All these daft 'protests' are more a fashion statement than a serious political action - bit like silly goal celebrations, or wearing your jeans half way down your arse.

Edited by hedgehog50 (27 Sep 2017 8.02am)

We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. [Orwell]

Doesn't seem like it to me, it appears to have obtain massive publicity, and got debate going on a national level - The president of the US appears to think its very political and important.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

When you have a country with more guns than people you have a problem.

What you raise is one of the fundamental problems within American culture that isn't going to be solved anytime soon...The right to bear arms and a fundamental suspicion of the government that goes beyond criticism and for a percent seeing it as a pseudo enemy...The seeds of that lies at the heart of their constitution....it's apart of the majority's mental make up and gives its states their independent spirit and identities.....Like everything else it's sometimes taken too far.

In reality we can only hope that common sense sees them reducing the worst affects of those culturally negative beliefs.

You are right.....when it's your job to deal with criminals all day you become desensitized to them. A lot of their behaviour is so low ethically that it is easy to dehumanise them because that's what plenty of criminals have already done to the Police themselves as they do their victims. As the Police are their on first principles to protect the public you can easily see why the 'them and us' mentality is inevitable.

In an atmosphere like that you require a mentally strong and very importantly calm logical individual who stays calm in the heat of action......Those kind of people are ideal and not littered around the place.....and often individuals like don't want to do such a demanding and relatively low paid high hassle job like Police work.

You know that reality is what often annoys me when the middle classes in the media slag off police. It's a hard but vital job that most of them wouldn't let their own children go a mile near. Yet like social workers it's a job they are happy to finger point at and smear.....Yet when they need them it's suddenly very different.

It's this ongoing chance that you will come into a life and death situation that means that we will get fifty fifty situations on the appropriateness of an action as well as totally wrong reactions. Stress situations that involve instant decisions involving guns always provide for the chance of safety first reactions....safety for the officer(s) death for the criminal/victim/whatever they were. When you add this to the bad apples that every profession will get then tragedy.....well it's inevitable.

It's inevitable in societies where police don't have guns so it's multiplied many times in ones that do.....Of course the institution is going to protect their own...They see outsiders who don't really understand or care about the nature of their job assigning 'evil' motives to them and know the damage to morale leaving officers out to dry would have to keeping people and recruitment.....Sometimes it turns out they are right to do it and sometimes not.

It's why body cams are essential both for the Police's safety and the public.

With the conspiracy theorist mentally being so popular....and with the help of attention seekers plus the democrats playing race and victim cards to get their votes you get communities treating the Police as the enemy....despite many of their own communities being within those forces. It just embeds the problem....which isn't going to change.

Edited by Stirlingsays (27 Sep 2017 1.51pm)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Well said that man. A salient and fair minded take.

This paragraph perfectly encapsulates your misunderstanding of the entire issue here.

Yes, the police have a duty to protect the public. What you seem to miss is that "the public" includes people they stop on the street for having a broken tail light or selling loose cigarettes or having outstanding child support payments - just a fraction of the "crimes" for which black men have been killed by police while offering no direct threat to the officer or other member of the public.

Yes, I can see how dealing with the public can result in the police becoming desensitized. But how is it that this manifests itself in violence towards "the public" in a vastly disproportionate way when said public is black? Surely, if it was a general malaise, the episodes of excessive response by officers would be statistically consistent across racial groups.

The point of the protest is that a black man is at a far greater risk of being killed by police during an otherwise routine interaction, even when exhibiting total compliance with the law and the officer's instructions. The fact that there's a massive long thread about this subject on a message board for a south London football club proves that the protest has worked. You can continue to pretend that you don't understand, but as loud as you whine, you can't unring this bell.

Edited by Ray in Houston (27 Sep 2017 3.08pm)

We don't do possession; we do defense and attack. Everything else is just wa**ing with a football.

Absolute f***ing bulls***. Again.

You only have to look at one of the many videos on the internet to see what amounts to cold blooded murder by police who get off scot free to gain even the smallest understanding of why people are pissed off.
Oh man of free speech doesn't like it when coloured people use that right. Why shouldn't they have that right?

Ooh what they're protesting doesn't paint the people I support in a good light. I know I'll accuse the people with an issue they want to share as being virtue signallers. That's an easy cop out. w***ers for showing some empathy, that's what they are for you and your ilk Stirling.