VOX There are huge racial disparities in how US police use force
8 More Related Pieces from VOX
Mike on FB says he can prove that all the protesters and VOX are wrong. So I said I would create this post especially for him. Now we will see if he shows. If not, I will do more digging.
8 More Related Pieces from VOX
Mike on FB says he can prove that all the protesters and VOX are wrong. So I said I would create this post especially for him. Now we will see if he shows. If not, I will do more digging.
"There are so many false narratives and bullshit liberal talking points being told by our media and on social media, especially as of late. None of which has any basis in facts, only emotion. Exposing information and people who help perpetuate baseless drivel is the definition of bringing subjects rationally to the table. I could blow up this thread with real world FBI statistics on race, crime rates, and police brutality issues. None of which would fit the false narratives I read everyday from emotionally charged mental midgets who literally have no idea what they are talking about. They only regurgitate and spew the same bullshit talking points they hear from the liberal media and uninformed masses."Then he gave a link to this silly Prager U video to prove something. I just found it a good example of why I avoid Prager U videos. A bunch of unrelated facts, vague relations, off topic, etc.
192 comments:
It looks like the VOX writer has been doing a deep dive on the FBI data for quite awhile.
Trump Officials Deny Systemic Racism Provide NO Data
"Numerous studies have found black Americans to be the disproportionate targets of both arrests and use of force by police.
While the government has not published comprehensive data on racial disparities in policing, a study by the group Mapping Police Violence, which tracks the deaths of unarmed people due to police harm, found people of color and black Americans in particular are disproportionately affected.
About a third of the more than 1,000 unarmed people who died due to police harm between 2013 and 2019 were black, according to the data, and 17 percent of black people who died due to police harm were unarmed, outpacing the national average of 13 percent.
In Minneapolis, where George Floyd died in police custody, setting off a wave of protests around the nation, a New York Times analysis of city data found police use physical force against black residents at seven times the rate of white ones."
By the way, I don't think Mike will be joining us.
He insulted VOX, pointed me to The Myth of Systemic Police Racism Opinion Piece which is behind a pay wall and reiterated his claim that he could prove VOX wrong but did not want to take the time...
Too bad, I had such high hopes for some real analysis and data. :-(
Here is one for the...
More Violent Minorities, More Dead Minorities Stack
Also, written by the Manhatten group again?
But one of their sources is interesting.
What These Findings Do Not Show.
Our analyses test for racial disparities in FOIS, which should not be conflated with racial bias (21). Racial disparities are a necessary but not sufficient, requirement for the existence of racial biases, as there are many reasons why fatal shootings might vary across racial groups that are unrelated to bias on the behalf of police officers.
For example, we found that a person fatally shot by police was much more likely to be White when they were suicidal. This does not mean that there are department policies or officer biases that encourage fatal shootings of suicidal White civilians. A more plausible explanation is that White civilians are more likely to attempt “suicide by cop” than minorities (38). Similarly, Black and Hispanic officers (compared with White officers) were more likely to fatally shoot Black and Hispanic civilians. This does not mean that there are department policies encouraging non-White officers to fatally shoot minorities. Rather, the link between officer race and FOIS appears to be explained by officers and civilians being drawn from the same population, making it more likely that an officer will be exposed to (and fatally shoot) a same-race civilian.
We stress that these findings cannot incriminate or exonerate officers in any specific case. Findings at the national level do not directly speak to the presence or absence of bias in individual shootings. In other words, whether a particular officer shows bias in any individual case is a different question than whether officers in general show bias. Claims of national bias in FOIS requires examining fatal force in aggregate, and not just in one incident or racial group (39).
Conclusion.
Until now, researchers have been unable to test questions related to officer characteristics in fatal shootings. We created a near-complete database of fatal shootings in 2015 to test questions about racial disparities in FOIS. However, continued work on this issue will require more information about the officers, civilians, and circumstances surrounding these events. We encourage federal agencies to enforce policies that require recording information about the civilians and officers in FOIS to better understand the relationship between civilian race and police use of force.
SA The Data Needs Improvement
The results paint a picture of definite disparity when it comes to race and police shootings. Although more white people are shot in total, people from minority ethnic groups are shot at higher rates by population. One paper published in August found that a black man is 2.5 times more likely than a white man to be killed by the police during his lifetime. The difference, albeit smaller, is also there for women. But the authors did not make any conclusions regarding racial bias of police officers, in part because not everyone has an equal chance of coming into contact with the police. Crime rates and policing practices differ across communities, as do the historical legacies that influence them. Aggressive policing over time can increase local levels of violence and contact with the police, says Frank Edwards, a sociologist at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, and an author on the paper. “This is inherently a multilevel problem,” he says.
Researchers have used various approaches to try to determine the best benchmarks for the data, such as looking at the arrest rates where the shootings occurred or factoring in the context of encounters that end in a shooting. Did the suspect have a weapon? Were officers or another civilian being threatened? In a 2017 study, for example, Nix determined that black people fatally shot by the police were twice as likely as white people to be unarmed. Those findings align with many studies published since 2015 suggesting that racial biases do influence police shootings.
Some research runs counter to this conclusion. This July, authors of a study that pulled information from The Washington Post and The Guardian databases, as well as directly from police departments, said they found no evidence of biases against black or Hispanic people. In addition to factoring in the crime rates of the communities where the shootings happened, the authors looked at the race of the officers involved.
Several scientists have taken issue with their methods, however. To sidestep some of the questions about encounter rates, the study authors started from the pool of people shot by the police and then calculated the chance that they were of a certain race. Jonathan Mummolo, a political scientist at Princeton University, New Jersey, argues that the real question to ask in order to detect racial bias is the reverse: does a citizen of a certain race face a greater chance of getting shot by the police? And answering this question requires knowing, or at least reasonably approximating, that elusive encounter rate.
I remember, I don't think I will ever be able to forget, the rally in Minneapolis where Minneapolis lined up in those red, pro Trump shirts, behind Trump. I think historians will look back at that day and say that marked the end of the Minneapolis Police Department.
Effective policing is about credibility. It has to be, because the cops are outnumbered so overwhelmingly. That lesson was brought home in the harshest terms possible a couple of weekends ago when we saw that a police force without credibility couldn't protect themselves, let alone the people of Minneapolis.
--Hiram
"About a third of the more than 1,000 unarmed people who died due to police harm between 2013 and 2019 were black, according to the data, and 17 percent of black people who died due to police harm were unarmed, outpacing the national average of 13 percent."
Seems to me that you answer your own question, and are unable to see it. Blacks are 13% of the population, and commit somewhere around 36% of violent crimes, according to statistics. That means blacks "encounter" police MORE than 1/3 of the time, And the fact that 83% of them were armed, slightly more than the national average, explains the chance of an "encounter" turning deadly.
Who was the famous black actor who said "if you want black people to not be treated like criminals, you have to stop being criminals," or something like that?
Jerry,
Unfortunately it does seem to be looking that way. :-(
Somewhere I compared it to friendly fire or civilian deaths in Iraq.
The US soldiers had no desire or intent to kill each other or innocent civilians, but sometimes it at happens. :-(
In this case, unfortunately we have a significant group within a population that joins gangs and commits more violent crimes. Therefore of course more of them are killed by police.
The question then is how do we eliminate the "innocent civilian" deaths in the middle of this "war"?
I am not denying that there are incompetent or dangerous offices who are racially biased.
However anyone who compares White and Black statistics without acknowledging the differences in crime rates is wrong.
Thanks. Now what concerns me is the notion that there are "innocent civilians" involved here. It depends on definition, of course, but in major cities, where most of the homicides occur, the norm is black-on-black violence and consists of one or more gang members killing one or more other gang members. (gun control notwithstanding). Not sure you help truly innocent civilians until the police get control (maybe with the help of the community) of the criminal element.
I was thinking about this last night, and even if we start to solve the underlying problem, we will need enhanced police presence for years to come, until we kill (or they kill each other) or reform our existing disproportionately black criminal class. It could be done better, but we have to get rid of the BLM mentality, somehow, and I'm not sure how you do that, with "black leaders" constantly stoking the fire.
To me that generational change means changing the welfare system to encourage marriage and work, greatly reducing fatherless homes and the nutrition and behavior problems hampering school success. You reform the schools to take kids from where they are to where they need to be-- individualized instruction as necessary and possible, and offering real opportunity to join the economic success upon graduation. Sounds way simpler than it is, of course, but it is the right progression.
The "Innocent Bystanders" I am thinking of are the many thousand times per year Police Officers pull over, harm or even kill innocent Black individuals.
To deny this is real is as silly as insisting that Cops are out to harm Black individuals.
