“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
The nation was horrified to learn that a gunman shot and killed two New York City police officers before taking his life in an execution-style ambush in broad daylight in Brooklyn yesterday afternoon.
“It’s clear that this was an assassination,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference Saturday night. “These officers were shot execution-style, a particularly despicable act which goes to the heart of our society and our democracy.”
“It is an attack on all of us,” he added.
“Two brave men won’t be going home to their loved ones tonight, and for that, there is no justification,” President Barack Obama said. “The officers who serve and protect our communities risk their own safety for ours every single day–and they deserve our respect and gratitude every single day.”
Naturally, the attack on the police officers will only serve to heighten tensions in this nation already divided over the response to recent killings of unarmed black men by police officers in Ferguson and Staten Island.
To make matters worse, the gunman had announced his intentions on Instagram to kill the police officers in retribution for the police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.
Al Sharpton on Saturday afternoon released a statement. He said, “I have spoken to the Garner family and we are outraged by the early reports of the police killed in Brooklyn today, Any use of the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, in connection with any violence or killing of police, is reprehensible and against the pursuit of justice in both cases.”
He continued, “We have stressed at every rally and march that anyone engaged in any violence is an enemy to the pursuit of justice for Eric Garner and Michael Brown.”
“We have been criticized at National Action Network for not allowing rhetoric or chanting of violence and would abruptly denounce it at all of our gatherings,” he added. “The Garner family and I have always stressed that we do not believe that all police are bad, in fact we have stressed that most police are not bad.”
There are a lot of lessons we can take from these last few months, but for me, the enduring images of the “hands up, don’t shoot” and “black lives matter” movement are not the burning flames in Ferguson following the Grand Jury decision, nor the brazen yet cowardly act of violence we witnessed yesterday, but the iconic and moving images of people of all walks of life expressing their solidarity for the moment.
The enduring images of the civil rights movement from half a century ago and more are the peaceful protesters who did not fight back when Bull Connor turned his dogs and his fire hoses on them.
It was the unyielding faith in God and a notion of Christian love that imbibed the civil rights movement with its power to change a nation. It was their sense of faith and conviction that allowed them to turn the other cheek as they were beaten and to love their enemy as their adversary tried to break them down and destroy their spirit.
Violence is not power. Violence in fact is used in the place of power when we are at our weakest moments. True power is turning anger and hatred into love and compassion. “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” That is true power.
As President Obama said, “I ask people to reject violence and words that harm and turn to words that heal — prayer, patient dialogue, and sympathy for the friends and family of the fallen.”
We have now come to a crossroads. We can use this moment to come together for common purpose — to reject violence and hatred, to work together for mutual understanding, and to address our grievance in productive and non-violent ways.
Or we can use this incident to create further polarization between the races. Polling showed that while 51 percent of whites were pleased or satisfied with the Grand Jury decision, only 13 percent of blacks were and 82 percent were disappointed and angry.
Previous Pew Research center surveys have found that, even before the deaths of Brown and Garner at the hands of the police, blacks expressed far less confidence than whites in local police forces to treat blacks and whites equally.
Pew found that only 21 percent of Americans expect relations between local police and minorities to improve over the coming year. By about three-to-one, more blacks think police-minority relations will get worse (52 percent) than better (16 percent) over the course of the next year; 31 percent say they will stay about the same. Whites are more narrowly divided, with 34 percent saying relations will get worse, 21 percent better and 43 percent about the same, the same survey found.
We now truly are at a crossroads. The shooting of two police officers in New York is tragic, it is inexcusable and it counter-productive. There will be plenty of fingers pointed in the aftermath.
We need to remember that this nation remains bitterly divided along racial lines, but we have made progress. What has emerged in the aftermath of Ferguson and Staten Island and others is not something new, it is long-dormant and suppressed anger and frustration in the black community.
I think President Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address embodies the spirit of where we need to go: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Violence is in itself, the admission of failure.
When used within the family, it may represent the perceived failure to achieve control over other family members, or frustration over our perceived failure in endeavors outside the home, or a way to compensate for our own feelings of inadequacy by physically subjugating others.
When violence is used by police, it is a tacit admission that prevention, de escalation, patience, and reason have not worked to achieve their goals. Sometimes violence employed by our police may be life saving, sometimes not, but the police are people just like the rest of us and subject to all the same frustrations and errors of judgement.
When violence is used against the police ( as in NYC) or against the community, it is the demonstration of the failure of those participating to appreciate a different way forward. Somewhere in their life, they have internalized the message that the world is a hostile and violent place and that their only alternative is to use pre emptive force or to strike back with violence as their only perceived means of asserting power. However, this is clearly in error since violence is an expression of failure, not of power.
We cannot expect, in a society that holds that we have the right to preemptively employ violence when we feel threatened ,that people will not absorb and sometimes act outside the law on their own feelings of powerlessness. We are currently living in a society that glorifies and normalizes the concept of war and justifies the use of violence. We tout “the war” on many fronts…..the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on Christmas….our language is saturated with the rhetoric of war and fighting . We have normalized violent action as a means of achieving one’s goals instead of identifying it for what it is, an expression of our own failure.
Agree. Well written, Tia and David.
If you as a doctor had reduced the death rate of cancer patients by 70-80%, would you consider that a huge success, or a failure? In fact, you could achieve a huge success rate, but your patients continue to smoke, continue to do drugs, continue to eat poor food and not exercise.
The NYPD has cut the murder rate from 2,000 per year to 300-400 per year the past 2 decades, making the city of 8 million far safer than San Francisco or Oakland (proportionally).
This failure was one racist nut, one long-time criminal, who had shot his girlfriend before heading out to kill the 2 police officers. This had nothing to do with the community, but this may have had something to do with his possible membership in the violent Black Guerrilla Family gang (link on http://www.drudgereport.com). He also may have drawn inspiration from the anarchists, social and liberal media.
It sounds like in a very fancy way, you’re blaming the execution of these two police officers on society and the police themselves. But as I explained here and down below, it is the NYPD who have had a success rate that would make any cancer doctor blush with envy.
“We” don’t condone violent behavior, the inner cities, the projects, and fatherless families and gangs condone violence.
TBD
Attribution is an amazing concept. We either attribute actions, whether good or bad to either individuals or groups of individuals not on any basis of fact or proportionality, but rather on our ingrained view of the world.
“If you as a doctor had reduced the death rate of cancer patients by 70-80%, would you consider that a huge success, or a failure? In fact, you could achieve a huge success rate, but your patients continue to smoke, continue to do drugs, continue to eat poor food and not exercise.”
