The Issue at Hand

Foreword
 The following series of pieces are broken up into subjects as best as they can be (links to those at the end of this piece). I try to make a position and defend it as best I know how with a limited amount of time then try to provide some more in depth resources in the form of videos.

I do make some tongue-in-cheek statements for humor. Don't hold those against me.

My "attacks" if you will, are always on ideologies and ideas or narratives... I don't attack anyone on a personal level (Other than I think I do call a couple of mentioned people idiots or similar.... I mean those ones.)

Anything I say is open for challenge and I am happy to expand on, or provide complete evidence for any of my statements. It is certainly possible I have gotten something mixed up.

I often pose open questions meant to create thought. I like to assume a proposition is correct then see if it can handle anything other than that specific circumstance. If it can't, that might be a red flag.


That being said.... enjoy!

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I have come to the conclusion that there is no way to debunk the idea as a whole because that is how it has evolved. Like how "Climate Change" used to be "Global Warming" until scientific evidence surfaced that proved the Earth was, in fact, not globally warming. The narrative must go on and the idea morphed into the same thing but under a different guise. It didn't matter what the facts were, it was the idea and the narrative that was important. Nothing changed even when the entire fundamental base for the movement was proven false. It's the same with the ideas surrounding racism today. The facts don't seem to be important... it's all about the narrative and the goals of the controlling groups to achieve their aim.. whatever that may turn out to be (but I think I know).

This is, of course, different. However the idea remains when there are so many topics covered from police brutality, to slavery, to institutional racism, to unconscious bias, to white privilege... Each one taking books upon books to actually define. I believe it's because these things don't actually exist and it takes a lot of word fluff to convince people that it does.

Phil Vischer Video
I have nothing against the guy but he has about as much authority to speak to complex socio-economic theory and statistics as a highschooler on a stage properly occupied by people who have multiple degrees in such studies. He is either regurgitating others' arguments or has the same credibility of a cucumber or tomato (See what I did there? I am hilarious.). I have no qualms with regurgitating arguments... we all do it to one degree or another but it doesn't make him special.

No Knock Warrants: Apparently these are racist? I've seen a lot of then and been privy to some of the more nuanced procedures for serving these warrants. No knock simply means they aren't going to wait for someone to come to the door.... it doesn't mean they don't declare themselves as police serving a warrant. This came about due to the increasing frustrations relating to higher levels of organization in criminal activity mainly with firearms. More sophisticated drug trade means that more serious groups are going to take part. This meant that the odds that officers serving a search warrant would be met with armed resistance increased significantly. They stopped knocking because the bad guys would just grab their guns and start shooting.... or have enough time to run out the back door. No-knock entries consist of entering a place without warning (usually in what they call a dynamic entry involving breaking through a door) and screaming "Police! Search Warrant!" as they move quickly to secure all people in the area and prevent violence from happening. Now, it's not perfect and there have been some fantastic screw-ups where innocent people did get killed and I don't defend that... but what do high-risk search warrants have to do with black people other than the police hate black people? It's a stupid argument.

Sentencing Differences: The major difference was that in mostly black communities, the community leaders got sick and tired of drugs destroying their towns. So it was black legislators that pushed for harsher sentencing for the types of criminal activity that tended to take place in black communities. Yes, it did result in more black people being convicted and serving harsher sentences but it was at the behest of black leaders and not some racist white folks as implied.

He goes on to talk about the various studies that present data. They don't make conclusion as to why those numbers are they way they are because that is significantly harder than just crunching numbers. Sadly, people who look at these studies have already formed a conclusion about what those numbers mean and jump to the easy conclusion that the criminal justice system is racist at some systemic level. His wording is misleading when he cites that white people were twice as likely to be carrying drugs in their cars but arrested at significantly lower rates... he said "drugs"... all drugs including marijuana which has for the past 10 years or so been largely just a ticket. He doesn't (and the study may not say) which drugs were arrested for more? It's a lot more likely you'll get arrested for crack cocaine and methamphetamine than for weed. But it fits the narrative so we go with it instead of taking the necessary intellectual rigor to look deeper.

