domain:questioner.substack.com
This was addressed in one of the holy texts:
More important, unarmed black people are killed by police or other security officers about twice a week according to official statistics, and probably much more often than that. You’re saying none of these shootings, hundreds each year, made as good a flagship case as Michael Brown? In all this gigantic pile of bodies, you couldn’t find one of them who hadn’t just robbed a convenience store? Not a single one who didn’t have ten eyewitnesses and the forensic evidence all saying he started it? [emphasis mine—and note that this was written in 2014!]
I propose that the Michael Brown case went viral – rather than the Eric Garner case or any of the hundreds of others – because of the PETA Principle. It was controversial. A bunch of people said it was an outrage. A bunch of other people said Brown totally started it, and the officer involved was a victim of a liberal media that was hungry to paint his desperate self-defense as racist, and so the people calling it an outrage were themselves an outrage. Everyone got a great opportunity to signal allegiance to their own political tribe and discuss how the opposing political tribe were vile racists / evil race-hustlers. There was a steady stream of potentially triggering articles to share on Facebook to provoke your friends and enemies to counter-share articles that would trigger you.
TL;DR: controversial topics go more viral than benign ones.
Edit: also, to address the specific case of George Floyd, at the time, the video footage that went viral was very chilling to watch. (Or so I’ve been told by friends, conservative ones, who had watched the video; as a rule, I try to avoid viewing such things.) When one sees a man being choked to death slowly over the course of eight minutes while protesting “I can’t breathe!” then it’s hard not to viscerally feel that an injustice has been committed. (And if I remember correctly, the video went viral long before the man’s extensive prior criminal history or fentanyl usage became common knowledge.)
raakaa
6hr ago
Are you confusing the real economy and market with the dating market?
I don't think this engaged with Prima's question about why women would settle for poor […] boyfriends
Evidently there is a link between the real market and the dating market.
(And if the descriptor “stupid boyfriends” means “un(der)educated boyfriends”, then “women taking out massive loans for fake degrees that don't pay” is an example of another “market distortion” identified in the original comment that affects the dating market. Now, there’s nothing inherently gendered about this strategy, so a man who is willing to sacrifice earning potential in order to meet the criterion of not being a “stupid boyfriend” can do so. But then he gives up his ability to not be a “poor boyfriend”, so he fails that criterion too.
None of this addresses the “not being a ‘smelly boyfriend’” criterion, of course.)
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
6hr ago
One of the HPD officers that had arrested Floyd is serving a 60 year sentence for felony murder for the 2019 Harding Street raid, a "drug bust" on fabricated evidence that killed two white homeowners with no major criminal history.
Was Floyd picked as a figurehead because he was a criminal, rather than in spite of this?
I've been wondering about this from time to time over the last couple of years. I'd like to know if there's a term for this political strategy, if indeed it exists.
Surely there were some truly "innocent", non criminal black men - or black women, as the media would spin the 'racism crisis', but I gather it is pretty rare for women of any color to be murdered by cops - who were killed by cops in dubious circumstances, and could have been picked out by the BLM movement as their martyr? I'm not American and am not very familiar with the issue, but I do vaguely remember a few cases of egregious police brutality against black men without criminal records and without meth addictions, maybe even during the same time period in the year 2020. Rather than someone with a long criminal record and two types of hard drugs in his system.
If indeed this was done on purpose; why? May it be in order to make the pill harder to swallow for political opponents? And with the movement becoming unstoppable as they hoped for, it resulting in a bigger political win? If people went along with protesting for a criminal, they'll definitively be very likely to do it for actual decent people too...?
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
6hr ago
It’s not politics if people aren’t angry. Nothing to apologize for. Feel free to ask away as long as you find value in it.
(Also that’s just WhiningCoil don’t worry about it.)
2rafa
6hr ago
It would not be wholly surprising to see Vance finish out the term but I think he has (very, very) far from a clear path to victory in 2028 even in that scenario.
astrolabia
6hr ago
What kinds of people have the power to end Trump? His staff?
FoundViaTwitter
6hr ago
beauties like Wind Waker.
Man, the visuals in WW hold up so well.