If my patients uniformly did the things you say, their death rate of cancer would not have decreased by 70-80% regardless of what I did. I also believe that when a crime rate has dropped, it is likely partly the actions of the police that have been causal, but more likely it is multifactorial with the greatest effect being that the people themselves are committing less crime for a number of different reasons.
“It sounds like in a very fancy way, you’re blaming the execution of these two police officers on society and the police themselves.”
I don’t think that anyone gets a pass when it comes to the perpetuation of a culture of violence in America. The only individual responsible for these particular murders is the shooter. However, those whose actions glorify violence have culpability not for this act, but for the normalization of violence in our community and in our country. How many of you have spoken out against violence in video games and movies ? Is this not an admission that our culture fosters the idea of violence as a legitimate strategy for dealing with ones problems ? . How about those who use the expression ” to knock some sense” into someone ? How about the frequent use of the expression at Citizens Academy of “the good guys vs the bad guys” in reference to the role of the police in our community? How about the “stand your ground” laws which excuse the use of lethal force when alerting and then adhering to the advice of authorities or simply moving to a position of safety would clearly be the wiser course of action ?
Condoning the use of violence is ubiquitous in our society. In these threads,many have condoned violence used by the police, even when it was clearly against their own rules and regulations, clearly “against the law”. We have apologists for the use of torture if it is “our side” doing the exact same acts that we claim to abhor when others perform them. Our society is awash in justifications for the selective use of violence by the “good guys against the bad guys” of course as defined by us. So while I do not blame these particular murders on anyone but the shooter, you are correct that I indict our entire society on our willingness to descend into brutality as a means of conflict resolution.
Tia, it’s interesting that you rarely mention two major groups who consistently commit much of our regular violence and crime, gangs and drug dealers.
I wrote: “If you as a doctor had reduced the death rate of cancer patients by 70-80%, would you consider that a huge success, or a failure? In fact, you could achieve a huge success rate, but your patients continue to smoke, continue to do drugs, continue to eat poor food and not exercise.”
Tia wrote: “If my patients uniformly did the things you say, their death rate of cancer would not have decreased by 70-80% regardless of what I did.”
What I meant is that if 70-80% of people followed your prescribed prevention, healthy eating, and healthy lifestyle, there would still be another large segment that chooses not to follow your professional and helpful directives.
Lot’s of people get a pass in America. Lots of people don’t engage or promote violence, and actually caution young people, specifically young men – who commit the vast majority of violent crime – as to alternatives to violence. But you’re right, gangs and drug dealers do perpetuate a “culture of violence”, another reason to not coddle them in our criminal justice system. Many people still go to church or synagogue, volunteer, and contribute to their community betterment.
I don’t think gang bangers are effected to a great degree by video games, just a hunch. Many people choose peaceful methods of resolution, but when the “bad guys” do come knocking on the door, there are sometimes citizens willing to stop the mayhem. A few years back we had armed takeover robberies in Oakland and Berkeley that had the whole area terrorized. The violent felons then decided to knock over the wrong little old man in a liquor store, and they were sent to their maker early. Terrorization ended.
Let’s be clear, violence is the last resort, but testosterone drive high, angry criminals often don’t reason well. If you want to hug a felon with a gun, be my guest.
Simply attributing the drop in crime to policing is over simplistic. The drop in crime in NYC was part of a larger trend nationally. I suggest you take a look at criminologist Frank Zimring’s book The City That Became Safe – or his Scientific American article about the drop in crime rates. It wasn’t incarceration rates or the rate of drug use. As usual, there is no one reason for these large changes in society. Here’s a link to a draft of his Scientific American article that might be helpful:
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/ZimringScientificAmericandraft-1_20100816131513.pdf
Doing away with do-gooder Get Out of Jail Free sentencing didn’t hurt, locking up career criminals, locking up the most violent felons, the Broken Window approach, software tracking, crack cocaine laws, Three Strikes, and 100,000 new police officers all helped.
I also read a compelling article attributing some of the decrease to the decrease in lead in the environment which was pretty involved, multi layered, and provocative. Success has a lot of parents.
We also know that when Eric Holder pushed in a consent decree filled with liberal policing polices in Seattle, and overall crime is up 13%, car theft up 44%, and murder up 21%. According to the New York Post, “In Las Vegas, police have banned patrol officers from touching African-American suspects during foot chases.”
New York Post: Eric Holder believes all cops are racists, targets ‘unconscious bias’
TBD says (below): “Doing away with do-gooder Get Out of Jail Free sentencing didn’t hurt, locking up career criminals, locking up the most violent felons, the Broken Window approach, software tracking, crack cocaine laws, Three Strikes, and 100,000 new police officers all helped.”
It’s interesting that you mention crack cocaine laws, three strikes and locking up career criminals. At least in NYC, the incarceration rate stayed low and the rates of drug use didn’t change – and the crime rate continued to drop.
Three strikes and other “mass incarceration” methods (mandatory minimum sentences, etc.) have not proven – in the long run – to prevent crime. The Rockefeller drug laws didn’t stem the tide in the 1970’s as the crime rates in New York kept rising.
Zimring’s thesis is that it is an accumulation of small interventions that work – as you say “all helped.” My experience is that there are few instances where complex phenomena are changed with one big solution.
Al Sharpton and his ilk stir the pot, then when it boils over and harm is done, insist no one should have overreacted by shooting police. What hypocrites.
** “When the grand jury found there was insufficient evidence to indict Wilson, Sharpton pronounced that the Ferguson protesters had lost the battle, but not the war.”
“You won the first round, Mr. Prosecutor, but don’t take your gloves off,” Sharpton said. “Justice will come to Ferguson.”
** “Before an audience at Baltimore’s Morgan State University he promised a violent uprising. If the demands of demonstrators who want Wilson dead are not met, “we’ll tear this goddamn country apart!”
Peaceful protests are only in the interest of “white folks,” said Farrakhan, who himself ought to be under constant FBI surveillance. “We going to die anyway,” he said. “Let’s die for something,” the Nation of Islam (NOI) head said to enthusiastic applause.”
** “Yates went so far as to go on record the month before the grand jury decision as saying violence would be a legitimate response to a non-indictment in the Darren Wilson case.
“If they can’t serve justice in this, the people have every right to go out and express their rage in a manner that is equal to what we have suffered,” Yates said at the time.
