Aren’t we already in a civil war? We certainly are internally which is ever worsening externally. Megyn says since this is an election year it could well be that the media and democrat politicians will spin this Chicago shooting on the south side as yet more evidence of white racism, “systemic racism” in AmeriKKKa. How about the fact that some of the cops involved were black? Doesn’t matter. According to left such cops have simply internalized the anti-black racism which permeates our society. Democrats hype things like this to get blacks to vote for them since they claim to be committed to “anti-racism.” Video is worth watching. Megyn shows clips from police body cams of the shooting. Pretty wild but he was obviously a thug and an example of why these black areas in all our major cities are war zones. It sure would be nice if blacks would take responsibility for their own neighborhoods.
“Officer Involved Shooting in Chicago Becoming Major Media Story.” (13 min)
Valid points. I've come to believe nurture can be a stronger influence than nature. It would be easier to dam a river than to change someone's culture.
And epigenetics, about which I know very little, has proven that environment, i.e., culture, in this instance, can provoke chromosomal changes in a ludicrously small period of time, even a generation, which alter nature.
The longer black American culture is gangsta, the harder it will become to ever change it because the genetics of the people who live by it or have even just resigned themselves to it will have been significantly degraded.
What do we do? Something like the mindset which prompted the new El Salvadoran policing system is probably necessary to save "the black community," but of course it could never be fulfilled in policy.
An interesting observation that I wouldn't attempt to refute. So, we're different breeds, not different races? Like dogs; Dobermans are aggressive by nature, and Beagles are passive. Fair skinned people are _____ and dark skinned people are _____?
No idea, but good thoughts. Also geography/climate etc. could have a large effect on cultures/races/ethnicities (however you want to break it down). I just give nurture less credit after looking at twin studies, and seeing siblings raised in the same environment and turn out totally opposite (one successful/one in jail). To your original point, I will say dogs are all the same species, I'm not sure all humans are. :)
Some human races interbred with other humanoid species and some races did not. Those in Asia and Europe interbred with Neanderthals and those in sub-Saharan Africa did not. This impacts our DNA and on average the groups that did the interbreeding naturally have the highest amounts of Neanderthal DNA and the ones that didn’t have zero to negligible Neanderthal DNA. Further, that average and the average IQ of the race is highly positively correlated. Eg. Asians have highest average IQ, followed by Caucasians, etc. we may not be different species but we certainly have very different genes beyond what is physically obvious.
“
Ancient DNA studies showed that our species and Neanderthals interbred (9) and, therefore, coexisted in some regions (10–12); nonetheless, in other areas of Europe, Neanderthals were quickly replaced by H. sapiens or even disappeared a few millennia before their arrival (13–15). “
That'd be an interesting experiment. Take two people. Indulge one. Deprive the other. Then note the trajectory of their career paths. Twins would be awesome because it would cancel out the effects of cancel culture.
There may not be enough adult black men in that type of neighborhood to straighten out what is happening with the young men. Of course a lot of those adult men are gone because they are either deceased at the hand of another black man, or they are incarcerated. Mostly for crimes of violence against mostly black people.
This truth conflicts with the narrative. In Philly, black guys are overwhelmed with the risks of black on black violence, fatherless homes due to welfare policies, drugs, and false expectations set via grade inflation. If they survive to prison, reality there is unforgiving. LBJ and the Democrats achieved their strategic aim of locking in the black vote and and simultaneously keeping blacks enslaved. Horrible and also a stunning political and social achievement for Democrats. Few blacks other than Sowell, Loury, Malcom X and Barkley really talk about it.
You write some of the most nuanced and compassionate comments on this subject. I am very troubled by the destruction of children, and black neighborhoods are among the places where that is happening. I completely agree with the explanation that the lack of fathers in kids’ homes is critical. In the few cases I personally know about, most of the fathers are physically in the home but are junkies. The girls in these homes are doing much better than the boys, but none of the kids I know are older than 10. It is absolutely tragic to watch kids be destroyed by their family and neighborhood environments.
Kids like this are pretty much impossible to educate. Even Oprah Winfrey gave up on trying to help black kids on the south side in 2007. She said they had no interest in learning and only wanted money from her. She then opened a girl’s school in S. Africa but had to close it a couple of years later due to the girls being sexually abused by teachers and administrators. Blacks are always their own worst enemies.
