I agree that non-violent drug offenders should be given more opportunities for rehabilitation. However, the notion that more police “occupying” a neighborhood is “bad” is a liberal fallacy. The only people who don’t want more police presence are criminals. My opinion. Sorry in advance if this is somehow offensive.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, like in many progressive enclaves, crime is totally out of control. In California, thieves can steal up to $999.00 at retail outlets, no problem, and it's now against the law for so-called security guards or employees or anyone else to stop them. We have seen a massive shutdown of small businesses, restaurants, and retail chains in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley because of this. Criminals know there are no repercussions for this. People are getting car jacked in broad daylight, even in nice neighborhoods. There have been 12,000 car thefts alone in Oakland this year, and I have friends who have had their car windows smashed and broken into twice in the same month. "Smash and grabs" are targeting tourists in San Francisco ruining people's vacations. Catalytic converter theft is out of control. Even people's food stamps and public benefits are being swiped by criminal cartels. Riding BART at night is no longer safe and you are guaranteed to be riding a car with multiple people totally strung out on drugs. Flash mobs rob retail stores and the videos go viral. Flash mob gangs of young people attack people at malls or start huge meeles. And finally let's not forget about "sideshows" on major highways and even the Bay Bridge. Rarely does anything happen to any of these people due to "progressive" District's Attorneys and their catch and release policies. Time and time again people in urban areas are pilled and they always want more police, not less. And let's be clear: while the author vaguely attacks "tough on crime" policies, at least in Bay Area - and Los Angeles and New York and Chicago, etc etc - this rampant uptick in crime has happened in the "post-George Floyd" environment where guilty white progressives decided it would be a great idea to define the police, but even worse and rarely discussed: delegitimize the police and disrespect the police. So is it any wonder that police are no longer doing their jobs. No one wants to end up like Derek Chauvin, where if a career criminal happens to die on you while resisting arrest and having twice the lethal levels of fentanyl in their system, you will be nationally disgraced, attacked and thrown in jail, as the most recent expose of the Floyd autopsy reports clearly shows. Today criminals of all kinds know that they are in control and so-called "progressives" in major cities - well steeped in postmodern ideology, identity politics, and "anti-racism - can't see outside their failed ideologies, which by the way have nothing to do with progressive ideology when RFK Sr. was around, to do anything about it. There is a profound disowned shadow occuring here, well discussed in Shelby Steele's groundbreaking book "White Guilt," whereby nobody wants to literally see and admit uncomfortable truths about why this is happening and who is doing it. Let's be clear: modern day leftism and progressivism, again steeped in postmodern ideology, identity politics and "social justice" has absolutely NOTHING in common with the progressive politics of Martin Luther King, Fred Hampton, Malcom X, or Bobby Kennedy Sr. So-called "social justice" is in a symbiotic relationship with our predatory capitalist elites, who talk the woke talk and are more than happy to fund and support organizations like Black Lives Matter Global because it BENEFITS them. All you have to do is see how differently the corporate Democrats and corporate media treated Occupy Wall Street, which accurately identified the root causes of our "systemic" probablems versus today's social justice warriors who tilt at any number of abstractions - "white supremacy," "systemic racism" - but never, ever challenge the institutions, corporations, hijacked politicians and regulatory agencies, and military industrial complex that are the cause of our societal disintegration and decay. Identity politics pits various self-identified-as-oppressed special interest groups against abstract oppressors that can never be vanquished because they are abstractions. That's the point. The left of the 60s was directed in a vertical orientation against power elites. Bobby Seale and Fred Hampton of the Black Panther Party said numerous times that they were foucsed on class and economics: they wanted affordable housing, food access, especially for children, and self autonomy. Today's left is focused on a horizontal plane, promoting division rather than class and racial solidarity: black vs white (abstraction = "systemic racism," which wasn't even a thing until post-Occupy, post-Bernie Sanders 2016 grassroots, economic justice campaign scared the shit out of elites. That is when the media, Democrats, and activist class started pushing the "racism" narrative constantly); or women vs men (it's the abstract "patriarchy" that CIA asset Gloria Steinem promoted, once again taking heat off of elites and the power structure); and lets not ignore the trans and queer wars where pronouns and 27+ genders (and growing) are far more important than affordable rent, accessible home ownership, sustainable wages, and national healthcare; you know, the things the left used to stand for. The roots of the crime explosion are deeply emeshed in 40+ years of failed neoliberal "free market" economic policy, where we saw massive deregulation, globalization and the destruction of the blue collar economy, the slashing of taxes for the rich, corporations and capital gains, and the financialization of housing. People turn to crime when they cannot find legitimate ways to create a sustainable existence. Likewise the other head of the Hydra during this period was the abandoning of the left's commitment to the class and racial solidarity that all the great 60s visionaries promoted. Today multiple generations minds have been warped by postmodern identity politics which have been a boon for financial elites. That is why they promote them: if Nancy Pelosi, the corporate media, and billionaire philanthropaths are supporting your causes you are probably on the wrong track. JFK's advisor, the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. warned about this decades ago in his book The Disuniting of America. If we ignore the root and refuse to see or deal with the unfortunate branch results, our nation will only continue to degenerate and de-evolve into chaos and civil unrest, which may indeed be the point. I trust that RFK Jr wants to do the right thing but I am not sure that he sees the full breadth and depth of the problem.
