Sandbox (4)

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Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.

I’ve opened a new “Sandbox” thread as a post as the new “ignore commenter” plug-in only works on threads started as posts.

5,860 thoughts on “Sandbox (4)”

  1. Not to get too deep but I seem to recall keiths raising the issue in the context of moderation. Others remarked that his complaints were overblown and they had no problem. Accepting the status quo in return for a “peaceful” life, turning a blind eye to small injustices rather than speaking out; is that complicity? Are you then an enabler? The slippery slope to fascism? Just reading Anthony Doerr’s novel All the Light We Cannot See again. You can turn a blind eye to quite a lot before you have to, maybe you are forced to, make a stand.

  2. Alan Fox: Accepting the status quo in return for a “peaceful” life, turning a blind eye to small injustices rather than speaking out; is that complicity?

    Is that what blue lives matter is all about?

  3. phoodoo: Is that what blue lives matter is all about?

    I’m less qualified than even you, perhaps, to comment on an organisation (if that is not an exaggeration) that appears to exist only in the US. Googling makes me think it is a front for fascists. I’d suggest removal of the chief enabler would be a start. Let’s hope enough people with US voting rights agree.

  5. DNA_Jock,

    (CNN)Police officers at a Florida elementary school arrested an 8-year-old boy who had allegedly hit a teacher — only to realize the boy’s wrists were too small for the handcuffs.
    https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/11/us/8-year-old-boy-key-west-arrest-trnd/index.html

    A police body-cam video of the child’s arrest shows officers frisking and putting metal handcuffs on the sobbing child before taking him to jail, where his mother said his mouth was swabbed for DNA, his mugshot and fingerprints were taken, and he was briefly locked in a cell.

    https://abc13.com/boy-handcuffed-florida-arrested-video/6367333/

    Abdul Hadi, the girl’s father, alleges the handcuffs used on his daughter caused injury, and that she was “thrown” in the back of a police car.

    “Her wrists were extremely red and bruised,” said Hadi. “She was crying. Right now, she’s suffering from anxiety. Her mother just broke down.”

    Hadi and several others gathered in front of the Clinton Section offices Monday afternoon, protesting what they allege was brutality on the part of the officers involved.

    “I’m just tired of it. It took a 10-year-old being thrown in the back of a police car, harmed and hurt, in order for people to start listening to the cries of the community,” said Hadi.
    https://13wham.com/news/local/rpd-respond-after-10-year-old-handcuffed-during-traffic-stop

    ‘Please let me go:’ Video shows 6-year-old girl crying, pleading during arrest at Orlando school
    Former officer says girl broke his record for youngest arrest
    https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2020/02/24/please-let-me-go-video-shows-6-year-old-girl-crying-pleading-during-arrest-at-orlando-school/

    Police officer who slammed sobbing black 11-year-old boy into wall charged with assault
    Footage shows shows victim being lifted up and flung to ground
    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/police-officer-child-abuse-north-carolina-vance-county-a9251551.html

    A 13-year-old autistic boy is still recovering in the hospital after getting shot several times by police on Friday night in Glendale.

    Linden Cameron had injuries to his shoulder, both ankles, intestines, and bladder, according to his mother, Golda Barton.
    https://kutv.com/news/local/mother-of-child-shot-by-slcpd-officer-speaks-out-why-didnt-you-just-tackle-him

    California cops under fire after video shows them tackling, putting bag over head of 12-year-old https://abcnews.go.com/US/california-cops-fire-video-shows-tackling-putting-bag/story?id=63197598

    The Pima County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona will conduct an internal investigation after a deputy was caught on cellphone video tackling a 15-year-old boy with no arms or legs, an incident that the local public defender calls “unconscionable and horrific.”

    The eight-minute video, first reported by local station KOLD, shows the boy yelling as the sheriff’s deputy pins him to a kitchen floor inside a Tucson group home, restraining the quadruple amputee. The incident was recorded by another boy at the group home whose head was later pushed into a wall.
    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/arizona-sheriff-s-deputy-tackles-15-year-old-boy-no-n1083526

    Of course, unless the child they tackle and handcuff and put a bag over their head or shoot, has no arms and no legs, there usually isn’t very much public outrage in the US, as there are just too many cases to notice.

