The Trial of Derek Chauvin

[Farm Boy]

Peck. Peck. Peck. Peck.

 

[Berzerker]

in black neighborhoods... but not in rural white meth counties or wealthy coke/pill snorting suburbs. Why's that?

It will be a Venn diagram. The drug war hurt people and it intersected with racism in order to selectively over-damage a group of people

If we are to believe the reporter who cited Haldeman (?), hippies and blacks were the target of Nixon's drug war. The reason thats believable is because thats who was targeted for opposing his policies. So yes, black communities were and still are ground zero for the drug war. But as all good bureaucracies do, the war expanded. Nixon's drug war focused more on treatment and was tame compared to Reagan onward.

Meth wasn't around in large quantities back in the 60s and 70s (other than truckers and bikers and pharmaceutical speed prescribed by docs for weight loss). Pot, coke and heroin were the main drugs on the streets. Ofc prohibition has a habit of leading to heavier drugs as traffickers try to reduce risk with drugs like pot in favor of concentrated powders, pills and liquids.

AA formed in the 30s to serve all the people addicted to hard booze when beer was outlawed. Was beer the gateway drug or did Prohibition open the door? Banning pot was a big boost to both the cartels and bureaucracies who depend on the war and expedited the arrival of meth. But the war on meth was ramped up when it did start appearing in more places. I'm sure it played a prominent role in crime bills over the past 2-3 decades.

These kinds of comments are proof that you only use "opposing the drug war" as a red herring to poo poo any other type of action on civil rights or reducing racist outcomes. When it comes down to it you're not even really against the drug war...

Why was that comment proof? The drug war led to over policing and higher crime rates, do you disagree? You didn't even bother addressing my response to your argument about stats or that particular quote, instead you just called me a liar... again. I am enjoying this though. What specific actions do you have in mind if ending the drug war is not on your list? If I didn't really oppose the drug war I'd be voting for the 2 parties.

Not really, he is. This is a case of "you're not objecting the way I insist, ergo you're not really an ally". I disagree with Berzerker on a lot of facts, but I don't doubt his consistency on this one.

When Democrats see a black man killed by cops they see racism and I see a drug war pathology.

Indeed, the (in)famous 13/50 stat refers to homicides. Today's killer might be (to a degree, let's not entirely ditch individual responsibility here) a product of injustices of past years or decades (which we need to identify and eliminate), but today's police can't be blamed for arresting him.

The 13 is just the % of the population identifying as black, the number in question is the ~50 and I've seen stats claiming thats in the ballpark but I took 2019 numbers and counted up all the homicide victims and got a rough estimate of ~30. That number is relevant when looking at the number of black people killed by cops, which was about 23% of 1k that year. It shows the higher homicide rate is tied to more deaths by cop, so defunding cops wont help unless we just want to shift occupied chairs around on deck, defunding the drug war will help but it takes time.

Homicide rates dropped 13 years in a row when alcohol prohibition ended and didn't start rising until the mid to late 60s and took off during the cocaine wars of the 80s.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/251877/murder-victims-in-the-us-by-race-ethnicity-and-gender/

here's a different link about broader trends

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-29/race-and-homicide-in-america-by-the-numbers

Black people have consistently accounted for close to half the country's homicide victims, making up more than 50 percent of the broader pool of those killed overall every year since 2010. The number of black victims increased 15 percent in 2015 over 2014.

Of the 13,455 cases from last year in which the FBI listed a victim's racial information, 7,039 victims – or 52.3 percent – were black

I have developed a picture over the years that his intense focus on the drug war and opposition to it is often, perhaps even mostly, used as a setup to criticize and/or blame Democrats... so yes, as you say, a red-herring tactic to poo poo something else.I don't think its mutually exclusive. I agree that Berz has certainly been constant, as well as fairly consistent in his criticism of the drug war, but I also have developed the impression that that consistent criticism has been used essentially as a vehicle to attack Democrats. In other words attacking Democrats is the point, and opposition to the drug war is mostly a means to that end.I think that the Disinformation and Police protests Thread serves a purpose similar to what you are suggesting, but our threads overlap alot. I've just gotten used to rolling with it for the most part.

You think I'm opposed to the drug war so I can criticize the people responsible for it?

Hey B, should we invade Iraq?

Well, lemme look around and see who I can criticize first and I'll let you know.