I found that with the kids I knew personally, when I or someone in the family spent time with them individually, the kids would gradually open up a wee bit about their feelings of failure and hopelessness. I think that if they had enough of the right kind of one to one attention it would be possible to teach at least a certain percentage of them to make another try at learning to read. As I said, their sisters were doing a lot better, including in school, than the boys. The influence of the neighborhoods was massive, and the boys as young as 7 were already mimicking the behavior of street thugs. So if they did learn to read, they might have used the skill for keeping better track of drug sales, but their self-esteem might have been higher as well.
So, would you agree nurture (culture) is as strong of an influence on destiny as nature? Possibly stronger. BTW, Seva, I didn’t intend to high jack your thread, I think Sasha was reviewing the Civil War movie, but I got lost on an external thought.
No I see what you mean. There is physical emancipation but some people can never be mentally emancipated. I emancipated myself not just by bravely rejecting the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave but by recognizing the shackles pinning be to the walls were but shadows themselves. I was free to go. We all are.
Anyways, that's my feel good story of the day. Storytellers are a special breed. Audiences for stories are the essential workers.
I read somewhere recently that Philly has a higher homicide rate than Chicago but Chicago is the one always in the news since the numbers are higher due to the larger population.
North Philly and West Philly are the worst. I went to HS in North and college in West. North is crazy dangerous. Besides the murders there are thousands of shootings and robberies.
I happened to read a WSJ article with a link on RCP a couple of days ago about St Louis. City is ruined due to black wilding and crime. I don’t know of any city with a large black population that’s functional. This is just not working at all.
When I dug into the data on officer involved shootings of black suspects, it turned out that black and Hispanic officers were more willing to shoot black and Hispanic suspects than white officers were. The data also shows that when black suspects were killed by police, the teams that killed them were more likely to be salt and pepper than all white. It would have been really interesting to find out what kinds of verbal and nonverbal cues were exchanged between black suspects and black officers that might have affected the outcome. Or, maybe the critical factor is that black men killing black men is a normalized event.
Not to mention white cops are now scared to death to shoot a black no matter how immediate the danger and likelihood the suspect is a threat to life and limb. Indeed most cops are either quitting or retired in place. In Philly they typically don’t go to the scene until the shooting is over for at least 20 minutes.
I know for a fact that white officers in the local police department have been holding back since well before 2020 not only on using deadly force with black suspects, but even on searching and arresting them for carrying substantial amounts of illegal drugs or suspected stolen property or other offenses that would have resulted in searches and arrests in prior years.
The response times in Portland have been even longer than 20 minutes, and the lack of interest in working here has resulted in even fewer cops on the street than we had after the defund activists did their mischief.
I think that the Chicago shooting is a major story because anyone who sees the video likely can't believe cops could be so inept: they had the guy stopped and fairly well blocked in. The female officer shouts orders while standing directing next to the door. The other officers are around the car, but nobody is apparently leading them.
Then shots are fired - could have been the suspect or another cop that fired - and everything goes to crap, with everyone involved emptying magazines (except for the female cop who runs and hides) sort of in the direction of the suspect. If no one outside of this crazed fusillade was hurt or killed, it's a genuine miracle. It was an absolute travesty of good police tactics and procedures, and no sign of leadership or training is evident.
The newest Marine has learned how to approach a potentially dangerous situation and use fire discipline. These cops are an embarrassment.
Supposedly he fired first and wounded a cop then the rest started firing. I don’t think the cops get much training anymore. Standards are considered racist and therefore minimal plus it’s extremely difficult to find people who want to be cops in cities like Chicago due to the extreme danger. A couple of years ago two Hispanic cops, one male and a female, pulled over a car with expired plates on the west side. Two black guys were in the car. When the cops walked over to the car the female shined her flashlight on them. That was the last thing she ever saw. She was shot between the eyes and instantly killed. Her partner was shot in an eye and somehow survived but the bullet is still in his head and he’s permanently disabled. No thanks. I think I’ll pass on being a big city cop.
I don't know about that incident but it should be clear that those two cops were exposed to the two in the car. Any person dealing with possibly armed suspects should stay to the rear of the C pillar of the car, where the suspect would have to turn around in his seat to aim over his shoulder to shoot. Standing within the view of the suspect and the arc of his firearm's movement is essentially committing suicide.
But just imagine the stress it puts on the cops if even a routine stop for expired plates has to be regarded as a life or death situation. That’s probably why so many cops have just backed off on policing. It’s just not worth it but then that leaves the public in great danger and adds to the social breakdown.