    Fuck you.

  6. phoodoo,

    But you were able to get these from freely available sources. That doesn’t make the incidents right, but the point is about the information that filters through to you. (I’m aware that cuts both ways. China and Russia don’t get a good press here either; I approach it with caution).

  7. Allan Miller,

    But come on, the idea that there is anywhere on the planet with more vicious, draconian police than America is absurd. For jock to even suggest such a thing is just being willfully ignorant. No where is even close to the US.

    I can tell you that police here are exceedingly polite and go out of their way to avoid conflict escalation. You almost never see police being aggressive or physical. And this is in a country with a billion more people to deal with than America.

    Any comparison is totally uneducated and ridiculous.

  8. Allan Miller,

    I would have to acknowledge the crappy situation with the press here in the UK. 5 billionaires (non-domiciled, because 60% of billions ain’t worth having) control 80% of the press. By lying about the EU, they gave us Brexit (to the delight of Putin and Trump). Huge swathes of the population swallow their shite whole – this is what pisses you off today, Britain! So I’m certainly not saying we’re great. But there is that 20%.

  9. Allan Miller,

    I don’t know how one even gets to the subject of press freedom, when physical freedom is so regularly abused in America.

    It’s like a wife complaining to her friend that her husband refused to buy her a new car while the friend is sitting there with a black eye from being hit with a crowbar from her husband.

  10. phoodoo:
    Allan Miller,

    I don’t know how one even gets to the subject of press freedom,when physical freedom is so regularly abused in America.

    Because that was the original point. If your information is heavily filtered, how can you compare?

  12. Allan Miller,

    I can say the orange idiot is an orange idiot all day long, but what good does it do? There is also no guarantee that I wouldn’t get visited by guys in dark suits one day. You don’t think that happens?

  13. phoodoo:
    Allan Miller,
    No I don’t think that is the point.The point is whose living condition is worse.

    Since neither of us is in trouble with the state, I don’t think that can be addressed without considering the quality of the information we get about those who are.

  14. Allan Miller: Since neither of us is in trouble with the state, I don’t think that can be addressed without considering the quality of the information we get about those who are.

    Although neither of us is a black man in America getting beaten and shot by the police, what good does it do to know?

  16. phoodoo:
    Allan Miller,

    Also,do you think you are well informed about what happens to people who are abducted by the cia ?

    Are people being abducted by the CIA? I haven’t seen anything on the news about it. Then I suppose I wouldn’t, would I? An Argentinian solution to inconvenient political prisoners was to drug them and dump them in the sea from an aircraft. Took a while before the facts became known. I wonder how a regime is able to keep the lid on something so horrific for years.

  17. phoodoo: There is also no guarantee that I wouldn’t get visited by guys in dark suits one day. You don’t think that happens?

    六四

  20. phoodoo: Every week in Portland

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

    Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent’s position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument.

    Whataboutism is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-42465516

    The Chinese army crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests killed at least 10,000 people, according to newly released UK documents.

    Every week in Portland what?

  21. phoodoo: But come on, the idea that there is anywhere on the planet with more vicious, draconian police than America is absurd. For jock to even suggest such a thing is just being willfully ignorant. No where is even close to the US.

    Actually, I did not suggest such a thing. I merely noted that people living in China may have a filtered view of events in Hong Kong. Your non-responsive whataboutery supported my suspicions. But, since you brought the subject up, I would rather be African-American than be an Uighur in Xinjiang.

    I can tell you that police here are exceedingly polite and go out of their way to avoid conflict escalation. You almost never see police being aggressive or physical.

    Likewise, the police ‘here’ are exceedingly polite, quite unlike what I read about in the papers. I have never witnessed the police be aggressive, unlike what I see on the news. You appear to be unaware of the ascertainment biases in operation.

