Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

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Mori Chu
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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

Post by Mori Chu »

SwingMan wrote:
Mori Chu wrote:A moral busybody did not choke this man until he died.
No, but the moral busybodies called the one who did.
Honestly, who cares who called the police officer? Isn't the problem here that a police officer choked a man to death unnecessarily over a minor offense? Who cares who called the officer?

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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

Post by SwingMan »

Mori Chu wrote:
SwingMan wrote:
Mori Chu wrote:A moral busybody did not choke this man until he died.
No, but the moral busybodies called the one who did.
Honestly, who cares who called the police officer? Isn't the problem here that a police officer choked a man to death unnecessarily over a minor offense? Who cares who called the officer?
Means that said moral busybodies have got blood on their hands as well - they may not have applied the chokehold, but they essentially played Russian Roulette with the man's life.

The man wasn't hurting anyone by selling those smokes - the taxes had already been paid on the smokes via the tax stamp that's on every pack of cigarettes sold, including the one he took the "loosies" from. The law is just a way to try and double-dip.

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Mori Chu
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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

Post by Mori Chu »

SwingMan wrote:
Mori Chu wrote:
SwingMan wrote:
Mori Chu wrote:A moral busybody did not choke this man until he died.
No, but the moral busybodies called the one who did.
Honestly, who cares who called the police officer? Isn't the problem here that a police officer choked a man to death unnecessarily over a minor offense? Who cares who called the officer?
Means that said moral busybodies have got blood on their hands as well - they may not have applied the chokehold, but they essentially played Russian Roulette with the man's life.
How does calling the police amount to playing Russian Roulette with someone's life? I just don't agree with that at all. And who exactly are these "moral busybodies"? I just don't understand how anybody has "blood on their hands" other than, you know, the police officer who killed a man.

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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

Post by SwingMan »

Mori Chu wrote:
SwingMan wrote:
Mori Chu wrote:
SwingMan wrote:
Mori Chu wrote:A moral busybody did not choke this man until he died.
No, but the moral busybodies called the one who did.
Honestly, who cares who called the police officer? Isn't the problem here that a police officer choked a man to death unnecessarily over a minor offense? Who cares who called the officer?
Means that said moral busybodies have got blood on their hands as well - they may not have applied the chokehold, but they essentially played Russian Roulette with the man's life.
How does calling the police amount to playing Russian Roulette with someone's life? I just don't agree with that at all. And who exactly are these "moral busybodies"? I just don't understand how anybody has "blood on their hands" other than, you know, the police officer who killed a man.
Because you never know who the force is going to send out.

Make no mistake, though - I'm in complete agreement that the officer was entirely in the wrong, but the moral busybodies are the ones who got the ball rolling.

Shit, if what I'm hearing (that this officer has had numerous complaints and even a lawsuit filed against him - I have to dig & research more on that) is true, then the NYPD themselves have Garner's blood on THEIR hands as well for keeping the sonofabitch on the force.

All because of some bullshit liberal law that double-dips on taxes - I also heard that fucking DeBlasio has a TASK FORCE to specifically target the selling of "loosies", or whatever the fuck they're called. "Revenue" hungry fucks.....

EDIT : My apologies - it's Cuomo who created a 13-agency task force designed to stop the sale of illegal cigarettes in NY this past March.

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Dan H
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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

Post by Dan H »

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/3 ... -c-w-cooke

On the face of it, we have a paradox here: To wit, that those who believe these incidents to be rare are the ones making a strong case against the sort of laws that bring cops into contact with minor criminals; while those who believe that these things happen as a matter of routine reject such talk out of hand. On closer inspection, however, this is not quite as peculiar as it seems. Rather, it goes back to the fundamental philosophical cleavages that animate and undergird American life. As a rule, progressives believe that human nature can be changed over time, that abuses of power can be rooted out with better education and the selection of more angelic enforcers, and that by playing with societal variables in precisely the right way we will be able to turn the state into a benevolent and loving force. In consequence, the only real villains in this case can be the cop and his prejudices, and to allow those to deprive us of laws designed to raise revenue, to protect community businesses, and to improve public health would be irresponsible and unfair.