That goes back to my original statement, borrowed, that if black folks don't like being treated like criminals, they should quit, as a group, being criminals. Even Mayor DeBlasio in NYC, though criticized for it, said something like "we put all the cops in black neighborhoods because that is where all the crime is."
You are correct, this presumption of criminality disproportionately affects blacks, innocent and otherwise. The cure for that is for the black community to either clean up its act or demand that the police do so. Right now they're being led in the wrong direction from either.
That's like asking Republicans to remove their greedy self centered members.
Very pointless...
This is going to take work from everyone.
That's a very bad analogy. "Republicans" have no corner on greed or self-centeredness, first of all, and when those traits stray into the criminal, "they" are among the first to disapprove or, if needed, seek prosecution.
And you are willing to overlook those "cultural differences" in the "black community," where fatherless boys grow up lacking discipline, join gangs, and everyone distrusts/dislikes the police. Where white kids are taught, "if you get lost, find a policeman" black kids are taught, "the police will shoot you." BIG difference. You are right, this may take work from everyone, and many years, but it is that culture that has to change.
Jerry,
Wrong... Trump has done many things that stray into the verge of criminal and his believers are doing everything they can to protect him and deny this.
I do agree that their culture needs to change, and so does ours.
You seem to want to put the onus on them.
"The cure for that is for the black community to either clean up its act or demand that the police do so."
I have been communicating lately with so many people who deny how fortunate their families and themselves have been over the century.
They swear that "THEY" did it all on their own with "NO" help from the government. When we know that the government helped almost all of us White folks while leaving the Black folk out.
The contempt that these folk have for the unfortunate folks is so strong and sad.
The irony of your comment is that, IMHO, it is government "help" that has the black folks in the predicament they are in. There was a time, BEFORE government "help," when a higher percent of black children lived with both parents than did white children. Now, over 70% of black kids are born to unwed mothers, and that is those who are NOT aborted. Then, we insisted that these kids, admittedly educationally disadvantaged, had to somehow fit in with our government-run, one-size-fits-none public education system, so that they were deprived of the supposed "equal opportunity/level playing field" that public education was supposed to create.
Maybe the better way to say what you are saying is that most of us took advantage of the opportunities available to us, while some did not, and others could not. Those who took their opportunities are doing what they should be doing. Those that were not offered the opportunity should have it offered to them. Only those who HAD the opportunity freely offered and chose otherwise can legitimately critized, and I don't know we can identify that "group." Not sure we want to.
Unfortunately I think you are still in denial as to exactly how badly our society worked to screw up the Black and Native American peoples. And exactly how coddled us White folks were. :-(
However you are correct that the White impoverished trailer trash conservatives definitely squandered their opportunities.
So the question as always is how to do this:
"Those that were not offered the opportunity should have it offered to them."
And hold the systems and them accountable for improvement?
I hate that phrase "hold accountable." It suggests that people have no personal responsibility at all, and that all we do is punish them for wrong choices when we have not offered them any real choices in the first place. I much prefer truly offering REAL choices and then letting natural consequences play out from there.
Take the simple matter of welfare. AFDC insisted there be "no man in the house." As a result, couples would split up because the father's income could go to him and the welfare check could go to the mom. Simple economics. Even the new TANF program, supposedly discouraging teen motherhood (and it has, a bit) and supposedly encouraging marriage, has not. Simply because one good income, or two smaller ones, puts you over the "need threshold." We are not offering the choice of a two-parent household as a viable economic unit, so instead we get two households in poverty. And that aversion to marriage + welfare dependence has become embedded in the black culture. People don't even SEE the "good choice" anymore. Wouldn't it be simple to make it known that you get a welfare check, set so that the more you make the more you keep of both, and that you can get it, plus more, if you "file jointly" for it?
I know you dislike the phrase "hold accountable", however this is what people and businesses do when they are going to invest in each other.
In this case the tax payers / society are investing in social workers, education systems, police officers, parent(s), kids, etc to ensure that the next generation of kids exits the child raising process in a much better position to lead a great life in America.
If that is the goal, then everyone in the system must fulfill their roles and responsibilities.
I think your blaming welfare is too simplistic.
This is a long painful but interesting read.
This is easier and interesting
Moynihan had it right, but just diagnosing the problem isn't enough. We can't sit here and say the MN's education gap-- largest in the nation-- is entirely the result of past racial discrimination. Something is going on TODAY. Conversion of the entire welfare system to one which encourages personal responsibility, education and marriage, and offers opportunity to do better in all these matters would be a great start. "society is investing..." but the money is not being spent in an efficacious manner. Far from it.
For example, Trump had going the lowest black unemployment rate in history. Surely the continuance of that would be a Good Thing (TM)?
Not if it is only "going" because he was borrowing $1,000,000,000,000+ PER YEAR in the name of our kids and grand kids. :-(
Who would have thought a GOP Senate and President would create this disaster
Food for Thought
MN's Education Gap
AGAIN, THE FOLLOWING PATTERNS ARE HIGHLIGHTED.
• On average, Minnesota performs well compared with all other states on standardized test scores, graduation rates, and college readiness. However, it has some of the largest gaps in the nation on these measures by race and socioeconomic status.
• Racial and income gaps in standardized test scores and college readiness have increased over time, while gaps in graduation rates have decreased.
• Even as graduation rates overall have increased in recent years, college readiness indicators have declined. This demonstrates that Minnesota is graduating an increasing proportion of students who are unprepared for college.
• On average, there is no gap between urban and rural school districts on standardized test scores and graduation rates in recent years. However, there is a large variation achievement gaps across schools within rural districts and across schools within urban districts.
• These gaps are not only racial; low-income white students significantly trail higher-income white students across Minnesota.
• Variation in outcome gaps across schools also exist within the charter school system and
across schools within traditional public school districts.
• Minnesota has successfully reduced variation in education inputs, such as per capita expenditures across districts and class sizes across schools. However, achievement gaps across race and socioeconomic status have persisted for decades.
In addition to these patterns, this report provides examples of success within K-12 schools for improving outcomes for minority and low-income students. The main takeaway from these
examples is that achievement gaps are not a given.
They can be reduced or closed. Policymakers and practitioners can use the analysis in this report to motivate discussion about how to address these persistent achievement gaps. Minnesota has failed to close achievement gaps for decades, but there is hope that the state can break this trend and provide an education that works for all Minnesota students.
Lots of folks like to shit on black families using the Moynihan Report without reckoning with Part III of the report, "The Roots of the Problem" -- which catalogues the centuries of racism and discrimination that led up to that point (and which has continued for the last 55 years).
Sean,
Speaking of which, you still owe me a Problem Statement... :-)
Do you you want to solve the problem or argue about how we got here?
The reality whether you like it or not... The kids in Black families are getting screwed due to a high percentage of broken homes... Do you have any improvement ideas?
You can't solve the problem if you don't know the cause.
You do have a point. But you need to know the current cause. Not the historical cause.
So what is causing the failure of Black and Hispanic families today.
How I treated my car over 18 years may be why it is performing badly.
However the mechanic does not care...
Besides the fact that endlessly arguing about who did what ten, 50 400 years ago does NOTHING to help the Unlucky Kids.
My approach has always been to fix the problem, not the blame. Far more productive. We can identify the problem all day long, and everybody does, one way or another, but only systemic change is going to help, and I am not talking about systemic racism.
You can't disconnect the "current cause" from the "historical cause".
For centuries, blacks have been unable to fully participate in all the good that America has to offer. Systematically locked out of the key creators of white wealth (Homestead Act, GI Bill, home ownership boom), systematically disadvantaged by the criminal justice system, systematically disadvantaged by school funding, on and on and on.
(Heck, we've had one generation of unplugging some pieces of white America from the economic engine and you're seeing the exact same things you decry about black folks.)
Sean,
Do you have some kind of time machine that you plan to undo the evil's of the past?
If not we start today...
With today's problems...
With today's potential solutions...
And to make it simpler we start with today's infants.
More Food for Thought
Interesting cite. Again, it seems very long on identifying the problem, and short on solutions. I think we need to come at this in a holistic, systematic fashion. Radically reform the overly-complex welfare system to simply promote work, marriage, parenting, skills attainment. The key here is that these are /opportunities/, not mandates, but the cash benefits (after a time) either rise or fall based on performance. Then you reform the education system so kids actually learn and can gain "upward mobility" on their own. Improve policing to deter crimes before they start. Sure, easier said than done, but we have to start somewhere.
Your rationalizing is so interesting...
"these are /opportunities/, not mandates, but the cash benefits (after a time) either rise or fall based on performance"
Do this and succeed to keep getting your money is certainly a mandate with an accountability feature. And I am okay with that.
The problem is what to do with the kids if the parent(s) fail?