  24. phoodoo: US police kill around 1100 citizens per year in the US. Way, way, way more than every other country on the planet, combined!

    ROFL
    Care to discuss the Uighur re-education program?

  25. phoodoo,

    I think you missed the point: where I live the police are exceedingly polite. I play soccer with them, our kids hang out together.
    My first hand experience is of very professional and calm body of men and women.
    The issue is the ascertainment bias: police malfeasance is highlighted and broadcast by a free press. You are being spoon-fed what your government wants you to see…

  26. phoodoo: So probably 30,000 plus killed by US police since 1989.

    So, that’s what, 3 Tiananmen Square protests? What’s your point?

  28. DNA_Jock: phoodoo: US police kill around 1100 citizens per year in the US. Way, way, way more than every other country on the planet, combined!

    ROFL

    So Jock links to a statistic that shows US police killed 1146 people in one year, compared to the second highest country, Mexico whose police killed 145 – and he wants you all to know he is rolling on the floor laughing. Isn’t that special.

    There are no other countries even close.

    I think the reason Jock is “rolling on the floor laughing” is because some South American countries have had political coups and military fighting, so he wants to make sure you all know in those cases they killed more than the US police does pulling over people for traffic violations or smoking marijuana. That is good to know Jock. Thanks for the amazing stat pull. Feel better America? If another country has a military coup, your police force looks a little less violent than all the rest of the world combined. Sleep well.

    When you are a free as America, there is going to be some blood shed.

  29. There seems to be some talking past each other going on. I have no direct evidence, never having lived in the US, but it does seem easier to shoot people and get shot than in most other countries. But the chances are perhaps random with a bias to being black.

    The government of the People’s Republic of China seems to target certain minority groups and journalists that report it.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/09/how-chinas-strained-relationship-with-foreign-media-unravelled

  30. Alan Fox,

    Oh I get it. People in the US get shot, kidnapped by security agents in unmarked cars, choked to death by police, quadriplegics get punched, six year olds handcuffed, twelve year old black girls slammed to the ground with broken arms, babies get firebombed by ATF agents who go into the wrong house, people get killed for selling untaxed cigarettes, life sentences for smoking marijuana , shot for being black and driving, bags put on people’s head to suffocate them, get shot 19 times for having a mental illness, put in jail for credit card debt, starved to death because jailers forget they lock guys up,, eighty year olds get pushed to the concrete by police and end up splitting their head open while law enforcement just walks past… But… There are not as many newspapers in China, so… Isn’t the US great. They have Fox news!!

  31. phoodoo: But… There are not as many newspapers in China, so… Isn’t the US great. They have Fox news!!

    It’s possible for both the USA and China to do despicable things. The difference is that nobody here is attempting to justify what is happening

    Whereas you are doing exactly that, making apologies for an authoritarian regime.

    What’s happening in the USA is terrible. Nobody is making excuses for it.

    What’s happening in China is by all accounts worse. You are making excuses for it. You are a terrible person.

    phoodoo: twelve year old black girls slammed to the ground with broken arms, babies get firebombed by ATF agents who go into the wrong house, people get killed for selling untaxed cigarettes, life sentences for smoking marijuana , shot for being black and driving

    And yet getting put in a ‘reeducation’ camp because of your religion and having your organs stolen is just fine, as you’ve not yet said a single word against any of that.

  32. Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent’s position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument.

    Whataboutism is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda.

  33. phoodoo: some South American countries have had political coups and military fighting

    The Philippines
    Also India. Neither of which are in the Americas, nor suffered coups recently.
    Your list of crimes by the US police is making my point for me: we hear about pretty much every instance.
    Are you uncomfortable discussing the Uighur re-education program? Are you even aware of it? Do you understand what ascertainment bias is?

