Baltimore

[Redsfan1507]

The O's cancelled 2 games due to unrest in Baltimore, and are planning to play a game today closed to the public. They're talking about moving upcoming "home" games elsewhere- even to their Fla. minor league complex. There is a 10PM curfew in place and armed authority in the streets now. Martial Law Lite, I suppose. What about other businesses or people living there? They can't change home field.

Pretty much blows the idea that sports and politics aren't related. I don't get the whole idea that burning down someone else's neighborhood is justice, or will promote justice or improve anything...other than the chances of looting a TV or two, or hurting some innocent bystander, or someone that might deserve punishment for the riot, might get it.

The only time I would advocate violence is in a war- or overthrow of an unjust government where all other methods have been exhausted. Is that what they're thinking/doing ? Would the thugs running the riot be better government than the one currently in place ? Does anyone believe that ?

 

[JohnU]

I think the only thing that keeps most semi-civilized people from being looters, muggers, vandals and hordes of rapist-plunderers is the fear that we will get caught. When society breaks down and doing the anarchy thing because there's no consequences ... you end up with Baltimore.

I'd venture that those who live there will assert that "99 percent of us aren't doing it." That may be true but it's like the gun lobby that says "99 percent of us know what to do with a gun." The math is, it ain't the 99 percent that worries me ... it's the 1 percent. And the larger the number, the larger the 1 percent becomes.

People bitch about a strong police presence in a high-crime area. There's a reason the cops are there and when they can't control the peace, we end up with this. The notion that people are by nature peaceful is a complete myth. If you can get away with it and there's nobody to stop you and the rest of society says it's OK, you'll do it. We don't grope women in public because we're gentle. We don't grope them because we will get the shit knocked out of us if we do.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Murder rate is down by more than 66% in Baltimore...even if you count the poor guy they're burning the town for. Obviously the police presence is making a difference.

Chris Rock has some good tips on how to not get your ass kicked by the police. The video is hilarious. Check U Tube.

Obey the law. If you get busted jumping a subway turnstile, you might get hassled...if you jump the turnstile with a gun in your belt and smoking a joint, you probably are getting your ass beat.
When the police pull you over, stop immediately. Stay in the car, and be polite. Do what they tell you. Don't run away, 'cause you know if they have to chase you down, your gonna get your ass kicked. Don't invite a friend to ride along that is carrying drugs, a gun, has a warrent out on him, won't shut the fuck up, or follow the previous suggestions. Get a white friend to ride along that will follow previous suggestions. Don't have an angry woman in the car with you, who wants to see you get your ass kicked.

Funny, but true.

I would just add that I'd guess that everyone carrying loot out of a store during the "protest" was unarmed too, but should still have their ass beat.

 

[JohnU]

Sociology apologists are all over the internet, trying to tell us what we need to know about life in the ghetto, as if a bunch of white guys from Grand Rapids actually know.
I honestly don't much care about any of that beyond the normal giving a shit about people, but I do know this -- nobody in history ever profited from participating in a street riot. You just tend to piss off the wrong people if you do that. But I guess it makes you a hero in the 'hood.

 

[Redsfan1507]

See, I still believe that everyone should love their kids. Enough to demand respect. From AND for their kids. You can't have one without the other, but that's a well kept secret, I guess.

Unfortunately, everybody doesn't know their kids, much less raise them. Respect means different things to different people. Thugs think respect is forced from fear, instead of earned from humanity. Toss in a thriving heroin business in a neighborhood with no names or forwarding addresses, and a restricted police force, and a riot is an opportunity impossible to pass up.

I don't believe it takes a village to raise a kid, it takes parents. I believe that lots of villages do raise kids, but they usually train them for a different village- prison.

It isn't the hood that makes thugs, it's the other way around.

