No, of course not. Racism in some other country doesn't preclude or excuse it in this one.
But from a practical standpoint any racism in the UK leads to less police violence against black people or other minorities by the simple approach of taking guns away from the police and likely better training with less emphasis on using lethal violence in order to defend yourself.
Our police officers are trained to protect themselves with lethal violence even when that violence is not absolutely necessary.
But again that is mostly just for effect. Appearances.
The UK still has even more income inequality, colonialism, imperialism, fascism, etc. It was smarter for their ruling class to make police appear more benevolent, but I am not convinced the government really is more benevolent or will stay that way even if it is.
You just provided one key to how to make a government benevolent. Make it realize that it is in its own best interest. They don't even have to be inherently benevolent, just convinced that it is for their own good as well as the public at large.
They should understand it is also in the interest of the wealthy to have a happy general population. But they are too greedy. What they seem to prefer instead is gated communities and a police state. Works in Russia and China.
That's the way it's supposed to work, but for the last couple decades it's turned into an "us against them" mentality that's gotten worse as time goes on! Not to point fingers, but no one can deny Republicans have pretty much erased the word compromise in their dictionaries! If the word is even implied, it appears the politician will be "primaried" and have someone installed more intransigent because that's where society has gone! Trump has been utilizing these beliefs to the fullest and taken advantage of how stupid it makes us all look! ;-( -Fiero
That intransigence is largely a derivative of the perception on the part of the opposing sides that the other side is morally corrupt. That sort of thinking doesn't lend itself easily to compromise.
The main stumbling block in the case of Republican conservatives is probably their belief that pro-choice persons on the liberal left are evil. The abortion issue can be a difficult one for people to compromise on and it has likely led to the greatest and most acrimonious political division in this country's history.
The argument is about establishing good government through laws and restrictions on government, not by getting good people into the positions of power. -Rigby
Laws and attempts to restrict governments by things like our constitution don't work to control governments. They depend on compliance and a willingness to accept their constraints rather than power while governments use power to generate compliance with what they want. That's why it is so important to create a system that places the right people into the government. Those people need to be rational and competent folks who care about their fellow citizens.
quote:
You can never ensure only good people get into positions of power. That can never work. Instead you need a constitution that prevent government abuses, and an armed population willing to enforce those restrictions on government.
That doesn't work either. Constitutions have no power to prevent government abuses and when our government has acted unconstitutionally that has been greeted with little to no objection by the American public either because they didn't notice or didn't care.
quote:
Government is never supposed to be controlling and dictatorial at all in my opinion. When they are defending the rights of someone else, they are not being controlling or dictatorial.
Sure they are. They are controlling the bad guys and stopping them from violating the rights of other people.
No, of course not. Racism in some other country doesn't preclude or excuse it in this one.
But from a practical standpoint any racism in the UK leads to less police violence against black people or other minorities by the simple approach of taking guns away from the police and likely better training with less emphasis on using lethal violence in order to defend yourself.
Our police officers are trained to protect themselves with lethal violence even when that violence is not absolutely necessary.
But again that is mostly just for effect. Appearances.
The UK still has even more income inequality, colonialism, imperialism, fascism, etc. It was smarter for their ruling class to make police appear more benevolent, but I am not convinced the government really is more benevolent or will stay that way even if it is.
You just provided one key to how to make a government benevolent. Make it realize that it is in its own best interest. They don't even have to be inherently benevolent, just convinced that it is for their own good as well as the public at large.
They should understand it is also in the interest of the wealthy to have a happy general population. But they are too greedy. What they seem to prefer instead is gated communities and a police state. Works in Russia and China.
It wouldn't hurt if both the government and the wealthy understood some basic economics including the fact that without labor there would be no economy at all. Wealth isn't produced by people sitting on their bottoms. It is achieved through labor.
Couple that fact with the fact that people who are lower down on the economic rung spending money on things they either need or wish to buy enables corporations to thrive. To do that they need money and need to have a government that ensures that they have that spending money. It's a reality that our government has apparently recently recognized.