“We’re going to take our anger out on the people who have failed us, and if they are prepared to deal with that, then let them have at it,” he said.”
i think there’s a serious problem conflating sharpton and farrakhan – they aren’t aligned in anyway. sharpton’s comment about losing the battle but not war, reflects an indignation not a call for violence. certainly the view of sharpton is shared by many in this nation. you can’t avoid the issue by stifling comment.
The National Instant Criminal Background Check System is used to check if someone can buy a gun from a federal registered dealer before they can walk out the door with it. Before ringing up the sale , cashiers call in a check to the FBI orto other designated agencies to ensure that each customer does not have a criminal record or is n’t otherwise ineligible to make the purchase.
These figures show that there have been 16,909,538 applications in 2012 so far to the end of November. If they were approved, that would be enough weapons to stock every member of NATO’s armed forces nearly five times over. This number does not include gun transfers between private parties.
According to the NRA semi-automatic weapons account for about 20 percent of the 300 million privately-owned firearms in the United States and the percentage is quickly rising, because semi-automatics now account for about 50 percent of all new firearms bought annually. Americans bought about five million new semi-automatics in 2012. Does anyone think a person buys a semi-automatic to go duck hunting with his buddies?
Based on the increasing number of semi-automatic gun owners, it looks like fewer and fewer people might be believers in non-violence as the answer.
WesC wrote:
>Does anyone think a person buys a semi-automatic to
> go duck hunting with his buddies?
I’m not a hunter but 90% of the hunters (duck & deer) I know use semi autos…
P.S. What was the race of the NYC shooter? David, the NYT, the LA Times and USA Today all mentioned the race of the Ferguson cop that pulled the trigger and I’m wondering why they all did not mention it this time…
I guess I didn’t realize there was such an explosion of citizens engaging in game hunting going on in America. Maybe all these semi-autos are for those who are poor shots or visually impaired. That way they can quickly get off several more rounds to finish off the animal if it was only wounded with the first shot. Or maybe semi-autos are for those good sportsman that just want to shoot in the direction of a flock of ducks or group of deer, in the hopes that they hit one.
Pictures in the media indicate he was Black.
South of Davis
“What was the race of the NYC shooter? David, the NYT, the LA Times and USA Today all mentioned the race of the Ferguson cop that pulled the trigger and I’m wondering why they all did not mention it this time…”
Perhaps because the pictures of the shooter than have accompanied the stories make it visually clear that he is African American ? Or wouldn’t that obvious illustration of his race fit into your narrative of somehow “failing to mention” his race ?
it seemed obvious to me what the race of the shooter was.
My (single) brother in law (that goes hunting and fishing with the guys most weekends) just flew in for Christmas and told me that he estimates that only about 60% of the duck, dove and quail hunters he sees use semi-autos and that while most 30 o6 deer and elk hunting rifles have clips/magazines like semi-autos they are bolt action and not actually semi-autos. He did say that in recent years he is seeing an increasing number if guys hunting with actual “tactical” style semi-autos…
Cops and criminls are killed in the line of duty at about a 1 to 5 ratio. But race baiters, social justice extremists and an explotive media mostly ignore the dangers faced by cops. They inflame one-sided, misplaced anger about symptoms of problems that cops are not responsible for but are left having to clean up after. The blood of the dead cops are largely on the hands of these people and they should hang their heads in shame.
Frankly
“The blood of the dead cops are largely on the hands of these people and they should hang their heads in shame.”
If we are going to blame free speech for these murders, should we not at least be consistent? Should we then not lay the murders of doctors who perform abortions on the heads of those religious folks who condemn them as murderers? Or how about blaming the murder of Matthew Sheppard on the religious folks who claimed that homosexuality is an abomination deserving of death ? Or how about those drumming up hostility against Muslims by painting all Muslims as military jihadists?
Do we really want to blame the exercise of free speech for the hideous acts of others. If so, are we going to apply it to all cases, or just those that are outside our own belief system ?
Where is your oft proclaimed belief in personal responsibility for one’s own actions? No one made this individual pick up his gun, shoot a former partner and only then go after the police. These were actions, as you usually like to claim when it suits your political purpose, that he and he alone was responsible for.
I remember when Gabrielle Giffords was shot, there was a lot of discussion about the role of public speech in inciting violence. Perhaps the Vanguard participants who remember David’s commentary on that topic would like to remind us how they responded to the suggestion that, as Keith Olbermann said at the time, “we need to put the gun metaphors away and permanently.” Do you agree with Olbermann that speech incites violence?
Yes, speech can incite violence, and does. And by the way, such speech in not constitutionally protected.
So many things to ponder here. Re: gun/violent metaphors: at WIC I did not even like the term “bullets” when we were highlighting a paragraph’s key points. The expression “post mortem” when discussing an IT glitsch drove me up a wall. So many more examples of language: “Did you hit that?” when referring to lovemaking-reallly? Did you hit that? Really? Oh, yeah, that gets one in the mood…..
On the other side: I grew up with wonderfully funny, amazingly loud Irish Catholics and Italian Catholics in Massachusetts. 99.99 % of the time, their loud, ridiculously over the top language was just that- over the top nonsense that had no real violent undertones. What drama queens, all of them!
TIA, Funny thing about the climate- cold weather makes you stomp your feet, rub your hands together, pace back and forth to stay warm. Cold weather folks back east seem to be louder, too. Warm weather folks in Arizona, Hawaii, Laguna, San Diego, Sicily etc…. they seem to be more mellow. This is probably just my own limited observations of my life and this has no scientific basis whatsoever. Many of my beloved family and friends in the Boston suburbs might tell you, Tia ,they feel like punching you in the nose if you disagree with them (especially if you ever made a remark about the Sox or the Patriots or the lasagna recipe or mashed potatos:)) But they would never ever ever do that to a woman. Ever. Promise. But if you’re a guy near the Boston area, please don’t insult the sox, okay? 🙂 Peace.
Yes, and given his social media postings, someone, in my opinion, would have been entirely justified in ‘taking him out’ before he old-bloodily assassinated two police officers. Or, had he been more more ethical and/or smarter (a better solution) he should have done the murder/suicide in the correct order… suicide first. But I guess I just don’t understand that the shooter was the TRUE victim, and should be beating my chest that I and society didn’t save him.
How many abortion doctors are killed per year by religious zealots?
TBD
My comment was not about the numbers, but about the principle being espoused that the actions of someone who commits murder are the responsibility of people who issue hateful statements. I think that if you go back and read my post, you will see that I was discussing consistency of thought and principle, not about numbers.
Does it matter?