No doubt - but I have known a lot of men who have gotten up day after day to face death or dismemberment and kept going. The whole ethos of law enforcement has to change, or we might as well not even have cops. There are solid, proven tactics that exist to deal with dangerous traffic stops - and they usually based on pairs of cops working as a team. The issue is too-small budgets that put one cop in a patrol car and a useless union that blocks any return to "protectors of the community" and pushes their number one mission is getting home every evening. That's where failures - like Uvalde, and Columbine, and Parkland come from.
I have an observation wrapped in philosophy and vice versa: We're all doing the best we can. The perp, the cop, the judge, the jury. We're all just doing the best we can.
But no. Society must bifurcate itself into approximate halves. One side scapegoats the other and emaciates them of all purchasing power reserving it for themselves. Is it greed or fear? Or is greed and fear two sides of the same coin? I ask you.
Agree that - for the most part, everybody is doing the best that they can. But two parts have to married up for adequate police work: good material and training. Cops have to be intelligent, courageous, and dedicated. We can't have stupid cops, uncommitted cops, or cowards. They have stop hiring people who just can't do the job. We have to get rid of the "comply or die" mentality too.
Training has to comprehensive, realistic and as teams.
This bunch did everything wrong - period. It wasn't under their control that the suspect fired - but their positioning controlled whether any of them would get hit.
I have lived through many, many full-on 100 vs 100 firefights - and I never shot who I didn't mean to and I never wasted rounds. But I had excellent training and magnificent leadership.
It is rather amusing that the journey of “journalists” is the device used to advance the plot. As if there are any real ones left anymore that aren’t propagandists for oligarchs, stoking this very fire.
Journalists have come to believe that they are the most important people in the country and should be running it. It often seems like they are, until one of the multibillionaires who owns their media company decides they are to be replaced like dead light bulbs.
Appreciate the heads up; hard pass on this movie. If you like scenes of violence in the martial arts realm, a fun revenge movie I did see on Amazon Prime was an excellent take off on Zatoichi, only with a Chinese themed Blind Swordsman. The movie is called Eye for an Eye, with English subtitles.
thank you for the recommendation for this movie. mr. CT and i watched it tonight and i really enjoyed it! it reminded me of "once upon a time in mexico" (gotta rewatch that, again, it's been too long!)
Once again, movie makers have lost the bubble on how to make a story that entertains - and who fail to see who actually pays to watch their movies. Movies are meant to be an escape - to live other lives, to learn new experiences, to live vicariously in another world. But Hollywood and all the folks that are linked with them want to just make us change into something no one wants to be and - fun fact - we won't enjoy having that weird stuff shoved in our faces and we sure as hell won't pay money to see it.
Just to inject some reality into the discussion: if a war broke out among us - one where the FBI, NIS, CIA didn't actually know the participants and plans ahead of time - and it got to level portrayed in this silly movie, we would be immediately invaded by China, Russia, and maybe Iran too, while we were in that weakened and distracted state. It's a vastly different world since 1861 and the distances that protected us from outside interference aren't there anymore and there is a significant segment of the world that hates/fears us and can't wait to destroy us. China has even published military documents talking about seizing America for our temperate climate and large areas of arable land. "Lebensraum", as it were.
Disappointing to hear. I was hoping for a more realistic look at things and not a partisan propaganda piece. Not surprising though. It wouldn't have made it to mainstream theaters if it was.
That this movie was made should make it even more obvious that team Red and Blue are way past irreconcilable differences. My fantasy: when Trump wins, the deep Blue states secede. Obama adopts the mantle of Woke Moses, “Let my Woke people go!” Goodbye and good riddance.
I actually thought about this and I think it would be a disaster. Think about it, the West coast secedes and becomes Woke Utopia. We all know it will collapse Venezuela style in short order. China invades and takes over the collapsing country and we build a wall to keep the population from fleeing back into the country they left. Now China has territory in North America and there are Chinese warships in what used to be San Diego Harbor. Crazy? I don't think so. Any country they build will collapse because all socialist nations collapse and then what?
Your scenario is actually the premise of the Kurt Schlichter “Kelly Turnbull” series ( a fun read - recommended). However, a Chinese “Red Dawn” is not realistically feasible in an era of cruise missiles and nuclear weapons. Attacking Taiwan, 100 km off the coast of China is one matter, crossing the Pacific Ocean with an invasion fleet quite another. Troop ships are just floating coffins - look what the Houthi’s have done with cheap underwater drones.
Substack author Max Remington has a very different take on the movie that I thought was interesting. I would say maybe the most troubling thing about another American civil war will be the mass starvation. Probably many millions would die. Also, other countries would probably get involved. It would be catastrophic on many levels.