Now white teachers are biased and not putting black students into gifted programs. That could be true. Bias (as I go into later) is human not based on skin tone. What is they are just lousy teachers? We blame the education system for a lot of things but the Teachers Unions have made it almost impossible to fire a teacher for being a crappy teacher. In some cases crappy teachers are retained and just told to sit in a room all day instead of teach because it is cheaper to keep paying them then to try and fire them. It could also be affected by the current black demographics (which I go into further later).

We just need to care? That f*cker! Like those of us who disagree with the screaming lunatics carrying decapitated pig heads yelling to "kill all cops" are heartless bastards who don't care about anyone but themselves. Like we don't care about every life lost. As if my acknowledgement of his statistics and not agreeing with his conclusion makes me the problem. It just makes him come off like a self-righteous, virtue-signaling prick.

At the end he makes that disgusting comparison on the ratios of probability of imprisonment between the cute little white baby and the cute little black baby. Probabilities are just that... it's an abstract rendering of chance. He's saying that all those kids are equally guilty of some crime and only a small number of white kids will end up being punished but the hammer will fall with vengeance on the black kids. I speak to this idea in a later piece.
End Video (and rant.... sorry the video just triggered me. Where's my safe space?)

This issue of racism and privilege is, I believe, a part of a greater effort to instill a fundamental change in the culture of the United States. Far-left ideologies are pushing harder and harder towards a Socialist or Marxist utopia state. It starts very slowly and sounds quite good at the early stages (remember Hitler was elected in a landslide in Austria in 1938). We can learn a lot from history and see where it is repeating itself today. Here are a couple of things that I see being pushed for that further the ideology:

1. Continued development of group identity politics. This idea pits different groups against each other and creates division. It is based on the idea that groups of people should or will have certain political beliefs based solely on their membership in a particular group. It also adds other attributes that may or may not have basis in fact. A prime and recent example is when presumptive Democrat Presidential Nominee Joe Biden told a black radio host: "I tell you, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black". It was a bit of a slip up (he has many) but it was a clear call that he believes black people should all vote democrat simply because they are black...not on the value of the issues at hand. The same goes for white people, males and females, poor, middle class, upper class, immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ, etc. The danger is that it becomes tribal... if you don't behave like your group is supposed to, you are a traitor at best. We see this in a glaring example of the current attacks on a black female conservative commentator named Candice Owens. Simply because she doesn't support what black females are supposed to support, she has been attacked with some of the most extreme vitriol and hatred that can be hurled. She has been demonized, called a race traitor, Uncle Tom, had death threats, and many other things not appropriate for polite discourse. Had that abuse come from conservatives to a liberal, it would have been national news. If you don't conform to your group you are wrong and will be punished.

2. Demonetization of police. The police have been indicted as brutal, racist, killers who get up in the morning just itching to find some minority to oppress and lift up anyone who happens to be white. The police have been grouped and judged together - again identity politics. There are a few bad cops.... and they need to be gone. But to accuse every cop of being a terrible person at their very core is completely ignorant. Notice this issue isn't as much about policy or institutional issues (as it may be with other things).... no, here it is the individual that is at fault. De-fund the police because of a few bad cops or thugs happening to get shot? Why? That is the first step that must be accomplished if you like the idea of creating an enforcement group that is focused on social justice. It happened in Germany as part of the rise of fascism. The regular police forces were minimized and the Brownshirts were created. They (the far left) don't respect the rule of law because the law tends (tends... not always but tends) to treat people equally regardless of group identity.... something these protesters rabidly want done away with.

3. Disarming the population. The left would like nothing quite so much as to remove all firearms from private ownership. Why do they care? They say it is because of "gun violence" as if that kind of violence is worse than stabbing, or any other kind. That it's the evil "assault weapon" despite the fact that the vast majority of murders are committed with handguns. It's because it's a political stunt. They really aren't concerned with murders or they would try to address the massive gang violence happening in various spots around the country. Know what happened when they banned almost all guns in Australia? The murder rate stayed almost the same for at least 6 years afterward.... but now people were being killed with knives and other lethal objects. The reason the fer left wants to get rid of guns is because it is impossible to terrorize an armed population. Take no mind that there are almost 400 million privately held firearms in the US.... that's enough for every person in the country to have a gun with some left over. If you want to proceed towards a socialist society, you cannot have an armed population. It has happened in every socialist country yet to exist. (I could go into great detail on the fallacies associated with gun propaganda)

