There was a 43% increase in the murders of black Americans in 2020 compared to the past 10-year average.
Anti-police movement + prosecutors and lawmakers who invoked extreme leniency, forcing judges to release legitimate suspects who then go out and do the same shit if not worse.
There's an ideological culprit here. Everyone knows it.
There was a 43% increase in the murders of black Americans in 2020 compared to the past 10-year average.
Anti-police movement + prosecutors and lawmakers who invoked extreme leniency, forcing judges to release legitimate suspects who then go out and do the same shit if not worse.
There's an ideological culprit here. Everyone knows it.
A 43% increase = what, in actual body count? 10? 100? 1,000? 10,000? What was identity group of the murderers? What zip codes? Pareto's Law asserts the square root of this number will be responsible for half (50%) of the murders -- so where are these murderer's located. And so on.
Even in the 2020's, it was well understood that out of the hundreds of thousands of police-civilian interactions, a miniscule fraction led to violence, and a fraction of those to lethal violence, and in most cases that violence included resisting arrest -- and a black person was more likely to NOT be shot by a policeperson.
But all this rational thinking is a white thing, and de facto white privilege and racist.
Obviously, the societal disruption of the covid lockdowns provided the opportunity for an increase in criminal activity.
However, in order to you make a conspiracy indictment, you need to make a plausible argument about means and motive. Established with facts, not conjecture. Attached to a list of the suspects who planned the conspiracy.
Otherwise, you're just playing on emotional triggers of the sort that incite paranoia, for the purpose of Partisan Trash Talk. Which seems to be the focus of commentary by most of the paraticipants in this particular coffeklatch,, hmm?
Those are periods, not blanks. It is a modern device to provide emphasis.Yes written, and oral, communication are changing, but really language always has, at least successful ones. There are things I dislike as well including passive/aggressive comments masquerading as civility or wit.
I still don't get how I'm expected to know what you're talking about on the basis of three words- whether interspersed with periods or not. And the technique of requiring me to guess is, wouldn't you know, a passive-aggressive tactic.
Were you referring to the US-Mexico border, or the Mason-Dixon Line? Or Mexico's southern border, or the Tropic of Capricorn? There's no way to be certain.
And, well, what about it? Clarity is key to political discussions. You can't just assume that every reader automatically knows what you're talking about. Some of us aren't all that automatic.
C'mon man! You *knew* she meant US/Mexican border, right? If not, I shudder? Therefore, why lead a conversation sideways? You're better than that, right?
No, the lack of detail means there's no way to be certain of that...do I really have to explain the problem? I'll do it as thoroughly as I'm able.
I know how often cryptic symbolism gets played on the Internet; it's entirely possible that "The.Southern.Border." was someone's offhanded put-down of the American South, given the lack- the complete absence- of explanatory detail. And also given that there are self-congratulating political comment writers who hold the sort of bumper-sticker stereotypes of the American South that make it conceivable that the phrase is intended as something like an offhanded slam, a punchline reference. (Whether it works as a punchline is a different matter.) Lynne might have been trying to bond with me, with an aside intended as a knock on Those Southern Deplorables. (A non sequitur, given the context, but I've read wilder non sequiturs than that.) Especially given that I've had little exposure to Lynne's comments, and in any event can't be expected to keep track of the political leanings of every other person posting. (Even in the cases where I've gotten acquainted with the overall political slant of a frequent poster, I sometimes forget, or mix the poster up with someone else and require reminding. Anyhow, it's a matter of comparatively minor interest to me; my primary emphasis is on responding to the content of a comment, not its writer. And in cases where the amount of content is as slight and fragmentary as it is when the words "The.Southern.Border." comprise its totality, I've been known to make note of my problems with the inadequacy of such a summary.)
In any event, there's so little information conveyed by the reduction of that observation to three words- "The. Southern. Border."- that even if I realize that Lynne is referring to the border between the US and Mexico- well, what about it? What makes that phrase so evocative that everyone who reads it is supposed to receive the same takeaway? It's a superficial image, and anyone who thinks they're getting some profound information value out of it can only have a superficial fund of knowledge to draw on to inform their response. Reactive snap assumptions are a middlebrow thing. At best. (I have 20 years of participation in Internet political discussions on social media to back me up on that observation. Examples are not at all difficult to find. Although they can be tedious to unpack.)