You must remember that almost all the welfare goes into these households in the form of child support. Most other welfare benefits already have work requirements or duration limits.
So do we take the money away and what happens to the kids?
Mandate:
"to officially require (something)"
"to direct or require (someone) to do something"
Accountable
"(of a person, organization, or institution) required or expected to justify actions or decisions; responsible."
"Do you have some kind of time machine that you plan to undo the evil's of the past?"
No, but if you don't know that the wealth gap between black and white families is in large part a result of systematic racism as opposed to behavior, you're going to develop solutions that don't address the real problem.
Unfortunately that "systemic racism", the war on poverty and the war on drugs did help create the mess, but now what we have left is people who have been conditioned to and choose to behave in a certain way.
Today we have:
- a wealth gap
- a marriage gap
- an education gap
- a gang / crime gap
- a number of babies gap
So a reasonable Problem Statement may be how to close all these gaps simultaneously?
"Do this and succeed to keep getting your money is certainly a mandate with an accountability feature. And I am okay with that."
Yes, and that is unavoidable. That is why welfare must become a personal service-- bring back the caseworker-- and extend a substantial time to, essentially, change the culture from an entitlement mindset to a real opportunity mindset. What you are displaying is a belief that those in this condition are not like the rest of us because they are unwilling to seize opportunities to better their own lives, and almost racist attitude. I have much more faith in my fellow humans, provided REAL opportunities, that they can grasp with help, are available.
Again, we have to approach this systematically, personally, and over many years. It may be necessary for the current generation to "die off" or "age out" of the system on which they have become so totally dependent on and mired in. Hopelessness is hard to fight. And it doesn't help we have a political class telling them "you can't do it."
I am never sure why you think the current case workers are not trying to help these folks succeed.
By the way, you missed answering my questions.
The problem is what to do with the kids if the parent(s) fail?
You must remember that almost all the welfare goes into these households in the form of child support. Most other welfare benefits already have work requirements or duration limits.
So do we take the money away and what happens to the kids?
As for this silliness...
"unwilling to seize opportunities to better their own lives, and almost racist attitude"
The simple reality is that "CHANGE IS HARD".
And the longer your habits / beliefs have been in place the harder it is..
This has nothing to do with race. I know enough White folk who keep shooting themselves in the foot.
Then of course there is one of the core issues at the heart of this problem.
"opportunities to better their own lives"
High income blue collar jobs are more rare than in the past, childcare / healthcare are more expensive, etc. What are these opportunities?
Once again you are assuming that adults do not care about providing for their children, and doing whatever they are able to do for that. Shame on you. In my ideal version, such a case would be far down the road, anyway-- maybe 10 years from now, and at least half of those children would be out on their own, having received a good education and learned some "values" along the way, including self-esteem. The question to you would be, if we cannot start until we solve the problems that will only become obvious ten years after we start, when do we start?
Case workers have large caseloads. Case workers get paid to determine eligibility, not to create success. If case workers create success, they are out of work. Case workers never go out to work with people in their homes. Case workers have a huge number of programs to navigate, even to help people; a simple "negative income tax" would relieve all of that, as well as a huge administrative load. A massive increase in case workers might be necessary, and could be drawn from current welfare recipients-- a double benefit.
The same challenge...
"The current system with social workers and training funding is terrible".
"My system with social workers and training funding will be wonderful".
All you currently have is a dream, how would it be turned into reality?
Hiring people who are failing and poor to teach others how to succeed and be self sufficient seems ineffective.
Henn Social Worker
"Definition
Under general supervision, perform work involving the development and implementation of individualized social treatment plans requiring the application of social work theory and methods in the prevention, treatment, or resolution of psychosocial problems.
Distinguishing Characteristics:
This class serves an assigned caseload within defined department policies.
Job Functions (Duties/Responsibilities):
Assess clients to determine individual needs and establish treatment/service goals.
Develop case plans.
Make referrals to appropriate community resources and arrange for services.
Follow through on treatment/service plans.
Identify client situations which require intensified service and bring them to the attention of the supervisor for help or referral.
Interview and counsel clients.
Make field visits to clients' homes.
Explain policies, regulations, and programs to clients and the public.
Prepare and maintain case records, case findings, correspondence and reports.
May be involved in integrated, multidisciplinary or community initiatives and may be housed at community based sites including serving as a liaison between Hennepin County and communities, community organizations, schools, health professionals and service providers and identifying needs and assist in resolving problems facing individuals and families regarding health and human service issues (including but not limited to housing, employment, financial assistance, and behavioral health).
Typical Areas of Assignment:
Human Services and Public Health Department; Community Corrections and Rehabilitation Department.
Essential Functions: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Employment Standards:
Education and Experience
One of the following:
Bachelor's degree in social work, psychology, sociology, human services, or equivalent field
Licensed as a social worker by the Minnesota Board of Social Work
Note: No work experience substitutions will be accepted.
Licenses and Certificates:
Some positions may require a valid driver's license. If a position requires driving a county vehicle, or driving county clients using a personal vehicle, the applicable requirements of the Hennepin County Motor Vehicle Safety policy must be met.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:
Knowledge of: principles and practices of social work; social work ethics; interviewing and counseling techniques; County and community resources; norms and values of varying cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Ability to: establish good working relationships with clients and obtain information by direct or collateral interviews; analyze problems presented and develop and carry out effective courses of actions; communicate with and understand the problems faced by clients from all cultural backgrounds and economic levels; develop and maintain effective working relationships with other professionals, agencies, and the public; prepare case records and reports; utilize supervision, consultation, and in-service training in achieving an increasing level of competence; read, interpret, and apply policies, regulations, and procedures; communicate using verbal and written methods.
Skill in: using personal computers."
"Definition
Under general supervision, perform work involving the development and implementation of individualized social treatment plans requiring the application of social work theory and methods in the prevention, treatment, or resolution of psychosocial problems.
Distinguishing Characteristics:
This class serves an assigned caseload within defined department policies.
Job Functions (Duties/Responsibilities):
1. Assess clients to determine individual needs and establish treatment/service goals.
2. Develop case plans.
3. Make referrals to appropriate community resources and arrange for services.
4. Follow through on treatment/service plans.
5. Identify client situations which require intensified service and bring them to the attention of the supervisor for help or referral.
6. Interview and counsel clients.
7. Make field visits to clients' homes.
8. Explain policies, regulations, and programs to clients and the public.
9. Prepare and maintain case records, case findings, correspondence and reports.
10. May be involved in integrated, multidisciplinary or community initiatives and may be housed at community based sites including serving as a liaison between Hennepin County and communities, community organizations, schools, health professionals and service providers and identifying needs and assist in resolving problems facing individuals and families regarding health and human service issues (including but not limited to housing, employment, financial assistance, and behavioral health).
Typical Areas of Assignment:
Human Services and Public Health Department; Community Corrections and Rehabilitation Department.
Essential Functions: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
So it seems like our social / case workers are already tasked with a LOT more than checking qualifications.
And they visit the homes.
How is your plan different?
from Michael Harriot on twitter:
The Myth of Black on Black crime
Moose
That was an interesting read though I think he also was playing with numbers. :-)
I am happy taking race out of the problem statement.
We can focus on the poor / unsuccessful immaterial of their race.
"??? Happened" and what we have left is people who have been conditioned to and choose to behave in a certain way.
Today we have:
- a wealth gap
- a marriage gap
- an education gap
- a gang / crime gap
- a number of babies gap
So a reasonable Problem Statement may be how to close all these gaps simultaneously?
Please remember that it is the Liberals who want to make this discussion about Blacks, when there are plenty of Hispanics, Native American and White children who are suffering.
For curiosity I wondered if G2A How to Win the War on Poverty even considered race.
And I do not see it...
Moose,
Did you ever read this article?
What did you think?
Does it make sense that more citizens and officers will die in communities with more violent crimes? (ie from each other, from police, etc)
Will removing the police from the neighborhood make things better or worse for the residents?
What does vilifying the Police officers yield?
BLM supporters seem happy to stereotype and attack police officers...
BLM Groups Pressure Biden
"BLM supporters seem happy to stereotype and attack police officers..."
If they don't want to be treated like violent oppressors, they should, as a group, stop acting like them.
You are correct, this presumption disproportionately affects police officers, innocent and otherwise. The cure for that is for the police community to either clean up its act or demand that the citizens do so.
Moose
John, I don't care about your article. It is mostly unrelated to the premise of the Twitter thread I shared.
Moose
So, absent a perfect solution, we continue down the miserable road we've long been on? Yes, reform of welfare would be a HUGE undertaking, but simplifying the whole thing would help a lot-- that is, the new system would be much simpler than what we have, yet allow for more individual initiative and assistance. We can specify the goals and the reasonable expectations without knowing all the legislative details. Getting the discussion even started legislatively would be a good start.