4doorsmorewhores
6hr ago
I don't understand this response. What do spurious degrees, the failed debt forgiveness plan, or "cartel-like" (????) behaviour of HR have to do with the dating market? Are you confusing the real economy and market with the dating market? I don't think this engaged with Prima's question about why women would settle for poor stupid smelly boyfriends
FoundViaTwitter
6hr ago
Ok, I'm not trying to make you angry here. I'll stop asking questions.
In fact I wonder why the WSJ didn't leak the actual letter. The WSJ reporter saw the alleged letter and was able to transcribe its entire text, yet they couldn't release an image of the letter? My guess is that it's a shoddy fake and that if the internet got to see the letter itself then the charade would fall apart immediately. But if the WSJ "journalist" puts his head in the sand and turns off his brain, they can legitimately say they had no idea it was fake.
The idea that the WSJ wouldn't have the resources to make a decently convincing letter seems weak though. Some sort of legal strategy or source protection makes sense.
It's also possible that they don't even have a copy of it itself, like if a whistleblower snuck the paper out of the files, showed the journalist, and then snuck it back in and they don't want to leave any hard evidence behind the security violations while still getting the info out. Hell maybe even a journalist got snuck in to see the files directly, but that's unlikely.
hydroacetylene
6hr ago
If Vance has a chance to take Trump out now, he'll almost certainly get another one after the midterms- and he has to take the presidency after the midterms to be able to serve two full terms. Better to get six months that way than three years this way.
WhiningCoil
6hr ago
This is the thing I don't think people grok.
I DID. They lasted about 4-6 years each. That's how much fucking immigration is happening! Every time I have this argument with people, they act like history started yesterday, and the areas that are full of 3rd worlders always were and you should have known better than to live there if that's not what you wanted, and the areas that are still American always will be and are there for you if that's what you want. And if the naked falsehood of that hasn't been made plain by my abridged life story RE: Immigration, I don't know what else I can do to make you understand.
phailyoor
6hr ago
I've never been to one but I've read that the exchange stores on US military bases have good prices and also makes a profit for the government. My understanding is that they are run by the US government directly.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
6hr ago
Idk, timing is pretty tough, if you have Trump on the ropes you put him away, you don't let him recover so you can knock him out in the fourth round.
FoundViaTwitter
6hr ago
I see. I'm sorry for all this. I hope your life improves.
I'm not trying to be flippant, and of course your circumstances may have been such that you couldn't and still can't move away, but why not go to a majority white area to get away from all the immigrants you despise? Idaho? Montana? Missoula is like 80% white city-wide and 95% white in the suburbs. That's just one example; there are many places in America to go to - plenty of places even in Virginia if you're still here - to live among white people.
Thanks for that. I actually got a dark chuckle out of it.
I was thinking since last night if I wanted to address that comment. Would it be worth my time? Would anyone even read it and contemplate what it's like to have had those experiences repeatedly? Can I even write it without getting worked up and using a no-no word or a turn of phrase that will get me perma banned? I wrote it over and over probably 3 or 4 times, deleting and thinking it's not worth the effort or it's too risky. But when I finally sacked up and had a version of the post I thought would pass, in the back of my mind I wondered if anyone would even read it, or would it just be dismissed out of hand. Fitting that the first comment, so hot on it's heels, is just rank "I don't believe you".
Yes, I know people don't believe me. That's why I'm so angry all the time.
hydroacetylene
6hr ago
It seems like the obvious way to square this circle is that Israeli forces are being generally indiscriminate in Gaza and the officer who ordered a potshot at Holy Family Parish did not realize this was a location to be treated with kid gloves(which it does). The Israeli government did not want to destroy the church or they would have presumably done it via artillery fire that 'missed'. They also let cardinal Pizzaballa visit and call more attention to the place.
iprayiam3
7hr ago
Sun Fresh market isn't government run and never was...the store owner bailed out, but the city, not wanting to see their strip mall project go bust, gave a nonprofit millions in cash to keep the store afloat.