Lynne, again: "If you are truly that unaware of current events further dialogue is pointless." Okay: granting the inference that she's actually talking about the US-Mexico border, it so happens that I'm "aware" of not only "current events" in the region, but I have a fairly well-informed background on the politics and economy of Mexico (along with the country's Central American national neighbors to the south; Mexico has a "Southern Border", too, and one that's made the news a number of times in recent years.) I'm up on Mexican leaders and governments going back 60, 70 years. The PRI, the PAN, that other party; Echeviera, Lopez Portillo, Raul Salinas, Carlos Salinas, Prieto Lopez, Vincente Fox, Jorge Calderon...Alberto Sicilia Falcon, Jose Egozi, Jose Mata Ballesteros, Miguel Nazar Haro, Adolfo Constanzo...Sante Bario, Michael Levine, Cele Castillo, Kiki Camarena...I'm not only aware of "current events" on the border- both sides of it- I know the back-story. I have a full bookcase to draw on. (Book recommendation: Murder City, by Charles Bowden. 2010.)
But where am I to be expected to begin a reply on that topic? I'm left only to draw inferences on that score. In this case, the inference I'm featuring as most likely is that if I mention anything outside of the fact base held in common by the ordinary run of TV/social media feed couch potato Americans- like references to Mexican history prior to the year 2008, or any reference to border conditions and immigration that doesn't make it all about US- Lynne will be out of her depth. That may not be an accurate inference, but it is a fair statement to say that her post hasn't given me a lot to go on in that regard. And given the fact that more content and context is required and the requirement to solicit more details, it makes the most sense to begin by requesting the most basic level of clarification.
Which I did (albeit indirectly, with a remark alluding to how little readers had been given to draw on, from Lynne's three-word "synopsis.") And I got patronized for it. Which, as I said, is a primary reason why I'm not on Twitter: because it's rife with people who parse their commentary in cryptic shorthand, apparently with the expectation that their remark will prompt observations based on a shared set of assumptions. Even though it's well-known that conversations consisting of brief dialog snippets are rife with the potential for misunderstandings and people talking past each other. (Link references and image quotes aside, that's all Twitter allows for, in the realm of firsthand observations: brevity, and its attendant hazard of unclarity.)
Twitter is that place where people write with the a priori assumption that the meaning of their words is understood- of necessity, because the character limits work against people writing with a maximum of diligence and exactitude, pursuing the goal of writing so that their comments cannot possibly be misunderstood.
I gave You a like, Mascot, for Your effort. But what I tend to do is take a few data points, and draw a general conclusion.
"do I really have to explain the problem?"
And pretty much from that point on, it's mainly condescension and showing how smart You are. Nothing wrong with that. On the issue of Mexico and south-a that, You're acknowledged to be superior.
But all that evades the point. Sorry. I would-a taken You more seriously if I hadn't gone back and looked at Your actual reply:
"Were you referring to the US-Mexico border, or the Mason-Dixon Line?"
So You had a pretty good idea, right, that she was referring to the US-Mexico border. If You'd asked that and left all that off about passive-aggressive behavior, I don't think You would-a gotten the reply You got.
You're not alone in disliking it pointed out that You're wrong. IMO, You go through some convoluted rationalizations to avoid that idea, tho.
Are there problems understanding all that's going on in these conversations? Indubitably. Not just because You haven't spent as much time here as I have, but also because it's the nature of the written word. Can't compare to face-to-face, right?
I agree with a lotta other stuff You wrote. Me? Anybody who spends ANY time on social media is, in general, a moron. That's just me. But the anatomy of the brain leads one to notice the differences more than the samenesses. And that's where most all-a disagreements come from, from thinking we're inherently different from those "other guys." Only 50% true, by my rule-a-thumb.
Dunno that helps much, but that's the intention. :)
"Are there problems understanding all that's going on in these conversations? Indubitably. Not just because You haven't spent as much time here as I have, but also because it's the nature of the written word. Can't compare to face-to-face, right?"
No, the written word allows for a permanent reference, and an ease of excerpting that isn't possible with the recollection of a face-to-face conversation, even one recorded on video. Writing also enables much more explanatory detail and precision- at least that's potentially the case, if it's taken seriously enough by someone with the skills and erudition to express their ideas with maximum signal and minimum noise.
Comparing that exercise with a face to face conversation, or a spoken conversation via media- of course I don't converse the same way I write online! Oral communications are required to breathe. It's a practical requirement. (A point that hectoring polemicists who deliver diatribes and harangues disregard out of hand- but their goal isn't dialogue, it's obedience.) Whereas once I've written a comment, no matter how extensive, readers can take all the time they need to read it. But I write the way I do in online political discussions and debates for a reason: I know how easy it is for critics and opponents to seize on an opportunity to twist someone else's words. It's a task to write a comment post as if it was a legal brief, exhaustively, with a constant effort to counter every possible way that my words might get twisted, and obviate every possible way that someone might exploit an unaddressed point to fill it in with an unwarranted inference or interpretation.