When someone poses a question about abortion clinics and real threats or veiled threats I could tell anecdotes about my years at W.I.C. but I will preserve the privacy and safety of the hard working ladies associated with that organization and write no details.
What about the recent protest in New York where the chant was “What do we want. Dead Cops.” How is that peaceful protest? Now there are two dead cops.
zaqzaq
The chant you reference is in my opinion vile, but only adds to my opinion that it is a reflection of the overall willingness of our society to resort to violence when aggrieved. This is true not only of these particular protestors, but has equally been true of the police in a number of documented cases of police use of excessive and/or illegal force.
I do not defend the use of violence as anything other than an absolute last resort ( in immediately life threatening circumstances ) for anyone whether in uniform or out.
Tia and zaqzaq, for the purposes of discussion I’m going to propose another view of the chant … specifically that it was a soundbyte. We need go no further than the recently concluded Ami Bera – Doug Ose Congressional campaign to see just how pervasive soundbyte thinking and soundbyte communication has become in our society. Further, if a mainstream, societally-sanctioned activity like a Congressional election can produce negative soundbyte rhetoric like Ose and Bera individually and collectively bombarded us with, is it any surprise that an immensely more intense interaction like Ferguson (and is aftermath) would prompt/merit an even more negative soundbyte than Bera/Ose produced?
Rhetoric in our society undergoes a continual evolution. New swear words and prejorative expressions come, as others evolve into mainstream communication. We need go no further than the Will We See a Fourth Gang Trial Involving Woodland Co-Defendants? thread to find an example. There Sisterhood, whom I have come to know as a lady in the old fashioned sense of that term, posting the following expression, “Unbefuc**inglievable.”
that’s a good point matt, you have a situation where people making relatively innocuous comments can still incite vitriol, now amp up the tensions and emotions and you have a real problem.
Interesting concept of “duty”. Might explain some criminal behavior (said with a big grin).
Hpierce, just leaving out the cop suicides that are at a higher rate than is the general population.
W’.s talking about criminals getting shot in THEIR chosen ‘line of duty’… “making their bones”?
Frankly – the rate of police suicide is about the same as many other groups when you control for the fact that most police are male and males have higher suicide rates. Check out “Occupation and Suicide” Social Science Quarterly, June 2001.
i think your rhetoric is part of the problem. when you start blaming the blood of dead cops – based on single incident – on people who are complaining about the handling of an event, i think you step onto very dangerous ground.
It isn’t the complaining in general… it is how they are complaining and what they are complaining about.
It is destructive and ugly hypocrisy at its finest… complaining about the use of language that hurts feelings, and demanding that law enforcement uses too much force and violence… and then not only supporting violence and force, but using language that clearly perpetuates it.
I am going partisan again on this… because for all the success the left has had branding the right as being mean and nasty, the left and the left media has proven over and over again that the level of meanness and nastiness is orders of magnitude worse. It is because the left believes it has the higher moral ground as protectors of their beloved classes of victims that they can act out. And the media is so corrupt that it not only does it fail to call out the ugliness, but it participates in kind.
There were thousands of people in the streets protesting what they perceive as police brutality. Some people did property damage. Some people looted. Some people said heinous things.
Do those few people represent the whole crowd? Do they represent everyone who was peacefully protesting?
Here were some shouts from a Tea Party protest at the White House earlier this month. So does this reflect the whole Tea Party movement? Perhaps you can see some “blatant and ugly hypocrisy” and “meanness and nastiness” here, too. If not, just spend a few minutes on any Tea Party site.
“Hang the lying Kenyan traitor!”
“Plenty of trees in the front yard. Wouldn’t be the first one hung on one of them trees.”
“We’ve got rope.”
“Don’t snap his neck, you pull him up watch him choke to death.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X0cAqfYRMA
as far as i can tell, the only real incitement to violence has occurred by fringe figures. so i’m failing to see that you have a case.
In Phoenix a year ago at a peaceful gathering to welcome our Commander in Chief’s motorcade to a school, I had to lovingly pull an 80 pound feminist away from tea partiers who were taunting us with Bah Bah Black sheep followyour black guy like little lost sheep bah bah black sheep bah bah black sheep hah hah hah hah hah hah hah etc etc etc etc etc so plz know that these hateful pathetic poisonous pessimistic rants go both ways.
Too bad these cops where not sitting in an MRAP. In a world where they face risk of being murdered in their patrol cars, and then the responding cops risk persecution for their actions dealing with the suspects of the murder, it seems prudent to at least surround the cops with bullet proof protection.
Frankly, because I am, given the way police have been shooting black men, I think black men would be safer if the cops were required to remain in armored cars and never let out. Then both groups would be completely safe.
There is no big rush of police shooting black men. They shoot 3x as many white suspects / criminals, it’s the race hustlers like Al Sharpton, social media, and an ignorant populace.
First of all, we still don’t have the statistics to say that definitively. But second, even if we did, it’s still disproportionate.
TBD, here is some simple math that we should ponder based on your statement that police “shoot 3x as many white suspects as black suspects. Converting your 3x to a percentage White = 75% and Black = 25% (75 = 3 times 25). The percentage of the US population in 2013 according to the US Census (see http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html ) that is “Black or African American alone” is 13.2%.
Now compare 25% to 13.2% and you can see that black suspects are shot at a proportional rate that is twice the rate that white suspects are shot.
Matt Williams, should you compare numbers to the general population, or to those who commit crime? I believe many use the statistics to those who commit violent crime.
If you simply take base population numbers, women are highly underrepresented, and men are vastly overrepresented, which by your logic means that men are suffering a mass case of sexism, and women have a gargantuan case of Female Privilege. Is this what you are asserting?
I believe the DOJ statistics say that African American men commit 53% of the murders in the United States, so if we were to assume that white men even committed 50% (which is a stretch), that would still suggest that an even ratio of shootings would be 1 to 1. It may therefore be that too many white males are being shot.
TBD, where in my post did you see any assertion? Simply sharing objective statistics.
With that said, statistically your point about women (within the white and black cohorts) is a wash. The reason is that approximately 50% of the whites in this country are women (a bit more than 50%) and approximately 50% of the blacks in this country are women.
True Blue makes some valid points in refutation of Matt Williams. It is wrong of Matt to judge proportionality based on just on a share of total population. It makes more sense to judge proportion, in this case, relative to violent crime rates as a share of population.
Here are the numbers to know:
–Blacks are 13.2 percent of the U.S. population, but commit* 49.7% of the murders, 32.9% of forcible rapes, 55.6% of robberies and 33.6 percent of aggravated assaults.