Here’s a Yahoo News article from The Telegraph about the movie I saw earlier today. Very leftist and typical of Yahoo News articles. I follow Yahoo News to see what they think of us. I believe we cannot coexist or separate and therefore are heading for implosion aka civilizational collapse which is already occurring in all our major cities.
Chicago is being destroyed by city-wide black wilding, crime and carjacking. Nothing can be done about it since the police are way too short handed to deal with it plus a serious crackdown on crime would have a “disparate impact” on blacks which would be considered “racist” and therefore unacceptable. America is disintegrating and our whole world is in a tailspin. I believe only AI can save our sinking ship. We’ll soon see about that.
“I see a working class and rural sort of alliance facing off against a laptop-class urban elite,” wrote one Reddit poster. “Of the two, I can guess who is tougher, more self-reliant and probably has military experience and knows how to use guns. It’s not the investment banker in the Hamptons or the HR executive for a tech firm in Silicon Valley.”
How America’s next Civil War could unfold: ‘It’s looming - the battle lines have already been drawn.’
Tulsi says “This narrative (Woke ideology) is a rejection of objective truth.” In other words, they’ve become insane which is certainly a very unfortunate development but not at all unusual. Anyone familiar with the dreadful history of the ghastly twentieth century would know that this is distressingly common. The democrats are a combination of Hitler’s Nazis (race obsessed fanatics) and Mao’s Red Guard (Equal Outcomes obsessed fanatics). This is what I’ve long known and is confirmed every day as I follow the nuthead fanatics on Yahoo News. This does not bode well for our future.
“Lex Fridman Stunned by Tulsi Gabbard’s Brutal Take on the Democratic Party.” (4 min)
This MSNBC clip takes me beyond my mental coping skills. I haven't watched these people in years. Maria Teresa Kumar is equating deporting "undocumented immigrants" with "targeting our fellow Americans," and blaming us for the fact that all these illegal aliens are invading our country. She is one of those who should be deported, in my opinion.
Even a bad movie, if it reinforces the fantasies of fanatics like Meathead, is going to sell some tickets. The question is whether the writer really thought he had a great story, or was simply pandering to the crazies to sell tickets?
If I could I would just throw away everybody's damn phone. The internet would be shackled to your desktop with a big giant cathode ray tube monitor and only dial up access would be allowed. This would take care of about 85 percent of our current bullshit. We could get rid of the another ten percent by unplugging the internet. The other five percent is permanent and probably normal.
With a budget so huge and with a chance to bring people together, Alex Garland chose not to. If he was just starting out and needed the credits, I might see why, but I think he really does look at the world with single dimension MSNBC goggles.
Thanks for watching this so we don't have to, Sasha.
What this guy said.
Aren’t we already in a civil war? We certainly are internally which is ever worsening externally. Megyn says since this is an election year it could well be that the media and democrat politicians will spin this Chicago shooting on the south side as yet more evidence of white racism, “systemic racism” in AmeriKKKa. How about the fact that some of the cops involved were black? Doesn’t matter. According to left such cops have simply internalized the anti-black racism which permeates our society. Democrats hype things like this to get blacks to vote for them since they claim to be committed to “anti-racism.” Video is worth watching. Megyn shows clips from police body cams of the shooting. Pretty wild but he was obviously a thug and an example of why these black areas in all our major cities are war zones. It sure would be nice if blacks would take responsibility for their own neighborhoods.
“Officer Involved Shooting in Chicago Becoming Major Media Story.” (13 min)
Megyn Kelly. Apr 11, 2024
https://youtu.be/VtTeGeMEOb4?si=ARIAWZOO_k-Z9Wyo
Valid points. I've come to believe nurture can be a stronger influence than nature. It would be easier to dam a river than to change someone's culture.
And epigenetics, about which I know very little, has proven that environment, i.e., culture, in this instance, can provoke chromosomal changes in a ludicrously small period of time, even a generation, which alter nature.
The longer black American culture is gangsta, the harder it will become to ever change it because the genetics of the people who live by it or have even just resigned themselves to it will have been significantly degraded.
The gangstas are systematically genetically malfeasant.
What do we do? Something like the mindset which prompted the new El Salvadoran policing system is probably necessary to save "the black community," but of course it could never be fulfilled in policy.
Doesn't culture basically evolve from the nature of those forming it? Look at civilizations overtime and convince me otherwise.
An interesting observation that I wouldn't attempt to refute. So, we're different breeds, not different races? Like dogs; Dobermans are aggressive by nature, and Beagles are passive. Fair skinned people are _____ and dark skinned people are _____?
