July 11, 2016

Thoughts on the Dallas police shooting (Part 2 of 2)

Continuing the thought exercise on race and police shootings, (you can find Part 1 here), I neglected to mention on Saturday that my thoughts and prayers are with the loved ones of the murdered police officers. The loss of any human life is tragic, but double so for those who selflessly serve others in the community.  Police officers and Firefighters have some of the riskiest jobs around and they deserve our appreciation, not our hatred.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Yq1iZjSpY

The police walk a fine line in our society.  As a civil libertarian leaning person, I do not want the police to intrude into my life whatsoever.  I don't live in a police state (admittedly in Canada, but the police here are relatively similar to the police in America - more on that later), and I'm sure most people do not want to live in a society like that either.  On the other hand, how often do we see TV interviews with victims or witnesses to a crime saying "the police never came!" or "it took forever for the police to get here!"?  The job itself is often thankless and difficult and finding the right balance for everything from police visibility in your neighborhood to the appropriate level of response to a situation that protects victims of crimes, perpetrators of crimes and the police themselves is something that cannot come down to a formula.

It's tricky.  It's complex.  And a lot of people with a civil libertarian attitude or an inherent bias of their own or a chip on their shoulder do not help matters.

On the weekend I also came across this video made by country music singer Coffey Anderson.  It's simple, it's sensible, and helpful.  Looking at the comments he got a lot of backlash for this video (along with a lot of positive comments).  The negative comments are ridiculous because he's trying to help.

Stop the Violence Safety Video for when you get pulled over by...
What do you actually do when you get pulled over by the police? Here is a video that helps diffuse tension at traffic stop, it gives solid steps into ways of staying safe, and getting home. SHARE this. It's a must for all to see and show to your loved ones.
Posted by Coffey Anderson on Thursday, July 7, 2016
Granted, it seems a little bit police state-y to have to go through this if you get pulled over by police (regardless of your race), but it something we should all think about because it makes the situation easier for all concerned.  If you have no reason to hide anything (okay, maybe you were speeding but you did nothing else wrong), then it's a small price to pay for actually having police around and not so full of adrenaline when you don't need them to be, and prepared to react with force when it is required.  Every little bit helps, and if you aren't willing to do even that, you are just being negative for negative purposes.  If that is the case, I have little respect for your opinion because you are not offering any positive solutions you are merely complaining for the sake of complaining.

Ben Shapiro destroys that position in the video below, particularly from about 2:15 onward (he uses some short-hand arguments that I would take issue with per Part 1 of this discussion, but he is predominantly correct).



The point is do not make this about race, because if there is a problem with police training and how they react to situations, it is not a black and white issue (no pun intended). By that I mean that police are not given one set of instructions to deal with African Americans and another set of instructions to deal with white people. There is no institutional racism unless you count the Democrat party which promotes social policies that relegate African Americans to poverty and social second class by leveraging welfare to perpetuate poverty and single mother households in poorer class. That's not even institutional racism, it's institutional classism.

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