The real problem is no matter how disfunctional the home you are raised in is, it is NORMAL (to you), until you get out in the world and see a different way... For the hood to thrive, it has to keep people misinformed, under-educated, un-employable and dependant on the hood- welfare, gangs, crime, drugs and resistance to outside influence. Most politicians actually aid the preservation of the hood, because it's a sneaky way of enslaving the people there and insuring their misinformed votes. That way, jail is the only comparison to the hood for many on their first trip out, and it's not much different than the hood. To them, it's all the same. When they go to jail, it's just a vocational school, and when they get out, they go back to the hood better trained to do the work that sent them to jail.

Get rid of the thugs, and politicians that placate them, and the hood will be a neighborhood again. Unfortunately, that requires law and order, and that requires police, and a government and society that support them. That's not likely until the 95% of decent people start raising hell, instead of the 5% that are now.

 

[WvuDieHard]

The real issue starts at the White House where the POTUS and his Islamic Administration promotes violence and continues to skirt the constitution because it has Christian values in it. Impeach the POTUS and you make a start in the right direction.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Thankfully, he's on short notice. Unless he can push an executive order for a 3rd term.

As a student of history, I'm well aware of how slaves are made- there are only 2 ways- by force, usually from a foreign invader, or by allowing them to unwittingly volunteer to be defenseless, subservient dependents of a self serving domestic politburo at the polls. Socialism is just Communism without putting a gun to their head. If one of his left leaning colleagues takes his place, that addenda will continue to move FORWARD. Social unrest is always a predecessor to wider government control and/or revolution. Unfortunately, the current issue speaks to prospects of un-arming the police and limiting protection of the majority of law abiding free people, in advance of disarming the rest of us...not good for maintaining justice in a society of criminals and extremists, but one that is a good first step in reducing the ability of the American public to fight back. That takes all the political pressure to be re elected off. The US has overcome every superpower so far, but one: itself. That's probably next.

If you can't trust the police, the Church, the Secret Service, FBI, CIA, IRS, your Insurance company, employer, or your lawyer, just get rid of them. I'm sure the government will replace them with a more just system that will have OUR best interests at heart. Scary, but SOME people believe that, and are willing for YOU to die to prove it.

 

[JohnU]

I have not heard, read, observed or ascertained any attempts by the Obama administration to usurp, steal, reconstruct or enforce any governmental authority that isn't already in place, so I can't understand why I am reading this.

It's also not illegal for a Muslim to be president, even though one has never tried to be elected. Obama is more of a Christian than I am, but it seems that Christians have fucked this planet up plenty enough for me to have less respect for them than I would the Wiccans who dance around a maypole and chant poetry.

If government is taking more, it's because we as a society expect more of it. Nobody wants to pick up the trash now, they just want to blame the government for not passing a law making trash illegal -- for the poor people.

I can't see where my rights and privileges have eroded since 2008, though I notice we are sending fewer people to war these days. The stock market is up, fuel prices are down and I haven't seen a shortage of food in the supermarket. Nobody has come to take my guns, though the neo-tards at the NRA were quite sure that was going to happen. Actually, I have no problem with guns, but I do have a problem with idiots who have guns.

So I am not going to add any more to this, because it's banter bought with confusion. I doubt I live long enough to see the real problem solved -- our absolute belief that political parties will ever fix anything and the pointless drivel that passes for opposition to a political philosophy now. The traditional progressives have been trampled by the liars at the Koch brothers chemical plant.

What's missing now is personal responsibility -- which includes communication, education on the issues and something resembling human decency.

Baltimore is/was a manmade problem. It is also not the fault of the Obama administration.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Oh, I agree John. Most of our problems are the result of not enough people accepting personal responsibility. I think there are the same issues with government, who don't like accountability- in other words, accepting results of excusing their responsibility away.

People killed people before guns, but no one had guns then either. I love the idea that nut jobs and anarchists and despots could be denied guns, if everyone else was too...but it usually works the other way. Criminals always have guns, and are more willing to use them on unarmed people I think.

At least from a psychological perspective, I wish our society would give people more opportunity and individual responsibility, and incentivize them using it, instead of public sympathy and subsidization for those that blame their chosen condition on someone or something else, want compensation, yet refuse to contribute anything positive themselves.