No idea, but good thoughts. Also geography/climate etc. could have a large effect on cultures/races/ethnicities (however you want to break it down). I just give nurture less credit after looking at twin studies, and seeing siblings raised in the same environment and turn out totally opposite (one successful/one in jail). To your original point, I will say dogs are all the same species, I'm not sure all humans are. :)
Some human races interbred with other humanoid species and some races did not. Those in Asia and Europe interbred with Neanderthals and those in sub-Saharan Africa did not. This impacts our DNA and on average the groups that did the interbreeding naturally have the highest amounts of Neanderthal DNA and the ones that didn’t have zero to negligible Neanderthal DNA. Further, that average and the average IQ of the race is highly positively correlated. Eg. Asians have highest average IQ, followed by Caucasians, etc. we may not be different species but we certainly have very different genes beyond what is physically obvious.
“
Ancient DNA studies showed that our species and Neanderthals interbred (9) and, therefore, coexisted in some regions (10–12); nonetheless, in other areas of Europe, Neanderthals were quickly replaced by H. sapiens or even disappeared a few millennia before their arrival (13–15). “
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10516502/#:~:text=Ancient%20DNA%20studies%20showed%20that,were%20quickly%20replaced%20by%20H.
The fact that we interbred with them means they were a different race rather than a different species.
That'd be an interesting experiment. Take two people. Indulge one. Deprive the other. Then note the trajectory of their career paths. Twins would be awesome because it would cancel out the effects of cancel culture.
Identical twin IQ scores are very close to each other regardless of environment when raised separately. Go figure.
"Trading Places" was the movie. And no, it wasn't accurate.
Bad thoughts. I like it. But there must be two interesting breeds. 1. The breeders. 2. Those resistant to being bred.
And this could lead to civil war where the breeders wield their special regimental breeds against the broad resistance. R U ready to rumble?
Are you a beaver?
Ha ha. No, but I have some engineering knowledge. I could build a dam if necessary.
And a lodge?
There may not be enough adult black men in that type of neighborhood to straighten out what is happening with the young men. Of course a lot of those adult men are gone because they are either deceased at the hand of another black man, or they are incarcerated. Mostly for crimes of violence against mostly black people.
This truth conflicts with the narrative. In Philly, black guys are overwhelmed with the risks of black on black violence, fatherless homes due to welfare policies, drugs, and false expectations set via grade inflation. If they survive to prison, reality there is unforgiving. LBJ and the Democrats achieved their strategic aim of locking in the black vote and and simultaneously keeping blacks enslaved. Horrible and also a stunning political and social achievement for Democrats. Few blacks other than Sowell, Loury, Malcom X and Barkley really talk about it.
You write some of the most nuanced and compassionate comments on this subject. I am very troubled by the destruction of children, and black neighborhoods are among the places where that is happening. I completely agree with the explanation that the lack of fathers in kids’ homes is critical. In the few cases I personally know about, most of the fathers are physically in the home but are junkies. The girls in these homes are doing much better than the boys, but none of the kids I know are older than 10. It is absolutely tragic to watch kids be destroyed by their family and neighborhood environments.
Kids like this are pretty much impossible to educate. Even Oprah Winfrey gave up on trying to help black kids on the south side in 2007. She said they had no interest in learning and only wanted money from her. She then opened a girl’s school in S. Africa but had to close it a couple of years later due to the girls being sexually abused by teachers and administrators. Blacks are always their own worst enemies.
I found that with the kids I knew personally, when I or someone in the family spent time with them individually, the kids would gradually open up a wee bit about their feelings of failure and hopelessness. I think that if they had enough of the right kind of one to one attention it would be possible to teach at least a certain percentage of them to make another try at learning to read. As I said, their sisters were doing a lot better, including in school, than the boys. The influence of the neighborhoods was massive, and the boys as young as 7 were already mimicking the behavior of street thugs. So if they did learn to read, they might have used the skill for keeping better track of drug sales, but their self-esteem might have been higher as well.
So, would you agree nurture (culture) is as strong of an influence on destiny as nature? Possibly stronger. BTW, Seva, I didn’t intend to high jack your thread, I think Sasha was reviewing the Civil War movie, but I got lost on an external thought.
No I see what you mean. There is physical emancipation but some people can never be mentally emancipated. I emancipated myself not just by bravely rejecting the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave but by recognizing the shackles pinning be to the walls were but shadows themselves. I was free to go. We all are.
Anyways, that's my feel good story of the day. Storytellers are a special breed. Audiences for stories are the essential workers.
