Why "All Lives Matters" is wrong

[Sommerswerd]

Obviously this incident began with Zimmerman watching Martin, that doesn't mean he was watching him the entire time. In "fact" Zimmerman lost sight of Martin at about the same time he left his truck.

So, now you flip-flopped back to "Zimmerman watching"... So to recap... First you say "he wasn't stalking he was watching", then you say "he wasn't watching or stalking" then you go back to "he was obviously watching"... and the "obviously" is a nice touch, because it implies that you've been consistent, when in fact, you haven't.

And yes, obviously... Again... this incident "BEGAN with Zimmerman"s actions... Another simpler way of putting exactly what you just said is... Zimmerman started it. Zimmerman began this incident. Zimmerman created this whole situation. And while we're on the subject of "strawmaning"... your statement ... "that doesn't mean he was watching him the entire time" is the strawman. "Watching him the whole time"? What does that even mean? Why is that relevant? That claim was never part of the discussion in any way. Textbook strawman.

Finally, you said "Zimmerman lost sight of Martin at about the same time he left his truck"... So what you are essentially trying to claim now is that Zimmerman couldn't have been "watching" Trayvon, because he had lost sight of him by the time he left his truck behind. Your whole "wasn't watching him the whole time" strawman is based on this premise... So again...

If he lost sight of him...Why did he leave the truck?

 

[Farm Boy]

He was hunting. Otherwise you make a lot of noise and keep distance.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

He lost him.

Has it ever been pointed out to you that a prerequisite to "losing him" was "following him"?

Yes, the creeper did "lose him." The stalk was unsuccessful, thus the hunter became the hunted.

 

[Farm Boy]

Okay, how about "there are certainly a fair number of vocal sycophants who believe it"?

Sure. There are bad neighborhoods. But my upbringing warned me very hard about casting too wide a net with that. So either I give up my upbringing and redefine some of those bad neighborhoods into good ones that need protecting, or I call you out. I think you'd prefer the latter?

Here ya go:

Spoiler NSFW :

Spoiler Seriously... bad words :

The TL;DR is that women who wear sexy clothes should not be offended that guys assume they are available/looking for sex... just like a person who wears a policeman's uniform should not be offended when people come up to them asking for help. The point is I thought you were saying that a uniformed cop is going to be expected to engage in effective crowd control.

Fenks! Though given the titling on that I think I'm going to continue not watching that particular entertainer.

You of course are right, but the county fair is a special case. Telecoms officers staff a station specifically for the fair in order to help with announcements, lost children, lost and found...etc. I don't know the last time it "got rowdy." But there is petty crime. There are assaults. A middle aged female telecommunications officer clearly uniformed and badged could provide enough service to be useful for long enough to call in one of the patrol officers on duty in the fairgrounds. But you wouldn't risk them. It'd be stupid.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Sure. There are bad neighborhoods. But my upbringing warned me very hard about casting too wide a net with that. So either I give up my upbringing and redefine some of those bad neighborhoods into good ones that need protecting, or I call you out. I think you'd prefer the latter?

Always.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Yes, I was referring to the increased rates of (violent) crime happening in poor areas.

OK. Now this is a topic that I have posted at length about before, but before I go through all that... Do you accept the premise "the increased rates of (violent) crime happening in poor areas" can also be a reflection of the increased rates of police presence and enforcement happening in poor areas? In other words, the police are much more aggressive about monitoring, stopping, arresting and charging when it comes to poor people/areas, and the Courts are harsher in convicting/sentencing them. This creates higher crime statistics for those people/areas, and those statistics are then used to justify more/harsher enforcement on those communities, leading to more skewed statistics... and so on. Do you see this?

Yes, that too is expected to happen, and yes, that exchange is generally okay ...Now, I do understand that there's an argument to be made that we should focus as much as we can to not create situations where cops kill innocent people, but that inevitably means that cops are less effective at taking down bad people, which in return means that they harm more innocent people. In most part of the developed world, the number of innocents hurt or killed will go up.

Now, given my above point, maybe you can see why I can't agree with your conclusion... You see poor people as "the bad" people who need to be taken down. I say this because I asked you this specifically and you responded that yes, because of the higher crime statistics in the "poor areas" that's where the armed police need to be because that's where the bad people are, who in your words "need to be taken down".

And that is the problem... I am certain that many people, including (especially) the police have that same outlook. They view the poor as the bad people. The poor areas are where the bad people are... the poor areas are where all the crime is happening... But as I've demonstrated above that's flawed reasoning, and that is why I reject the premise that "we need the cops to be effective at taking down the bad people"... because I realize that the cops, like you and many others, have a faulty notion of who "the bad people" are. So no, I have no interest in helping the cops be more effective at killing the people they perceive to be "the bad people", because their perceptions are flawed, based on catch-22, circular reasoning.

 

[Berzerker]

If you don't think there's a difference between "watching" and "following" it's probably best if you just stay inside without a guardian. The world really is dangerous for people of extremely limited capacities.

Especially parking lots, I heard of one person who sits in their car until no one is close enough to slam the door on them. Now, where did I say there was no difference? They're quite similar if the following merely facilitates the watching, but Zimmerman did virtually all of his watching and following in his car. By the time he left his vehicle Martin was disappearing down a pathway and Zimmerman didn't see him again until Martin got in his face.

To be clear -and speaking only for myself- I fully understand that Zimmerman is an ignorant, probably very racist, sociopath and a wimp with an ego problem.

He's some guy in a neighborhood suffering from a rash of burglaries, so he volunteered to help with security. He got attacked for it... Attacked by a criminal and attacked by propagandists in the media. And now you're attacking him with your degree in pop-psychology.

