What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[Admiral Yi]

I've got a question for you Shelf, one that just popped into my mind.

Would you be in favor or opposed to throwing a cop who you believed was justified in killing a black person under the bus?

[Eddie Teach]

The question is....why? What is the purpose for responding to the debate about whether some prominent politician should be calling to abolish the police with these comments about race?

LOL. She is only prominent because she is one of the most left wing members of the democratic caucus and makes provocative statements that republicans like to use it ads to scare people. She is just a backbench activist.

Any member of Congress would be considered prominent in their community.

[Valmy]

So every member of congress is a prominent politician?

[Eddie Teach]

Pretty much.

[Berkut]

So every member of congress is a prominent politician?

Prominent enough that when they lodly proclaim something really fucking stupid they are going to be noticed.

Jesus, is THIS where we are now? It was ok because she wasn't "prominent" enough? It is going to get replayed on every right wing show and plenty of non-right wing shows for, well, forever. It will, I predict, result in Democrats not being elected who might have been elected otherwise.

[Sheilbh]

I've got a question for you Shelf, one that just popped into my mind.

Would you be in favor or opposed to throwing a cop who you believed was justified in killing a black person under the bus?

What do you mean by throwing them under the bus?

I mean I'm not sure that justification matters very much. So I can definitely imagine deaths which I could see being lawful but unjustified - in England there was a case where a police marksman killed a man carrying a table leg in a plastic bag, the marksmen had been told that was a rifle. There is no justification to kill an unarmed man walking with a table leg - there's no good reason for it. But I can see why it is lawful and the failure isn't personally on that marksman but on the wider operation/it's an institutional failure. I think this is probably the case with the de Menezes shooting as well (of course the gold commander on that operation not only didn't face consequences for the failures of that operation - she's now Met Commissioner ).

[Valmy]

So every member of congress is a prominent politician?

Prominent enough that when they lodly proclaim something really fucking stupid they are going to be noticed.

Jesus, is THIS where we are now? It was ok because she wasn't "prominent" enough? It is going to get replayed on every right wing show and plenty of non-right wing shows for, well, forever. It will, I predict, result in Democrats not being elected who might have been elected otherwise.

Democrats are also going to pretend all Republicans are Marjorie Taylor-Greene. It is just how it goes. 100% party discipline is impossible with these huge big tent parties. There are always going to be fringe members of congress saying nutty things.

[Admiral Yi]

What do you mean by throwing them under the bus?

I mean I'm not sure that justification matters very much. So I can definitely imagine deaths which I could see being lawful but unjustified - in England there was a case where a police marksman killed a man carrying a table leg in a plastic bag, the marksmen had been told that was a rifle. There is no justification to kill an unarmed man walking with a table leg - there's no good reason for it. But I can see why it is lawful and the failure isn't personally on that marksman but on the wider operation/it's an institutional failure. I think this is probably the case with the de Menezes shooting as well (of course the gold commander on that operation not only didn't face consequences for the failures of that operation - she's now Met Commissioner ).

By throwing them under the bus I mean imposing a harsher penalty than would be fair.

What do you mean by saying you're not sure that justification matters very much?  Surely you can't mean that all police killings are unjustified, but I can't figure out how else to interpret that.

[Razgovory]

So every member of congress is a prominent politician?

Prominent enough that when they lodly proclaim something really fucking stupid they are going to be noticed.

Jesus, is THIS where we are now? It was ok because she wasn't "prominent" enough? It is going to get replayed on every right wing show and plenty of non-right wing shows for, well, forever. It will, I predict, result in Democrats not being elected who might have been elected otherwise.

Democrats are also going to pretend all Republicans are Marjorie Taylor-Greene. It is just how it goes. 100% party discipline is impossible with these huge big tent parties. There are always going to be fringe members of congress saying nutty things.

How many Republicans do you think would vote differently than Greene on a police reform bill?  I'm putting the number at around 0.