No one, whether a career criminal or drug addict, should ever be restrained via a knee on his or her neck. Ever. Anyone who does that to another human being even if it doesn't result in death, even if the perpetrator is a police officer, is dangerous and belongs in prison.
When you break the law, resist arrest significantly, and refuse to obey an officers commands, which you are legally obligated to follow, you greatly increase your chances of a bad outcome. You are responsible for your behavior and choices. If you have an issue with policing techniques to subdue people who resist arrest, best to take it up with your local police department and city council.
No need to take it up with anyone with two brain cells to rub together. Murder is already illegal. Just needs to be enforced and the law was enforced. And there was no evidence that Floyd resisted arrest. Fentanyl would not cause that type of behavior. If anything, it would subdue him and possibly make him unable to respond quickly to commands. Lack of patience is not a justification for murder.
Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the latest information about the incident. First, there is substantial evidence that he was resisting arrest and that is how he ended up out of the car and onto the pavement in the first place. Second, the coroner's report clearly indicates that the restraint was not the cause of death. Thirdly, he had multiple drugs and alcohol in his system; the fentanyl is relevant because it was at beyond lethal levels. As for brain cells, repeating the corporate media narrative about your martyred saint doesn't take too many. He was a lifelong criminal and drug addict who pistol whipped a pregnant woman but I'm sure you will give him a pass because he's a symbol of the cause.
I'm sure there are methods for subduing a criminal, just as there are for subduing an attacker, in a variety of marshall arts forms. Police departments need to be more open to creative methods. IMO there are solutions to any problem.
I love his focus on keeping communities safe. Also his transparency about his own encounters with the law acknowledging that his family name protected him from consequences that people without that would encounter. Repeatedly I am drawn to Kennedy’s willingness to be truthful and even vulnerable. We are a country in so much need of healing.
I am seeing an increasing number of people who want to support Kennedy now distancing themselves because he has failed to adopt a fair position on the Israeli -Palestinian crisis. He is even trailing the Biden administration which is calling for a humanitarian pause. I am warning you. This could sink Kennedy's candidacy.
No matter what side he takes it could sink him, 63% of Americans support Israel in this conflict. He is against Biden's latest war making funding bill so in my view he should be neutral.
One can only hope that is not how Bobby views the difference in how offenders are treated by police. The main difference is the source of income to buy their drugs, not their surname. Kennedy had a trust fund to dip into no doubt. Most people dont that. Their source of income may range from prostitution to pick-pocketing to breaking into your house and stealing whatever the 2023 equivalent of the VCR and DVD player is. That is why they go to jail, not because they had a gram of heroin on a plane once. Had Kennedy taken any of those paths, he too would have gone down the path of habitual jail time with his famous surname as his target, not as his protection. Contary to popular belief, held by those who have never actually had a conversation with a police officer, most police officers enter the role with the aim of helping society. How they fare with that burden shapes their personality changes with the years they remain in the job. I entered for the leather jacket so the inability to help people who didn't want to help themselves never bothered me. As far as I know none of them were ever bullied in school, none of them get any joy out of drawing their gun and none of them actually want to see the things they see. Some go bad and, as the saying goes, police are members of society and every occupation will have a percentage that go bad. Kennedy had money is the difference, not Kennedy was his surname. Being famous just makes you a nob and a story retold at the station. Contary to popular belief police on the beat arent out there getting paid bribes to cover up things. Maybe money gets exchanged at higher levels to make things go away but that would be a case of corruption of the rich people and their connections, not anything to do with the arresting officer. If the police commissioner says drop that case there isnt a constable able to make it proceed.
I think his programs for rehabilitation have been tested and shown to be successful in turning people's lives around. Outwardbound, Farms for Vet's, etc. The rehabilitated often find their purpose to help others.
I agree that non-violent drug offenders should be given more opportunities for rehabilitation. However, the notion that more police “occupying” a neighborhood is “bad” is a liberal fallacy. The only people who don’t want more police presence are criminals. My opinion. Sorry in advance if this is somehow offensive.
