Considering my first major was in fact related to Sociology, yes. I've taken plenty of Sociology. I just don't look at the information and draw the same conclusions that you do. The laws were made and written by a white "ruling class" as you call it, because... SHOCKER it has been predominantly a white man's world in politics in the U.S. for.... Oh...... 236 years now? I think it's safe to say even with the advances that are made in each election cycle, we have a ways to go before we can truly say that there is a "level playing field" so to speak.
It's part of what doomed the Republican party in the most recent election. Look at the exit polls. They were were utterly destroyed by the "Non White Male" vote.
Congratulations, you found a Major City's police force that has been caught doing something terrible. You've done it! There are the facts, the entirety of the Police Force in all the land of the United States are corrupt and dirty! They are all Facist Pig Scum! THEY ALL DO THE SAME THING. EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM. Let's go ahead and lambaste them all based on it. Hell, while we're at it, let's toss Sheriff Joe in the mix of proof, along with the police officers from San Fran, and the idiots from New Orleans after Katrina, and the ones that started this whole thread, and draw wide sweeping conclusions. Let's go ahead and look at my home town. about 10 years ago, a group of three cops got busted with illegal cell phone scanning devices. About 5 years before that, in a Police Raid on a home that contained a group of men cooking, packing, and distributing Crack Cocaine, a kid got shot during a raid, just because they were running away in the dark with something in their hand. a tragedy, but an accident.
Surely, my police force is just as crooked and corrupt now as it was when This book was published. The push to clean it up, and get it right was all an illusion. My childhood best friend does his job, purely to keep up the illusion that they care about everyone.
Surely, those cops in my home town, and the few cops from the post Katrina Bridge Murders, and the corruption in San Fran, and Sheriff Joe, and the Cop who killed the kid that started this whole thing speak for every last cop.
Yep. Good job. You're still painting with a huge brush, because it is what you need to do to prove that the Police are solely there to oppress, and keep the laws that protect the ruling class.
In short, it's what you need to do to keep your opinion looking good.
Corruption exists. It happens. You can point to it, and you can build a fantastically flimsy argument about how it proves that ALL COPS ARE PIG SCUM. You can further bolster this argument by bringing up "all the stuff that goes unreported!" as you have. That claim, does little to further move forward your idea. It doesn't prove it. Not even hand in hand with stories of corruption. For someone who wants to deal with "Facts" and "Observable things" you sure are doing a lot of finger pointing at some "Phantom statistic of the amount of police corruption that goes unreported" in an effort to paint them all in the negative light that you need so that you can prove a point.
Or, you can look at the data, and you can realize that corruption happens. You can realize that there are times when what you say is really what happens. But you can understand that by finding the corruption, you can't paint the entire landscape that way. You work to remove the corruption. Be it in the Government, or Business, or the Police, or even a church. You don't paint them all as Scum because you found corruption. You've essentially lined up 706,886 people, and decided to judge them by the actions of the worst of the worst, because it fits your notion.
I'm pretty sure I could line up 706,886 people who fit some criteria, and then find a healthy portion of that number that are horrible, awful people who cast negative light on the rest of the group.
Wow... I could make several hyperbolic comments here about how that is a type of profiling, but I think most rational people can look at what you've done here, and see it for what it is. A desperate attempt to label over half a million people based on the publicized and sensationalized actions of a minority. Huh. Sort of like what Ashock did to Muslims.
But what you haven't realized, is that even if we do get to your classless society that you so desperately pine for, there will still be those who are tasked with keeping the peace. There will still be those who enforce the laws. Because there will always be people who reject the notions of the society that they are in.
I'm not denying that racial profiling exists. I never have. Don't put words in my mouth. What we disagree on, is that I don't look at the fact that racial profiling exists and Say "OH MY GOD THEY ARE TRYING TO KEEP THE WHITE MAN IN PLACE!" It's a flawed idea that started out with good intentions (EDIT: The idea to reduce crime being the good intention), and went straight to hell from there.
Racism isn't as profitable as you think. If it was profitable, and it kept the ruling class running, Then why didn't Virgil Goode fair better? Why are people blaming him for costing Romney Virginia? Surely, this racist fits right in with your idea of how things work. Why did he lose his race for re-election to Congress? Oh right. Because this isn't the 1960's, and Racism is not really good for business anymore.
