(07-12-2016 10:26 AM)Florida RedWolf Wrote: Last night, Megan Kelly had a live audience on her Fox network show. The discussion focused on the police and the nightmare that we have today. One audience member made the suggestion that to eliminate our problem, that all police departments should be banned and eliminated. How do you have a rational intelligent discussion with someone so stupid? Anyone?
I think the "eliminate all police" argument is interesting (not feasible, but interesting) because, in a way, it unites an extremely "left" (WhateverTF that means anymore) position with views of extreme libertarians who feel that EVERYTHING works better when it's privatized. They both seem like baby and bathwater views to me, and they're both going to require some concession to the other end of the spectrum for any progress to be made.
I think everyone on this board could agree that if everyone were to take personal responsibility for their own actions, we'd get out of this mess. Hell, if everyone were really honest about it, we COULD eliminate the police. But it's not going to happen, so we have to figure out how we, as a group of fellow citizens, are going to make our country better. And for ALL of us, it's going to involve some concession to those who disagree with us.
Even if you're right, you're going to have to concede something. Even if the revolution you have in mind actually IS the key to stopping what everyone perceives as a vicious cycle, it's not going to happen. We fought a revolution to set up a government where revolutions aren't necessary...or at least easily achievable...anymore. We ARE capable of working together, but most of us will have to get less than what we want out of the deal. At times, we may even have to actually examine our own values and come out of the argument with a different opinion! (Now THAT would be a revolution!)
Of course, one thing our two-party system does pretty well is to ultimately put people in power who are actually pretty moderate (however extreme your news source wants to portray Obama, or Hillary, or W, or whoever). So we'll probably end up being okay here. But until then, the blame game is just going to make us angrier and angrier.
Final, unrelated thought: For those of you who, like me, were born in the 70s and grew up in the south, if you really think that race can't be an issue in the way "the system" plays out, you either (1) grew up in a place very different from where I did, or (2) are ignoring something that you've observed somewhere along the way. I can't believe the openness with which racist white folks are still willing to be racist around me, apparently assuming that I'll agree because I'm white too. I'd be naive to think that this doesn't play itself out as prejudice from those in authority at times. Does that mean every example we're shown is about race? That race is the only factor? Of course not. But I can't deny that it's there.