[News] The Trayvon Martin Discussion Thread

tegid

tegid

checkeredhat said:
I think foreigners just tend to look at any other nation with that kind of response. People are always convinced their way is the right way.
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I'm usually not like that. Or less than most people, at least. I guess the problem comes from trying to look at the gun thing as a problem which has a right or wrong solution and not as a cultural thing (the difference being that one HAS a correct, logical answer, while the other doesn't). I can understand it as a cultural difference, whereas I haven't been convinced of most of the pro-gun arguments (and believe me, I can be convinced).
 
checkeredhat

checkeredhat

tegid said:
I'm usually not like that. Or less than most people, at least. I guess the problem comes from trying to look at the gun thing as a problem which has a right or wrong solution and not as a cultural thing (the difference being that one HAS a correct, logical answer, while the other doesn't). I can understand it as a cultural difference, whereas I haven't been convinced of most of the pro-gun arguments (and believe me, I can be convinced).
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I did say tend to. I think most of the people here are pretty fairly open minded, but everyone has something they look at and go "That's WEIRD" just cause its not what they're used to. I don't even mean necessarily that its done with any hostility, it could be something as innocent as "They drive on the LEFT side of the road there and call elevators LIFTS. Weird." (Or vice versa, obvsiously. Which is my point)
This is obviously a case of something with much greater consequences, but the reason people outside the US tend to question it and the reason people in the US tend to defend it, is pretty simply, because its what they're used to.
 
M

makare

tegid said:
I'm usually not like that. Or less than most people, at least. I guess the problem comes from trying to look at the gun thing as a problem which has a right or wrong solution and not as a cultural thing (the difference being that one HAS a correct, logical answer, while the other doesn't). I can understand it as a cultural difference, whereas I haven't been convinced of most of the pro-gun arguments (and believe me, I can be convinced).
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If it is a cultural thing there is just so much tied up into it it makes it nearly impossible for the people who part of the culture that want to change it to do so. The whole you dont love guns? = unamerican/unpatriotic etc crap really keeps anything from getting done. It is the same political guilt by association crap used for every other problem in the country that has rendered them unsolvable. It gets pretty damn tiresome.
 
S

SeraRelm

I usually think "I wonder what lead to that social convention?" If it isn't immediately apparent, then I look it up if I have the time (or try to remember to do so later).
 
sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

Charlie Don't Surf said:
Whew, good thing with have police officers to make sure the witnesses get the right story
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Then what is the point in asking follow up questions?

What do you do when you ask 4 people what happened and the 4th person gives a completely different story?

Of course it is easier to think that it is corruption instead of a cop DOING HIS JOB.
 
fade

fade

Staff member
I find it amusing that people are complaining in this thread that people are discussing Trayvon Martin's death in a thread about Trayvon Martin's death, and using that fact to condemn the posters in this thread.
 
Charlie Don't Surf

Charlie Don't Surf

it's possible more than one person harbors a healthy distrust of the police

if you want to make a "Police doing good things" megathread, I'd read it and won't stop you
 
M

makare

I think it is better to keep any judgment of police behavior to individual police officers and not to the concept of policing as a whole. That is a lot of people getting paint with a too broad a stroke. I know some bad police officers but if I let those guys sour my feeling about ALL police officers I would end up like my friend who thinks that all police officers are corrupt and all military personnel are going to hell. It just becomes absurd.
 
Charlie Don't Surf

Charlie Don't Surf

makare said:
I think it is better to keep any judgment of police behavior to individual police officers and not to the concept of policing as a whole. That is a lot of people getting paint with a too broad a stroke. I know some bad police officers but if I let those guys sour my feeling about ALL police officers I would end up like my friend who thinks that all police officers are corrupt and all military personnel are going to hell. It just becomes absurd.
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one of the problems is there is a systemic culture among the ~institution of the police~ that makes sure that no one faces consequences for ruining people's lives
 
M

makare

I know that all too well. I'll tell you coming out of law school after reading all those damn cases and not having a serious distrust of police in general is extremely hard. But I still think it is bullshit. There are many good officers doing there job well who do not deserve to be clumped in with the bad officers. I don't have to simplify things just to make them easier to deal with. I am not going to let good people get swept in with all the bad ones just because I don't want to take the time to do the work.
 
M

makare

Well if more people could get past buzzwords and political action phrases and actual get down to the content of an issue this country would be a better place.
 
S

SeraRelm

I'm gonna retract what I posted in this one. I'm just gonna say that you're pretty much as bad as any racist you point out when it comes to cops.
 
Adam

Adam

Trayvon Martin, the Florida teenager shot dead during a scuffle with a neighborhood watchman, was suspended from his Miami school three times over the past year, according to the family attorney.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/trayvon-ma...roblems-school/story?id=16011674#.T3H3QtnAG30

Media is now in full-on villify Trayvon Martin mode. How about just reporting that he was suspended for MJ possession once, graffiti once and truancy/tardiness once (which isn't even noted as one of the suspensions in the article)?
 
M

makare

combine that with his bad taste fashion and his death becomes clearly inevitable.
 
SpecialKO

SpecialKO

To be fair, we do have a cultural history involving the deification of a young man of color whose death was looked on as initially okay.
 
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