Moose,
Does that count for the Blacks also?
"If they don't want to be treated like violent criminals, they should, as a group, stop acting like them... "
Don't you get tired of these stereotypes.
If you don't think the twitter piece and my link are related, you did not read my link.
Jerry,
I am fine trying something but it looks like the Hennepin county system is aligned with your plan. They would simply tell you that they do not have the funding to make it work. And you would say they should be able to do it for what we give them.
So we sit stymied....
And Moose calls us all racists because these idiots of all colors suck as parent(s).
"To examine how civilian race affects use of force, we compare how white officers increase use of force as they are dispatched to more minority neighborhoods, compared to minority officers. Perhaps most strikingly, we show that while white and black officers use gun force at similar rates in white and racially mixed neighborhoods, white officers are five times as likely to use gun force in predominantly black neighborhoods."
NBER: Does Race Matter for Police Use of Force? Evidence from 911 Calls
Ah, I see now. Your "job description" above comes from Hennepin County; that was not obvious. It sounds good except for two things:
1) Does this in any way resemble the reality and, if it does, why do we still have poor people?
2) This one job is obviously part of a vast, expensive and inefficacious, if not grossly inefficient, bureaucracy. Simple is better.
As for Moose, I think he would like reality to be other than it is. It is not true that 98% of blacks are murdered by other blacks; it's only about 90%. And blacks killed by whites are about 8%-- considerable LESS than the percent of whites killed by blacks. If that seems odd, it is because black people commit a disproportionate number of killings, in the cases where the perpetrator is known. All these gangbanger drive-by murders are about double that, and not included in that "black on black" column. official stats
Sean, that kind of discrepancy requires an explanation. My first instinct is to suggest that a white officer in a black neighborhood will likely face more hostility and danger than a black officer, both because of the higher crime inherent in the black neighborhood AND because of his race. The reverse of the topic question: Do minorities treat the police differently?
Sean,
It is too bad we can not access the details without buying the paper. :-(
Jerry,
1. I am sure it is the goal they seek to attain. Same reasons I keep mentioning. Change is hard, Many people do not have the work ethic to make the effort, Very few "good opportunities.
2. Dealing with 10 needy people does not require a bureaucracy. Dealing with 40 million needy people requires a bureaucracy.
Sean,
Here is a critique of the study you noted
It may need more work.
"Don't you get tired of these stereotypes."
Indeed I do, but you persist in using it or allowing jerry to use it without being countered. My link goes through the details of why the stereotype is simply false. It's also why I used jerry's own words to make the same argument about violent police (both those who commit violence and those who do nothing about it...which is most).
Moose
"...both because of the higher crime inherent in the black neighborhood..."
And you and John wonder why you get called racists.
Moose
Fascinating worldview you have there, Moose, but pretty hazy. The facts simply do not support your opinion.
"Dealing with 40 million needy people requires a bureaucracy." -- John
Actually, it doesn't. Social Security manages to send 63 million checks every month at less than 1% overhead. Bureaucracies always start small, and then they add layers and layers of rules requiring more bureaucracy, and more rules, and eventually the whole purpose of the organization is lost in the maze. We have long since passed that point with our welfare "system," and only a "clean sheet of paper" approach is likely to fix it. Change is hard, and what is the saying about those who propose a new system?
Moose, you are making stuff up. On the other hand, there is a small subsidized housing area near here, and the residents "just happen" to be mostly black. Police calls to that area are TWELVE TIMES what they are for the rest of the city, combined. Does knowing that fact make me a racist? How?
Moose,
Why do you think Minneapolis has a "gun fire monitoring and tracking system" and none of the outer burbs have such a system?
Jerry,
The SSA apparently has 60,000 employees to just keep records, stop fraud and send checks. (bad example)
And the welfare system proposed need home visits, tracking, fraud prevention, services, training, check writing, etc.
An informative piece regarding gun fire locations
It looks like war zone down there and folks wonder why innocent and not so innocent civilians end up dead.
I assume it must be gang activity?
This is sadly humorous :-)
"An informative piece regarding gun fire locations"
Not really. It just shows where they've got the technology installed.
"I assume it must be gang activity?"
People calling the police on fireworks thinking they are gunshots (at least for the yellow dots).
Why do you think they have the technology installed?
Why do you want to deny the reality of how dangerous some communities are in Minneapolis?
I'm not denying it necessarily. But showing a map of the city that only has dots on it from a certain type of technology is misleading when only certain parts of the city have that technology.
Ezra Klein of Vox has a good piece today.
VOX: Imagining the nonviolent state
Officers of the state conduct a public lynching. Cities erupt in protest, then in riots. And then the state demands of its critics what it refuses to ask of itself — nonviolence. This serves a dual purpose: It sets a bar for legitimate protest that few human beings can clear. And it discredits the revolutionary teachings of nonviolence by coating them in hypocrisy and cynicism.
...
America has a particularly violent state, and it has a particularly violent society. The one is often used to justify the other: The state must be violent — the police armed, the prison sentences long — because the society is violent. But the nonviolent perspective would say the reverse: The society is violent partly because the state is violent.
...
The soldier and the police officer accept a measure of daily risk — the threat of being wounded, killed, or captured — but face it with the tools of violence: guns, batons, bombs, combat training. Those tools work to subdue bodies, but they harden hearts. The cry of police abolition is testament to that: it is a statement from the very people the police are meant to serve that they refuse to go on in community with the police as an institution.
...
The state puts tremendous resources and effort into developing the technologies of violence and training its agents in their use. It puts tremendous resources — both legal and political — into reducing the risk of violence to its own agents, even as it increases the risk of violence to those they meet. The tragic shooting of Rayshard Brooks is testament to the costs of this strategy: If the agents of the state who’d been called to respond to a man sleeping in a Wendy’s drive-through hadn’t been carrying tasers and guns, Brooks would be alive today.
The question nonviolence asks is what if the state put, at the least, equal energy and effort into developing tools of nonviolence and training agents in their use?
...
Harvard economist Alberto Alesina, who died just a few weeks ago, was a central figure in the study of political economy, and one of his key findings was that America lacked a European-style social safety net because racism had rendered the politics of building one toxic. In a paper co-authored with Ed Glaeser and Bruce Sacerdote, Alesina concluded that “racial animosity in the US makes redistribution to the poor, who are disproportionately black, unappealing to many voters.” America is the richest nation in the world but has some of the highest poverty and inequality rates among rich nations. That is a policy choice, made for the cruelest of reasons.
America’s approach to economic support has been unusually intent on separating the “deserving poor” from the “undeserving poor,” and the category of undeserving poor has been deeply racialized. And so top political leaders, even today, worry that social services will become “a hammock,” as if being poor is ever easy, and theorize new and more baroque ways to test whether food stamps are used for the right foods, and make applying for benefits brutally difficult under the guise of rooting out fraud. It was revealing, as the coronavirus began to shutter the economy, that so many had so much trouble accessing unemployment insurance. That reflected those systems working as designed, but as soon as those working began to imperil the livelihoods of a broader swath of Americans, state governments rushed to repair them.
...
It is time for the lesson [King and Gandhi] taught to be learned. Not by protesters, furious at the violence inflicted upon their own by the state, but by the state itself, which should aspire to more than controlling the violence that can be inflicted upon its citizens.
Sean,
Even within Minneapolis the differences between neighborhoods are massive.
"On the other hand, there is a small subsidized housing area near here, and the residents "just happen" to be mostly black. Police calls to that area are TWELVE TIMES what they are for the rest of the city, combined."
I wonder why that is? Do you?
Moose
Moose,
I do not know. Why do you think this is the case?
Sean,
I read the whole thing... That is a lot of maybe things would be better if we did something different.
I'm asking jerry if he wonders why.
Moose
I don't wonder why. I know why. These folks have been picked up out of a "community" and culture in which criminality is common, and where violation of the normal rules of society and an entitlement mentality run rampant. Dropped into a community which expects different behavior creates a conflict. I should also note that their children do not do well in school, either. The older they are when they move here, the further behind they are – a natural consequence of the poor schools they previously attended.
The other thing to note here is that just "giving them stuff" like cheap housing and enrollment in a "better school" does not seem to solve their problem.
Now if you want to say that these problems correlate strongly with race, you can, because almost all of these folks are black. They are also poor. I am completely unwilling to believe this correlation is causation in the form of racism. Nobody stopped them from moving here, or going to school here. They brought their problems with them, somehow.
Who picked up who from where?