Writing that way isn't exactly a formula for maximizing readership, much less Pop Star Influencer status. But that's low in my list of priorities. I get that there's a reliable formula for drawing a sizeable audience of fans by espousing some conventionally familiar position tarted up with clever applause lines, snark, and cliched sentiments built on a foundation of implicit assumptions that remain unexamined because the target audience shares a consensus view that they're axiomatic. It's even possible to be sincere about it, I suppose. But in my case, that would be phony.
Instead, my goal is maximum clarity. There's no way to completely stop every last reader from getting me wrong, but in the event that it might happen to occur, I want the problem to be due to flaws of comprehension and inference on the part of the readers, not on account of my flaws of written exposition. And I think I'm mostly successful with that project, because I know that I often bring up a lot of really outre, controversial, even taboo points, but I don't leave room to get ratioed for it. If someone challenges a point in my posts, I answer back. If someone reads my opinions up to the point where they shudder in dismay and quit, or if they find lengthy content-based excursions bo-ring, then that's how it is. But I dare anyone to fade me on the basis of substance.
" But what I tend to do is take a few data points, and draw a general conclusion."
That's what I feel that I can't afford to do. I've been in too many of these rodeos. I can make the time for clear conversation or debate. But I have no time for wheel-spinning exchanges and debates that get mired in mutual ignorance, or an emphasis on subjectivity to camouflage deficiencies of fact and evidence. I think it's pointless to jump to conclusions based on first reports that consist mostly of a handful of data points, some of which might later prove to be unfounded rumors. Snap judgements are for first-order emergency situations.
I write by intuition, 100%. Lotta mistakes. You're without a shadow of a doubt a lot smarter than me besides knowing about Mexico and them. Credit where credit is due.
There was a 43% increase in the murders of black Americans in 2020 compared to the past 10-year average.
Anti-police movement + prosecutors and lawmakers who invoked extreme leniency, forcing judges to release legitimate suspects who then go out and do the same shit if not worse.
There's an ideological culprit here. Everyone knows it.
A 43% increase = what, in actual body count? 10? 100? 1,000? 10,000? What was identity group of the murderers? What zip codes? Pareto's Law asserts the square root of this number will be responsible for half (50%) of the murders -- so where are these murderer's located. And so on.
Even in the 2020's, it was well understood that out of the hundreds of thousands of police-civilian interactions, a miniscule fraction led to violence, and a fraction of those to lethal violence, and in most cases that violence included resisting arrest -- and a black person was more likely to NOT be shot by a policeperson.
But all this rational thinking is a white thing, and de facto white privilege and racist.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/black-americans-paid-enormous-price-for-defund-the-police-movement
So much so that I wonder if the CCP or the globalists are behind it, or if it's just the long march through the institutions.
Obviously, the societal disruption of the covid lockdowns provided the opportunity for an increase in criminal activity.
However, in order to you make a conspiracy indictment, you need to make a plausible argument about means and motive. Established with facts, not conjecture. Attached to a list of the suspects who planned the conspiracy.
Otherwise, you're just playing on emotional triggers of the sort that incite paranoia, for the purpose of Partisan Trash Talk. Which seems to be the focus of commentary by most of the paraticipants in this particular coffeklatch,, hmm?
Oh for FS!
yeah. the nerve of me.
What you meant to say is -- "yeah, the idiocy of me."
The. Southern.Border. Enjoy your coffee.
I suppose I'm expected to fill in the blanks required to extract the intended meaning from the sentence fragment.
Somehow, I could never quite get to do that. This is one reason why I'm not on Twitter.
Enjoy your upvoters.
Those are periods, not blanks. It is a modern device to provide emphasis.Yes written, and oral, communication are changing, but really language always has, at least successful ones. There are things I dislike as well including passive/aggressive comments masquerading as civility or wit.
I still don't get how I'm expected to know what you're talking about on the basis of three words- whether interspersed with periods or not. And the technique of requiring me to guess is, wouldn't you know, a passive-aggressive tactic.
Were you referring to the US-Mexico border, or the Mason-Dixon Line? Or Mexico's southern border, or the Tropic of Capricorn? There's no way to be certain.
