer? Does anyone believe that police officers giving themselves seconds to judge a situation before shooting to kill really helps in most situations?
Isn't that the very thing that people here vocally reject on a regular basis? Bryant's death is what happens when the training works. Is it so easy to be ok with it?

[Varysblackfyre321]

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I wasn't there and have no footage to look at (thankfully, too), so I can't say. But if police officers had a chance to stop the attacker without killing him, they certainly should have tried. The police's job is to neutralize violent criminals, not to execute them. And as far as would-be terrorists are concerned, it's a pretty good idea to capture them alive whenever possible in order to obtain information that can help prevent other attacks.

The police’s primary job need be protecting the civilians the violent criminal is being violent against to in a proportionate manner.

Sometimes that manner is going to include lethal force.

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

It should be easy to see how any theory of justice that justifies police officers executing civilians when they are a threat to others will result in a lot of unnecessary deaths.

I find this blanket condemnation towards using any lethal force in any context the exact opposite unreasonable extreme to allowing them to kill whoever breaks a law.

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

That split-second decisions can be correct does not change the fact that they can just as easily be wrong.

Sure, but that doesn’t mean condemn the right decisions as you would the wrong ones.

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Thus, training that gives multiple shots to the chest as the best way to neutralize a violent person seems terribly flawed to me: the number of tragic mistakes will surely end up being larger than the number of cases in which the immediate death of the aggressor was absolutely necessary.

A violent person who was on the cusp of possibly murdering someone else through stabbing or cutting them with a knife.

Getting cut or stabbed with a knife can really dangerous. I feel frustrated having to repeat this but I feel I must given the attempts of others to downplay the severity of the situation.

The option that gives the greater chance of saving the person under the threat of being murdered is the option that’s preferable to be taken.

Yes, the officer could have shot at Bryant’s legs—and had lower chance of actually hitting than if he shot at her chest.

Yes, he could shot only once at her chest—and a decrease his actual chance of hitting her again or stopping her.

The safety of her potential murder victim need be given priority here.

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I'm curious now. Does the police's readiness to use lethal force actually make anyone here feel safer? Does anyone believe that police officers giving themselves seconds to judge a situation before shooting to kill really helps in most situations?
Isn't that the very thing that people here vocally reject on a regular basis? Bryant's death is what happens when the training works. Is it so easy to be ok with it?

Feel or actually be? 
I would not feel safer if I was in the woman/girl Bryant was about to stab, and the police officer opted for the route that put my life at the greatest risk.

The police officer here wasn’t giving himself seconds to judge the situation. He was given a situation where there were only seconds.

In this thread after the 6th riot there weren’t hard tears shed for the woman whom a policeman shot.

There were no great talks on how the police could have just tried shooting the fascist(and she was indeed a fachist like all q-nuts.) on how maybe in the few seconds he was given to react he could have just tried tackling the woman, or aiming just towards her legs whilst she lead a mob that could have potentially lynched congress.

I don’t believe Bryant’s shooting wouldn’t be nearly seen as egregious on here by some if she was a 16 year old white boy trying to stab a BLM activist.

There would be no attempts towards framing a knife attack as less deadly than it was.

People’s biases here seem to getting to rush to condemn the justified shooting of a black teenager by a white cop as they would rush to condemn actually unjustified shootings of black teenager by a white cop.

[Zorral]

27 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

he could have just tried tackling the woman, or aiming just towards her legs whilst she lead a mob

Those words alone show you are comparing apples and oranges in no useful sense. You keep ignoring how the stats show far more often cops killing people than civilians killing cops, and how far more often cops are killing unarmed people than people who are armed.  This woman btw, was surrounded by armed people who were literally attacking defenders of the Capitol all around them.  To invoke that as a comparison is so low you should be ashamed.

 

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

On 4/22/2021 at 6:19 PM, karaddin said:

I'm sure plenty of people are focusing on the individual officer, but my focus at least has consistently been on the policies and training that instruct cops to take this course of action. As such, 

I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I recognize your issue with the police officer’s training and it prompts officers to act in the way that this one did.

I’m saying you’re grievance with a cop multiple shots at center mass towards actively threatening the life of someone else is unreasonable.