I haven't criticized Democrats who opposed invading Iraq and a majority of House Democrats did. The only ones I have criticized voted for it and I'm convinced the reason Obama beat Hillary was her vote on that war.

I'm just like everyone else, trying to change the world as one voice in the wilderness.

 

[Berzerker]

I don't think it's a conscious troll, but let's speak clearly: the "drug war" is a conceptual label for a set of laws, policies and practices. The "drug war" (like the "war on terror") is not, in itself, a real, concrete thing, it's a label for a bunch of other real concrete things.

So I think it's perfectly possible to state and believe that you oppose the drug war, but then when it comes down to the discrete actions, policies, etc. that actually constitute the drug war, not actually oppose most of those. It would be like saying you oppose the "war on terror" but then you actually support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our counterterrorist deployments in Africa. I think actually that Berzerker isn't the only person who engages in this, and you hear "end the drug war" being bandied about as a simple trope that avoids the necessity for a complex discussion of real policies and alternatives. To some extent this is what's to be expected from political discourse, and a crucial difference here is credibility - there are a lot of people who will talk about the tropes but they have credibility when they do because they're clearly taking good positions on the concrete issues too.

I also think that in addition to attacking Democrats, what this is really about for Berzeker is absolving cops. A consistent thread of his argument recently has been that the problems we're seeing with policing in the US don't come down to "racist cops" but rather "drug war politicians" (who somehow all seem to be Democrats). There is some justice to the argument that cops are in some cases stuck carrying out bad policies but it's clear that there is a serious problem with cops not just being general-purpose racists but subscribing to a specifically violent and authoritarian far-right ideology that has racist undercurrents but isn't really reducible to simple racial prejudice.

At any event, my intent was not to suggest that Berzerker is intentionally trolling us all with his position on the Drug War, my intent is to basically imply that Berzerker has trouble separating the "real" components that actually constitute the "War on Drugs" from the trope he calls the "drug war". It's easy to sit and say you oppose the drug war over and over and over, somewhat harder to explain what's actually wrong with the actual policies, practices, choices, etc. that comprise the drug war and propose better alternatives. And where this ends up is what we both agree on: use of the "drug war" as a red herring while opposing most if not all of the concrete measures that would actually lessen the amount of police violence people are subject to.

What drug war reforms have I opposed? I applauded the 1st step act and I want to see a 2nd and 3rd and I've long condemned no knock raids. While police and prison guard unions share culpability for the drug war - by enforcing it for profit and by supporting the politicians responsible - politicians wrote the damn laws. Politicians paid for a bloated military from which cops get hand me down equipment. But we're not discussing the culpability of cops in the drug war, some people are pointing to black people killed by cops to shout racism at the cops and not the politicians. Joe Biden accuses cops of racism for enforcing his laws.

As for conceptual vs concrete, why cant we start with Portugal's example? That would be an improvement. I'd go further though, Portugal didn't have the black market violence we have. So let people and corporations sell the drugs. I'm not a fan of corporations but Coors and Budweiser dont shoot up our streets over market share. Legalize drugs, Oregon is on that path. Once they're legal for recreational use they'll eventually be legal to sell. Thats when we'll see black market violence sink along with the rationale for over policing and racist outcomes.

Some Democrats are allies, Jimmy Dore Democrats

 

[GenMarshall]

If the Prohibition of the 1920s taught us, is that a drug war is very counterproductive.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Jeez, George Floyd might get a pardon from a drug arrest in 2004.

Crooked cops everywhere.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...t-submitted-George-Floyd-2004-Texas-case.html

 

[Estebonrober]

Jsut to note that at every step in the 94 crime bill republicans acted to make the bill worse. . .

SENATE GIVES UP ON HEALTH CARE, PASSES CRIME BILL - The Washington Post

To counter Republican demands for votes on 10 amendments to cut spending for prevention programs and toughen penalty provisions, Mitchell and Biden, after consulting with Republicans on what it would take to break the impasse, offered a single amendment to cut the spending.

The amendment would have failed, and Republicans knew it. So Dole rejected it on behalf of his party, setting in motion the showdown vote.

 

[Yeekim]

The 13 is just the % of the population identifying as black, the number in question is the ~50 and I've seen stats claiming thats in the ballpark but I took 2019 numbers and counted up all the homicide victims and got a rough estimate of ~30.