I read somewhere recently that Philly has a higher homicide rate than Chicago but Chicago is the one always in the news since the numbers are higher due to the larger population.
North Philly and West Philly are the worst. I went to HS in North and college in West. North is crazy dangerous. Besides the murders there are thousands of shootings and robberies.
I happened to read a WSJ article with a link on RCP a couple of days ago about St Louis. City is ruined due to black wilding and crime. I don’t know of any city with a large black population that’s functional. This is just not working at all.
did you read that in the papers? thanks for passing it on.
When I dug into the data on officer involved shootings of black suspects, it turned out that black and Hispanic officers were more willing to shoot black and Hispanic suspects than white officers were. The data also shows that when black suspects were killed by police, the teams that killed them were more likely to be salt and pepper than all white. It would have been really interesting to find out what kinds of verbal and nonverbal cues were exchanged between black suspects and black officers that might have affected the outcome. Or, maybe the critical factor is that black men killing black men is a normalized event.
Not to mention white cops are now scared to death to shoot a black no matter how immediate the danger and likelihood the suspect is a threat to life and limb. Indeed most cops are either quitting or retired in place. In Philly they typically don’t go to the scene until the shooting is over for at least 20 minutes.
I know for a fact that white officers in the local police department have been holding back since well before 2020 not only on using deadly force with black suspects, but even on searching and arresting them for carrying substantial amounts of illegal drugs or suspected stolen property or other offenses that would have resulted in searches and arrests in prior years.
The response times in Portland have been even longer than 20 minutes, and the lack of interest in working here has resulted in even fewer cops on the street than we had after the defund activists did their mischief.
Bring the NBA to heel by integrating deserving midgets, pygmies and mongoloids into the starting lineups of Lakers, Knickerbockers and Celtics.
Whites kill each other, Jews kill each other, Mexicans kill each other, Arabs kill each other...
Megan Kelly related that Santa Claus and Jesus are white.
I think that the Chicago shooting is a major story because anyone who sees the video likely can't believe cops could be so inept: they had the guy stopped and fairly well blocked in. The female officer shouts orders while standing directing next to the door. The other officers are around the car, but nobody is apparently leading them.
Then shots are fired - could have been the suspect or another cop that fired - and everything goes to crap, with everyone involved emptying magazines (except for the female cop who runs and hides) sort of in the direction of the suspect. If no one outside of this crazed fusillade was hurt or killed, it's a genuine miracle. It was an absolute travesty of good police tactics and procedures, and no sign of leadership or training is evident.
The newest Marine has learned how to approach a potentially dangerous situation and use fire discipline. These cops are an embarrassment.
Supposedly he fired first and wounded a cop then the rest started firing. I don’t think the cops get much training anymore. Standards are considered racist and therefore minimal plus it’s extremely difficult to find people who want to be cops in cities like Chicago due to the extreme danger. A couple of years ago two Hispanic cops, one male and a female, pulled over a car with expired plates on the west side. Two black guys were in the car. When the cops walked over to the car the female shined her flashlight on them. That was the last thing she ever saw. She was shot between the eyes and instantly killed. Her partner was shot in an eye and somehow survived but the bullet is still in his head and he’s permanently disabled. No thanks. I think I’ll pass on being a big city cop.
Yep. I was there. That's exactly what happened. You can't govern the ungovernable by definition.
I don't know about that incident but it should be clear that those two cops were exposed to the two in the car. Any person dealing with possibly armed suspects should stay to the rear of the C pillar of the car, where the suspect would have to turn around in his seat to aim over his shoulder to shoot. Standing within the view of the suspect and the arc of his firearm's movement is essentially committing suicide.
But just imagine the stress it puts on the cops if even a routine stop for expired plates has to be regarded as a life or death situation. That’s probably why so many cops have just backed off on policing. It’s just not worth it but then that leaves the public in great danger and adds to the social breakdown.
No doubt - but I have known a lot of men who have gotten up day after day to face death or dismemberment and kept going. The whole ethos of law enforcement has to change, or we might as well not even have cops. There are solid, proven tactics that exist to deal with dangerous traffic stops - and they usually based on pairs of cops working as a team. The issue is too-small budgets that put one cop in a patrol car and a useless union that blocks any return to "protectors of the community" and pushes their number one mission is getting home every evening. That's where failures - like Uvalde, and Columbine, and Parkland come from.
I have an observation wrapped in philosophy and vice versa: We're all doing the best we can. The perp, the cop, the judge, the jury. We're all just doing the best we can.