Here are some demographics fro N Mpls HSs
And here are 2 more
And just a reminder
If the Department of Human Rights does to police what it did to schools--we are all **********
I assume you mean their insistence that the number of expulsions and suspensions should be the same for each racial group... No matter what other factors are in play... :-)
By the way, Anon. Please think up a name and leave it with your comments. That way we get a sense of your perspectives.
Moose and Hiram aren't really Moose and Hiram, but it helps when comments are tied to a name. Thanks G2A (ie John)
Government "picked up" poor folks from the inner city and put them in public housing out in the suburbs-- one of Obama's pipe dreams. It's no surprise; I've seen (or experienced) "culture shock" (the inability to "fit in") all over the world. Most of it from a tourist, knowing-I-will-soon-leave sort of way, but moreso what happens when strangers come to America to stay. Same thing here. I always say that "people are people" and "they're just like us," but in a few very noticeable ways, inner city poor are, more or less, NOT so. I believe they WOULD be, given ample opportunity over time, but not if we just give them "stuff" because "they can't make it on their own." It's the "soft bigotry of low expectations," to quote G. W. Bush.
To the topic question, major studies continue to show that differences in police treatment of minorities, with minor exception, is explained by differences in criminal behavior, not racism.
Jerry,
If you think this is related to Obama, I'll have some of what you are toking.
I agree with you about the policing.
Great! Please help yourself to as much truth and reality as you can take in.
actually Clinton started it
Moose,
Please clarify where you live? Maybe Jerry is correct?
_____
"On the other hand, there is a small subsidized housing area near here, and the residents "just happen" to be mostly black. Police calls to that area are TWELVE TIMES what they are for the rest of the city, combined."
I wonder why that is? Do you?
Moose
jerry is rarely correct about the causes of inequality.
And as if we needed further proof that the current Administration are Nazi sympathizers (as are those who support the Administration), the Trump campaign put out a facebook ad using Nazi symbolism. Facebook did the right thing for once and took it down, but...Antifa is currently the only proper position to take.
Moose
Oh, please, enlighten me. If there is a single, simple cause of inequality, we can just pass a law to fix it. :-/
Question: what do you do when "Anti-fascists" are the fascists?
Moose,
You avoid the question. Where is that "small subsidized housing area"?
'You avoid the question. Where is that "small subsidized housing area"?'
What are you asking me for? I don't know where jerry lives.
Moose
"If there is a single, simple cause of inequality..."
There isn't, but you deny that the actual biggest cause is even a factor.
Moose
'What do you do when "Anti-fascists" are the fascists?'
If there is fascism, anti-fascists are the opposing force. It's not a difficult concept.
Moose
Now I get it... :-)
Moose, you are making stuff up. On the other hand, there is a small subsidized housing area near here, and the residents "just happen" to be mostly black. Police calls to that area are TWELVE TIMES what they are for the rest of the city, combined. Does knowing that fact make me a racist? How? Jerry...
Jerry, I wonder why that is? Do you?" Moose
Moose, Government "picked up" poor folks from the inner city and put them in public housing out in the suburbs-- one of Obama's pipe dreams. It's no surprise; I've seen (or experienced) "culture shock" (the inability to "fit in") all over the world. Most of it from a tourist, knowing-I-will-soon-leave sort of way, but moreso what happens when strangers come to America to stay. Same thing here. I always say that "people are people" and "they're just like us," but in a few very noticeable ways, inner city poor are, more or less, NOT so. I believe they WOULD be, given ample opportunity over time, but not if we just give them "stuff" because "they can't make it on their own." It's the "soft bigotry of low expectations," to quote G. W. Bush. Jerry
Moose,
He lives down near Burnsville.
Jerry apparently thinks they are just fish out of water?
Not that I am sure why that drives police calls.
And Burnsville Shool district is pretty diverse and has a lot of low income households, so I am not sure that is the case.
So what is the "correct answer"? Why are police called to subsidized housing units so often?
Why don't police ever kill white collar criminals?
Moose
Moose,
Do you ever see White collar criminals resisting arrest or wrestling with officers for their gun / taser? Do you see armed white collar criminals at all?
So again... What is the "correct" answer?
"Not that I am sure why that drives police calls." -- John
Well, I'm not sure, either, and I am only speculating that the one strong correlation is that these people used to live in subsidized housing in an inner-city "community" with lots of the typical urban problems, including high levels of police calls. Then, when they move to subsidized housing elsewhere, they seem to bring that "culture" with them.
Slavery never really ended.
I assume you've heard of 'Convict Leasing'.
The inequitable and racist policing of black people has not disappeared in the past 150 years, it has only changed.
Moose
Moose, That ended ~100 years ago
Can we stick with this centuries challenges?
So what is the answer to your question? Why does high crime and low academic scores thrive in certain communities?
It ended in name only. You haven't been paying attention.
Moose
Source please...
and still no answer to the question.
So what is the answer to your question? Why does high crime and low academic scores thrive in certain communities?
My bad...it's peonage that still exists in spirit, if not in name.
Moose
"Why does high crime and low academic scores thrive in certain communities?"
Did you know that trauma can be passed to future generation through epigenetic changes to DNA?
We have multiple generations of trauma in the black community. It's not as simple as you want it to be.
Moose
But it is that simple, even with potential stress changes.
I am happy taking race out of the problem statement.
We can focus on the poor / unsuccessful immaterial of their race.
"??? Happened" and what we have left is people who have been conditioned to and choose to behave in a certain way.
Today we have:
- a wealth gap
- a marriage gap
- an education gap
- a gang / crime gap
- a number of babies gap
So a reasonable Problem Statement may be how to close all these gaps simultaneously?
You left out a behavior gap and attitude gap. I don't care what color you are, you are not excused from the rules of society or the sensible way of treating other people. If you don't like being treated like a criminal, don't act like a criminal. Just that simple.
Look at our recent experience. We had people outraged by a police action, and marched in the streets. The cops involved were immediately fired and charges were brought just 2 days later, yet the "protests" went on for many more days, ostensibly demanding "justice." Then it turned to rioting and looting, severely damaging their own community and its economic and social structure. So tell me, how does "slavery" justify this mass criminality and stupidity?
Finding ways to promote attitude / belief changes may be part of the solution.
Even changing the beliefs and attitudes of people like you who think the game is fair and that you succeeded exclusively due to your own efforts... :-)
Seeing a police officer, a government employee who is given great responsibility choke someone to death on TV can justify a great deal of anger, outrage and rebellion. Besides it is likely that much of the damage was by arsonists and anarchists.
Or do you see these all as the same?
- protesters
- rioters
- arsonists, anarchists, gang members, etc
Part of changing attitudes would be dealing with the hopelessness caused by the lack of opportunity the "disadvantaged" (a reasonably correct and inclusive term) have had thanks to long-past "systemic" racism, and to government-run "welfare" supposedly for their benefit, which made them dependent. It created that "entitlement mentality," prevalent but not universal, and we see it on display constantly.
The game is NOT fair, because past generations were not free to build inter-generational capital because of racism at the time. That continues, as the "capital" of an education continues to be denied many of the urban poor, and the "capital" of jobs, housing and businesses are denied by the criminals, rioters and looters.
The craziest thing happened: a white police officer kills a black civilian and it is caught on video. In the ensuing "protest," several police officers have been killed, many people wounded, several hundred businesses destroyed, and that was all AFTER the officers had been indicted (i.e. "justice"). There is no possible justification for this-- it's grossly disproportional. Likewise, the 93% of black victims murdered by other black assailants, compared with the less than 0.05% unarmed black people killed by white police officers.
Jerry,
What hope are you going to give them and how will that get them to stay married?
A job as a teller at Target working Part Time without benefits? Or as home health aid making even less?
It definitely is a thorny issue, given how the US economy out sourced a lot of what were our good paying jobs. And over seas production costs are so much lower.
STOP trying to side track the conversation about Government employees executing suspects...
What private citizens do to each other is a different issue, this is problem is about government operatives misbehaving. You should be all over them.
"What hope are you going to give them and how will that get them to stay married?"
Well, for one thing, government (not I) could eliminate the penalty for marriage inherent in our welfare system. Government could eliminate the race gap in education. Government could alter the incentives in the welfare system to encourage work and learning.
What private citizens do to each other is NOT a different issue. It is the fundamental reason why police are involved in these dangerous situations in the first place. A police officer is 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black assailant than the reverse. "executions" by police are so rare as to be negligible, and they are always punished. The opposite is true for the murder of officers.
Jerry,
I don't think you pay attention, most welfare goes to pay for the care of kids and the elderly. Most of the remaining programs have training and work requirements. How do you want to change this?
One can educate those who do not want to work to learn. Not sure how you or the government are going to force them since you are against funding early childhood education and parenting education.