4. Victimhood. This is the idea that everyone is a victim of something. If you are gay, you are victim of discrimination. If you are black, the racist police are out to get you. If you are a female, you face sexual harassment daily by virtually every male you meet. If you are a guy who happens to be feminine leaning... you are bullied constantly by testosterone fueled neanderthals. If you are an immigrant you are a victim because the country that takes in the most immigrants in the world hates immigrants. Illegal aliens are victims because when you break a countries laws, you aren't afforded the same privileges as citizens. If you are poor, you are a victim of an oppressive capitalist society. Simply by existing, you can perpetrate "violence" on someone you've never met just because you disagree.... more victims. So what? If you are a victim, you want retribution and false victimhood creates a desire for retribution that cannot be achieved.... that fosters hatred. Hatred is good for one thing: destruction. You want to destroy a civilization? Put everyone into different groups and make them believe they are all victims of each other. Being the victim creates anger and an angry person is an easy to control person.


Process
I'd like to explain my process for determining what I believe to be the truth:
1. Facts don't care about your feelings. This is essentially a statement that means during the investigation of truth, emotional responses cannot be weighed for or against any particular conclusion. It doesn't matter how angry I may be that someone fell off a cliff and died... that doesn't change the immutable nature of gravity. (and as much as we may want to.... we can't defund gravity)
2. I will try to compress some things into more broader ideas to avoid getting caught up in what may be individual falsehoods. A problem created by the internet and instant communication is that statements travel at the speed of light regardless of content and without any kind of verification. As an example, just recently, a post went around twitter stating a police department had just shot and killed at 13 year old boy during riots. Turns out it was an armed 34 year old man, not associated with riots, that had just attempted to murder someone. Often, blanket statements that are patently false have been produced and circulate without anyone deciding to check their validity. ( I do mention some of these is specifics in other parts).
3. If we are to believe something exists, there must be some evidence to that fact. there must be some trend, some statistics, that supports at least some of the claim....while at the same time cannot be explained by other, more rational arguments. This would be like taking a look at car crash data, seeing that more for the cars involved are red and concluding that red cars cause crashes. The notion is ridiculous on it's face but I believe that is almost exactly what is happening.
4. Listen to the input of smart, credible people. I believe that it is a great opportunity to learn from those among us who are more intelligent than we are. I have taken a lot of time to search out people who are far smarter than I will ever be and listen to the things that they say. Both people who I agree with and those who I do not. There are a lot of average idiots out there hopping on Facebook to proclaim their stunted world view with not so much as a brain cell of thought behind it but with the fervor of a renowned academic scholar. This is across the board on beliefs from the far right to the far left... Atheists to ultra conservative Christians.... etc. To look for good ideas, find the people who have spent a great deal of time with an open mind thinking and studying the concepts and produce well thought out arguments (Often you will find the people I produce have changed their beliefs over the years and openly admit to it). Additionally, find the people who are specialties in the field.... A chess grand-master may be a great chess player and very, very smart, but that doesn't mean they can troubleshoot car trouble or provide a good opinion on foreign policy. I will provide some samples of what I find to be the most relevant of these people that support my claims and can do so with much more eloquence than I.


To hijack the oft-used phrase: "words matter". No one know this better than people who may wish to push a particular agenda and take over the good intentions of people. It is very important to listen to what is said but even more so what is not said.... the things that are not acknowledged.... why one word is chosen over another. How those words are used is also important. I am very familiar with this tactic as it relates to Leftist anti-gun rhetoric. How the words they use are carefully picked and presented for maximum impact. A classic example is the idea that assault weapons need to be banned... the truth is that assault weapons have been banned for public sale since the 80s. But then they hold up a gun that is scary looking but not an assault weapon and say "we must ban these evil assault rifles." Sadly it isn't challenged quickly enough because more knowledgeable people are too stunned at what they are hearing to say anything.