Conservatives, by contrast, tend to be more convinced by the Hayekian asseveration that human nature is essentially fixed and that any consolidation of power serves eventually to attract to public service those who are least capable of bearing the responsibility. As a result, those of us on the right not only regard the Left’s refusal to connect the ideas of “government” and “force” as being illustrative of a more general unwillingness to acknowledge the consequences of its philosophy, but believe that anybody who wishes to diminish the abuse of power without also diminishing the scope of that power is irredeemably naïve — and possibly even dangerous.

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Nodack
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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

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"Those who think the incidents are rare." Who are those people? Republicans? So they want to make laws that keep the Police from having any contact with minor criminals? So minor crimes would no longer ever be enforced by the police if Republicans have their way? OK.

"Rather, it goes back to the fundamental philosophical cleavages that animate and undergird American life." I get real sceptical of articles that try to use a lot of fancy words. It has the opposite effect on me that it's suppost to have.

So, progressives try to make sure we select good cops through proper selection, education and training and that's a bad thing because if we do that it will deprive us of laws designed to raise revenue, protect businesses and improve public health making it irresponsible and unfair. Makes total sense. Training and education = bad. No training or education = good.

On the other hand Conservatives believe in the Hayekian asservation? I would be willing to bet my house that less than 2% of Conservatives have ever heard of the Hayekian asservation. So they believe that human nature is set. Weeding out the bad cops, training them and educating them is a bad thing, is naive and possibly dangerous. That sounds completely insane to me. So what is their answer? Not training? Don't bother trying to weed out the bad ones? Training and educating cops is a waste of time because human nature is fixed. They are going to abuse their power, so therefore nobody should have the power. Diminish the scope of their power? So, they no longer arrest criminals? They want to eliminate any police contact with mimor criminals. So who does have contact with minor offenses? Great! No more speeding tickets. Stealing a 12 pack from the liquor store is easy since the cops aren't allowed to enforce minor offenses. Lets all go drink a fifth of Jack Daniels in front of the police station since they can't do anything about it.

The more I read the more it sounds like total BS dressed in fancy words. I get part of the article. Human nature says that some of those who apply for a job of law enforcement tend to be those who would get excited about having power over others and that's a bad thing. Common sense tells me that somebody has to enforce our laws and that the more we can do to select those who won't abuse that power the better. I must be a progressive because I think psychological testing, training and education for police is a good thing.

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Mori Chu
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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

Post by Mori Chu »

Yeah, I thought that article was a dud as well. It isn't binary, either. We can work toward having better cops and better laws and also put in measures to avoid bad situations like this such as cameras. It doesn't have to be 100% one or the other.


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Dan H
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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

Post by Dan H »

BTW - the Garner situation is not the problem but rather a symptom of a much larger one, IMO. That's where I agree with Cooke in that this is a binary solution set. At some point, don't we have enough laws? Eventually you end up with situations like this:

http://reason.com/blog/2011/06/08/dept- ... at-team-up

Maybe that will strike a little closer to home than a guy being attacked by the cops for selling loose cigarettes.

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Mori Chu
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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

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Dan: I think those last two articles you posted are simply ridiculous. Blaming "big government" and "the left" is shameful. This man died because a police officer choked him to death. He did *not* die because of a law about cigarette sales. He did not die because of "big government" or "moral busybodies".

I just don't get why such a simple and clear-cut case has to become about party politics. This cop flagrantly violated his police training and the rules/laws he was supposed to follow, and he killed a man completely unnecessarily over the most minor of infractions. HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN INDICTED FOR THIS. That is all that there is to say about it.

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Dan H
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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

Post by Dan H »

Mori Chu wrote:Dan: I think those last two articles you posted are simply ridiculous. Blaming "big government" and "the left" is shameful. This man died because a police officer choked him to death. He did *not* die because of a law about cigarette sales. He did not die because of "big government" or "moral busybodies".