4 hours ago, Zorral said:

Those words alone show you are comparing apples and oranges in no useful sense. You keep ignoring how the stats show far more often cops killing people than civilians killing cops, and how far more often cops are killing unarmed people than people who are armed.  This woman btw, was surrounded by armed people who were literally attacking defenders of the Capitol all around them.  To invoke that as a comparison is so low you should be ashamed.

 

 

My point was very simple; it’s okay for cops to use lethal force against an individual actively threatening the lives of others.
I’m sure the girl or woman in pink is relieved the cop prioritized protecting her than the person who could have ended her life.

Bryant’s death is not an example the police shooting an unarmed black teen in a situation that could have been deescalated by them before shots were fired.

 

[Fez]

Weird story in the Washington Post this morning that I don't know what to make of, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/04/24/pentagon-internet-address-mystery/

Quote

 

While the world was distracted with President Donald Trump leaving office on Jan. 20, an obscure Florida company discreetly announced to the world’s computer networks a startling development: It now was managing a huge unused swath of the Internet that, for several decades, had been owned by the U.S. military.

What happened next was stranger still.

The company, Global Resource Systems LLC, kept adding to its zone of control. Soon it had claimed 56 million IP addresses owned by the Pentagon. Three months later, the total was nearly 175 million. That’s almost 6 percent of a coveted traditional section of Internet real estate — called IPv4 — where such large chunks are worth billions of dollars on the open market.

The entities controlling the largest swaths of the Internet generally are telecommunications giants whose names are familiar: AT&T, China Telecom, Verizon. But now at the top of the list was Global Resource Systems — a company founded only in September that has no publicly reported federal contracts and no obvious public-facing website.

 

It doesn't sound like a last minute Trump corruption story, since the process has continued for the past 3 months, and also later in the story a Pentagon spokesperson confirms that DoD still owns all the addresses. But the timing of this, starting the morning of January 20, seems really strange.  Later in the story:

Quote

 

Brett Goldstein, the DDS’s director, said in a statement that his unit had authorized a “pilot effort” publicizing the IP space owned by the Pentagon.

“This pilot will assess, evaluate and prevent unauthorized use of DoD IP address space,” Goldstein said. “Additionally, this pilot may identify potential vulnerabilities.”

Goldstein described the project as one of the Defense Department’s “many efforts focused on continually improving our cyber posture and defense in response to advanced persistent threats. We are partnering throughout DoD to ensure potential vulnerabilities are mitigated.”

The specifics of what the effort is trying to achieve remain unclear. The Defense Department declined to answer a number of questions about the project, and Pentagon officials declined to say why Goldstein’s unit had used a little-known Florida company to carry out the pilot effort rather than have the Defense Department itself “announce” the addresses through BGP messages — a far more routine approach.

What is clear, however, is the Global Resource Systems announcements directed a fire hose of Internet traffic toward the Defense Department addresses. Madory said his monitoring showed the broad movements of Internet traffic began immediately after the IP addresses were announced Jan. 20.

So something very big and very vague is happening to the internet.

[Week]

12 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

People’s biases here seem to getting to rush to condemn the justified shooting of a black teenager by a white cop as they would rush to condemn actually unjustified shootings of black teenager by a white cop.

Biased against officers of the state killing children is the consistent thread that seems to be confusing to you. Justified or unjustified - per warped logic and legal framework* - is irrelevant.

The police have zero credibility nation-wide. The certitude of the justifiable use of deadly force comes off as on the border of bloodthirsty. 

*Which includes qualifies immunity, no knock raids, lifetime sentences without parole for minors, solitary confinement**, and plenty of other abhorrent practices that are 'legal' and lack moral and ethical justification.

**To which Chauvin has apparently been subjected to for 23/24 hours in a day. An evil man but such punishment is cruel and unusual. Like much of our law enforcement system.

[Fragile Bird]

44 minutes ago, Week said:

Biased against officers of the state killing children is the consistent thread that seems to be confusing to you. Justified or unjustified - per warped logic and legal framework* - is irrelevant.

The police have zero credibility nation-wide. The certitude of the justifiable use of deadly force comes off as on the border of bloodthirsty. 