And for that matter, if Racism and keeping the "White Ruling Class" in power is what "the Police" and the Bourgeois are tyring to do, HOW IN THE WORLD did we elect a black president? Not once, but TWICE. And the second time, was a rather sound beating of a "White Man" who would represent your "Bourgeois".
It's part of what doomed the Republican party in the most recent election. Look at the exit polls. They were were utterly destroyed by the "Non White Male" vote.
Congratulations, you found a Major City's police force that has been caught doing something terrible. You've done it! There are the facts, the entirety of the Police Force in all the land of the United States are corrupt and dirty! They are all Facist Pig Scum! THEY ALL DO THE SAME THING. EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM. Let's go ahead and lambaste them all based on it. Hell, while we're at it, let's toss Sheriff Joe in the mix of proof, along with the police officers from San Fran, and the idiots from New Orleans after Katrina, and the ones that started this whole thread, and draw wide sweeping conclusions. Let's go ahead and look at my home town. about 10 years ago, a group of three cops got busted with illegal cell phone scanning devices. About 5 years before that, in a Police Raid on a home that contained a group of men cooking, packing, and distributing Crack Cocaine, a kid got shot during a raid, just because they were running away in the dark with something in their hand. a tragedy, but an accident.
Surely, my police force is just as crooked and corrupt now as it was when This book was published. The push to clean it up, and get it right was all an illusion. My childhood best friend does his job, purely to keep up the illusion that they care about everyone.
Surely, those cops in my home town, and the few cops from the post Katrina Bridge Murders, and the corruption in San Fran, and Sheriff Joe, and the Cop who killed the kid that started this whole thing speak for every last cop.
Yep. Good job. You're still painting with a huge brush, because it is what you need to do to prove that the Police are solely there to oppress, and keep the laws that protect the ruling class.
In short, it's what you need to do to keep your opinion looking good.
Corruption exists. It happens. You can point to it, and you can build a fantastically flimsy argument about how it proves that ALL COPS ARE PIG SCUM. You can further bolster this argument by bringing up "all the stuff that goes unreported!" as you have. That claim, does little to further move forward your idea. It doesn't prove it. Not even hand in hand with stories of corruption. For someone who wants to deal with "Facts" and "Observable things" you sure are doing a lot of finger pointing at some "Phantom statistic of the amount of police corruption that goes unreported" in an effort to paint them all in the negative light that you need so that you can prove a point.
Or, you can look at the data, and you can realize that corruption happens. You can realize that there are times when what you say is really what happens. But you can understand that by finding the corruption, you can't paint the entire landscape that way. You work to remove the corruption. Be it in the Government, or Business, or the Police, or even a church. You don't paint them all as Scum because you found corruption. You've essentially lined up 706,886 people, and decided to judge them by the actions of the worst of the worst, because it fits your notion.
I'm pretty sure I could line up 706,886 people who fit some criteria, and then find a healthy portion of that number that are horrible, awful people who cast negative light on the rest of the group.
Wow... I could make several hyperbolic comments here about how that is a type of profiling, but I think most rational people can look at what you've done here, and see it for what it is. A desperate attempt to label over half a million people based on the publicized and sensationalized actions of a minority. Huh. Sort of like what Ashock did to Muslims.
But what you haven't realized, is that even if we do get to your classless society that you so desperately pine for, there will still be those who are tasked with keeping the peace. There will still be those who enforce the laws. Because there will always be people who reject the notions of the society that they are in.
I'm not denying that racial profiling exists. I never have. Don't put words in my mouth. What we disagree on, is that I don't look at the fact that racial profiling exists and Say "OH MY GOD THEY ARE TRYING TO KEEP THE WHITE MAN IN PLACE!" It's a flawed idea that started out with good intentions (EDIT: The idea to reduce crime being the good intention), and went straight to hell from there.
Racism isn't as profitable as you think. If it was profitable, and it kept the ruling class running, Then why didn't Virgil Goode fair better? Why are people blaming him for costing Romney Virginia? Surely, this racist fits right in with your idea of how things work. Why did he lose his race for re-election to Congress? Oh right. Because this isn't the 1960's, and Racism is not really good for business anymore.
And for that matter, if Racism and keeping the "White Ruling Class" in power is what "the Police" and the Bourgeois are tyring to do, HOW IN THE WORLD did we elect a black president? Not once, but TWICE. And the second time, was a rather sound beating of a "White Man" who would represent your "Bourgeois".
nobody ever slaughtered an entire school with a smart phone and a twitter account – they have, however, toppled governments. - Jim Wright