Our country is flawed, but IMO, still the best in history, as evidenced by it being one of the few where the poorest people are the fattest, and everyone the right to speak their mind. We don't get what we pay for in our elected officials, but we often get what we ask for.

Burning a neighborhood should never be acceptable or tolerated. The media makes everything worse.

 

[JohnU]

Having worked in the news media for close to 45 years, reporter, scribe, stringer, manager, editor ... I do have some insight.

First off, the illusion that the media is "biased liberals" is nothing but a contrived lie. It's been a lie and part of a narrative that is really pretty easy to understand.

Sometime during the Clinton presidency, Rush Limbaugh got a radio show and pounded away at the concepts that the far right wanted to hear. He was immensely popular at a time when most radio was really transitioning in and out of whether to sell to the Mexican language stations.

As time went on and the blogosphere emerged, we ended up with Breitbart, Matt Drudge, Glenn Beck, Alex Jones and a few others -- and they decided to all harvest Limbaugh's seed. There was and is plenty of profit in attacking poor people after you have identified them as welfar-sucking ni**ers, etc. etc. etc.

When 9/11 happened, all bets were off.

Meanwhile these blogs kept churning out ridiculous "Obama is a Muslim" lies all day long and when it was called out that the "mainstream" media wasn't reporting that, their standard answer was:

"Mainstream media is liberal and won't admit the truth."

The FACT was, the mainstream media doesn't report these outrageous rants because they AREN'T TRUE. But the snake is out of the bottle on that. Mainstream media can only shrug, continue to do its business and regret that these right-wing liars have gotten away with it so long that the narrative has been swallowed, hook line and sinker. People who follow Limbaugh believe that only HE is telling the truth. The fact that nobody else is saying what he says is, according to him and his followers, "justifiable proof that the media is owned and manipulated by the liberal left."

The fact is, the mainstream media is nothing if it isn't conservative-progressive. There are a lot of us out there who follow that doctrine. It's simple. We need tax money to fix roads, build bridges, clean the air and water and defend our country. Some things really DO require the whole village to pitch in.

The best cure for poverty has always been very simple. IT IS CALLED SCHOOL.

Barack Obama is not the problem.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Well, I do think Obama is more Muslim than anything else, given his history, ancestries and education, and possibly his birthplace. That really doesn't make much difference, even if he falsified docs to say he was eligible to run- because you can't take it back now anyway. I do think the media is biased, both ways. The same story on CBS and Fox aren't the same story, and neither is probably exactly what happened.

There are marked differences in extreme left and right, from financial to social topics. Unfortunately, most of us sit somewhere in the middle, where political compromise often under serves us all. Politicians say what gets or keeps them in office generally, what prospective voters want to hear, not what we need to hear.

Everything costs money, and the US has just printed more to keep from addressing more painful cures. I believe that most people vote from their wallet. Wether yours comes from choices of work or welfare, if that's what you know, that's what you vote for, unless you want to switch sides at some point. Some do. The numbers say that about 50% of the population doesn't pay taxes, and contrary to what some believe, people that make more do pay more. There are increased numbers of non working people that need those tax dollars every year.

The left seems to believe the answer is taking it from people already working and paying, albeit not the fair share they see fit, often at the cost of real jobs, not at Taco Bell. The right seems to believe the answer is going on a spending diet, often effecting the poorest worst and giving more incentives to add jobs that don't come with fries, but that might kill the spotted owl, or maybe our grand kids. One believes in abortion, the other doesn't. Gay marriage or not. Open immigration or not. Talk v. The Big Stick. The truth, and the best answers are always in the middle of those extremes, but seem to get lost in the quagmire of politicians looking to insure different rules and benefits for themselves, than everyone else is entitled to.

I don't think anything works, unless people do.

I oftentimes think we should throw them all out of office and put them back into this great economy they've provided us with. Same SS, insurance and IRA options. I don't think we'll ever get the best representation until the politicians have to live by the same rules we do.