It is dependent on the police culture in an area. If they are seen as servants, we could definitely use more in my city.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, like in many progressive enclaves, crime is totally out of control. In California, thieves can steal up to $999.00 at retail outlets, no problem, and it's now against the law for so-called security guards or employees or anyone else to stop them. We have seen a massive shutdown of small businesses, restaurants, and retail chains in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley because of this. Criminals know there are no repercussions for this. People are getting car jacked in broad daylight, even in nice neighborhoods. There have been 12,000 car thefts alone in Oakland this year, and I have friends who have had their car windows smashed and broken into twice in the same month. "Smash and grabs" are targeting tourists in San Francisco ruining people's vacations. Catalytic converter theft is out of control. Even people's food stamps and public benefits are being swiped by criminal cartels. Riding BART at night is no longer safe and you are guaranteed to be riding a car with multiple people totally strung out on drugs. Flash mobs rob retail stores and the videos go viral. Flash mob gangs of young people attack people at malls or start huge meeles. And finally let's not forget about "sideshows" on major highways and even the Bay Bridge. Rarely does anything happen to any of these people due to "progressive" District's Attorneys and their catch and release policies. Time and time again people in urban areas are pilled and they always want more police, not less. And let's be clear: while the author vaguely attacks "tough on crime" policies, at least in Bay Area - and Los Angeles and New York and Chicago, etc etc - this rampant uptick in crime has happened in the "post-George Floyd" environment where guilty white progressives decided it would be a great idea to define the police, but even worse and rarely discussed: delegitimize the police and disrespect the police. So is it any wonder that police are no longer doing their jobs. No one wants to end up like Derek Chauvin, where if a career criminal happens to die on you while resisting arrest and having twice the lethal levels of fentanyl in their system, you will be nationally disgraced, attacked and thrown in jail, as the most recent expose of the Floyd autopsy reports clearly shows. Today criminals of all kinds know that they are in control and so-called "progressives" in major cities - well steeped in postmodern ideology, identity politics, and "anti-racism - can't see outside their failed ideologies, which by the way have nothing to do with progressive ideology when RFK Sr. was around, to do anything about it. There is a profound disowned shadow occuring here, well discussed in Shelby Steele's groundbreaking book "White Guilt," whereby nobody wants to literally see and admit uncomfortable truths about why this is happening and who is doing it. Let's be clear: modern day leftism and progressivism, again steeped in postmodern ideology, identity politics and "social justice" has absolutely NOTHING in common with the progressive politics of Martin Luther King, Fred Hampton, Malcom X, or Bobby Kennedy Sr. So-called "social justice" is in a symbiotic relationship with our predatory capitalist elites, who talk the woke talk and are more than happy to fund and support organizations like Black Lives Matter Global because it BENEFITS them. All you have to do is see how differently the corporate Democrats and corporate media treated Occupy Wall Street, which accurately identified the root causes of our "systemic" probablems versus today's social justice warriors who tilt at any number of abstractions - "white supremacy," "systemic racism" - but never, ever challenge the institutions, corporations, hijacked politicians and regulatory agencies, and military industrial complex that are the cause of our societal disintegration and decay. Identity politics pits various self-identified-as-oppressed special interest groups against abstract oppressors that can never be vanquished because they are abstractions. That's the point. The left of the 60s was directed in a vertical orientation against power elites. Bobby Seale and Fred Hampton of the Black Panther Party said numerous times that they were foucsed on class and economics: they wanted affordable housing, food access, especially for children, and self autonomy. Today's left is focused on a horizontal plane, promoting division rather than class and racial solidarity: black vs white (abstraction = "systemic racism," which wasn't even a thing until post-Occupy, post-Bernie Sanders 2016 grassroots, economic justice campaign scared the shit out of elites. That is when the media, Democrats, and activist class started pushing the "racism" narrative constantly); or women vs men (it's the abstract "patriarchy" that CIA asset Gloria Steinem promoted, once again taking heat off of elites and the power structure); and lets not ignore the trans and queer wars where pronouns and 27+ genders (and growing) are far more important than affordable rent, accessible home ownership, sustainable wages, and national healthcare; you know, the things the left used to stand for. The roots of the crime explosion are deeply emeshed in 40+ years of failed neoliberal "free market" economic policy, where we saw massive deregulation, globalization and the destruction of the blue collar economy, the slashing of taxes for the rich, corporations and capital gains, and the financialization of housing. People turn to crime when they cannot find legitimate ways to create a sustainable existence. Likewise the other head of the Hydra during this period was the abandoning of the left's commitment to the class and racial solidarity that all the great 60s visionaries promoted. Today multiple generations minds have been warped by postmodern identity politics which have been a boon for financial elites. That is why they promote them: if Nancy Pelosi, the corporate media, and billionaire philanthropaths are supporting your causes you are probably on the wrong track. JFK's advisor, the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. warned about this decades ago in his book The Disuniting of America. If we ignore the root and refuse to see or deal with the unfortunate branch results, our nation will only continue to degenerate and de-evolve into chaos and civil unrest, which may indeed be the point. I trust that RFK Jr wants to do the right thing but I am not sure that he sees the full breadth and depth of the problem.