 

[Lexicus]

He's some guy in a neighborhood suffering from a rash of burglaries, so he volunteered to help with security. He got attacked for it... Attacked by a criminal and attacked by propagandists in the media. And now you're attacking him with your degree in pop-psychology.

Indeed, the real irony is that the way you and Skele are characterizing Trayvon Martin is actually how George Zimmerman was/is. But that's par for the course of racism in America. If you're black you gotta do twice the work to get half the credit a white person would get. If you're Trayvon Martin you have to be, literally, an angel before people will look at you as a human being.

 

[Senethro]

Trayvon Martin was a criminal? What was his criminal record?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Especially parking lots, I heard of one person who sits in their car until no one is close enough to slam the door on them. Now, where did I say there was no difference? They're quite similar if the following merely facilitates the watching, but Zimmerman did virtually all of his watching and following in his car. By the time he left his vehicle Martin was disappearing down a pathway and Zimmerman didn't see him again until Martin got in his face.

Which happened after he left his car and followed down that path.

A creeper follows me in a car when I'm on foot, yeah, I cut down a path he can't follow with his car. Because yes, I avoid confrontations where I might have to hurt someone.

If the creeper gets out of their car and continues to follow me I am quite certain they are not someone who shares my views about avoiding confrontations.

Now I have a situation. There is someone who by all indications is dangerous, and they have clearly taken some unhealthy interest in me. There are decisions to be made.

In my case eliminate the threat, because anyone taking an unhealthy interest in me and willing to have a confrontation is also a danger to other people is a significant weight in that decision making process. I also lack Trayvon Martin's clean record so I share his reality that when the police get involved there will be strong bias cutting against me. So, yeah, the only difference between me and Trayvon Martin is that I am extremely wary of being overconfident, and fully aware that striking quickly and fading into the night is my only option. Zimmerman wouldn't have had the opportunity to have a confrontation with me. His choice to seek such a confrontation would have been sufficient to net him the consequences it deserved.

 

[Traitorfish]

He's some guy in a neighborhood suffering from a rash of burglaries, so he volunteered to help with security. He got attacked for it... Attacked by a criminal and attacked by propagandists in the media. And now you're attacking him with your degree in pop-psychology.

I mean, if you're going to chase "criminals" up and down the street, you should expect to get dusted up. You can't play at being a hero if there's no danger involved, and you don't get to start killing people when it turns out you forgot to bring your big-boy pants.

 

[Farm Boy]

I mean seriously. We're talking about somebody following a minor around in a car and on foot, a minor the police have told him to leave alone. In what universe is Zimmerman not acting like a wannabe rapist but for the obvious conclusion that his fetish manages to be even worse than that?

 

[Kyriakos]

I mean, if you're going to chase "criminals" up and down the street, you should expect to get dusted up. You can't play at being a hero if there's no danger involved, and you don't get to start killing people when it turns out you forgot to bring your big-boy pants.

Agreed up to a point, but (if intention isn't argued/proven to be there; ie he didn't just plan to ge to a point where he would kill) if the person manages to get to the point he is near permanent damage/death, they obviously will use any gun they have.

That said, it seems that actual police using lethal force is the main issue, not the rare wannabe punisher.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Agreed up to a point, but (if intention isn't argued/proven to be there; ie he didn't just plan to ge to a point where he would kill) if the person manages to get to the point he is near permanent damage/death, they obviously will use any gun they have.

That said, it seems that actual police using lethal force is the main issue, not the rare wannabe punisher.

Whether it is Zimmerman or a cop the issue isn't "did he intend to kill" when he set off down the path that leads to killing. The issue is that Zimmerman, and even more especially cops, should be required to act responsibly and avoid those paths.

"I didn't want to shoot him, it just turns out that when I challenged him to a wrestling match while wearing a gun on my hip his hand got close to it."

"I didn't want to shoot him, it just turns out that when I tried to lock him in the back of my car after threatening to take him somewhere more private he tried to get away."

"I didn't want to shoot him, it just turns out that way and thank goodness the badge licking sycophants will usually accept that."

 

[Kyriakos]

^I obviously agree there is a yuge issue with police killing people in the US..

 

[Timsup2nothin]

^I obviously agree there is a yuge issue with police killing people in the US..

Thing is that it isn't with "police killing people." That's incredibly rare. The problem is that what makes it rare isn't that police don't challenge people to wrestle while wearing a gun on their hip, or that they don't lock them in the back of their car after threatening to take them somewhere more private, or that they don't beat the snot out of them after handcuffing them more than often enough to make people justifiably resistant to being handcuffed. What makes it rare is that the citizens act responsibly, for the most part, and usually out of plain old fear for their lives.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Then there was that Cop who meant to pull out his Taser and pulled out his gun instead...

 

[Farm Boy]

Or maybe they like the taste of brass. Apparently I do. All pointy and articulated.

Then there was that Cop who meant to pull out his Taser and pulled out his gun instead...

Do you think it makes the national news when a cop outdraws a handgun with his tazer?

Though, you'll note, that BART case did make most rational law enforcement agencies mandate weak side draw on their tazers.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Then there was that Cop who meant to pull out his Taser and pulled out his gun instead...

Well, y'know, cut some slack there. It's a hard job after all, and one dead more or less in the interests of the rule of law isn't such a big deal as you are trying to make of it.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Or maybe they like the taste of brass. Apparently I do. All pointy and articulated.

Knowing what you've said of your circumstances this hints at a certain kinkiness around the old family farm there...