  34. To be fair to phoodoo, he may be at real risk using the internet to discuss political repression in China.

  35. DNA_Jock,

    From Jock’s link:

    The policy has been widely condemned locally and internationally for the number of deaths resulting from police operations and allegations of systematic extrajudicial executions. The policy is supported by the majority of the local population, as well as by leaders or representatives of certain countries such as China, Japan and the United States.

    A bit like the plot of Rashomon. How you see the situation depends on your point of view.

  36. phoodoo,

    I heard about and was disgusted and horrified by many of the events you describe. But they arrived on my screen by a relatively unrestricted information system; the internet. That is not the case with the Uighur minority in PRC. Information about events and conditions in the reeducation camps there is difficult to ascertain and verify.

  37. Alan Fox: To be fair to phoodoo, he may be at real risk using the internet to discuss political repression in China.

    I suspect that that is the case. And I also suspect that phoodoo is quite aware of that issue. My original point was that people in the PRC receive carefully filtered information. If phoodoo is self-censoring, he knows that I am right.
    The abiding irony is that I agree with phoodoo about Trumps’s appalling performance, especially re CoVid-19; I agree with phoodoo re the unacceptable racist brutality of certain US police departments.
    It’s just that, in the data-driven world I inhabit, if someone overstates their case, I make an effort to correct them, even if I agree with their general point. This nuance escapes phoodoo. Overstating your case harms your argument, in this world.
    It is, sadly, a shrinking world…

  38. DNA_Jock: t’s just that, in the data-driven world I inhabit, if someone overstates their case, I make an effort to correct them, even if I agree with their general point. This nuance escapes phoodoo. Overstating your case harms your argument, in this world.

    It’s a consequence of the adversarial legal system in both UK and US, perhaps, that leads to arguments involving hyperbole and slippery slopes. In arguing rationally and basing it on facts and evidence, you run the risk of losing ground to the assumption that the true facts lie somewhere between your calm accurate appraisal and your opponent’s “fake news”. Maybe phoodoo doesn’t want to take the risk.

  39. Mere moments away from release (after about three years of struggle)!

    Here’s the TOC:

    Chapter One: Axioms, Paradoxes, and Alleged Deficits of Democracy

    Chapter Two: Individual Values Naturalized I: Objective Voluntarism

    Chapter Three: Individual Values Naturalized II: The More Good, the Better

    Chapter Four: Equal People or Equal Votes?

    Chapter Five: Who May Vote I: Interest or Inhabitancy?

    Chapter Six: Who May Vote II: Residence, Age, Criminality, and Competence

    Chapter Seven: Votes and Their Aggregation I: Majority Rule and Majoritarianism

    Chapter Eight: Votes and Their Aggregation II: Minority Representation and How it Must be Combined with Majority Rule

    Chapter Nine: Political Representation I: Direct Participation, Delegation, or Controlled Trusteeship?

    Chapter Ten: Political Representation II: Deliberation, Camerality, Term Limits and Judicial Review of Legislative Procedures

    Chapter Eleven: A Stouter, but More Minimalistic Constitution: Other Teachings of Naturalized Democratic Theory

    Chapter Twelve: Last Words on Distilled Populism: Objections and Responses

  41. Alan Fox,

    Yes, the adversarial legal system as a lot to answer for, especially the US version. Scientists, on the other hand, prefer the evidence-based ‘drive to consensus’ amongst supposedly disinterested parties. The thing that mitigates their partisan bickering is the “Beautiful Theory killed by an Ugly Fact” syndrome.
    Reality will catch up with you, eventually.

  45. Alan Fox: Why can’t it be both!

    I say it IS both, but I’m not sure I’ll be entirely convincing. The problem is that some things (like, say, getting a third piece of pie) generally aren’t as important to people as other things (like having their child not die of cancer). So, if people are equal it may seem immoral to treat votes equally.

    Similar problem in the other direction if you treat every vote as having an equal weight to every other vote.

  47. walto: Do I have to open an OP to attach a pdf file to a comment?

    Not necessarily. PDF is an allowed format but the file size is limited and they can be a bit hard to read if text is involved. The link works fine. Those are some impressive reviews!

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