–Among all criminals who have not yet reached 18 years old, blacks account for 54% of the murders, 36.5% of forcible rapes, 68.5% of robberies and 42.3 percent of aggravated assaults.
________________________
*Commit may be the wrong word. The FBI stats represent arrests. However, murders in big cities are far less likely to be solved than those in small cities, suburbs and rural areas. As a result, it seems probable that the FBI numbers undercount the number of black murderers.
Some comments from Tom Hargrove of Scripps-Howard, who has studied the clearance rates on these crimes:
Rich, I made no judgement … only shared the statistics.
With regard to the point that you make, let’s look at one member of the total population … you. I am going to start by assuming that you are one of the white members of the total population who has never been shot by a policeman. Is that a reasonable assumption? Further assuming that the first assumption is correct, if I asked your parents (assuming they are alive) and/or any significant other you may have, “Do you consider the fact that your son Rich has never been shot by the police as meaningful?” I think we all know what their answer would be.
Further, non criminal suspect members of the total population can be, and no doubt have been shot by members of the police. My wife and I know that for a fact because we were almost shot by a policeman while driving through Vernal, Utah. A police car, approaching us in the oncoming lane of US Route 40 turned on his red and blue flashers just as he passed us (my wife was driving) and then made a u-turn behind us. Seeing him do that in her rear view window, my wife pulled over to the shoulder and stopped the car. When the Utah State Police officer pulled in behind us, she turned off the ignition, and after two or three minutes he got out of his car and approached my wife’s now open window. When he asked for license, registration and insurance information, I, in the passenger seat reached forward to open the glove compartment to retrieve the registration and insurance card. He reacted to my movement by drawing his revolver, pointing it in the car, and yelling, “Stop where you are, right now!” My hand had already activated the glove compartment latch and its door dropped open with a loud thunk, which was immediately followed by a click from his firearm. Fortunately, he did not act precipitously and the situation de-escalated. Bottom-line, neither my wife nor I were either in the process of committing a crime or suspects with respect to any crime. We were simply members of the total population. However, I can guarantee you that had we been shot, the bullets entering our body would have been very real, and the chances that those bullets would have been fatal was equally real.
This statement, Matt, makes it seem as if you are comparing criminals in one cohort to criminals in another. And if so, then it only makes sense to consider their respective crime rates, particularly violent crime rates. But doing so upsets the argument you made about black and white suspects, because your argument is not true. You mistakenly seemed to have presumed that there are proportional numbers of white suspects relative to the white population and black suspects to the black population. That is what True Blue called you on, and he was right.
Matt, you were the one, in your previous post, who specifically categorized criminal suspects among whites and blacks. Now, when you were challenged on that, you come back with a peculiar defense based on a strange anecdote which proves nothing in the general case, unless you really believe that people who are never involved in violent crime get shot and killed by the police just as often as those who engage in violent crime do. And certainly you are wise enough to know that is not the case.
No Rich. I did not make that categorization. TBD established that categorization in his original 3x post quoted in its entirety below.
Matt, your 11:18 am statement is a direct quote of what you wrote.
Rich, my 11:18 am statement uses the terminology already established by TBD’s prior statement. I simply carried his terminology forward unchanged.
His original 11:00 pm (yesterday) statement was …
and my 11:18 am (today) statistical calculation that I noted was worth pondering was …
I stand by those calculations.
But Matt, your calculation is wrong. You mistakenly presume that the number of “black suspects” is proportional to the total black population. It is not. And because of that, your conclusion is wrong.
Rich, where do you see me making/positing any conclusion? I laid the numbers out there for everyone to ponder/compare.
Do you think your parents are glad you have never been shot? If they are glad, then you are part of the statistical analysis. if they are not glad, then I think your argument holds water … at least for you.
I know that as I think back on those moments when I was hearing that Utah State Trooper’s gun going through its mechanical machinations, I considered the possibility of a police officer shooting a white man and a white woman as very pressingly real.
Your conclusion is that “black suspects are shot at a proportional rate that is twice the rate that white suspects are shot.” That is just not true. It implies, wrongly, that black suspects are proportionate with the black population. But they are not. Blacks commit violent crimes at three times the rate their total population would suggest, and property crimes at double the rate.
No. I made no such conclusion. I very clearly stated the mathematics that exists if you compare those two proportions to one another mathematically. What is it about the word “ponder” that you don’t understand?
TBD’s initial statement talks about lives. The US Census statistics talk about lives. Back when we all learned about aritmnetic operations, one of the first things our teachers taught us was to be sure that our “units” were the same. In this case those units are the same, so the mathematical operations are valid … and they give us all something interesting to ponder.
For the record, I did not imply anything with the data; however, it is clear that you (and TBD) inferred something from the data.
What does that tell you Rich?
It tells me I read the FBI and you don’t get it.
Have no fear. I understand that the data speaks volumes.
a cop wouldn’t be sitting in an mrap on patrol. have you completely lost your sense?
“Too bad these cops where not sitting in an MRAP”
So is it your position that all police patrols should be conducted from armored vehicles ? From the preliminary reports on this tragedy, it would seem that they were not engaged in any higher risk activity than sitting in their patrol car. Unless you are maintaining that all police activities be conducted from armored vehicles, this double murder would not have been prevented in any event.
It might have been prevented if the press and the likes of Al Sharpton had not inflamed passions for their own ends.
ironically, a man who professes a calling to spread the “word of Christ”… as Farrakan professes preach Islam. Suspect Jesus and Mohammed are both a bit “torqued” by those two.
I think you need to be a bit more cautious in how you access blame here. Sharpton wasn’t happy with Ferguson, but he was hardly alone. Frankly there is a large divide between anything Sharpton said and what Farrakhan said. Tying them together I don’t think is warranted. If God forbid, someone were to shoot and kill Sharpton, would we be justified to point the finger and you and others in the media who have criticized him? Where do we draw the lines in a free society? I’m very uncomfortable with this line – the point of my piece today was to move us away from this and you’ve gone 180 degree away from that approach – why?
Because the Vanguard refuses to acknowledge that incitement to violence by the likes of Al Sharpton and his ilk as well as yellow journalism have contributed to the violence that erupted of late.
i think you’re imposing collective guilt for people who are not aligned. sharpton’s comments were pointed but not a direct incitement to violence. the same cannot be said for farrakhan. but what evidence do you have that sharpton and farrakhan are aligned?
This is a very poor analogy in two big respects.