Are you kidding?
Really where have you been?
And that is just the ones we know about
As usual, we've got dueling discussions here.
I'm not going to "force them" to do anything; that's your bailiwick. I claim there are perverse incentives at work in the way "we" treat poor folks, and if you want to say that means black folks, you would be statistically correct. One can certainly argue that part of that is past racism. You might even make the case it is partly due to current racism, but I think that case gets tougher and tougher because of clear differences in the way black folks in Democrat-run inner cities treat each other. "Blacks are therefore 8.5 times more likely to commit murder than whites" and "Most of the time, blacks killed other blacks, but about 13 percent of their victims were white."
This is an interesting article: Why Do Black People Commit More Crime? It seems fully explanatory to me.
The only problem with it is the suggested obvious but probably unworkable solution. "Something" holistic and systemic is needed to promote the required change.
Jerry,
Yes they do have problems as noted below.
And your solution involves taking away their welfare benefits so it certainly is about "forcing them". Stop kidding yourself.
And you still haven't explained how they are going to escape poverty in a country full of low pay low benefit jobs?
"??? Happened" and what we have left is people who have been conditioned to and choose to behave in a certain way.
Today we have:
- a wealth gap
- a marriage gap
- an education gap
- a gang / crime gap
- a number of babies gap
So a reasonable Problem Statement may be how to close all these gaps simultaneously?
"conditioned to and choose to behave in a certain way"
See, there is your mistake. You assume, from your high perch of moral superiority, that these people actually SEE choices before them. Maybe those choices exist, but can they realistically access them? Can a poor child actually get a high school diploma in our "failing" schools? Can a poor child without a high school diploma become a well-paid engineer? Can a poor child WITH a high school diploma, but who has not been properly prepared for college, become a well-paid engineer? Can a poor child who has managed to get a GOOD high school education because of immense drive to succeed, /afford/ to go to college to become a well-paid engineer? Even if the "right choices" are available at every step, are they really possible?
You have a correct diagnosis of the problem (though I like the one in my cite better). It simply says that poverty is the principal determinant of criminality, regardless of race. So the answer to your topic question is "no." Police treat criminals differently than ordinary citizens. That's it, and as it should be. Any other argument is reverse racist.
And I've given you a simultaneous solution,
I see we are going to have that discussion again. Let me ask it this way. You want a "simultaneous solution." A solution that treats the whole range of problems, on an individual basis, with the goal of actually lifting that person out of poverty. So, explain why the /manner/ in which private charity and private effort works seems vastly more successful than the lavishly-funded government system.
Jerry,
I have no problem that more Black and Hispanic people are arrested, the problem is how many die before they get to court. Did you read the sources?
Let's say that 1000 civilians are killed by cop each year.
Let's say that in 95% of the cases there was no good way to de-escalate.
That still leaves 50 dead civilians and almost ZERO cops in jail. Not good.
Your are anti-education unions protecting bad schools and teachers, and yet you seem to have a blind spot with regard to the police and their unions.
Actually I doubt if they do see a way out or choices.
Society kicked them in the teeth for generations and now their parent(s) tell the kids that "they are just ghetto kids" and they won't get out. Why would they say any different?
That is what they were told as children by their parent(s).
The mystery is how to change the perspective of the parent(s) who still have hope?
And to force the change resistant to try harder for the good of their kids?
"you seem to have a blind spot with regard to the police and their unions."
Wrong again. I dislike all public employee unions for pretty much the same reasons. The only "soft spot" I have for cops is that somebody needs to stick up for them when stupid civilian authority starts persecuting one or more of them. "Protecting bad cops," like "protecting bad teachers," seems to be the price of that, but politicians protect ALL teachers yet dislike ALL cops.
And again, you are trying to make the exception into the rule. If there were no criminals, nobody would get shot by the cops. In well over 95% of police shootings, they are dealing with an armed assailant, and sometimes bad things happen. If a cop is shot by a criminal, nobody goes to jail. If an innocent person is deliberately killed by a cop, the cop is ALWAYS punished justly. Except in those few cases where police unions fail to police their own. I really like the idea of "licensing" police officers.
"Actually I doubt if they do see a way out or choices." That is what I have been saying all along!
Private charity succeeds for three reasons. #1 somebody who CARES sincerely offers to help. #2 the person must want to change (seeing the credible possibility is critical, see #1). #3 the assistance must be personalized, sufficient (in quantity and duration), and complete-- treating the whole person/situation-- and it should offer ongoing rewards for the changes made.
"If an innocent person is deliberately killed by a cop, the cop is ALWAYS punished justly."
That's just patently false. Tamir Rice and John Crawford are prominent examples of such.
OK, "always" is never the correct word. I don't recognize your examples, but you are probably right that there are TWO exceptions to the general rule among hundreds or even thousands. To that, I add incidents like the Freddie Gray and Ferguson cases, in which trials were held and the charges later found to be essentially bogus. There are also cases in which the police union successfully defends a cop that should not be on the force at all because of being "badge-heavy." Racism is not the correct lens to look through for police misconduct, and it certainly does not lead to workable solutions. Right now, most police forces are representative of their communities, though recruiting standards have had to be relaxed to get there-- part of the problem no doubt-- and for some reason that is not seen as working towards racial fairness.
Jerry,
By "stupid civilian authority starts persecuting one or more of them", do you mean the people we voted into office doing their jobs?
Charity works because they only work with those folks who are really interested in changing. Unfortunately the government has to ensure the kid's don't go hungry in the other households.
Sean,
Agreed. He did not read my sources AGAIN.
And I am pretty sure almost every cop killer is caught and punished. Police tend to take those cases pretty seriously.
"You have a correct diagnosis of the problem (though I like the one in my cite better). It simply says that poverty is the principal determinant of criminality, regardless of race."
You get soooo close to putting your finger on the real cause...the cause of poverty in the black community.
9% of those living in poverty are white, yet whites make up ~60% of the U.S. population.
Blacks - 22% and ~13%
Hispanic - 19% and ~18%
Asian/Pacific Islander - 11% and ~6%
Natives - 24% and 1.3%
2 or more - 15% and 2.7%
The poverty rate for the U.S. is about 13%
Gee...I can't imagine the real cause at all. It's simply impossible to know.
Moose
Moose,
You are free to fill the "???" with whatever you want.
The big question is how do we reprogram all these people?
- Education, marriage, small families and Dressing for Success are GREAT.
- Gangs and crime are TERRIBLE and will not be tolerated in our neighborhoods.
I don't think I have heard any solutions being proposed by you? :-)
At least Jerry tried.
"??? Happened" and what we have left is people who have been conditioned to and choose to behave in a certain way.
Today we have:
- a wealth gap
- a marriage gap
- an education gap
- a gang / crime gap
- a number of babies gap
So a reasonable Problem Statement may be how to close all these gaps simultaneously?
Moose, I love your circular reasoning. Blacks are disproportionately poor, therefore being black causes poverty. What an ugly racist argument.
"do you mean the people we voted into office doing their jobs?" Oh, you mean like Mayor Frey, who allowed the destruction of the black neighborhoods, or AG Ellison, who jumped in with overcharging the officer such he may walk away? How about the Mayor of Baltimore who saw to the prosecution of six officers on false charges, and allowed crime to run rampant? How about the fact that all these major urban centers, plagued with crime, poverty and poor schools, have been run by Democrats for decades? Are you living in opposite world, where "doing their jobs" means poverty, misery, crime, death and destruction?
"Blacks are disproportionately poor, therefore being black causes poverty."
Congratulations on being a total tool and completely missing the obvious. And you were soooo close.
Moose
Jerry,
Mayor Frey and the Mayor of Baltimore report to their constituents, not to us. If the voters disagree with their choices they will be removed from office.
Charging on multiple counts does not eliminate the lower counts.
Why is it that folks like you argue for local control until you disagree with it?
Moose,
Well maybe we can give half the points. :-)
John-
Reparations would be a good start. Let's start by raising taxes on all descendants of slave-owners and giving that money to descendants of slaves.
Moose
Freddie Gray enters the back of the police van healthy and comes out 44 minutes later with a fatal neck injury. Oopsie!
Moose,
Just giving folks money is NOT the answer.
The War on Poverty tried this and we know that Lottery winners often squander their gains. Learning how to manage money is very hard for people that were not raised and trained to do so.
I had a friend who volunteered to be a financial mentor to a lower income man who wanted to learn to manage his money and build his net worth. My friend finally gave up because the gentleman could not / would not stick with the plan.
Sean,
Jerry seems to be mistaking Officers getting "found not guilty of a crime" for they did it correctly. Apparently the wrongful death settlement was for $6.4 million.