The racist argument has become so nuanced, so abstract, that it is impossible to nail down cause. If it isn't individual racism, it's implicit bias, if it's not that, it's institutional racism which isn't dependent on the individual, if inequality cannot be blamed to this point, then intersectionality is the culprit. The narrative is that if inequality exists, it must exist because something made it that way. If we can't blame a singular person or group of people, we can blame the system or the institution, or the unconscious actions of a thousand well meaning people across the entirety of someones life. This concept is equally applied to race, LGBTQ, sexism, etc. It's the same argument wrapped up in different terms: "If someone has it better than you (better car, better pay, better education, etc), it is impossible that any art of that disparity is the consequence of decisions you have made."

The idea that a person is free from any consequence of their own decisions is popular but immoral. It means someone can justify looting because their ancestors hardships. It means someone will not work harder to better their life because they are being oppressed and such effort wouldn't be effective. It means justifying the assault or murder of an innocent person because the assailant was angry and all white people are guilty to some extent of causing that pain.

It is useful to look at the picture painted in the last 150 years: from a nation where slaves were held under the law to a member of that same oppressed group of people being elected to the supreme leadership of that person in the span of so few years from a historical standpoint. We know of other places in history where changes much smaller happened over much longer amounts of time.


The first sections of this video are telling of the way these subjects have morphed into an out of control narrative and ideology that cannot lead to anything good. A lot of people do not like this guy but he is an intellectual of the modern age. When he says he's read a book, he actually has... and probably every other book by the same author.
https://www.prageru.com/video/ep-123-the-search-for-racism/

13th Documentary
I took in this documentary with an open mind and hoped for something that would be informative with basis in fact. There was some good information there, unfortunately the premise is laughable. The idea that the 13th amendment was specifically designed to allow the prison system to continue to legally enslave blacks using incarceration is one step down from the flat Earth conspiracy theory. They gather a series of jumbled facts, present them commentary from biased opinions and viola! you have a documentary.

The assumption that the exception from the 13th amendment for prisoners was racially motivated fails to understand the actual and more important reason. it actually has to be there if you were to have any kind of prison system. If that provision was not in the 13th amendment, then prisoners could sue the federal government on Constitutional grounds and win. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of Constitutional Law and English Common law would conclude that imprisonment would be entirely illegal under the 13th amendment. Regardless of what a singular lunatic may have decided would be a good way to continue to subjugate blacks, it wasn't intended that way and was simply a required piece of mechanics. It's akin to saying roads are racist because we make them black then drive all over them. Hence, people who design roads, build roads, etc are all racist at heart. No, they are black because of the ingredients.... not racism. It's the same logic and it's faulty.

The filmmaker stakes a position well before the creation of the film and sets out to produce something that doesn't enlighten about the subject but serves to cloud the reality by presenting facts in a biased light. This wasn't a documentary so much as it was an opinion piece. If you want to document something, you should at least try to present some of the other side of the argument (oh wait, that would be racist). No one said anything except to tow the line for the movie and fails to include some very important ideas for consideration.

They go back and find something some politician said a hundred years ago.... like politicians never say stupid shit that could never be backed up in a million years. The whole "Hell yes, we are going to take your AR-15s..." by Beto is a good example of stupid shit that could be dug up in a hundred years to fuel a false narrative. There were a lot of smart people who opposed slavery for a lot of reasons and the idea that they would have allowed this little prisoner exception to be included with the intent of continuing slavery is comical. They say we fought the Civil War over slavery and now after one of the bloodiest conflicts the world had ever seen, they were going to effectively throw that victory away? I don't think so.

The talk about laws that targeted black people (not really true but OK) were supported by black people who saw an increase in violence and drug use. The war on drugs, the war on crime, the Opioid crisis, etc are all political stunts aimed to gain political favor. They weren't part of some vast inter-generational conspiracy.

They briefly mention the prison manufacturing that goes on and jump up and down and say "Look! Look! Forced labor! Slavery!". The same people who also jump up and down and say that we need rehabilitation to teach job skills in order to reform criminals. And they aren't assembling missile guidance systems for the Military.... that is complete crap. There may be some component manufacturing happening but that's it. Would you rather they just sit in cells for 8 hours a day and have no opportunity to learn anything except how to be better criminals?