First, it’s not a matter of criticism of the police. It’s a matter of making excuses for lunatics and criminals to attack the police. A lot of the demonstrators are crying out and saying, explicitly or implicitly, that “the police are out to kill black people because the cops are a bunch of racists.” Many in the crowds are holding up blacks who have murdered cops as some sort of heroes. People like Larry Davis and Mumia Al-Jabal. It is that sort of theater which inflames some people to commit the many crimes they have lately in the name of #BlackLivesMatter. The folks who burned down or looted hundreds of small family businesses during these caustic protest marches thought they were getting revenge on whites for the deaths of people like Brown and Garner. Guys like Sharpton and the step-father of Brown are inciting serious violence.
Second, being critical of the behavior of a single individual like Sharpton and calling him out for what he has done and said is not analogous with vitiating police officers as a group for the behavior of one or two individual cops, whether their actions were justified or not. It is always wrong and seriously irresponsible to blame an entire class, like cops, for the actions of one or two, much as it is racist to hold an entire race to account for the bad behavior of individuals within that race.
As far as this goes, I don’t blame all demonstrators for the terrible behavior of some of their number. But I do blame those who have either acted terribly or have used extremist rhetoric which has incited maniacs to act badly. Al Sharpton, ever since the Tawana Brawly fraud, has made his living inciting maniacs. His language was certainly at the heart of the attacks against Jews in Crown Heights several years ago, leading to several murders. Likewise in the L.A. riots, Sharpton’s crazy rhetoric seemed to have encouraged all the attacks on Korean owned businesses.
Tia, when I read Frankly’s comment the image of a huge tongue placed firmly in cheek came to mind.
Yes… mostly.
Frankly
“Yes… mostly.”
Sorry if I tend to misinterpret when you have your tongue in your cheek. Frankly ( because you are) it is a little hard to tell after your statement about your desire to bash liberals faces, which was a little anxiety provoking and not much alleviated that you then stated that you felt better afterwards. I interpreted that as quite a violence promoting comment.
When did I say that I want to bash liberal faces? I am not a violent person. I would much rather hug my way to a better world. Really.
Such an allegation should have a citation.
TBD, you see that as an allegation? Given Tia’s and Frankly’s long running back and forth banter, I see no allegation at all, only dialogue between the two of them.
The disavowing of looting and vandalism while “protesting” would seem to me being a smart way of protesting in a different way.
Why not have the “flash mob” type of protest where everyone disbands as soon as someone breaks something? If the cops need a distraction, what is the looters? If the cops go get them, will the protestors go get violent too?
I just watched a video of “Ferguson” protestors in Cleveland, who held up traffic and when the vehicle finally got through, it had at least one flat tire.
Tia, Spot On as usual. Except when dealing with the people jacked up on medications, prescribed or not, when no amount of reason will work. While everyone argues about guns, until Sandy Hook, no mention of mental illness, or pumping kids full of Ritalin, and their parents full of Prozac.
Mr Greenwald, great quotes and thoughts.
There are a lot of extremists on the Left who are now trying to backtrack from their previous statements, and downplay what they said and did. Eric Holder, Al Sharpton, Nancy Pelosi, and others could have calmed nerves. Yes, I’m sure Valerie Jarrett wasn’t preaching for peace or calm, or else we would have seen it.
In the hysteria built up by the liberal Liberals, media (liberal), Leftist Democrats, race hustlers and provocateurs, there was seldom a voice of reason, logic, or perspective. Are we better or worse off than 10, 20, 30 years ago? Are we going backwards, or forwards? The facts show immense progress.
Twenty years ago, New York City had 2,000 murders a year. Yes, 2,000.
At the end of Mayor Dickens (D) failed term, and then Rudy Giuliani (R), the murder rate took a steep downward decline. Today there are between 300 and 400 murders a year in a city of 8 million, a proportional murder rate far lower than Oakland or San Francisco. According to writer Bob McManus of the New York Post (“There is blood on the hands of those who demanded ‘dead cops’ “), perpetrators of murder in New York are 95% black or Latino, and victims 91% black or Latino.
This means that the policies and high-tech approach used by white Republican Mayor Giuliani and his staff saved over 20,000 largely people-of-color lives the past 20 years. New York became safe again, livable. But instead of leaders putting things in context, liberal leaders fan the flames of resentment, chaos, and racial strife.
Yet this was the bloodthirsty chant of New York liberals after a sad, tragic death.
“What do we want?” “Dead cops!”
Last week when protesters attacked officers on the Brooklyn Bridge, one of the protestors was a CUNY professor and an organizer for a union that placed 5 people in Mayor De Blazio’s (Democrat) administration.
When you compare police to the KKK, you fan the flames. Cops have been kicked and attacked on the Brooklyn Bridge by a mini mob last week, all on videotape, some had full trash cans dropped on them from above.
New York deserves some credit for cleaning up their city – granted it came during a time when the murder rate overall in the nation has reached 50 year lows. Neverthless, some of their tactics have come with costs. Stop and Frisk for instance has greatly exacerbated tensions in the minority community – and those tensions were ready to come to a boil. The Eric Garner incident and decision just punctuates that. Luckily most of the protests were peaceful, the actions of a single individual with mental problems notwithstanding.
They deserve a ton of credit, as leaders in New York, President Bill Clinton, and others realized that if we cut the crime rate in 10 or 20 large cities, we cut the national rate of crime. This was not an accident. Not a lot of murders in Davis, Los Gatos, San Jose or Concord. That is why they added 100,000 or so new police in a small set of high-crime cities, and added in the “broken window” philosophy, which worked beautifully. . They targeted their efforts, and were successful.
Yes, so they saved 20,000 or 30,000 young men’s lives, predominantly men of color, and there are some hurt feelings that some young men can’t hang out on street corners with hoodies dealing drugs. Nothing is perfect, we can always improve.
i think you need to scrutinize the data better. overall crime rate has been falling since the late 1970s when it peaked. that includes locations where little of substantive change has been made. i don’t think you can make a credible argument that 20-30 thousand people’s lives were saved and if you end up undermining trust in the system, you jeopardize a lot. you can’t merely chalk this up to hurt feelings. there is real rage here, you saw a taste of this this weekend, but i think it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Mayor de Blasio is fighting for his job, and I would not be surprised if there were a mass sickout to this leader who has constantly criticized the police, who risk their lives every day in order to protect others.
[moderator: edited to correct mayor’s name. Please note that we have a long-standing practice that intentional misspellings of public officials’ names not be used here. Thanks.]
When Mayor De Blazio infers that white cops are a threat to his biracial son, do you think that helps or hurts the situation? He knows that the murder rate has plummeted in New York the past 25 years, yet he chooses to fan the flames.