St Anthony apparently paid $3 million for the officers negligence in the Philando Castille's case
That is a whole lot of OUR Systems and Employee(s) SCREWED UP.
" If the voters disagree with their choices they will be removed from office." I love your child-like belief in democracy, and the relationship it has with Democrats.
"Congratulations on being a total tool and completely missing the obvious." -- Moose
And congratulations on the spurious insults and non-sequitur of an argument. Care to try again? You are criticizing me for your own failed logic. Does being black make every black person poor? How about white people, are they kept out of poverty by their race?
"Reparations would be a good start. Let's start by raising taxes on all descendants of slave-owners and giving that money to descendants of slaves." -- Moose
Please, please do go on! We want details, such as:
--How you will identify descendants of slaves, since many black folks can't trace their ancestry.
--How you will distinguish the black descendants of free men from those of slaves
--How you are going to tax the descendants of slave owners, since the vast majority of people didn't own slaves, and most white folk can't trace their ancestry, either.
--How you are going balance the books between those black people who are descendants of slaves and ALSO descendants of slave owners. It happened, you know.
--And what about mixed-race children?
--How you are going to tax black slave owners and their descendants?
"Jerry seems to be mistaking Officers getting "found not guilty of a crime" for they did it correctly."-- John
I'm not mistaking anything. You are suggesting that one or two examples of cops doing really bad things means that every cop does bad things at every opportunity, or at least that is what you imply. That cities pay out big for such failures is evidence of an extreme and rare situation, not the norm. When officers are found not guilty it is evidence of one of a few things. First, that the whole evidence of the incident proves the officer not guilty. Example: Michael Brown. The "hands up don't shoot" story was blown out of the water by forensic evidence and testimony that he was charging the officer. The second thing that happens is simply insufficient evidence, or contradictory evidence. The third is overcharging,like in the Floyd case 3rd degree manslaughter might be easy to prove, 3rd degree murder maybe, but 1st degree murder likely impossible. Yes "lesser included charges" might be found IF the prosecutor includes them-- not a given.
Jerry,
I believe in the voters as you usually do...
Well at least until those voters disagree with you. :-)
Or are we back at the voter suppression discussion where you think it is better if some citizens don't vote...
"non-sequitur"
Your inability to connect the dots between past slavery/racism and poverty does not make my argument a non-sequitur.
Moose
"Just giving folks money is NOT the answer."
Okay. Free land and free labor to work the land.
The wealth that was 'stolen' from their forebears and thus not passed down through the generations should be paid in arrears.
Moose
Moose,
Maybe we can give them the deal my Great Grand Parents were given.
160 acres of land in the middle of no where that they must live on, work and improve for 5 years?
Do you think any of them would take the deal?
I just skimmed this excellent VOX research piece again Definitely a worthwhile read.
And I am thinking we have paid restitution and most of it was squandered. :-(
"...how do we reprogram all these people?" Are you sure you see them as /people/? Are they real human beings to you, such that you have compassion for them as individuals and not just some "group" having identical characteristics (mostly negative) that you assign to it?
I am not a touchy feely counselor type. I am an analyst...
If I shock a number of people for a hundred years when they push a button, they will be conditioned to not push a button. Or they are really dumb. :-)
Read the VOX piece if you want more details and feeling...
I've seen the VOX report before. Again, it identifies the problem well-- a long-term socioeconomic culture shift exacerbated by government missteps. But in the end, the solution seems to be the typical "and here a miracle occurs" to repair single motherhood, education and employment opportunities. Blanket, top-down solutions are not going to work. Even things like "free long term contraception" depend on people being willing to use it.
I know you would prefer to keep young adults stupid and unprotected in the name of some misguided moral belief. Too bad... More kids will continue to be born into poverty... Oh well... :-(
I know you would like to BELIEVE that I am morally and intellectually inferior to your vaunted self, but the ultimate immorality is that to which you cling, that "these people" are not beings like yourself, of sacred human worth, worthy of compassion and help on an individual basis. NOT some massive governmental oppression to force them to make "right choices" that they never were offered in the first place.
You seem so concerned that kids are being born into poverty, and your solution is to stop them from being born. We call that eugenics. And you ignore the humanistic solution of reducing poverty so those same children can be born into relative wealth.
Actually no it is not eugenics...
"the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable. Developed largely by Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, it fell into disfavor only after the perversion of its doctrines by the Nazis."
It is reasonable family planning where people only have the number of children they can afford and care for well.
I don't think you are "morally and intellectually inferior" to myself, I think you just put your beliefs before the needs of the kids. (ie limited sex ed, limited birth control access, no restraints on "baby makers", unwilling to fund Early Childhood education, etc)
As I often say, the religious right loves babies until they pass the cervix... Then they are someone else's problem. :-)
Just one long insult... You don't want poor people having babies. You worry parents do not have the means to raise them well. Those things are NOT your call to make, nor standards to set. More humane/moral/ethical/practical to increase the wealth of these families and let them make their own decisions in these matters. History shows that as wealth increases, reproductive rates decline. Why not take the easy and far more preferable route?
Actually I am fine with anyone having as many babies as they want as long as they are not taking public assistance... Once they are taking public assistance, there is no sense to them having more kids and us paying them more to take care of the additional children.
Where you are apparently okay with them having more babies and getting more tax dollars?
Please prove causality regarding your claim...
Is it because wealthier people have better sex education and can afford birth control?
Or do you just think wealthy people do not like babies? :-)
So, public assistance is the problem? Where is all of your compassion for these poor people? Would you feel differently if the assistance all came from private charity, rather than government? I would be very happy with that solution. Problem solved.
Prove causality? Really? Isn't this common knowledge, a known fact? We do not care exactly WHY this happens, only that it reliably happens. And isn't the purpose of "welfare" to lift people out of poverty? Why not concentrate efforts there, and get the free, natural social benefits of that, rather than the coercive other way around?
Apparently you are now arguing to give ever more money to people who keep making more babies, either via Public Assistance or Charity?
Causation always matters. Trusting correlation leads to bad decisions.
Heh.
The whole point is that private charity does not treat people like cattle, treats them for their individual economic and social problems, and sets them free. Public welfare creates an entitlement mentality that fosters hopelessness and irresponsibility. It's a simple choice. One reflects humanity and common sense, and the other creates inefficacious and expensive bureaucratic indifference.
LOL.
"Trusting correlation"??? You mean like believing that manmade CO2 increases cause global warming? You can't even prove that theory based on one planet, while reduced birthrates among wealthy nations is proven by billions of people. Of course, if you choose to believe some politically-based theory over the actual data...
The reality is that Private Charity is not an option since people are not charitable enough. And what would your private charity do if a woman insisted on making more babies while receiving benefits?
I have simple causation on my side... Women who have excellent sex education, easy access to free long acting reversible contraception and first term abortions are far less likely to give birth to unplanned babies that they can not afford.
Americans (especially conservatives) are the most charitable people on Earth. Unfortunately, politicians have consistently told us (especially liberals) that government can do charity on our behalf-- just give them the money. As usual, liberals believe government can do things they are ill-equipped to do, cannot do well, and should not do at all. The "transaction" in private charity creates kindness ("it's own reward" according to Proverbs) on the one end and gratitude on the other. It's simple human nature working as it should. Government welfare creates the theft of human dignity on the one end and an entitlement mentality on the other, working AGAINST human nature. The "while receiving benefits" is simply an alien idea in private charity, but a natural one when government tries to "do charity" on our behalf.
And simple causation says that women who can afford those things understand the costs of kids and do things to have fewer of them. Your only suggestion is to force those things on poor women that they would not naturally choose for themselves.
A failure of charity occurred long before welfare, that is why we have SS, SSD, Medicare, Medicaid and other forms of government welfare.
Providing excellent sex ed, free long acting reversible contraception and free easy 1st term abortions "forces" nothing... It just gives poor women the same options as wealthy women.
And you avoided my question as usual...
And what would your private charity do if a woman insisted on making more babies while receiving benefits?
WWJD? Your entire question is based on false premeses. Charities do not "give benefits." Period. People receiving charity do not "insist" on anything. There is a voluntary exchange that takes place, one party helping and the other being helped. If a woman becomes pregnant while relying on charity (very rare), she and the baby will continue to rely on charity. If she comes to charity already pregnant, same thing. Somehow you stubbornly refuse to accept that government welfare and private charity are two entirely different things in approach. One personal and humanistic, the other bureaucratic and without caring.
And I object to your term "a failure of charity." When government "stepped in" to "do charity" was it because there was an actual need, or because a bunch of politicians sought to "do good" with other people's money and create a dependent class of voters with no strings? I don't recall clamoring for Medicare or Obamacare, do you? I remember helping those people whom welfare refused to help, and just long enough to "get them back on their feet." Perhaps that is why charity "failed," because it didn't create dependency and reward liberal politicians?