But no. Society must bifurcate itself into approximate halves. One side scapegoats the other and emaciates them of all purchasing power reserving it for themselves. Is it greed or fear? Or is greed and fear two sides of the same coin? I ask you.
Agree that - for the most part, everybody is doing the best that they can. But two parts have to married up for adequate police work: good material and training. Cops have to be intelligent, courageous, and dedicated. We can't have stupid cops, uncommitted cops, or cowards. They have stop hiring people who just can't do the job. We have to get rid of the "comply or die" mentality too.
Training has to comprehensive, realistic and as teams.
This bunch did everything wrong - period. It wasn't under their control that the suspect fired - but their positioning controlled whether any of them would get hit.
I have lived through many, many full-on 100 vs 100 firefights - and I never shot who I didn't mean to and I never wasted rounds. But I had excellent training and magnificent leadership.
It is rather amusing that the journey of “journalists” is the device used to advance the plot. As if there are any real ones left anymore that aren’t propagandists for oligarchs, stoking this very fire.
Journalists have come to believe that they are the most important people in the country and should be running it. It often seems like they are, until one of the multibillionaires who owns their media company decides they are to be replaced like dead light bulbs.
The political operatives co-opted the word “journalism” and as Orwell predicted, it now means the opposite of its original definition.
Good point, Libertarian! It might be a bit flattering to call Don Lemon a “political operative,” but even dumb operatives have assigned roles to play.
Appreciate the heads up; hard pass on this movie. If you like scenes of violence in the martial arts realm, a fun revenge movie I did see on Amazon Prime was an excellent take off on Zatoichi, only with a Chinese themed Blind Swordsman. The movie is called Eye for an Eye, with English subtitles.
thank you for the recommendation for this movie. mr. CT and i watched it tonight and i really enjoyed it! it reminded me of "once upon a time in mexico" (gotta rewatch that, again, it's been too long!)
Once again, movie makers have lost the bubble on how to make a story that entertains - and who fail to see who actually pays to watch their movies. Movies are meant to be an escape - to live other lives, to learn new experiences, to live vicariously in another world. But Hollywood and all the folks that are linked with them want to just make us change into something no one wants to be and - fun fact - we won't enjoy having that weird stuff shoved in our faces and we sure as hell won't pay money to see it.
Go woke, go broke.
I haven't seen it; thanks to you all that have. From the outside looking in it appears to be a very failed endeavor.
Aside: Watching "Roadhouse" with Jake Gyllenwhatever vs Patrick Swayze is no contest; Pat, Sam and Kelly sealed the deal back in '89.
The original Roadhouse plot was awesome but was a blatant ripoff of Pale Rider. Which I’m sure was a ripoff of something else.
Pale Rider. Classic. Same with Heartbreak Ridge.
There is a reason good-guy/bad-guy movies reign supreme...
Just to inject some reality into the discussion: if a war broke out among us - one where the FBI, NIS, CIA didn't actually know the participants and plans ahead of time - and it got to level portrayed in this silly movie, we would be immediately invaded by China, Russia, and maybe Iran too, while we were in that weakened and distracted state. It's a vastly different world since 1861 and the distances that protected us from outside interference aren't there anymore and there is a significant segment of the world that hates/fears us and can't wait to destroy us. China has even published military documents talking about seizing America for our temperate climate and large areas of arable land. "Lebensraum", as it were.
“we would be immediately invaded”
We already are being invaded by mostly military age young men that we know nothing at all about who are coming through our open southern border.
Another movie I don’t have to see. Shasha adding value once again.
Disappointing to hear. I was hoping for a more realistic look at things and not a partisan propaganda piece. Not surprising though. It wouldn't have made it to mainstream theaters if it was.
That this movie was made should make it even more obvious that team Red and Blue are way past irreconcilable differences. My fantasy: when Trump wins, the deep Blue states secede. Obama adopts the mantle of Woke Moses, “Let my Woke people go!” Goodbye and good riddance.
I actually thought about this and I think it would be a disaster. Think about it, the West coast secedes and becomes Woke Utopia. We all know it will collapse Venezuela style in short order. China invades and takes over the collapsing country and we build a wall to keep the population from fleeing back into the country they left. Now China has territory in North America and there are Chinese warships in what used to be San Diego Harbor. Crazy? I don't think so. Any country they build will collapse because all socialist nations collapse and then what?