Supposedly the 50% refers to perpetrators, not victims, no?. At least according to statistics quoted earlier.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Meth wasn't around in large quantities back in the 60s and 70s (other than truckers and bikers and pharmaceutical speed prescribed by docs for weight loss). Pot, coke and heroin were the main drugs on the streets. Ofc prohibition has a habit of leading to heavier drugs as traffickers try to reduce risk with drugs like pot in favor of concentrated powders, pills and liquids.

Substance abuse was always prevalent in Rural America. It simply switched from Moonshine to Cocaine, to Meth to Fentyal. I would recommend reading Methland if your interested in the subject

 

[Farm Boy]

You mean everywhere. We drink waaaaay less than we did in the 1800s, and this is puritan-land for real.

I about choked when I saw somebody post that up to 50 units a week is probably healthy. That's both binge and alcoholism by everything I've heard at home. But I finally skirt by on that number as ok!

I have a game of Houseparty flippy cup to go win tho. Pride is on the line. We are up to giving a pint to 12oz handicap to our friend, but I don't think it's enough... the poor suburban boy.

 

[Berzerker]

Supposedly the 50% refers to perpetrators, not victims, no?. At least according to statistics quoted earlier.

Stats for both were posted but most crime is intra racial so either one tells us the same thing. I see the 50% at Wiki but another link says in 2019 black victims of homicide were 7500 out of a total of 27k homicide victims. Thats about 27-28%. And the # of black people killed by cops that year was 23.5% of ~1000. So I think higher homicide rates lead to more cop killings, and ofc black market violence from the drug war is what led to those higher homicide rates to begin with. Same thing happened during the prohibition of booze.

 

[Samson]

Stats for both were posted but most crime is intra racial so either one tells us the same thing. I see the 50% at Wiki but another link says in 2019 black victims of homicide were 7500 out of a total of 27k homicide victims. Thats about 27-28%. And the # of black people killed by cops that year was 23.5% of ~1000. So I think higher homicide rates lead to more cop killings, and ofc black market violence from the drug war is what led to those higher homicide rates to begin with. Same thing happened during the prohibition of booze.

I think you need to reference your sources. The best I could find is this which reports those killed by police are disproportionately black (32%).

The main thing I have learned from that is that biggest determinant of whether a police officer will kill you is the sex of the police officer. 97.4% of those involved with Deaths Due to Use of Lethal Force are male (table 6), while only 84.9% of all police are. That is an odds ratio of 5.8, whereas that for the victim being black is "only" 2.8 and for the officer being white is 2.1.

The other big one is mental health, but it is hard to calculate odds ratios as the terms seem to differ. If "past year prevalence of Any Mental Illness (AMI)" = "Current treatment for MH problem" then the odds ratio is only 1.6, but I do not think that is right. 43.2% of those killed have had a treatment for mental health. 44.6% are killed at home, which is pretty frightening.

 

[Berzerker]

Links were posted in the thread including the numbers from your link, but your numbers are from 2009-12 and other links have more recent data. Finding definitive numbers for some stats is surprisingly hard. I cant remember who (Lex?) but someone posted death by cop numbers for 2016-20.

I used the 2019 data from that link because it was the same year for the link I posted (not wiki). If we looked at 2016 data the ratio of whites killed by cops to blacks was even higher, 2019 was actually the closest of the years cited (I ignored 2020 data because of covid).

black victims were more likely to be unarmed (14.8%) than white (9.4%) or Hispanic (5.8%) victims. Fatality rates among military veterans/active duty service members were 1.4 times greater than among their civilian counterparts.

If we took 9.4% as the average and multiplied by 1.4 we'd get about 13.2%. Why dont cops like veterans and active duty members? I thought many cops are former military. Well, aint got nothing to do with disliking them, veterans and active duty people are more likely to be armed and potentially dangerous. So are youngish white and black men. My father explained to my brother and I how to avoid upsetting cops, just show' em respect, follow instructions and dont make any sudden movements.

So if the problem is racist cops why do Hispanics (and Asians) have such low numbers? Those communities weren't targeted in our more recent drug wars. If we compared men to women its clear the cops are sexist, they kill far more men. Nope, not sexist... Women commit fewer (violent) crimes, they're our better half.

If you're a cop responding to a domestic abuse call odds are its the husband or boyfriend who blew a fuse and I've heard cops say their greatest fear is responding to domestic violence calls because (alcohol induced) emotions are running so high.