The film jumps on the backs of some of the truly horrific things that had been done in our history and kind of like" Look! Horrible stuff... also... something else that we are going to put right next to it" as if putting a black man in prison for armed robbery and assault is the same as what happened to Emmet Till. The video oozes with agenda and really has nothing to do with exposing reality, rather to push an ideology.

There are some logical principles that are being ignored consistently in all these arguments.
1. Consequence does not indicate motive
2. Correlation is not causation
3. Assumptions are not evidence
4. False statements cannot be used to build a valid conclusion


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8 Can't Wait:

This has become a popular idea. But there are a few major issues I have.
1. Just because a department doesn't specifically state a particular policy in it's manual, doesn't mean officers are doing the exact opposite. That is, if a manual doesn't require de-escalation that doesn't mean officers are not attempting to do that ever. It's the same with exhausting all other options, etc. The assumption is something akin to saying that if a department doesn't say "Don't shoot black people." that officers will take that as free licence to kill black people.

2. They look at numbers in a vacuum and clearly do not employ the standard practices in statistical reasoning in their claim that so many police killings can be avoided. The underlying tone is that the vast majority of killings could be avoided if these policies had been put in place. While it's not stated outright, it's a logical fallacy to claim those policies would have saved lives. Some? For sure... but not all.

3. Their numbers of deaths are dealing with such small numbers compared to the overall population that it creates a statistically insignificant change. This is a technical term meaning that from a statistical point of view, the change is no more than what could also be attributed to random noise. When you are talking about changes in their entirety that are around one one hundredth percent, that is not significant. The sample size is just too small to come to a meaningful conclusion.

4. Notice that the 8 can't wait only speaks about police violence. Why isn't it about violence towards blacks, since that is the prevailing theme? I know why. It's because they couldn't find even a handful of reasonable numbers to base a finding off of. There simply are not enough black people killed by police every year to make any kind of claim at all. It's a convenient notion: "Police are killing black people!" "Oh... the numbers don't support that?" "Well.... police are killing people!" The moment there is strong evidence their position is illegitimate, they switch to a different one.

5. Some things are quite vague and will be used to trap officers who do end up killing someone. It's very easy to criticize something after the fact and then say the officer didn't utilize all other options before using deadly force. Especially from people who have never been faced with a life threatening situation where milliseconds could determine if they survive or not. When the body is under the kind of physiological conditions that would be lethal if continued for more than a couple of minutes. Yet, somehow we expect a human being under the most intense pressure and stress they will most likely every endure at a singular point and insist they must make totally rational and thought out decisions in full compliance with thousands of pages of laws, policies, and procedures. As someone who has pent a great deal of time studying violence and life threatening encounters, it is amazing how people cannot understand this. Put any of those knuckleheads in a shoot house and they'll turn to a pile of mush in an instant.

6. A similar principle applies to comprehensive reporting. What does that even mean? Any recollection of an event will have flaws... so it's a "gotcha" when you say comprehensive reporting and then details are left out it will be used as a bludgeon to beat up people who genuinely didn't remember.

Every life lost is a tragedy... but we cannot make public policy on the outliers.

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The below video is a supplement to showcase how media has exasperated these problems as part of a larger narrative. I've followed this guy from his early days and have been impressed at his explicit denial of race or politics in the expression of his beliefs and hobbies (guns here). Yes, it is a biased platform but try to look beyond that to the nuggets of facts that he brings. Also, he's been saying these things for a long time and well before ever getting associated with the NRA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Au4I6gNwy0


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My take on several issues with more depth and supporting evidence:

Systemic Racism: Slavery
https://succinctandverbose.blogspot.com/2020/06/systemic-racism-slavery.html

Black Oppression
https://succinctandverbose.blogspot.com/2020/06/black-opression.html

Inequalities
https://succinctandverbose.blogspot.com/2020/06/inequalities.html

Black Lives Mater
https://succinctandverbose.blogspot.com/2020/06/black-lives-matter.html

The Church
https://succinctandverbose.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-church.html

White Privilege
https://succinctandverbose.blogspot.com/2020/06/white-privilege.html

Experiences, Lived Reality, Anecdotes, Etc.
https://succinctandverbose.blogspot.com/2020/06/experiences-lived-reality-anecdotes-etc.html

On Violence...
https://succinctandverbose.blogspot.com/2020/06/on-violence.html