And, well, what about it? Clarity is key to political discussions. You can't just assume that every reader automatically knows what you're talking about. Some of us aren't all that automatic.
C'mon man! You *knew* she meant US/Mexican border, right? If not, I shudder? Therefore, why lead a conversation sideways? You're better than that, right?
No, the lack of detail means there's no way to be certain of that...do I really have to explain the problem? I'll do it as thoroughly as I'm able.
I know how often cryptic symbolism gets played on the Internet; it's entirely possible that "The.Southern.Border." was someone's offhanded put-down of the American South, given the lack- the complete absence- of explanatory detail. And also given that there are self-congratulating political comment writers who hold the sort of bumper-sticker stereotypes of the American South that make it conceivable that the phrase is intended as something like an offhanded slam, a punchline reference. (Whether it works as a punchline is a different matter.) Lynne might have been trying to bond with me, with an aside intended as a knock on Those Southern Deplorables. (A non sequitur, given the context, but I've read wilder non sequiturs than that.) Especially given that I've had little exposure to Lynne's comments, and in any event can't be expected to keep track of the political leanings of every other person posting. (Even in the cases where I've gotten acquainted with the overall political slant of a frequent poster, I sometimes forget, or mix the poster up with someone else and require reminding. Anyhow, it's a matter of comparatively minor interest to me; my primary emphasis is on responding to the content of a comment, not its writer. And in cases where the amount of content is as slight and fragmentary as it is when the words "The.Southern.Border." comprise its totality, I've been known to make note of my problems with the inadequacy of such a summary.)
In any event, there's so little information conveyed by the reduction of that observation to three words- "The. Southern. Border."- that even if I realize that Lynne is referring to the border between the US and Mexico- well, what about it? What makes that phrase so evocative that everyone who reads it is supposed to receive the same takeaway? It's a superficial image, and anyone who thinks they're getting some profound information value out of it can only have a superficial fund of knowledge to draw on to inform their response. Reactive snap assumptions are a middlebrow thing. At best. (I have 20 years of participation in Internet political discussions on social media to back me up on that observation. Examples are not at all difficult to find. Although they can be tedious to unpack.)
Lynne, again: "If you are truly that unaware of current events further dialogue is pointless." Okay: granting the inference that she's actually talking about the US-Mexico border, it so happens that I'm "aware" of not only "current events" in the region, but I have a fairly well-informed background on the politics and economy of Mexico (along with the country's Central American national neighbors to the south; Mexico has a "Southern Border", too, and one that's made the news a number of times in recent years.) I'm up on Mexican leaders and governments going back 60, 70 years. The PRI, the PAN, that other party; Echeviera, Lopez Portillo, Raul Salinas, Carlos Salinas, Prieto Lopez, Vincente Fox, Jorge Calderon...Alberto Sicilia Falcon, Jose Egozi, Jose Mata Ballesteros, Miguel Nazar Haro, Adolfo Constanzo...Sante Bario, Michael Levine, Cele Castillo, Kiki Camarena...I'm not only aware of "current events" on the border- both sides of it- I know the back-story. I have a full bookcase to draw on. (Book recommendation: Murder City, by Charles Bowden. 2010.)
But where am I to be expected to begin a reply on that topic? I'm left only to draw inferences on that score. In this case, the inference I'm featuring as most likely is that if I mention anything outside of the fact base held in common by the ordinary run of TV/social media feed couch potato Americans- like references to Mexican history prior to the year 2008, or any reference to border conditions and immigration that doesn't make it all about US- Lynne will be out of her depth. That may not be an accurate inference, but it is a fair statement to say that her post hasn't given me a lot to go on in that regard. And given the fact that more content and context is required and the requirement to solicit more details, it makes the most sense to begin by requesting the most basic level of clarification.
Which I did (albeit indirectly, with a remark alluding to how little readers had been given to draw on, from Lynne's three-word "synopsis.") And I got patronized for it. Which, as I said, is a primary reason why I'm not on Twitter: because it's rife with people who parse their commentary in cryptic shorthand, apparently with the expectation that their remark will prompt observations based on a shared set of assumptions. Even though it's well-known that conversations consisting of brief dialog snippets are rife with the potential for misunderstandings and people talking past each other. (Link references and image quotes aside, that's all Twitter allows for, in the realm of firsthand observations: brevity, and its attendant hazard of unclarity.)
Twitter is that place where people write with the a priori assumption that the meaning of their words is understood- of necessity, because the character limits work against people writing with a maximum of diligence and exactitude, pursuing the goal of writing so that their comments cannot possibly be misunderstood.