Americans are the most charitable people (at least us conservatives) on the planet, but we have all (especially the liberals) been told that "Uncle Sam will do it." And yet charity is NOT something that government can well, nor should it try. Private charity by its very nature aligns with human nature, and government "welfare" simply works against that, or at least its beneficial aspects. Look at your language-- "while receiving benefits." The transaction in welfare creates kindness ("Kindness is its own reward" --Proverbs 11:17-19) on the one side and gratitude on the other. It's human nature. Government welfare creates dependence and an entitlement mentality, and the natural human reaction to take what is given and ask for more from that big, impersonal, uncaring bureaucracy. You are trying to fight human nature as well as bucking basic economics, where we cannot afford to pay people to not work.
Simple causation is that women who can afford to have babies recognize the costs and tend to have fewer of them.
What would charity do then for a woman with 2 children?
How would this change with child #3?
And with Child #4?
I think you need to study your history
OK, I studied it. Now what? Common opinion is that FDR did more to prolong the Depression than he did to correct it.
Why do you insist that women with two children, while "on charity," will WANT a 3rd, even leaving aside the highly unlikely chance of begetting one? Isn't this just more of your "those people" prejudice? Let me ask a question. You keep insisting that all this "free contraception," etc. is a solution, even THE solution. So what do YOU do if a welfare mother of two does NOT take those steps, and has a third?
I have published my plan.
There is no rational reason why a woman reason welfare should be allowed to bring home baby 3, 4, 5, etc. Unless you can think of one?
Make Long Acting Reversible Contraception and the Morning After Pill free and readily available for all. NO baby should be born unless the Baby Maker(s) are 100% wanting the child and feel prepared to care for it. (ie committed to being responsible capable Parents)
If a proven irresponsible Baby Maker who is on welfare (ie Angel Adams) gets pregnant. She should be forced to abort or give the Baby up for adoption. And if this happens more than once, her tubes should be tied.
The welfare payments and service should be set up to make recipients work, learn, mature and improve their self sufficiency.
The male Baby Makers must bear the consequences of their behavior. The female Baby Maker must name the Father so the State can ensure the required child support is paid. The cost may be higher than the money received, but the "free loading Baby Daddy" behavior must be dissuaded.
The State must ensure that Baby Makers and the Babies receive training, care, etc until they become a functional family. (ie Parents and Kids) This includes mandatory Parenting classes, Early Childhood Education, Inexpensive quality childcare, etc. Many of the Baby Makers are in this position because their role models were Baby Makers (ie not Parents). Someone has to train them what it means to be a Parent.
"Common opinion is that FDR did more to prolong the Depression than he did to correct it."
I would think you'd know better than to trust the common opinion....especially considering it is wrong.
FDR's policies worked very well until Congress got in the way of the spending.
Moose
Your plan relies on words like "must" and "forced." All your pets should be spayed and neutered, too. Do not real human beings deserve more consideration and compassion? How about offering to help, and accomplishing those same desirable things through caring and cooperation, rather than coercion?
Moose, that is one take, I suppose, but you are arguing that good intentions from FDR would result in good results. That is never sufficient, and the FACT is that the Depression only recovered with the start of WWII, and should have taken far less, regardless of what /intentions/ were.
But you raise an interesting parallel, as well. Congress recently agreed to spend $3 Trillion to decrease the "coming depression" brought on by the mandatory shutdown of the economy. That is $10,000 of new debt for every man, woman and child in the country. Was that a wise expenditure?
Jerry,
Then answer with what you would do...
What would charity do then for a woman with 2 children?
How would this change with child #3?
And with Child #4?
What would charity do? You are asking me, as if my personal experience is suddenly definitive? Wow. OK, here is what I have seen. First of all, women with two children who charity comes to help are treated just like women with 3 children, or a woman with one child and one "on the way." We are helping the "family," whatever it is. And the women we help NEVER get pregnant while we work with them to "get them on their feet." It would interfere with their recovery; they know it and avoid it. It's that human nature thing, which you seem to not understand. But then you're not recognizing "those people" as humans, so....
"And the women we help NEVER get pregnant while we work with them to "get them on their feet."
So what would you do if they did?
"Was that a wise expenditure?"
We'll find out. But we do know what wasn't a wise expenditure...the 2017 tax cuts. I mean...it did literally nothing except put us in a hole for when the bad times hit.
Moose
Moose, let me suggest something to you. Yes, we can pay off the national debt PLUS all of the "unfunded mandates" of SS, Medicare, etc. All we have to do is raise federal taxes to 100% for the next 8 years, and dedicate them. Of course all other spending-- federal, state, and personal-- would need to go to zero, and some might consider that a problem, but that degree of raising taxes works on paper. Oh, and "tax cuts" are not an expenditure. Government cannot spend money it never has, except by borrowing against our children. Right now a newborn is roughly $400,000 in debt and can't get a job.
John, don't we have enough disagreements without throwing in =purely hypothetical= questions? And one already answered? Charity would continue to help the whole family, though the exact nature of the help would necessarily change a bit to include the new infant. What did you expect?
Jerry,
That is a very good question. I wonder where I would have gotten another idea.
"The key here is that these are /opportunities/, not mandates, but the cash benefits (after a time) either rise or fall based on performance." Jerry
I would think that making another baby would not be aligned with the charity's "get out of poverty goal"...
On the other hand it sounds like your charity is a lot like welfare then. If you screw up you get more money, and benefits...
You quote out of context. My suggestion was for welfare reform as a government service. What I am discussing here is a radical change from even that, where government welfare is either abolished entirely in favor of private charity, or where government welfare is magically transformed to operate in the way private charity does. I'm not certain that is even possible. The difference is that "my charity" really exists, works well, and has worked well for years if not decades. Your "spay and neuter your pets" approach, thankfully, has never been tried.
And you seem SO worried about poor people making babies. You and Margaret Sanger. As I've said, working with women through charity, I've never seen it, yet you insist no charitable approach can work [even though it does] because of this impossible possibility.
"All we have to do is raise federal taxes to 100% for the next 8 years..."
Alternatively, we can reduce the tax rate to zero for everybody (the Republican and Libertarian dream) and become even more of a Shithole CountryTM.
Moose
Jerry,
Your method works because it only has to deal with capable adults who have fallen on a rough patch... Welfare is there for people with real generational poverty related problems.
If your church was "fixing folks" at such a great rate, the Burnsville community would not a 50+% poverty rate in their schools.
If all one needs to deal with are horses who are ready to drink, it is much easier to get them to drink.
The question is how to ensure the foals are cared for when the horse does not want to drink.
What you have done is to correctly identify the massive poverty problem created when government do-gooders try to "do charity" using other people's money. If you pay people to be poor, you will get more poor people. Sure, private charity is inadequate for the huge number of public welfare recipients we have, have had, and will continue to have so long as the system offers "a handout instead of a hand up." your horsey analogy is absolutely correct. Charity succeeds because it works by cooperation with willing participants. Welfare fails because at best it attempts to coerce the unwilling while at the same time the do-gooders cry that you can't reduce benefits to "encourage" cooperation, because of the children.
Charity does a great job with the limited pool of volunteers and resources and people seeking help they have. Any transition to a system where private charity predominates or public welfare adopts the private charity model has got to be very long and very difficult, particularly in the face of liberal screaming about the mistreatment of poor people that they really don't give two hoots about. it IS the correct solution, but politics, at least these days, seems to have nothing to do with the correct solution, or even the correct problem.
"If you pay people to be poor, you will get more poor people."
Yes, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the terrible income disparity between the haves and the have nots and real wages being flat or actually decreasing over the past 40 years.
It can't possibly be the simplest answer.
Moose
It is definitely complicated. I will do a new post soon to continue this discussion.
Wage Stagnation in Nine Charts
Moose
Look at that, Moose actually using sources and facts! I haven't seriously studied it, but when I do I will look for proof that the Obama economy increased inequality, and the Trump economy reduced it. And "inequality of outcome" has never been the problem, rather it is the inequality of opportunity. For example, why do not the $15/hour people demand $100/hr? Surely inequality would be on the other foot with that?
'And "inequality of outcome" has never been the problem, rather it is the inequality of opportunity.'
You misspelled 'greed'.
Moose
OK, you are free to not be greedy. Just give away all you have. You will then be poor but ultimately virtuous. The whole fundamental of the free market is that each side gains from the exchange, that in mutual "greed" there is mutual economic benefit.
Deny people the opportunity to participate in that free market, and that inequality of opportunity is the underlying problem resulting in the outcome.
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