No one, whether a career criminal or drug addict, should ever be restrained via a knee on his or her neck. Ever. Anyone who does that to another human being even if it doesn't result in death, even if the perpetrator is a police officer, is dangerous and belongs in prison.
When you break the law, resist arrest significantly, and refuse to obey an officers commands, which you are legally obligated to follow, you greatly increase your chances of a bad outcome. You are responsible for your behavior and choices. If you have an issue with policing techniques to subdue people who resist arrest, best to take it up with your local police department and city council.
No need to take it up with anyone with two brain cells to rub together. Murder is already illegal. Just needs to be enforced and the law was enforced. And there was no evidence that Floyd resisted arrest. Fentanyl would not cause that type of behavior. If anything, it would subdue him and possibly make him unable to respond quickly to commands. Lack of patience is not a justification for murder.
Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the latest information about the incident. First, there is substantial evidence that he was resisting arrest and that is how he ended up out of the car and onto the pavement in the first place. Second, the coroner's report clearly indicates that the restraint was not the cause of death. Thirdly, he had multiple drugs and alcohol in his system; the fentanyl is relevant because it was at beyond lethal levels. As for brain cells, repeating the corporate media narrative about your martyred saint doesn't take too many. He was a lifelong criminal and drug addict who pistol whipped a pregnant woman but I'm sure you will give him a pass because he's a symbol of the cause.
You're an idiot.
The pejorative is always the last refuge of someone who has no argument.
I'm sure there are methods for subduing a criminal, just as there are for subduing an attacker, in a variety of marshall arts forms. Police departments need to be more open to creative methods. IMO there are solutions to any problem.
I love his focus on keeping communities safe. Also his transparency about his own encounters with the law acknowledging that his family name protected him from consequences that people without that would encounter. Repeatedly I am drawn to Kennedy’s willingness to be truthful and even vulnerable. We are a country in so much need of healing.
I am seeing an increasing number of people who want to support Kennedy now distancing themselves because he has failed to adopt a fair position on the Israeli -Palestinian crisis. He is even trailing the Biden administration which is calling for a humanitarian pause. I am warning you. This could sink Kennedy's candidacy.
No matter what side he takes it could sink him, 63% of Americans support Israel in this conflict. He is against Biden's latest war making funding bill so in my view he should be neutral.
How about taking a stand against all wars. What is happening with the Palestinians is genocide.
Kennedy 2024!!
One can only hope that is not how Bobby views the difference in how offenders are treated by police. The main difference is the source of income to buy their drugs, not their surname. Kennedy had a trust fund to dip into no doubt. Most people dont that. Their source of income may range from prostitution to pick-pocketing to breaking into your house and stealing whatever the 2023 equivalent of the VCR and DVD player is. That is why they go to jail, not because they had a gram of heroin on a plane once. Had Kennedy taken any of those paths, he too would have gone down the path of habitual jail time with his famous surname as his target, not as his protection. Contary to popular belief, held by those who have never actually had a conversation with a police officer, most police officers enter the role with the aim of helping society. How they fare with that burden shapes their personality changes with the years they remain in the job. I entered for the leather jacket so the inability to help people who didn't want to help themselves never bothered me. As far as I know none of them were ever bullied in school, none of them get any joy out of drawing their gun and none of them actually want to see the things they see. Some go bad and, as the saying goes, police are members of society and every occupation will have a percentage that go bad. Kennedy had money is the difference, not Kennedy was his surname. Being famous just makes you a nob and a story retold at the station. Contary to popular belief police on the beat arent out there getting paid bribes to cover up things. Maybe money gets exchanged at higher levels to make things go away but that would be a case of corruption of the rich people and their connections, not anything to do with the arresting officer. If the police commissioner says drop that case there isnt a constable able to make it proceed.
I think his programs for rehabilitation have been tested and shown to be successful in turning people's lives around. Outwardbound, Farms for Vet's, etc. The rehabilitated often find their purpose to help others.
Check it out. An American on a news program calling out the Netanyahu government and the IDF as "terrorist organizations."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW5O6tj7aIw
Another consequence of drug laws is the thousands and thousands of addicts living on the streets, and the thousand of OD victims.
Treatment is important for reducing incarcerations and recidivism, but drug legalization is essential to more effectively addressing the problem.