I read a little further and edited out some stuff from my post you quoted. I'll read more tonight. They should use population rate for the very reason I stated. If the argument is that the police treat black/white 'suspects' differently, then using 'crime rates' is invalid. The crime rates are DIRECTLY controlled by the very police actions that are being questioned. Therefor the data is compromised. If I am wrong, then please explain to me how and why. I'm also curious what their definition of 'crime rate' is. Is it reported crimes or 'solved crimes'? Also, the Justice Department seem to agree with BLM. At least in reference to Baltimore. please read https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3009376/BPD-Findings-Report-FINAL.pdf
I feel like quoting Mark Twain... Spoiler: Yes? Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimmage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen
I hear you. What I see in a lot of advertising, is bypassing the smart and average listener/viewer and aiming the advertising at the challenged viewer or listener. I believe the statistical analyses over time show that smart to average customers are offended and put off by most ads. This woman with her mattress company has gotten conditioned to concentrate on the bottom dregs would be customer. You know, the kind of person who spends too much for a very crappy mattress and has to keep replacing it every 18 months while the more adept customer finds something that will last, maybe isn't advertised at all, lasts 5 years or more and only costs a few dollars more than what this woman's target customer pays. Normally, any stupid ad that is colorful and loud, should work well for this. The people that create such ads aren't rocket surgeons. When the bar is this low, you aren't IMO paying attention when you go wrong. I wouldn't be shocked if this mattress woman and the TV guys that made this spot, still are lost as to what exactly is so bad about what they did.
The main thing that Kaepernick is doing that is messed up is, the message is incoherent. And, it is so convenient and cute that he bypasses the NFL and goes after something that's less liable to hurt this ball player, or his team, or the NFL. That should set off alarm bells, right there. I mean, is the guy refusing to play? No. Is he giving 75% of his post tax income to organizations whose objective is to eliminate the injustice he's complaining about? Not that I know of. No, Colin Kaepernick is ever so careful to strike out at the symbol that's least likely to push back against him in his POCKETBOOK. He's a fraud. He says he cares about injustice, but he's working very hard to also make sure his balance sheet goes up, if it goes anywhere. This IMO is why the 49ers organization is scrambling to throw down some money so it looks like they have a heart, and care about these aggrieved people. I think they figured they could appease people (angry people coming at them from both directions) and also make Kaepernick's actions look like they might actually help somebody. Colin Kaepernick, to me, looks like a confused and conflicted and ultimately selfish person. Kinda like Tom Brady. :^
I don't care what the numbers say. They have shot unarmed, innocent people. A 12 year old kid, the caretaker for an autistic man (they were actually shooting at the autistic man, and missed), etc., etc. It's not real to you because you aren't being shot at. Actually, it seems to have slowed down a lot lately, mostly because the whole world is watching at this point.
I'm not suggesting one ignore demographic data, but I am agreeing with the piece's author that crime rate data is needed in determining how areas compare and how many people of each racial makeup have been part of a shooting. Without both, data gets skewed and misunderstood. For example, if there is a gang of five white guys living in a town of 100 people, and in a given year 4/5 of them are killed by police in a shooting, is it a racially driven situation? It matters whether I also present you with facts such as violent crime among whites in this town is the highest in the nation or that it is the lowest in the nation. Only then can one start to go beyond basic numbers and start to perhaps compare with other towns and police department behaviors. I think this could just be semantics on your part, so let me know if I'm misunderstanding here, but I disagree that crime rates are directly controlled by police actions. Police actions mitigate to some extent, but crime rates are less impacted by police actions than many other factors (e.g., socioeconomic, education, etc.). Finally, I'm not arguing against Baltimore policing issues but rather the false assertion by many that there are rogue police en masse gunning people of a certain color down for no reason. The same DOJ also concluded the Ferguson narrative is untrue (i.e., "hands up, don't shoot"). Yes, there are outlier jerk LEO's who have unjustifiably shot people of all racial backgrounds. It's just not the massive issue many claim it to be.
I don't think Kap is a fraud, I think he's sincere. His jersey sales went up, but he's wisely decided to not profit from that and donate the money. My problem with what he's doing is that the message he wants to send isn't really being served, IMO anyway. Yeah, it's in the background, but it's also something that is already in the news on a regular basis, it's not like he's pointing out an issue that no one is aware of. The protest has created its own raging issue, and all the stuff we're debating here about whether it disrespects the troops and all. I don't think that will ever go away, and his message will never be in the forefront of attention of his and any other player's protest. And Kap has alienated a lot of people he may have wanted to reach. So from a practical standpoint, I'm not sure he's accomplishing anything. Though putting his money where his, er, butt is might do some good, depending on where and how it's used.
I acknowledge and respect your feelings about the issue of innocents being shot, and I also feel that is a terrible injustice. Those that perpetrated such crimes should be punished severely. The point is you have to look at the numbers to see that they are indeed outliers versus the norm many would like everyone to believe is the case. That's the narrative. I bolded the above. It's no use discussing further with you if you wish to disregard the data.
That is the problem when policy is driven by emotion instead of data. You can look at the data and make an educated and logical conclusion regardless of your emotions. Or be controlled by emotions and make many bad decisions.
I don't care what the numbers say because that doesn't excuse shooting one unarmed, innocent person. Not one. It's not like you get to shoot a percentage of innocent people per crime, is it? That's just whitewash.
By massive, I mean numerically, and deciding has nothing to do with it. I'm concluding that from the data you choose to ignore. Good day.
i would not stay seated for the anthem.when i think of the anthem i know that sometimes,no mostly,the real heroes in this country don't wear a uniform.servicemen deserve no more respect than the cop on the beat or some poor dumb kid that took 16 shots,or the guy shot in the back,or the homeless guy in the street.
As far as the 9/11 commercial, I for one lost personal friends, fellow brother's from the Fire Service, and was at Ground Zero. I cannot have any objective opinion on the subject. That proven by my initial reaction in that I only hope that people vote with their wallet, and avoid buying one single sheet from that store. Now Kaep is another story. There's a singular societal chasm that I believe we are still experiencing in the U.S. I believe this because when there's so much polarization between what people are doing/saying based on his actions, it's clear to me that there are two sides that are right and two sides that are wrong. On one side, there's the patriotic sentiment; those supporting the military, those "proud" of our country and those that feel the need to voice their discontent with Kaep loud and clear. Then there's the other side; the side that's made his NFL Jersey the #1 in sales, the side that publicly supports him, the side that lives the disparity Kaep spoke about each and every day. IMO, it only proves that we, as an entire country, still have a deep divide with serious social issues that need to be resolved and/or solved.
I don't believe anybody ever said it is OK to excuse the shooting of an unarmed innocent person. Those that do that are prosecuted and in most cases convicted. But that isn't at all what the discussion is about. So far this year 83 police have been killed in the line of duty. Is that too many? Or should we disarm the police so they will not kill anybody at all?