Michael Goodwin – “Think those anti-cop protestors were peaceful? Think again” – wrote today in the New York Post: “To believe that, you now have to erase two sets of facts. One, the fact that violent crime in New York is overwhelmingly the province of nonwhite males, both as victims and perpetrators. Two, you have to disregard that police shot at only 40 suspects last year [my bold], reaching, like crime, a historic low.” [Note: New York is a city of 8 million.]
“Cops fired their guns in just 81 incidents in 2013 — including 19 times at dogs. The incidents include six police suicides, as against eight armed suspects the police shot and killed….”
“…It’s only by peeling back the layers of pretend that we get to the naked truth: The whole narrative of widespread police brutality is a big fat lie.
“It’s a lie that turns truth on its head, meaning the movement the mayor praises as “organic” and says is raising legitimate concerns is a scam foisted on the public for the sole purpose of advancing a far-left political agenda.”
I would link to the articles in question, but I’m on a unfriendly computer. Check out the New York Post.
TBD
“When Mayor De Blazio infers that white cops are a threat to his biracial son, do you think that helps or hurts the situation? “
I think that it may be an accurate portrayal of his reality to which neither you nor I can relate since I doubt either of us has a biracial child in a large city. Would you think it unreasonable if I was more concerned about the possible rape of my daughter than of my son ? This is almost entirely based on a biologic trait that is beyond their ability to change. Would you say that I was playing the “sexist card” or “gender baiting”? Or would you consider this merely a legitimate concern based on the observation that the number of rapes of women is higher than that of men in college communities ?
All people need to be safe and cautious at night, especially in urban areas, and all young men need to take precaution about their late-night activities and interaction with the police. Men are frequently raped in prison, another good reason to avoid criminal activity of any sort.
You speak of these behaviors as predictable or preventable by the victims actions. Rape is violence. It should in now way be accepted on any level. As to the father speaking truth about his concerns for actions of cops against people of color, it is conclusive white cops kill peddle of color, regularly add it seems. Further there’s been every attempt to cover up via not reporting the violence perpetrated by the police against citizens of any color. The numbers are not reported, intentionally. When reporters try to gather this data it’s routinely denied, not reported or recorded by the police forces nation wide. Whereas all other acts of violence are recorded. This data must be kept and published so we all know the extent of this blue wall/badge protected violence & it can be stopped not made acceptable. The death of a single citizen is to much. The concept of reasonable violence is absurd. Killing someone as the first action is never reasonable. How can any DA support murder of children as a reasonable action. These deaths of our youth is beyond heinous. Shoot first reactions must stop.
Do need to disarm to police ?? Allow only tazers, sound OR heat projection? Bean bag rifles, rubber bullets ? There are many various tools available other than a militarized Rambo Ak47 or semi auto pistols to deal with humans, no matter the color, size, neighborhood, clothing etc. It’s all about perceptions, & prejudice. It must change IMMEDIATELY. The mindset turn toward service not assault.
There was another assassination of a police officer today, this one in Florida.
While this case has no connection to the anti-cop demonstrations going on all over the country, I do think it is fair to blame many of the statements made in connection with these anti-police events for the behavior which leads to such murders. Many of the protesters I have seen have been holding up signs in praise of maniacs like Larry Davis and Mumia Abu-Jamal. Just putting an evil liar like Al “Tawana” Sharpton up as a spokesman for the anti-police side demeans that cause tremendously.
But we will suspend students and punish an entire team for one player putting his hands on a ref.
A rabble rouser who has ties to Eric Holder was taped walking around Ferguson saying “Pigs in a Blanket” and things like “burn the bacon” today after the 2 assassinations in New York.
Let me guess. You heard this on the radio.
To be fair, Don, you wouldn’t really want anyone to risk lip blisters from reading too much.
;>)/
Happy Holidays to the Peoples Republic of Davis and all you Vanguardians.
Liberals often like to debunk without taking the time or effort, mainly using emotion.
SHOCK VIDEO>>> #Ferguson Protesters Chant “Pigs in a Blanket” After Two NYC Police Officers Executed
Bassem Masri @bassem_masri
“The police have no1 2blame but themselves4the cops getting murdered inNY #Ferguson”
“Bassem Masri was invited to meet with Eric Holder’s DOJ in November to discuss police reform.”
So, “ties to Eric Holder?” You made it sound as though he was meeting directly with the Attorney General or something.
I do find it rather interesting that the some of the same people who hold Daniel Marsh at 15 to be solely responsible for his actions are blaming political speech for the actions of 28 year old with a history of violence and mental instability.
Has anyone here or elsewhere said Marsh is “solely” responsible for what he is and hence what he did? My recollection is there was a lot of blame to go around. Some pointed at his parents, some at the medical and psychological professionals who dealt with Marsh, some at biology, some at video games, etc., etc. Insofar as there was as divide it was just which parties or institutions were assigned some of the blame, in addition to the blame everyone put on Marsh himself.
Likewise, with the maniac who assassinated the two cops in Brooklyn before shooting himself, there are certainly many factors which explain why such a monster exists. But it seems like you are burying your head in the sand to ignore the fact that Ismaaiyl Brinsley specifically said he was seeking vengeance for the deaths of Garner and Brown, and that some outspoken anti-police advocates used language and imagery which helped drive this maniac to do this particular act.
Yes, Brinsley was violent and a monster without the anti-police rhetoric in the air. He had a long history of criminal violence, where the victims were not cops. But it was the widespread attacks on the police which seem to have unleashed his wrath in this case on officers Ramos and Liu.
What is most unfortunate about the often misguided protests, in my opinion, is that they are far more interested in painting with a broad brush an anti-police message and far less in getting at the root of the problem, much of which is not the fault of any cops. To the marginal in our society, that has prompted many to hate all police officers for the perceived misdeeds of a few.
Good points, Rich. With a 70-80% reduction in the murder rate in New York City, I’d figure some statesman or leader would would put it in perspective, note the overwhelming progress, and call for calmer heads.
Instead, Eric Holder, Nancy Pelosi, Al Sharpton, Barack Obama, de Blasio and others have jumped on the band wagon. Now some of them are backtracking given the slaughter of two innocent police officers. Some even fear this will set back the civil rights agenda.