Those basic facts of economics don't rule out greed but they certainly make it clear that wealth needs to be shared for an economy to thrive and that those who provide the labor should be treated well.
That's the way it's supposed to work, but for the last couple decades it's turned into an "us against them" mentality that's gotten worse as time goes on! Not to point fingers, but no one can deny Republicans have pretty much erased the word compromise in their dictionaries! If the word is even implied, it appears the politician will be "primaried" and have someone installed more intransigent because that's where society has gone! Trump has been utilizing these beliefs to the fullest and taken advantage of how stupid it makes us all look! ;-( -Fiero
That intransigence is largely a derivative of the perception on the part of the opposing sides that the other side is morally corrupt. That sort of thinking doesn't lend itself easily to compromise.
The main stumbling block in the case of Republican conservatives is probably their belief that pro-choice persons on the liberal left are evil. The abortion issue can be a difficult one for people to compromise on and it has likely led to the greatest and most acrimonious political division in this country's history.
I have never understood the anti abortion position, since it should be clear that human reproduction rates are based on historic natural infant mortality rates that no longer exist, so are no longer sustainable. Over population is not only the greatest threat to us through the assurance of the extinction of our entire human species, but clearly also causes most human misery, like crime, war, hunger disease, etc.
The argument is about establishing good government through laws and restrictions on government, not by getting good people into the positions of power. -Rigby
Laws and attempts to restrict governments by things like our constitution don't work to control governments. They depend on compliance and a willingness to accept their constraints rather than power while governments use power to generate compliance with what they want. That's why it is so important to create a system that places the right people into the government. Those people need to be rational and competent folks who care about their fellow citizens.
quote:
You can never ensure only good people get into positions of power. That can never work. Instead you need a constitution that prevent government abuses, and an armed population willing to enforce those restrictions on government.
That doesn't work either. Constitutions have no power to prevent government abuses and when our government has acted unconstitutionally that has been greeted with little to no objection by the American public either because they didn't notice or didn't care.
quote:
Government is never supposed to be controlling and dictatorial at all in my opinion. When they are defending the rights of someone else, they are not being controlling or dictatorial.
Sure they are. They are controlling the bad guys and stopping them from violating the rights of other people.
Where we disagree is that I think even if you have the best possible people in government, they will still totally screw it up if they do what they believe is right.
That is because we are too conditioned to actually know what is right, especially for other people. So the only way it can work is when government does as little as possible, and only acts to prevent abuses by others.
Controlling means to dictate what people must do, not to prevent them from imposing on others. Defending individual rights means to prevent controlling others. For example, when you build a bank with a secure vault to prevent theft, you are not controlling anyone. The potential bank robbers are free to do what ever else they want. The fact you ave prevented them from being able to rob the bank is not control.
Re: Police Brutality Incites Riots It isn't conditioning for all it is we haven't evolved to our capacity, were'e not even half baked and behind other cultures. If you secure theft in a bank fault, you aren't securing it against people you are securing it against technology, so of course you aren't securing it against robbers........
It isn't conditioning for all it is we haven't evolved to our capacity, were'e not even half baked and behind other cultures. If you secure theft in a bank fault, you aren't securing it against people you are securing it against technology, so of course you aren't securing it against robbers........
What I meant is that there is a huge difference between defending against your rights being harmed by others, and dictating what others are supposed to do. Protecting your money in a vault does not harm anyone else. Another way to prevent bank robberies would be to control everyone else, like making weapons illegal, ensuring everyone had a mandated employment, etc. And the control route I think is wrong. It requires enforcing values, opinions, etc.. that may be wrong.
An example is how modern society tries to make sex illegal until 18. That may be practical since we have created such financial burdens, but it is not right biologically. Humans probably need to be sexually active before 18.
Yes, I think police see themselves as a money making business, where they look for trivial things they can use to extort money out of people. I think they also see themselves as being paid to deliberately intimidate poor people.