*Which includes qualifies immunity, no knock raids, lifetime sentences without parole for minors, solitary confinement**, and plenty of other abhorrent practices that are 'legal' and lack moral and ethical justification.

**To which Chauvin has apparently been subjected to for 23/24 hours in a day. An evil man but such punishment is cruel and unusual. Like much of our law enforcement system.

A few weeks ago (I think, time has no meaning, lol) I heard an interview on the CBC with a man who had gone with buddies to rob a store when they were all 14 or 15. He did shoot someone, that person did not die, and iirc, forgave him and eventually helped him get out of jail. But he was a kid, convicted, sent to penitentiary when he was 15, was mouthy to guard, got severely punished, still had a mouth, so he was put in solitary for 8 or 10 years, in a cell smaller than my small bathroom.

Perhaps someone knows this story? How he survived is stunning.

[Zorral]

54 minutes ago, Week said:

*Which includes qualifies immunity, no knock raids, lifetime sentences without parole for minors, solitary confinement**, and plenty of other abhorrent practices that are 'legal' and lack moral and ethical justification.

For which we, the public, literally pay.  How much of tax payers', local municipal citizens' money, has gone in the last, well, let's just say, last 50 years -- a half century! -- to settle cases of cops doing everything from breaking into people's homes, manhandling and even killing them, arresting them, destroying their property, because they got the wrong address, or it turned out the charge was a false?  How much money has been paid out to settle cases for false arrest. excessive force, murder, and many other actions cops have committed, in that time?  And how many cases never got to court, never even got filed due to people being too lacking in resources to even bring a case?

We the people suffer from this 'keeping us safe.'

[DanteGabriel]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

For which we, the public, literally pay.  How much of tax payers', local municipal citizens' money, has gone in the last, well, let's just say, last 50 years -- a half century! -- to settle cases of cops doing everything from breaking into people's homes, manhandling and even killing them, arresting them, destroying their property, because they got the wrong address, or it turned out the charge was a false?  How much money has been paid out to settle cases for false arrest. excessive force, murder, and many other actions cops have committed, in that time?  And how many cases never got to court, never even got filed due to people being too lacking in resources to even bring a case?

We the people suffer from this 'keeping us safe.'

I've said this before, but if police brutality settlements came out of the local union's pension fund instead of the taxes paid by the very people the cops terrorize, then you might actually find some cops willing to police each other.

ETA: Damn I thought this was in the new police thread. I didn't want to continue the cop discussion in US Politics.

[Myshkin]

Man, the conservosphere really hates California. They have declared it a failed state, a la Venezuela. Which is weird, because I live in California and it doesn’t seem to be a failed socialist state to me. They also think California has “signed its own death warrant” because Gavin Newsom wants to phase out fracking over the next few years. And for some reason they seem pretty sure that Newsom is going to start issuing “red meat passports” which will limit Californians to one hamburger per month. And if you think that’s the weirdest thing, you’d be wrong. Conservative Reddit is pretty certain that Caitlyn Jenner only transitioned because she knew she couldn’t win a gubernatorial election in California as a straight, cis, white man (never mind that literally all previous California governors have been straight, cis, white men).

[DireWolfSpirit]

Jenner is a longtime Republican. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

8 hours ago, Fez said:

Quote

 

It doesn't sound like a last minute Trump corruption story, since the process has continued for the past 3 months, and also later in the story a Pentagon spokesperson confirms that DoD still owns all the addresses. But the timing of this, starting the morning of January 20, seems really strange.  

It took place just moments before the end of Trump's term in office.

I was going back to the stories comment section (but hit the paywall) where I had read earlier that the small Florida company was actually owned and controlled by a Trump crony and Republican activist, couldn't retrieve the name because (paywall) article limit thingy.

There's something fishy as hell going on with this, I hope we get more reporting.

[Varysblackfyre321]

2 hours ago, Trishkin said:

Man, the conservosphere really hates California. They have declared it a failed state, a la Venezuela. Which is weird, because I live in California and it doesn’t seem to be a failed socialist state to me. They also think California has “signed its own death warrant” because Gavin Newsom wants to phase out fracking over the next few years. And for some reason they seem pretty sure that Newsom is going to start issuing “red meat passports” which will limit Californians to one hamburger per month. And if you think that’s the weirdest thing, you’d be wrong. Conservative Reddit is pretty certain that Caitlyn Jenner only transitioned because she knew she couldn’t win a gubernatorial election in California as a straight, cis, white man (never mind that literally all previous California governors have been straight, cis, white men).