When you get down to brass tacks, some of the murder victims are gang bangers, some are drug dealers, and then there are the occasional (and horrible) domestic violence case, which is almost impossible for the police to stop. But the days when your average New Yorker was killed grabbing a cab, ordering a pizza, or crossing a sidewalk are long gone. Like I wrote, New York is far, far safer than San Francisco or Oakland (both approximately 100 murders a year with 1/10th the population), which doesn’t have a parallel crime drop … so something they are doing is working amazingly well.
Frankly
“When did I say that I want to bash liberal faces? I am not a violent person. I would much rather hug my way to a better world. Really.”
How quickly they forget. I cannot find the exact quote. It was part of a self admittedly anger driven rant on your part, directed at “liberals” namely me, since I was the only person at the time actively posting in support of the soda default restriction and the soda tax in which you electronically shouted “Stop telling me what to do” and then enhanced your comments by your fantasy of physically attacking ( the correct word may not have been “bashed” but the sentiment was clearly the same ) liberals.
In a post responding to my objection to being physically threatened you then responded that since you “felt better” ,of course I was welcome to express my opinion.
Hmmmm…. no violence of sense of superiority inherent in that exchange…..right ?
Oh come on Tia. First you wrote “bash liberal faces in”. Take some responsibility for the words you use at least to the level you demand of others. I have never written that. But apparently what I wrote caused you this strong reaction. I think I might have written that on certain issues the actions of liberals make me very angry. And I’m sure that I have delivered heat in my responses. I am of the belief that we develop stronger and better relationships when we effectively communicate how we feel about things. But those that are hypersensitive to communication of certain emotions will stifle that communication. Then emotions are just left to fester. My mother was that way, God rest her soul. She was so kind and just wanted everyone to get along. Her sons and husband would have heated conversations at the dinner table and she would do everything she could to change the subject to get to peace. But unresolved conflict would just build until it exploded.
Sensitivity needs to be a two-way street. The insensitive learning how to converse in a way that does not cause recoil by the more sensitive (my challenge), and the more sensitive developing some coping skills for listening to those blessed with less sensitivity (maybe your challenge?).
Frankly (because I am), I think there is a problem with liberals giving such material (almost physical) weight to words and speech they are sensitized too, but then appear blind to words and speech that targets groups not in their inventory of victims. Police are a prime example. They are outside of any liberal-identified victim group hence it is open season on them.
Words are not actions and should not be confused for actions, but words from leaders and influential people and entities can be a call to action… and hence the people and entities that deliver the words should be called to task and held accountable for their choice of words. And with leaders, silence is also something impeachable. A leader like Obama holding press conferences over the death of black criminals shot by black and white cops, and no press conference over the death of white cops being executed by black criminals… well let’s just say that he is another leader with the blood of those cops on his hands.
“but words from leaders and influential people and entities can be a call to action”
is there any evidence that this individual listened to influential people rather than responding to the overall environment?
Sure. Dead cops and the words of the killer.
She might have been referring to this one: https://davisvanguard.org/sunday-commentary-ii-mayor-heads-in-right-direction-on-healthy-children/comment-page-1/#comment-260550
Tia – did Don find the quote you are referring to, or something else?
And if this is what you referring to I think I was clear that I knew I was throwing a temper tantrum but not so far as to ever physically punch someone I disagree with.
I view the viral internet photo of the Richmond police chief standing in solidarity with the protesters, holding the “Black Lives Mattter” sign, and my heart melts. The image of the New York cop who gave warm socks to the homeless man melts it again. I see the cop who did not arrest the woman shoplifter, but gave her food. It melts again. Memories of my good decent dad, who was an officer in Massachusetts, comfort me today. Merry Christmas to all of you.
P.S. I stand by my previous angry comments re: cops. I don’t think my dad would mind. He was a cop who believed you must monitor your own and you must hold your profession, or calling, to an extremely high standard.
“They stood for four and a half hours, but rather than having police on one side and protestors on the other, they stood together in solidarity that all lives, black, brown, white and others – all lives matter.” http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/12/1351396/-Richmond-CA-Police-Stand-with-Police-Violence-Protestors-with-BlackLivesMatter-Sign?detail=email#
Twenty six young men were shot last weekend in Chicago, the city of failed Democratic policies, like so many others. The policies and leadership of Valerie Jarrett, Barack Obama, Rob Emmanuel, and so many others have failed, and are interestingly ignored.
Can’t blame white police officers for those shootings, can we?
The concept of color of authority seems to continually elude you.
Chicago Mayor Rahm’s Son Robbed Right In Front Of Family’s Home this weekend. Like the NY cop shooting no mention of the race of the robbers in any of the original news stories (so I can guess it was not a white guy or white-Hispanic) …
P.S. To TBD note the spelling of the Chicago mayors name
Frankly
“And if this is what you referring to I think I was clear that I knew I was throwing a temper tantrum but not so far as to ever physically punch someone I disagree with”
Yes, these were the quotes. You seem to have conveniently overlooked the words “both figuratively and literally. What you seem to be missing is the difference between your intent, and the meaning that someone else may attribute to your words. You do not seem to appreciate this difference when you claim that someone who spoke about violence and was critical of the police “has blood on their hands” from the murders of the two police in NYC.
So let’s apply the same standard to your i”nnocently “intended comments. Let’s suppose that another Vanguard reader becomes “inflamed” by your anger at liberals, likes the idea of punching one in the face and chooses me since I am frequently championing some cause or other. So let’s suppose this individual does not feel better when you do, decides to act, and the next time I am tabling at Farmer’s Market, comes up and punches me in the face. Is the blood from my broken nose now on your hands? If not, what do you see as difference?
And in your reply, please remember that we are not only talking about nationally prominent individuals or so called “leaders”. I am sure that Don could also find the quotes in which you claimed that if a policeman were ever killed here in Davis because many insisted on the return of the MRAP, that we would have “blood on our hands”.
I really don’t think it is valid for you to claim that other speakers are responsible for the actions that their words incite, but then say…..oh but that doesn’t apply to me, because after all, “I didn’t mean it”.
Your nuance is dancing on the head of a pin where you can easily press too hard and get poked.
First, I am not a political or social leader. I was commenting as a single individual citizen posting on a community blog. My words have the influence of a flea convincing a dog to take a bath. Note that if I was a political or social leader, I would chose my words much more carefully because I would understand the potential impact to my constituents. The higher up the leader is, the more impact and influence his/her words have and hence the more careful he/she needs to be. Trust me, as an experienced executive I completely understand that. As an inexperienced executive, I think Obama does not. However, there are others with plenty of experience and I think they absolutely know what they are doing and it serves them well to inflame race anger and deflect frustration from the black community onto the cops. And they have the blood of the cops on their hands.