Sticks and stones may get you shot by police

They shoot more because:

1. They have guns
2. They feel suspicion/hate towards the communities they police
3. They are often not from the communities they police, so there is less connection/guilt/accountability for them
4. They are swept up into the "post-911" mentality where `EVERYONE is a potential terrorist

Having police be from distant regions is always a good way to make abuse more likely. Always happened. In hyperbole one can only look at the Romans using Goths as police force (leading to massacres of towns) or Belgian Congo using non-congolese askari troops from countries around the Congo, again leading to massacres.
 
They shoot more because:

1. They have guns
2. They feel suspicion/hate towards the communities they police
3. They are often not from the communities they police, so there is less connection/guilt/accountability for them
4. They are swept up into the "post-911" mentality where `EVERYONE is a potential terrorist
5. They know that they won't be prosecuted for wrongdoing, or even investigated with much rigor. The recent indictment of NYPD officer Liang in the killing of Akai Gurley is the exception, not the rule. Literally just the other day, F.B.I. Director James Comey said, "It's ridiculous that I can't tell you how many people were shot by the police in this country last week, last year, the last decade. It's ridiculous."
 
Having police be from distant regions is always a good way to make abuse more likely. Always happened. In hyperbole one can only look at the Romans using Goths as police force (leading to massacres of towns) or Belgian Congo using non-congolese askari troops from countries around the Congo, again leading to massacres.

Most governments which have deliberately shipped in armed men from outside to 'keep the peace' have been specifically trying to make violence more likely. Massacres aren't an unintended side-effect in those cases, they're the goal in mind.
 
6. If you've got a gun, at some time or other you're going to want to use it.

I'm the same with my hole-puncher.
 
6. If you've got a gun, at some time or other you're going to want to use it.

I'm the same with my hole-puncher.

Give a man a hole puncher and it is amazing how many things he will discover should be kept in three ring binders.

"Dude, why do you have a whole three ring binder full of newspaper clippings about goats?"

"Ummm. Errrrr. Hey! Have I shown you my new three hole punch that I got?"
 
Having police be from distant regions is always a good way to make abuse more likely. Always happened. In hyperbole one can only look at the Romans using Goths as police force (leading to massacres of towns) or Belgian Congo using non-congolese askari troops from countries around the Congo, again leading to massacres.

Though sometimes it's the reverse. Every single local cop in my area is a cartel lackey. The only way to have real law enforcement here is to bring in federal police who aren't loyal to the local crime establishment.
 
6. If you've got a gun, at some time or other you're going to want to use it.

I'm the same with my hole-puncher.

I've owned a gun for almost sixteen years. Never wanted to shoot a person with it. Clay pigeons, sure. A groundhog under the foundation several times. A squirrel I couldn't keep out of the seed corn bags. I take it I'm a ticking time bomb here Sir B? Just waiting till I get that beanie hat in my sights?
 
True enough, but you got the gun to use shooting at clays and vermin. If a job goes around advertising 'we have guns and we shoot people with them', some people out there are going to think 'I fancy some of that' and sign up. Some of them will then find themselves having to take decisions about whether to shoot a person in front of them. Exactly the same happens in the military, except the military have an awful lot more training and discipline on their weapons to deal with that. Policemen, quite rightly, spend the vast majority of their time not playing with guns.
 
Am I justified then in my disagreements with my wife regarding whether or not it would be appropriate to enroll my son in a martial art in a couple years? I've said several times that training to hurt people is not and appropriate fitness/recreational activity. Is my real fairly low opinion of most people that take part in these activities justified? I've always considered it up in the air.
 
I don't think so. I mean, I can't speak for most people who do martial arts, and I'm sure that quite a few of them take up 'self-defence' because they're secretly hoping that they'll get into an argument in a bar and be able to turn it into a fight. But I don't think that's what 'combat sports' have to be about. I boxed for a long time, and I actually find the reverse. Admittedly, the people I was boxing with were all professional killers, but in many ways training to fight someone in a ring in a sporting situation just underscores how much you don't want to be actually fighting someone in a bar - the fact that fighting has to be in an exceptional situation (a boxing match) reinforces that it shouldn't happen in normal situations. I've found, purely anecdotally, that people who are confident that they're the strongest person in any altercation are usually keener to keep things quiet and talk through a situation rather than throw the first punch. I think most fights start because somebody has something to prove.

That said, all that depends on the people he's going to be surrounded by - if you get to a karate club and he's surrounded by aggressive people with protein shakes wearing tight vests, you're probably justified in finding a different sport or at least a different club. But don't most martial arts have a very strong emphasis on discipline and the spiritual side of it all? You're probably not necessarily going to be any safer in football, rugby, or American football if you want to avoid nasty people who just want to hurt each other, especially at schoolboy level where there's always that one big lad who needs a serious attitude adjustment.
 
I would put all of the last three sports you mentioned in the camp of still unacceptable but modestly better than thugging for pleasure and entertainment, aka martial arts/combat sports.

