The US Politics |OT|

[Pyro as Bill]

sundin13 said:

Pyro as Bill said:
Rioting does change things so opposing rioting because you think it's fruitless is wrong.

I don't see why police stations/cars aren't legitimate targets of protest/arson and if riot police are ready for a riot they should be able to handle the odd petrol bomb.

Looting hurts the cause and shouldn't be happening if local businesses are paying protection to the people who are actually able to protect their businesses.

I don't get why every incident of police brutality against a black person is racialised. I mean, I do get it but sometimes there are times when it's just because some/most police officers are cunts. Look at the protests in France. You don't have to be black to be beaten or murdered by police officers.

My own (white) city had police brutality riots in the 80s. No looting because of protection money. The police would go to a poor part of town and if any teenager gave them backchat or disrespected them then 6-8 grown men would put kids in the back of the van and beat the shit out of them without consequence.

The rioting should be about letting them know that it will cost them more $$$$ if they don't change their ways. The looting needs to stop.

You can't use logic to explain anger. It isn't about logic. It isn't about saying "How do I best affect change?". It is the cries of the voiceless boiling over. While we can very much criticize these actions, we must acknowledge that "riots do not develop out of thin air" (MLK) and we need to address these causes instead of just attacking those who are rightfully angry.

I will also say that I have an issue with the idea that police brutality is an issue with the police officers. I don't believe it is. This isn't one bad apple, or several bad apples, or dozens of bad apples, it is a poisoned orchard. It is the system itself which creates this injustice, not individual action. We don't just need to throw every cop who crosses a line in jail, we need to fundamentally change our policing systems. It is the system itself that is broken and these injustices will never be corrected if we keep treating the symptom as if it was the cause.

PS: These were largely just general things that I wanted to say as a result of your post, not necessary direct rebuttals to points you had made.

Policing is supposed to be by consent so take their budget and give it to the local gangsters if that's what it takes for the looting to stop and the public to not have to worry about being murdered by state officials.

Local gangsters made up most early police forces because the state realised how much power they could get by putting them on the payroll. I've had enough police and gangster dealings to know what sort of person becomes a police officer (there are exceptions) and the two aren't as different as they'd like to think.