Chucktshoes

I'm not blinded by anything Dave, but I'm not the one playing ostrich either. I love how you completely ignore the entire rest of that post and every other one I have made where I lay out the issues that are actually in play here. The cognitive dissonance is strong with you as you refuse to even acknowledge anything that even remotely contradicts your "cops are innocent good guys" world view. Like it or not, there is a fundamental and serious disconnect between police agencies and the communities they purportedly serve. That's a fact. There are many different ideas on how to address that disconnect. Some I favor over others but if you can't see the problem exists, then you can't be part of finding the solution. ETA: let me unpack one of my statements a little. While the individual officers who lost their lives in these shootings are likely innocent of wrongdoing , this isn't a conversation about individuals. The subject is the broken state of policing as a whole in this country. If that subject isn't adequately addressed then we can expect more incidents like Dallas and Baton Rouge. That doesn't justify them in the least, but that doesn't mean that they won't be entirely predictable.

It would be a lot quicker to fill you in on what you do understand. Nothing. Policing in in this country is fundamentally broken. What happened in Dallas and Baton Rouge, while not justifiable, were so entirely predictable that many folks, including myself, have been saying for years it would happen. If you want examples of why your "let the cops go kill them" strategy is doomed to failure you need to look no further than the revolutionary wars in South America. Engaging in acts of violence to draw an increasingly aggressive and harsh counter measures from the government on the populace is so predictable in its effectiveness that it is in the freaking manuals disseminated by South American revolutionary forces. When I said that the game had elevated after Dallas, I meant it. If you view this as a simple law and order situation then you have no idea what is really going on and what you suggest will only draw more support for those that you oppose. If you are really interested in ending the bloodshed then you have to look at the real root causes of the issue and search for actual solutions instead of seeking to preserve the status quo.

I'm not laying blame, condoning or condemning anyone. I'm simply looking at the situation for what it is and attempting to analyze the situation in search of solutions. When I say that the future is in the hands of the rank and file I mean that if they reject the notion that changes need to be made and adopt a more aggressive stance and clamp down harder, the situation will deteriorate, and quickly.

This represents the fundamental misunderstanding of the issues at play that have led us to the situation at hand. This approach will only worsen the situation and lead to increased bloodshed.

I said Dallas was only the beginning. Baton Rouge won't be the end. This is liable to get very bad before it gets better and it all lies in the hands of the rank and file officer on the street.

Your son was correct. It was all a hoax, and not even a new one. It was recycled from 2014.

The Turkish military are the ones who have kept Turkey a secular democracy. I guess the got tired of Erdogan's Islamist shenanigans.

This could prove...interesting.

Now for a little bit of a reality check to the rampant fear mongering hopefully from a source some of y'all will accept. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/07/14/national-day-of-rage-plotted-for-july-15-use-this-as-a-list-of-places-not-to-be/ It's a hoax by Anonymous. Don't let your prejudices put you on edge and cause you to make the news. Mmmkay?

Almost forgot! Payment sent.

I don't use any streaming services. I don't like their artist compensation models. I do this really weird thing called actually buying music. Lots of digital and lots of vinyl.

Folks will always see what they want to see.

That is the plan.

This is not what I thought this thread was going to be about.

Regardless of one's idea of fairness, doing the right thing for the right reasons is its own reward. Regardless of the idiocy of their governments of folks's home states, allowing folks the ability to have the means to defend themselves is the right thing to do. Just because others act a fool, does not require us to act in kind.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/us/falcon-heights-shooting-minnesota/ These stories normally don't get posted about and discussed here for several reasons. This one I felt important to post here and I hope that a reasonable discussion can be had on it because this directly affects all of us here. The facts as they are known at this time. Philando Castille was pulled over for a broken tail light. He was reaching for his license and registration per officer request. At this time he informed the officer that he had a carry license and was armed. He was then shot by the officer and later died at the hospital. By all accounts Philando Castille was an upstanding and hardworking citizen with no record who worked as a nutritionist at a Montessori school. The kind of person we say we want to be armed. While I have my own thoughts on this shooting with regards to the roles played by race and LE in this shooting, I would like to focuse on the idea that many of us have that having a permit somehow makes us one of the "good guys" and that that fact will be instantly recognized by other "good guys". By all accounts Philando Castille did what many of us here stated we do, or have recommended others do when in that situation. Yet, he still ended up dead. What went wrong and what are the real root causes?

So, as soon as Jerry Brown signed the law banning bullet button devices, the maker of the original Bullet Button released a new product. Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

Haha. I see how that case could be made. It's wrong, but makes a certain kind of sense to those who refuse to see Lincoln as the monster he was.

It's always nice when folks as a community start to realize that...

"Why does anyone need _____!" "Because #### you. That's why."

Yep. They have essentially declared the exhanges a disaster by saying that even with the .gov kickbacks they can't make them profitable.

I got my letter from UHC letting me know that they weren't offering my plan next year. Of course I knew that because they are pulling out of the exhanges all together.

The answer to your query is "quite willing". The left is not the friend to free speech that they have portrayed themselves to be. As they have gained control of the public sphere (starting with academia) they have increasingly sought to prohibit or outright criminalize contrary or unpopular speech by classifying it as "hate speech". It has been easy to miss if one hasn't paid attention to what has been happening on college campuses and their love affair with "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" but it is about the control of what is considered allowable speech. The battle on campus has been all but won and the full court press is on to spread it outward into the rest of the public sphere. Freedom of of expression for all is vital when you are in the minority. It's dangerous when you've claimed the majority.

I read that story myself this morning. That poor girl was failed by just about every adult involved in that situation.