I just don't get why such a simple and clear-cut case has to become about party politics. This cop flagrantly violated his police training and the rules/laws he was supposed to follow, and he killed a man completely unnecessarily over the most minor of infractions. HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN INDICTED FOR THIS. That is all that there is to say about it.
So if there were no restrictions on the sales of loose cigarettes, Garner still would have died?

I'm not arguing the cop wasn't deserving of indictment. I'm saying there are larger issues at play here. If the cop had no reason to be looking for guys selling cigs, Garner would have a) not had a criminal record of selling them and b) the cop would have left him the hell alone.

It's not about party politics, it's about two types of people - those who seek to exert control over ever increasing facets of people's lives, and those who don't. There are aspects of each side in both political parties. It's a freedom versus rights issue.

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Mori Chu
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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

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It's a freedom versus rights issue.
No; it really, truly isn't. This is very simple. There will always be laws, and there will always be police to help enforce those laws. Some laws will be minor, like "don't exceed the speed limit" or "don't create a disturbance in a public place," and others will be more major, like "don't rob a bank" or "don't stab people." But there will always be laws and police will always help to enforce them. This will always, by nature, cause police to interact with many citizens all the time, every day, all around the country. Regardless of exactly what the laws are, some of those interactions will be about minor infractions that the officer is trying to enforce.

It is never okay for a police officer to choke a citizen to death over a minor infraction. You can say that if we had different rules, this particular minor infraction would have been less likely to occur. But this is not about "freedom versus rights". There is no reasonable set of laws that would avoid the overall situation of cops interacting with minor violators.

Taking this horrible death, which was caused entirely by a police officer acting completely out of line with the way he was trained and supposed to act, and making it about the Left and control and freedom is disrespectful and naive. You want to stop police from killing black people for no reason? Don't remove laws about selling cigarettes illegally. Don't remove taxes on cigarettes. Train police better, monitor them more carefully e.g. cameras, and actually punish them when they kill black people (or any citizens) wrongfully for no reason.

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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

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Train police better, monitor them more carefully e.g. cameras, and actually punish them when they kill black people (or any citizens) wrongfully for no reason.
As much as I would like to think A and B would help, I don't think anything besides C will have a true improvement. And that would require a complete change in how the fraternity of police works.

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Mori Chu
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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

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I don't think of Jezebel as a great news source, but they had an article with some survey questions about the Eric Garner and Mike Brown cases. Not shockingly, white people were much less likely to say that the cases were about race.

http://jezebel.com/most-white-people-th ... 1668476797

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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

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Exactly. That's like asking the top 1% of wealthy Americans if the justice system is fair. Of course they do, because it doesn't affect them. Ask them if the tax laws are just and you get a different answer, just like you would with the bottom 50%. It is all relative.

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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

Post by SwingMan »

Mori Chu wrote:I don't think of Jezebel as a great news source.....
And yet..... :lol:

Gotta stoke that 'victim' status to keep the votes in the pocket - that's all this shit boils down to and it looks like you two have fallen hook, line and sinker for it.

Got some news for you, gents : Trying to gin up all this guilt about the color of my skin is racist in itself. Or, as Mori *might* put it, "white-shaming". ;)

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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

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Charlie's British, Nodack, he always talks like that.
Ahh, figures. Those damn British and their fancy talk.
If the cop had no reason to be looking for guys selling cigs, Garner would have a) not had a criminal record of selling them and b) the cop would have left him the hell alone.
Straw man's argument. Same with the fist killing. If the cop wasn't looking for a guy that just roughed up a convenience store he probably wouldn't have been pulled over. My best friends growing up were Jehovahs Witnesses. I asked them why they didn't celebrate birthdays. They said the king asked his queen what she wanted for her birthday and she said John the Baptists head. The king gave her what she wanted and that's why birthdays are bad.
Not shockingly, white people were much less likely to say that the cases were about race.
And also not shockingly, black people were much more likely to say the cases were about race. It's a two way street.
It's not about party politics, it's about two types of people - those who seek to exert control over ever increasing facets of people's lives, and those who don't. There are aspects of each side in both political parties. It's a freedom versus rights issue.
A society cannot function without laws. Freedom is great. Laws making it illegal to harm other people or steal their stuff etc. are needed IMO. If somebody goes to jail for killing somebody I never feel like my freedoms are being taken away. The guy that killed somebody is getting his freedoms taken away, but I am OK with that. Laws and Police took them off the street because we as a society made that happen. I hear over and over about everybody's freedoms being taken away in the last six years. Could one of you guys make a list of all your freedoms that have been taken away. I would love to see the list. I have lived in America a long time and I haven't felt my freedoms challenged yet. I hear a lot of doom and gloom sky is falling stuff 24/7/365/year after year, but so far I haven't needed a gun or bomb shelter at any time in my life. I chose my own profession and live in the house I chose in the state I chose practicing the religion I chose. People act like they are being so repressed by our evil government plotting our demise at every turn.

