beast of the east
Active member
Here is really perhaps the most ineffective thing about taking a knee, BLM, OWS, and any other number of protests:
Liberals who are behind these protests really do not want solutions or any positive outcome other than to energize their base. Far from solutions, or unifying people, these movements turn away people who otherwise might sympathize with a cause.
To that extent, if taking a knee is about inequality towards races, or harsher, sometimes violent outcomes in police encounters with mostly black men, there is a better forum. Colin K. taking a knee but also inciting hatred by following that up with socks depicting cops as pigs basically achieved one thing, driving him from the NFL faster than his own poor play did. I don't see him using all his free time now to making a difference in working with police and communities to create a bridge of communication and better understanding, or anything of that nature.
If the BLM movement was a little more discerning, they would have much more universal support. The incident in Ferguson was not perpetrated against a "gentle giant", it was a defensive act by a cop who advised the young man to walk on the sidewalk and not in the street (a couple of minutes after he had just robbed a cigar store which was captured on video). Michael Brown then cursed the cop, and wrestled him for his gun. Suicide via police encounter.
A much better case to gather public sympathy would be that of Walter Scott, an unarmed black man who after a police stop for a tail light out, fled he was fearful of being returned to jail for falling behind on child support payments. As he fled, the officer pumped fatal bullets into his back. Just about everyone with a brain would say this was senseless police brutality.
The contrasts in these 2 cases is so stark, with the second having no shades of gray. But these movements are all about getting the maximum exposure and riling people up, energizing a voting base. The facts of the first case don't matter, and in fact are even ignored. Burning down and looting the community matters little, but gives liberal media commentators days on end to create a false narrative in soundbites that eventually lead to idiots listening to only those soundbites and not using their brains and energy to be part of a solution.
The Baltimore case also had shades of gray. I'm very unsympathetic to drug dealers polluting the worst neighborhood as they ply their trade. One dead drug dealer is one less drug dealer. The community should show as much outrage as the dealers addicting and killing men and women as they do towards police who are assigned to clean up these cesspools of crime.
If any of these dumb liberal college kids who support these riots (and riot themselves to silence opposing voices) were honest with themseves, while driving or God forbid walking down any Martin Luther King Blvd in the dead of the night alone, they'd acknowledge they feel a lot more comfort when they see a police officer than fear.
Am I against unnecessary violence by police - of course. Do I think that respect for an officer who stops you gets you much better treatment in general than disrespect. Yes. Do fatal encounters with cops sometimes have an element of this? Without a doubt. Eric Garner refused to be arrested for almost 30 minutes before cops lost their patience and used force to bring down the morbidity obese loose joint dealer who had been arrested 29 times previously.
I grew up in Queens and lived and worked in mixed and predominantly black neighborhoods. I hated when store managers in adjacent white areas would have a clerk follow a black man around the store to make sure he didn't shoplift. I know some bad cops with chips on their shoulders show no respect to black men during traffic stops. But I also know good cops outweigh bad ones in enormous proportions, and the current methods of rioting, looting, and even refusal to honor our flag and country are ineffective in bridging inequalities.
Liberals who are behind these protests really do not want solutions or any positive outcome other than to energize their base. Far from solutions, or unifying people, these movements turn away people who otherwise might sympathize with a cause.
To that extent, if taking a knee is about inequality towards races, or harsher, sometimes violent outcomes in police encounters with mostly black men, there is a better forum. Colin K. taking a knee but also inciting hatred by following that up with socks depicting cops as pigs basically achieved one thing, driving him from the NFL faster than his own poor play did. I don't see him using all his free time now to making a difference in working with police and communities to create a bridge of communication and better understanding, or anything of that nature.
If the BLM movement was a little more discerning, they would have much more universal support. The incident in Ferguson was not perpetrated against a "gentle giant", it was a defensive act by a cop who advised the young man to walk on the sidewalk and not in the street (a couple of minutes after he had just robbed a cigar store which was captured on video). Michael Brown then cursed the cop, and wrestled him for his gun. Suicide via police encounter.
A much better case to gather public sympathy would be that of Walter Scott, an unarmed black man who after a police stop for a tail light out, fled he was fearful of being returned to jail for falling behind on child support payments. As he fled, the officer pumped fatal bullets into his back. Just about everyone with a brain would say this was senseless police brutality.
The contrasts in these 2 cases is so stark, with the second having no shades of gray. But these movements are all about getting the maximum exposure and riling people up, energizing a voting base. The facts of the first case don't matter, and in fact are even ignored. Burning down and looting the community matters little, but gives liberal media commentators days on end to create a false narrative in soundbites that eventually lead to idiots listening to only those soundbites and not using their brains and energy to be part of a solution.
The Baltimore case also had shades of gray. I'm very unsympathetic to drug dealers polluting the worst neighborhood as they ply their trade. One dead drug dealer is one less drug dealer. The community should show as much outrage as the dealers addicting and killing men and women as they do towards police who are assigned to clean up these cesspools of crime.
If any of these dumb liberal college kids who support these riots (and riot themselves to silence opposing voices) were honest with themseves, while driving or God forbid walking down any Martin Luther King Blvd in the dead of the night alone, they'd acknowledge they feel a lot more comfort when they see a police officer than fear.
Am I against unnecessary violence by police - of course. Do I think that respect for an officer who stops you gets you much better treatment in general than disrespect. Yes. Do fatal encounters with cops sometimes have an element of this? Without a doubt. Eric Garner refused to be arrested for almost 30 minutes before cops lost their patience and used force to bring down the morbidity obese loose joint dealer who had been arrested 29 times previously.
I grew up in Queens and lived and worked in mixed and predominantly black neighborhoods. I hated when store managers in adjacent white areas would have a clerk follow a black man around the store to make sure he didn't shoplift. I know some bad cops with chips on their shoulders show no respect to black men during traffic stops. But I also know good cops outweigh bad ones in enormous proportions, and the current methods of rioting, looting, and even refusal to honor our flag and country are ineffective in bridging inequalities.