As for male vs female cops killing people, male cops are more likely to face greater risks. Maybe thats sexist but it is a reality, wokeness wont wake us from an evolutionary slumber lasting hundreds of millions of years.

 

[Gorbles]

for male vs female cops killing people, male cops are more likely to face greater risks. Maybe thats sexist but it is a reality, wokeness wont wake us from an evolutionary slumber lasting hundreds of millions of years.

I'm sure you have stats and evidence to back up this wild claim then.

 

[Samson]

If we took 9.4% as the average and multiplied by 1.4 we'd get about 13.2%. Why dont cops like veterans and active duty members? I thought many cops are former military. Well, aint got nothing to do with disliking them, veterans and active duty people are more likely to be armed and potentially dangerous.

My assumption was that veterans and active duty members are trained explicitly to not be meek and compliant, and police do not like that so kill people who are not.

You are still coming up with lots of claims with no number to back them up.

 

[Yeekim]

I'm sure you have stats and evidence to back up this wild claim then.

One five-minute Google search later:
12,8% of officers in US are female. https://www.statista.com/statistics...ull-time-law-enforcement-employees-in-the-us/
Only 26 out of 511 or ~ 5% of assaulted and killed officers between 2010-2019 are female. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/leoka19_tables_rev.pdf

 

[Samson]

One five-minute Google search later:
12,8% of officers in US are female. https://www.statista.com/statistics...ull-time-law-enforcement-employees-in-the-us/
Only 26 out of 511 or ~ 5% of assaulted and killed officers between 2010-2019 are female. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/leoka19_tables_rev.pdf

That does not really help. The 2 hypotheses are A) Women are better at preventing situations becoming violent and B) Women are given safer jobs. Women being underrepresented in victims of violence does not help distinguish between these 2.

It is worth noting that the odds ratio you quote is ~2.5, while that of women killing people is ~6, which indicates there is something going on there. It is hard to derive anything definitive for such limited data though.

 

[Yeekim]

That does not really help. The 2 hypotheses are A) Women are better at preventing situations becoming violent and B) Women are given safer jobs. Women being underrepresented in victims of violence does not help distinguish between these 2.

It is worth noting that the odds ratio you quote is ~2.5, while that of women killing people is ~6, which indicates there is something going on there. It is hard to derive anything definitive for such limited data though.

Well, those two hypothesis are not mutually exclusive.
Also, note that women being both less likely to kill and be killed are essentially just two sides of the same coin, that is underlying cultural and/or evolutionary differences.

 

[Gorbles]

One five-minute Google search later:
12,8% of officers in US are female. https://www.statista.com/statistics...ull-time-law-enforcement-employees-in-the-us/
Only 26 out of 511 or ~ 5% of assaulted and killed officers between 2010-2019 are female. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/leoka19_tables_rev.pdf

As Samson said, that doesn't help. It certainly has nothing to do with whatever "evolutionary slumber" Berzerker is evidently educated about.

It's not that I'm unfamiliar with those kinds of statistics. It's just that they're not evidence in of themselves. They're data points that can be molded largely as the arguer sees fit. We'd need far more data, as well as context.

 

[Yeekim]

As Samson said, that doesn't help. It certainly has nothing to do with whatever "evolutionary slumber" Berzerker is evidently educated about.

It's not that I'm unfamiliar with those kinds of statistics. It's just that they're not evidence in of themselves. They're data points that can be molded largely as the arguer sees fit. We'd need far more data, as well as context.

So what was "wild" about what he said?
All differences between sexes ultimately come down to a mix of two things: evolutionary factors and cultural conditioning. To what degree each plays a role is hardly possible to separate precisely - but they both do. Attempts to entirely deny the former are just neo-creationism.

 

[Samson]

So what was "wild" about what he said?
All differences between sexes ultimately come down to a mix of two things: evolutionary factors and cultural conditioning. To what degree each plays a role is hardly possible to separate precisely - but they both do. Attempts to entirely deny the former are just neo-creationism.

The "wild" thing is "male cops are more likely to face greater risks". There was a time when women were excluded from combat roles in the military, because of similar thinking. This was ruled sexist and stopped. Berzerker is claiming without evidence this is going on in the police force to an extent that it results in a 6 fold difference in rate of killing. Considering the litigious nature of the states, I find this unlikely to be happening.