[Sheilbh]

By throwing them under the bus I mean imposing a harsher penalty than would be fair.

So I think the way to establish what's fair is investigations and trials if a crime's been committed, possibly firing/internal disciplinaries if it's not a crime but not what we should expect of a police officer. I can see an argument where someone gets moved or assigned permanent desk duty even if it's found they did nothing wrong because there's just no trust in them/perceptions - they are a public service and they need to maintain public confidence or they can't do their job.

And I think the same goes for doctors or nurses and negligence - and there have been a number of scandals here where I think the doctors have got off very, very lightly.

What do you mean by saying you're not sure that justification matters very much?  Surely you can't mean that all police killings are unjustified, but I can't figure out how else to interpret that.

I think justification is in the eye of the beholder and its moral and a question of is it right to kill someone. I don't think that's a particularly helpful frame for looking at the police - and to be honest that is stuff I don't want the police to be thinking about, because that's not their job. To me justification applies more to a Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman sort of situation - is someone who isn't, on occasion, authorised to kill people justified in doing so.

The job of the police is protecting the public and investigating crimes. In doing that there may be times when it is necessary for the police to use force and kill people. And we've set out rules of when they can and can't do that. So for me the key questions are whether are operating within those rules and if those rules are fit for purpose (for example is there a route to deal with institutional failures like de Menezes).

I don't think there's much point in assessing each incident separately for whether it is justified or not (and, as I say, I don't think it's appropriate for the police). Rather are they within the rules of when we allow the police to kill people or not? If they are, then it seems to me that the rules are too lax.

[Admiral Yi]

I get the feeling this line of inquiry makes you very uncomfortable.

Yes, trials are great.  But we have people saying that the results of certain trials (or the decision to not press charges at all) was immoral and unethical.  So just leaving it to trials doesn't absolve us of the moral responsibility to judge for ourselves.

The same applies to the second part, which you sort of stumbled into with your comment about the rules being too lax.  If you think the rules are too lax, you need to make a moral judgement about what rule would be just right.

[PDH]

The problem, of course, is history.  There is a large body of evidence that the system has not treated persons of color fairly over the past century (and more), and so while the people who have not been treated badly do not see systematic problems, for those who have there is always the undercurrent of "cover-up" and "two systems" at play.

I have not heard how we address this.

[crazy canuck]

I get the feeling this line of inquiry makes you very uncomfortable.

Yes, trials are great.  But we have people saying that the results of certain trials (or the decision to not press charges at all) was immoral and unethical.  So just leaving it to trials doesn't absolve us of the moral responsibility to judge for ourselves.

The same applies to the second part, which you sort of stumbled into with your comment about the rules being too lax.  If you think the rules are too lax, you need to make a moral judgement about what rule would be just right.

Is "certain" your codeword for "unfair", "flawed" or "unjust".   Or are you suggesting that all trials ever held in the history of your country (or anywhere else for that matter) have been fair, properly conducted and just?

[Zoupa]

So every member of congress is a prominent politician?

Prominent enough that when they lodly proclaim something really fucking stupid they are going to be noticed.

Jesus, is THIS where we are now? It was ok because she wasn't "prominent" enough? It is going to get replayed on every right wing show and plenty of non-right wing shows for, well, forever. It will, I predict, result in Democrats not being elected who might have been elected otherwise.

And once again, we're back to not alienating centrists. Listen dude, people have agency. If they choose to vote R even after the display of the last 4 years, they were never going to vote D.

"Well I was going to vote D but then a congresswoman said she wants to abolish the police!!! Now I have to vote with the folks that stormed the Capitol, I have no choice! The evil Democrats made me do it!"

Give me a break. Those folks could vote third party, not vote, vote D and advocate for changes within the party etc.

That one tweet from a relatively unknown congresswoman is not what will make them vote R.

[DGuller]

Give me a break. Those folks could vote third party, not vote, vote D and advocate for changes within the party etc.

You do know that if those folks vote third party or not vote, that's half the effect of them voting for R, right?