Yeah I'm not seeing what you're getting at here. Sure, no specific scheme is going to be exactly like the other, but no 'gov owned, staffed by gov employees' grocery store is going to happen, this is the closest thing to it that you will get in America. I think you're splitting hairs.
hydroacetylene
7hr ago
Vance is smart and utterly ruthless. That scares people.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
7hr ago
It's not uncommon to only indirectly hear about a place, or maybe even visit briefly (as a tourist) and see only the positive side of things. Negatives tend to be more stochastic and harder to evaluate on short time scales. I think plenty of folks have visited the Japan of high-speed public transit and anime, but not seen, say, the sky-high conviction rates of those that raise the ire of prosecutors, or the controversial shrines to WWII troops that committed war crimes. Or the UK, visiting all the Royal tourist spots, never getting harassed by police at odd hours over edgy Twitter posts. Or China, where they advertise clean, modern urban centers, just don't ask about what happened in 1989, or about Tibet or Xinjiang. Or Singapore, as long as you don't bring gum or spray paint.
I think at some level most places have skepticism of public servants. My typical interaction with (American) police is polite and professional, but I'll believe accounts that they're sometimes not.
WandererintheWilderness
7hr ago
Shame on the government for allowing a fentanyl crisis to fester and claim lives, you might equally say.
WhiningCoil
7hr ago
You may have had much more negative experiences with immigrants.
To put it bluntly, yes.
I've written about it here and there. I'll try to give a concise summary of my grief and sense of loss. Of late I've been stuck on the "Anger" step, and I question whether I'll ever move beyond it and find "Acceptance".
I was born in the 80's. In the late 90's for reasons that are utterly baffling to me, my Virginia town began to get flooded with illegal immigrants. The first impact this had on my life was when two Mexicans with mustaches were put in my middle school classroom. They beat the shit out of us, were totally uncontrollable, and were there about 2 weeks. It was weird. Very weird. It foreshadowed much of what was to come.
By highschool my town was getting a bit of a reputation. Illegals were renting properties, and then cramming them with insane numbers of people who utterly destroyed them. Lower class white areas became even worse ghettos over the course of a few years. Gang activity increased. A curfew on teenagers was instituted county wide. It became dangerous to drive through town. The most common scenario was some unregistered beater an illegal bought second hand would slam into you going the wrong way down a one way street, or blowing through a red light. A half dozen day laborers would flee the vehicle and vanish into the ether, and your car would be totaled. A buddy of mine had a worse experience, and a gang of illegals tried to pull him out of his vehicle at a stop light. As he tells it, he gouged out one of their eyes and sped through the light as quick as he could. He worked as a bouncer at the time, I can believe it.
At some point my town passed some Arizona style immigration crackdown laws, but the courts denied us them. The decision was basically only the feds can enforce immigration law, and if they wanted my town to become a lawless foreign colony, it would. And it did.
I moved away, I started working. A coworker of mine's family (Brother's wife and daughter) were raped and killed by an illegal immigrant house painter when he was left alone with them. I regularly encountered drunk Mexicans in the middle of the road at night, trying to visit friends or just do some late night shopping. They'd just be stumbling down the middle of the damned road on a blind turn, 45 mph speed zone, trying to make a vehicular manslaughterer out of me.
I moved again. Things were OK for a while. The massive unchecked immigration continued. I found my wife, though we weren't married yet. We started finding bullets along the walking trails, and there were increasing reports of B&E's and shots being fired into random homes for gang initiations. One family found their daughter's bedroom window had been shot through, and her pillow had been hit. Luckily she hadn't been in her bed at the time. At some point there was a hostage situation in the house behind us that ended when the retard lit fire to his own home and then charged the police with a knife.
I moved again. Things were OK for a while. Then they got weird again. The gas station on the corner I always filled up at in the morning started getting robbed with some regularity. People started stopping me in the street, yelling at me for money. The last straw was when someone was shot in my town home parking lot, shooter on the loose, and me with a 3 month old baby at home. I arrived home from work to police positively swarming the block, and my wife terrified.
I moved again. Things are OK so far. But my nation is dead and rotting. I know the rot will follow me again. I don't know what to do or where to go to give my children a future anymore. I went back to my home town for a parade at some point. When you have kids anything to do sounds good. The museum to the accomplishments and hardships of my ancestors had been "renovated". It now celebrated the fictitious diversity my town has always had. The paving stones with names of donors, including my grandfather, had been unceremoniously torn up and sent to the dump. The compact with generations past that they would be remembered sent to the dump along with them. So it goes to be conquered.
Excellent reply. Thank you!
More options
Context Copy link