Newsom apparently also isn’t a straight white man.

In fact we could further say all US President have been gay black transwomen.

 

Seriously they reg on California but are deathly silent on the worst state in terms of unhappiness, poverty, education, wealth, crime being republican controlled.

 

[DMC]

52 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Newsom apparently also isn’t a straight white man.

I don't think the English language has an appropriate term for marrying Kimberly Guilfoyle.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

23 minutes ago, DMC said:

I don't think the English language has an appropriate term for marrying Kimberly Guilfoyle.

Best leave it to the Germans then. 

[ThinkerX]

Update of sorts on the bizarre Pentagon Internet...case...for want of a better term.  The company connected with the IP addresses looks to be a sham, a shell run by a spam artist...maybe.  I keep expecting Trump flunkies and maybe Russians to materialize out of cyberspace on this one....

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-big-pentagon-internet-mystery-now-partially-solved/ar-BB1g0vwF?ocid=ob-fb-enus-580&fbclid=IwAR2AOiC-OteoPMLKaOTgQ9TK_5I5fSXwPQJuzKBK628U1_vXgkHbnRuq3Eg

 

The company did not return phone calls or emails from The Associated Press. It has no web presence, though it has the domain grscorp.com. Its name doesn’t appear on the directory of its Plantation, Florida, domicile, and a receptionist drew a blank when an AP reporter asked for a company representative at the office earlier this month. She found its name on a tenant list and suggested trying email. Records show the company has not obtained a business license in Plantation.

Incorporated in Delaware and registered by a Beverly Hills lawyer, Global Resource Systems LLC now manages more internet space than China Telecom, AT&T or Comcast.

The only name associated with it on the Florida business registry coincides with that of a man listed as recently as 2018 in Nevada corporate records as a managing member of a cybersecurity/internet surveillance equipment company called Packet Forensics. The company had nearly $40 million in publicly disclosed federal contracts over the past decade, with the FBI and the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency among its customers.

That man, Raymond Saulino, is also listed as a principal in a company called Tidewater Laskin Associates, which was incorporated in 2018 and obtained an FCC license in April 2020. It shares the same Virginia Beach, Virginia, address — a UPS store — in corporate records as Packet Forensics. The two have different mailbox numbers. Calls to the number listed on the Tidewater Laskin FCC filing are answered by an automated service that offers four different options but doesn’t connect callers with a single one, recycling all calls to the initial voice recording.

Saulino did not return phone calls seeking comment, and a longtime colleague at Packet Forensics, Rodney Joffe, said he believed Saulino was retired. Joffe, a cybersecurity luminary, declined further comment. Joffe is chief technical officer at Neustar Inc., which provides internet intelligence and services for major industries, including telecommunications and defense.

In 2011, Packet Forensics and Saulino, its spokesman, were featured in a Wired story because the company was selling an appliance to government agencies and law enforcement that let them spy on people’s web browsing using forged security certificates.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

43 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

Something that DMC and Tywin agree upon....truly, the earth has stopped turning.

Lol, we actually agree on most things which makes the disagreements all the more fun. Next Thursday will be interesting. 

[A True Kaniggit]

51 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

Something that DMC and Tywin agree upon....truly, the earth has stopped turning.

We all want to be more like Germany. We just don’t have the pure strength of Will.

[Myshkin]

3 hours ago, DMC said:

I don't think the English language has an appropriate term for marrying Kimberly Guilfoyle.

I can’t read that name without having flashbacks of Junior Trump repeatedly saying “Kimmmmberleh”. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

44 minutes ago, Trishkin said:

I can’t read that name without having flashbacks of Junior Trump repeatedly saying “Kimmmmberleh”. 

 

4 hours ago, DMC said:

I don't think the English language has an appropriate term for marrying Kimberly Guilfoyle.

Thus the appropriate term in the English language is obviously

Mehrying, long may this cursed union, aka the mehriage, last.

If you need your language explained in more detail, just lemme know.