I'm just surprised to be getting echoes. I mostly thought this was a me thing. It's kinda nice to not feel so alone.
 
There's an argument that it's better that they learn get their aggression out in a safe way and with people teaching them than figuring it out on their own later on. Without wishing to get overly philosophical I do believe there's aggression and competition in our makeup, especially for young men, and I think it's unhealthy to go through your whole development without learning what it feels like to be in a physical confrontation (if not a necessarily fight, but at least a situation like a rugby scrum or a tug of war), how to turn on your aggression and how to control it. It's a key part of social and emotional development. If they're learning to box and they start getting a bit too aggressive, there's somebody there to pull them apart, sit them down and make them cool off, and eventually from that you learn to do it yourself. If nothing else, once you've felt what it's like to be on the losing side, you'll be much more circumspect about getting into a fight later on. If the first time your temper gets up is in a really unfriendly situation, you'll probably end up getting hurt or badly hurting someone else.
 
I think people naturally have competitive urges, and BJJ or sports are healthy and safe outlets for that energy. They also build social connections, social skill, self esteem, and require learning to cooperate, rather than just compete. You might wonder, how does BJJ teach cooperation? Well, in order for one person to learn a technique, usually other students help instruct each other student, and show them what works and what doesn't, and why. Cooperation might even have more to do with it than competition. Similar attitudes hold true in sports. So it can serve as an outlet for competitive, ego-based energy, and can help train other pro-social skills. I can understand the desire not to validate 'thugging,' but I think the other advantages outweigh this one potential negative.
 
I've heard most of these before, if not so well as FP tends to say them, and I have no super compelling counter argument so I'll continue to consider it up in the air for why people like it why they value it. I still find it gross and neanderthallic. I'll probably allow basketball or sporting clays though as a compromise for the school of thought that argues for the necessity of focused physical aggression.
 
My kids have gloves and box with each other fairly often...for sport, and sometimes to settle their differences. Doesn't seem to have harmed them.
 
My kids have gloves and box with each other fairly often...for sport, and sometimes to settle their differences. Doesn't seem to have harmed them.

The danger is when you come to associate violence with feeling good - it's the reason why it's generally not a good idea to 'let off steam' by swearing or hitting things when you're angry. I think part of the way round that is the fact that sports are in their own way somewhat ritualised - it's just 'not the same' off the pitch, and that's quite deliberate. You can't really find the feeling of making a game-changing tackle anywhere else, so you end up becoming 'addicted' (if that's the right word) to sport rather than to hitting people.

From a purely practical standpoint, there comes a point in everyone's boxing career when you realise just how far it is from 'proper' fighting anyway - if somebody really wanted to hurt you, they wouldn't be standing with their fists in front of their face trying to find a way through your guard! Combat sports teach you to throw a good punch, but they're hardly going to turn you into a street-fighting champion.
 
The danger is when you come to associate violence with feeling good - it's the reason why it's generally not a good idea to 'let off steam' by swearing or hitting things when you're angry. I think part of the way round that is the fact that sports are in their own way somewhat ritualised - it's just 'not the same' off the pitch, and that's quite deliberate. You can't really find the feeling of making a game-changing tackle anywhere else, so you end up becoming 'addicted' (if that's the right word) to sport rather than to hitting people.

From a purely practical standpoint, there comes a point in everyone's boxing career when you realise just how far it is from 'proper' fighting anyway - if somebody really wanted to hurt you, they wouldn't be standing with their fists in front of their face trying to find a way through your guard! Combat sports teach you to throw a good punch, but they're hardly going to turn you into a street-fighting champion.

It's far more likely to anyway. In the real world the fight almost always goes to the most violent rather than the best trained.

Which is why my kids never invite me to box.
 
Violence and aggression trigger a lot of chemicals and you get super high. Sometimes it also creates weird ass bonds between people. A few of my close friends today are people I fought physically not long after I met them and it somehow helped me get into their heads. Don't ask me to explain it. It's just probably a hillbilly abnormality of mine.
 
Violence and aggression trigger a lot of chemicals and you get super high. Sometimes it also creates weird ass bonds between people. A few of my close friends today are people I fought physically not long after I met them and it somehow helped me get into their heads. Don't ask me to explain it. It's just probably a hillbilly abnormality of mine.
I am not a hilibilly and I know exactly what you are talking about.
As (too many) teenagers, I could be a huge prick. Among other things, I took part in bullying a guy in my class. And one day I pushed him too far and we got into a fight. During or shortly after the fight I sure as hell didn't grow anymore fond of him. But a bit later something suddenly made click and I had the urge to bond with him. It was really weird. I kinda liked him since them.
 
I am not a hilibilly and I know exactly what you are talking about.
As (too many) teenagers, I could be a huge prick. Among other things, I took part in bullying a guy in my class. And one day I pushed him too far and we got into a fight. During or shortly after the fight I sure as hell didn't grow anymore fond of him. But a bit later something suddenly made click and I had the urge to bond with him. It was really weird. I kinda liked him since them.

Maybe you live in Hesse's Demian ;)
 
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