I got away from the topic a little there. This topic is about black/white/police relations. Relationships are made better how? Opinions on race are formed early and stay a lifetime in many cases IMO. I have been around older white people/relatives who definitely have a racist views. Whites are raised to think bad things about blacks. It's passed down from generation to generation. Blacks are raised to think bad things about whites too and it's passed down from generation to generation.

Our race relations have gotten better. Our government that so many hate forced us together in the 60s desegregating schools and the military against the wishes of a lot of people. They thought it would be the end of life on earth, but it wasn't. It did cause a commotion, but in the end did improve relations because both sides were forced to deal with each other and some of them became lifelong friends because they found out the other side wasn't so bad.

I moved just outside of Nashville Tenn. my junior year of HS. I grew up in PHX. My HS in PHX had one black person in it. In Tenn the new HS was over 50% black. It was a little bit of a shock for me. After 6 months of school I ended up having basically no white friends. I was an outsider and talked funny them I guess and they weren't very nice at all. I was even picked on by a group of white guys and I almost came to punches with their leader who sat behind me in a class. I couldn't take it any more and stood up and shoved the guy in the chest right in class. The teacher saw that a fight was about ready to start and looked back down at his news paper and pretended it wasn't happening. The leaders friends told the guy to back off and he did. He said I was going to get my ass kicked after school, but that didn't happen and they never bothered me again. I was an average student in AZ, but an above average student in Tenn. The teacher gave me a final grade of A+. I didn't do anything special. To this day I think I got an A+ because I stood up to those guys. The only people that were cool to me the whole time were some of the blacks. My favorite teacher was black. I gained a lot of respect for them after all the horrible stories I heard from my step dad and his parents who were total racists. My mother raised us kids mostly by herself and she taught me nothing about race or politics and I am thankful for that.

I think the more things we can do that force us to be together as one and not separated into groups the better. As long as there is a NAACP, BET, Miss Black America etc. we will still be separate groups. To me the idea of those groups was to unite, help and give them a sense of pride, but if somebody tried to make a WET, NAAWP or a Miss White America they would be thought of as total racists, so to many whites it is a slap in the face and another divider IMO.

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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

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I'm so glad you post in here Dack.

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Dan H
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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

Post by Dan H »

I think the more things we can do that force us to be together as one and not separated into groups the better. As long as there is a NAACP, BET, Miss Black America etc. we will still be separate groups. To me the idea of those groups was to unite, help and give them a sense of pride, but if somebody tried to make a WET, NAAWP or a Miss White America they would be thought of as total racists, so to many whites it is a slap in the face and another divider IMO.
It's honestly confusing to me, because the way I was raised was to judge people on their actions, not by their appearance. One of the most shocking moments of my life was when I heard my grandfather say the 'n' word. If I have my way, my kids will never hear it from anyone in my family.

So I'm just assuming that this is a sort of societal trend that will resonate with my generation and forward, but it often seems that things are worse than they've been for a long time. I dunno. The color of someone's skin is generally the least interesting thing about them, so I have a hard time caring - but sometimes it seems like not caring isn't regarded as good enough.

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Re: Eric Garner death / Officer Daniel Pantaleo case in NY

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I'm so glad you post in here Dack.
Thanks Indy!

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