I know what you mean. The Nepalese family 2 houses down asked for some help unloading lumber out of their truck. As I carried the wood to their back yard, I thought “is this it?  Is this when Mount Everest erupts in Pittsburgh?” Luckily they just wanted to build some raised gardens and thanked me. But for a second....

I think this image kind of sums it up.  This person feels she's doing something comparable to a relative who dodged bullets and suffered for months/years in a combat zone.  It's completely absurd, but a lot of people have deluded themselves into thinking they're on the front lines of some battle against good and evil.  They're just conveniently allowed to escape unscathed and grab a Starbucks on their way home to order Grubhub. 

These people aren't unique, I know plenty of idiots who fantasize about another American Revolution every time a politician brings up gun control.  My issue is with the media pushing the narrative that these bored millenials are actually doing something, other than making a lot of noise and a big mess.  Police aren't going to be defunded.  Court systems aren't going to be dismantled.  And police officers are never going to be expected to sacrifice their safety/lives so a violent criminal can live to see another day.  It's an absurd proposition that no rational person would propose.  Yet these are exactly what's being demanded by every protest group in every major city. 

The desire to punish bad police, which I completely support, is going to have consequences.  Remove the police union, and you have to ask why not the teacher's union, or any public union that prevents bad actors from being removed.  True, teachers aren't be accused of excessive force, but if your argument is "Bad teachers shouldn't be removed and should continue to have union protection because they don't kill people", that's not much of an argument. 

Because people are so comfortable, safer and informed more so than at any other point in human history, they need to invent drama to add meaning to what they perceive as uneventful lives.  Fighting against "racism" is a badge of honor that allows people to feel good about themselves without actually doing anything.  If you think the riots and protests are what led to the 4 officers being charged with 2nd degree murder, we're not living the same reality. 

CNN, The Post, Times and every other left leaning outlet condemned Americans who participated in memorial day celebrations, calling them a danger to the rest of us and irresponsible in the current COVID climate.  They said the same thing in April when hundreds protested lock down orders.  Days later, when thousands marched (and rioted) for George Floyd, these same talking heads who had condemned people for grilling out with their family, were now championing people who huddled into huge masses.  Very few people are capable of actual, continued intelligent thought, and even fewer are capable of articulating those ideas based on objective truths. 

Any discussion of observed differences in demographic groups is immediately derided as racist.  This happened yesterday when an Ohio state Senator inquired if the disparity in covid-19 infections among ethnicities may be due to different behavior - ignoring social distancing guidelines and CDC advice on mask use and hand washing.  The question was immediately decried as "racist", despite clear evidence that something was occurring to make black and hispanic populations contract the virus more than other demographics.  That something can't be linked to racism or genetics, so it has to be behavior based.  But any discussion of behavior is prohibited, and anyone who breaks the rule is immediately labeled a racist by people with strong emotional feelings.

So long as we allow people to prohibit discussion, and refuse to consider other narratives other than what mainstream media and social media have already determined to be  correct, nothing changes.  I said it earlier, Democrats who share a stage with Sharpton or Farrakhan don't get to talk about racism.  You can't stand on stage with the leader of the largest hate group in America, and pretend to have moral superiority.

You can’t vote in multiple states or places. Being registered isn’t the same as voting. If anything, this article is a great example of why we should be like every other first world nation and have controls over elections.  Democrats fight for laws that keep people registered in multiple places, rather than policing them up.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/08/health/c … index.html

Damn. Saw buzz already posted. Sure glad I have to wear a mask half the places I go to!

I guess my struggle in empathizing towards the BLM movement is their utter silence on the 99.9% of deaths unrelated to a police officer shooting an unarmed black man. 9 unarmed black men were shot by police last year. Approximately 5500 were killed by a firearm from another black man - 50% of all firearm homicides in the US, despite only being 12% of the population.

5 black men have been murdered by (presumably) black men in the Pittsburgh area the past week. We’ve had protests every day for George Floyd, with over 1k people staging a lay-in (they pretend to be dead) in front of the jail on Friday. Not a single mention about any of these five men, but a lot about George Floyd.