I gave You a like, Mascot, for Your effort. But what I tend to do is take a few data points, and draw a general conclusion.
"do I really have to explain the problem?"
And pretty much from that point on, it's mainly condescension and showing how smart You are. Nothing wrong with that. On the issue of Mexico and south-a that, You're acknowledged to be superior.
But all that evades the point. Sorry. I would-a taken You more seriously if I hadn't gone back and looked at Your actual reply:
"Were you referring to the US-Mexico border, or the Mason-Dixon Line?"
So You had a pretty good idea, right, that she was referring to the US-Mexico border. If You'd asked that and left all that off about passive-aggressive behavior, I don't think You would-a gotten the reply You got.
You're not alone in disliking it pointed out that You're wrong. IMO, You go through some convoluted rationalizations to avoid that idea, tho.
Are there problems understanding all that's going on in these conversations? Indubitably. Not just because You haven't spent as much time here as I have, but also because it's the nature of the written word. Can't compare to face-to-face, right?
I agree with a lotta other stuff You wrote. Me? Anybody who spends ANY time on social media is, in general, a moron. That's just me. But the anatomy of the brain leads one to notice the differences more than the samenesses. And that's where most all-a disagreements come from, from thinking we're inherently different from those "other guys." Only 50% true, by my rule-a-thumb.
Dunno that helps much, but that's the intention. :)
"Are there problems understanding all that's going on in these conversations? Indubitably. Not just because You haven't spent as much time here as I have, but also because it's the nature of the written word. Can't compare to face-to-face, right?"
No, the written word allows for a permanent reference, and an ease of excerpting that isn't possible with the recollection of a face-to-face conversation, even one recorded on video. Writing also enables much more explanatory detail and precision- at least that's potentially the case, if it's taken seriously enough by someone with the skills and erudition to express their ideas with maximum signal and minimum noise.
Comparing that exercise with a face to face conversation, or a spoken conversation via media- of course I don't converse the same way I write online! Oral communications are required to breathe. It's a practical requirement. (A point that hectoring polemicists who deliver diatribes and harangues disregard out of hand- but their goal isn't dialogue, it's obedience.) Whereas once I've written a comment, no matter how extensive, readers can take all the time they need to read it. But I write the way I do in online political discussions and debates for a reason: I know how easy it is for critics and opponents to seize on an opportunity to twist someone else's words. It's a task to write a comment post as if it was a legal brief, exhaustively, with a constant effort to counter every possible way that my words might get twisted, and obviate every possible way that someone might exploit an unaddressed point to fill it in with an unwarranted inference or interpretation.
Writing that way isn't exactly a formula for maximizing readership, much less Pop Star Influencer status. But that's low in my list of priorities. I get that there's a reliable formula for drawing a sizeable audience of fans by espousing some conventionally familiar position tarted up with clever applause lines, snark, and cliched sentiments built on a foundation of implicit assumptions that remain unexamined because the target audience shares a consensus view that they're axiomatic. It's even possible to be sincere about it, I suppose. But in my case, that would be phony.
Instead, my goal is maximum clarity. There's no way to completely stop every last reader from getting me wrong, but in the event that it might happen to occur, I want the problem to be due to flaws of comprehension and inference on the part of the readers, not on account of my flaws of written exposition. And I think I'm mostly successful with that project, because I know that I often bring up a lot of really outre, controversial, even taboo points, but I don't leave room to get ratioed for it. If someone challenges a point in my posts, I answer back. If someone reads my opinions up to the point where they shudder in dismay and quit, or if they find lengthy content-based excursions bo-ring, then that's how it is. But I dare anyone to fade me on the basis of substance.
" But what I tend to do is take a few data points, and draw a general conclusion."
That's what I feel that I can't afford to do. I've been in too many of these rodeos. I can make the time for clear conversation or debate. But I have no time for wheel-spinning exchanges and debates that get mired in mutual ignorance, or an emphasis on subjectivity to camouflage deficiencies of fact and evidence. I think it's pointless to jump to conclusions based on first reports that consist mostly of a handful of data points, some of which might later prove to be unfounded rumors. Snap judgements are for first-order emergency situations.
I write by intuition, 100%. Lotta mistakes. You're without a shadow of a doubt a lot smarter than me besides knowing about Mexico and them. Credit where credit is due.
If you are truly that unaware of current events further dialogue is pointless. Have a good remainder of your day.
The rule of law is being destroyed.
On purpose!