Your scenario is actually the premise of the Kurt Schlichter “Kelly Turnbull” series ( a fun read - recommended). However, a Chinese “Red Dawn” is not realistically feasible in an era of cruise missiles and nuclear weapons. Attacking Taiwan, 100 km off the coast of China is one matter, crossing the Pacific Ocean with an invasion fleet quite another. Troop ships are just floating coffins - look what the Houthi’s have done with cheap underwater drones.
Substack author Max Remington has a very different take on the movie that I thought was interesting. I would say maybe the most troubling thing about another American civil war will be the mass starvation. Probably many millions would die. Also, other countries would probably get involved. It would be catastrophic on many levels.
I looked at the trailer(s) for this. OMG, how pathetic.
"Look at us! We're such brave people! Journalists are the bravest people!" Um, no. You're not brave. You are weak and pathetic. You are narcissists.
You try to raise yourselves by denigrating decent, hardworking people. It doesn't get any more disgusting on a human level than that.
You disgust me. I almost feel sorry for you, but I'm too angry to do that.
Here’s a Yahoo News article from The Telegraph about the movie I saw earlier today. Very leftist and typical of Yahoo News articles. I follow Yahoo News to see what they think of us. I believe we cannot coexist or separate and therefore are heading for implosion aka civilizational collapse which is already occurring in all our major cities.
Chicago is being destroyed by city-wide black wilding, crime and carjacking. Nothing can be done about it since the police are way too short handed to deal with it plus a serious crackdown on crime would have a “disparate impact” on blacks which would be considered “racist” and therefore unacceptable. America is disintegrating and our whole world is in a tailspin. I believe only AI can save our sinking ship. We’ll soon see about that.
“I see a working class and rural sort of alliance facing off against a laptop-class urban elite,” wrote one Reddit poster. “Of the two, I can guess who is tougher, more self-reliant and probably has military experience and knows how to use guns. It’s not the investment banker in the Hamptons or the HR executive for a tech firm in Silicon Valley.”
How America’s next Civil War could unfold: ‘It’s looming - the battle lines have already been drawn.’
Yahoo News. The Telegraph. Apr 11, 2024
https://news.yahoo.com/america-next-civil-war-could-100000275.html
Good for you in doing the opposition research
"I follow Yahoo News to see what they think of us."
And so what have you learned from your research?
Tulsi says “This narrative (Woke ideology) is a rejection of objective truth.” In other words, they’ve become insane which is certainly a very unfortunate development but not at all unusual. Anyone familiar with the dreadful history of the ghastly twentieth century would know that this is distressingly common. The democrats are a combination of Hitler’s Nazis (race obsessed fanatics) and Mao’s Red Guard (Equal Outcomes obsessed fanatics). This is what I’ve long known and is confirmed every day as I follow the nuthead fanatics on Yahoo News. This does not bode well for our future.
“Lex Fridman Stunned by Tulsi Gabbard’s Brutal Take on the Democratic Party.” (4 min)
Rubin Report. Apr 10, 2024
https://youtu.be/4GgCoKXO22c?si=m4B0iQioLwm9oNDZ
Inside Trump’s plan for mass deportations: ‘America is going to target people who are not white’
Yahoo News. NBCUniversal. Feb 25, 2024
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/inside-trumps-plan-mass-deportations-012826457.html
This MSNBC clip takes me beyond my mental coping skills. I haven't watched these people in years. Maria Teresa Kumar is equating deporting "undocumented immigrants" with "targeting our fellow Americans," and blaming us for the fact that all these illegal aliens are invading our country. She is one of those who should be deported, in my opinion.
Nice, straight down the middle article.
If they'd been forbidden to use the term, "far right," they couldn't have written it.
Only AI can save our sinking ship? Seriously? How would that come about?
Follow what’s going on with AI online and you’ll easily find out.
“Elon Musk on AI’s Most Likely Outcome.” (9 min)
Peter Diamandis. Mar 31, 2024
https://youtu.be/rEY0FsnmS00?si=iUc8umjvsHsa6Xch
Even a bad movie, if it reinforces the fantasies of fanatics like Meathead, is going to sell some tickets. The question is whether the writer really thought he had a great story, or was simply pandering to the crazies to sell tickets?
If I could I would just throw away everybody's damn phone. The internet would be shackled to your desktop with a big giant cathode ray tube monitor and only dial up access would be allowed. This would take care of about 85 percent of our current bullshit. We could get rid of the another ten percent by unplugging the internet. The other five percent is permanent and probably normal.
Here is the truth -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vbDfzrh7x4
With a budget so huge and with a chance to bring people together, Alex Garland chose not to. If he was just starting out and needed the credits, I might see why, but I think he really does look at the world with single dimension MSNBC goggles.