If the premise of BLM is that the lives of black people are undervalued in the US, and thus the statement, “Black Lives Matter” needs to be stated to bring awareness to this, how is such a notion compatible with the utter massacre inflicted on black lives largely by other black lives.

The movement is filled with disinformation and outright lies. “Hands up don’t shoot” is a lie. Michael Brown never surrendered, he never put his hands up. The autopsy showed this and was affirmed under Eric Holder and Obama. Brown charged the police officer after trying to disarm him, and was shot. That’s as clear cut a case of when lethal force is justified. You assault a police officer, resist arrest, then attempt to charge the police officer while he has his weapon drawn to protect himself from the assault you initiated, you’re going to die in every country on earth. Yet “hands up don’t shoot” has become as synonymous as “I can’t breathe!”  Yes, this slogan absolutely applies to George Floyd. But it’s been repeated for years since Eric Garner, who again, was proven not to be choked to death and clearly resisted arrest. Garner was repeatedly asked to not sell black market cigarettes and bootlegs in front of a store. Repeatedly. The police had let him go many times before, but at what point do we have to enforce the law? So the police go to arrest him, he puts up a fight, and has a heart attack. That’s what happened. He wasn’t choked to death. And in both the Brown and Grey incidents, a jury evaluated all testimony (with black jurors) and came back not guilty. So to lead a movement based on the lie that these men were murdered, undercuts they integrity of the entire thing. Same with Trayvon Martin. Yes, George Zimmerman is a known douche now. But that didn’t now or then entitle Martin to knock Zimmerman to the ground, and repeatedly bash his head into the concrete. Only when his head was being repeatedly beat against the concrete, did Zimmerman pull his gun and shoot Martin. That’s what the forensic evidence and medical exams of both Zimmerman and Martin said. You can hypothesize and conjecture all you want, but you better have a story that supported by the forensic  evidence.

How many unarmed white people were killed last year?  Black people commit more crimes than any other ethnicity. That’s not a racist statement, it’s objective fact. Half the murders in this country are done by black men. Unless you know of thousands of hidden murders that the police have failed to register, you can’t negate this fact. And if you acknowledge it, you have to acknowledge that any prudent police department is going to focus on the areas where the most felony 1s are committed. So despite that disparity, black men aren’t killed equally relative to their representation in police calls.

Yes, I agree there is absolutely a lot culturally, socially and institutionally that feed into this discussion. But the current climate seems to be centered around police brutality, and only alleged police brutality towards black men. Minneapolis wants to disband it’s police force. The notion is absurd, but let’s assume it actually happens. Granted, if there’s no police, black men can’t be murdered like George Floyd was. I’d like to point out that Floyd’s murderers are being charged with 2nd degree murder, and were charged before the protests even took place. So I don’t know what more in the incident if George Floyd people want. But on topic, no police, so 9 Unarmed black men aren't killed. But what about the 5491 other black men?  How many more of them die because there’s no police violence to mitigate the violence in the black community that takes 5500 black lives each year?

If I’ve missed something, tell me. But I disagree with the notion black lives are undervalued. In fact, I’d argue the black community devalues black lives the most since they’re responsible for the most black deaths. To take it a step further, it’s well known that witnesses tend not to cooperate with police in these murders. Leaving murderers on the street, to take more black lives.

I believe police actions should be reviewed. I believe those found to be in violation of the law should be punished. But I don’t support dehumanizing police. How many police officers have been murdered or shot in the past week?  Anybody?  They’re humans too, and they don’t forfeit their right to defense by wearing a badge. Their lives are just as important as anyone else’s. I haven’t seen the marches for the officers murdered in cold blood, including the black officers who have been killed the past week.

So I’m summation, I don’t understand BLM. I find most of them to be misinformed and taken advantage of by pieces of shit like Al Sharpton, and the countless others who peddle his wares.  I’d love someone to explain what I’ve got wrong and what I’m missing. But I make decisions on data and the researched truth. So please provide those figures rather than your opinion on how others value the life of someone you didn’t no existed.