Jun 8, 2020

Also, for those of you keeping score and not just stanning Paul and his Self Righteous posts:

Offline I mentioned to @WPG about Biden’s solutions yesterday on police reform, which recently have been adopted by the House as part of their legislative response - had no clue what I was talking about. This is how little familiar he is or Curious about broader solutions outside the echo chamber. (You don’t need to burn urban centers to the ground to solve EVERYTHING...) operating in poor faith. Much easier to feud with the “trolls” and “racists” on an Eminem forum

 

Jun 8, 2020

i can certainly be smug about rap on here—a message board that prioritizes guest verses from a 65-year-old eminem to everything else in the genre—but i’m very obviously not that way in my criticism, on my twitter, in real life, in my texts to you. the twins have the best lineup in baseball

i don’t really find the question of whether i, specifically, am more concerned/caring/whatever than you, specifically, interesting. but for the benefit of the thousands of children who read and internalize this thread before they go to sleep every night, i do think i’m in the right to point out that taking revolts over police murders and misconduct and focusing to the exclusion of all else on property damage, electoral implications, and blind speculation on business futures is myopic at best and obfuscatory at worst.

holy s---—is the bit at the end of your post about ad hom, goalpost moving, and “gaslighting” satire? this isn’t about bernie or even really about ideology, and certainly not about whether you think i’m “adult” enough (are you soliciting nudes?)

why are you more interested in ad hom attacks on me than in defending the actual merits of your views, which as far as i can tell are “protesters are losers who don’t get anything done except when they get too much done”

people are taking a risk to do this because it’s an urgent, direly important cause. in my experience, protesters have been the most conscientious group of all when it comes to wearing masks

truly unbelievable that you continue to bury your head in the sand about the long-term economic harm done by policing—in terms of arbitrarily criminalizing people and thereby destroying families, in terms of driving down property value by creating crime, in terms of leeching resources from social services that might improve people’s lives.

don’t know what this means, nerd!

 

Jun 8, 2020

to be clear this is the proposal where biden believes that wagging his finger and saying “no more chokeholds” will stop the cops from killing people with chokeholds... please look up the new york city laws from the time eric garner was killed

 

Jun 8, 2020

Don’t need to, was already aware. Unlike you, I didn’t just stumble upon this issue bc it was trendy.

Again your smugness and insularity blinds you - when was I talking about the “economic impact” of police brutality? Of course that’s a problem! Your solution is not the only way - it’s just the only one you find fun and enticing. Like with hc. Again you’re operating in extreme bad faith by claiming I’m - what? A a racist troll Trump supporter bc I don’t support your level of tactics. You only react with straw men. Give me some credit, and check your arrogance on an issue occasionally. You’d probably still have a job if you did.

And your Twins assertion pretty much nullifies the rest of your post.

 

Jun 8, 2020

insulting and wrong—look where i was in 2015, cross reference everything i’ve ever said on this issue, etc etc etc

ironic, but go on

you weren’t, which is exactly my point. you’re more concerned with taking an opinion contrary to mine to flex ur muscles on a forum than to engage in good faith with a high-stakes issue. “but what about businesses!!!!!!!” can be part of the discussion if you want but that became, in this thread, your knee jerk response to everything. not a peep about murdered protesters or what you actually think should be done

in all seriousness this is deeply offensive and too far—ppl who are fighting for police abolition are putting their necks on the line in a very real sense, opening themselves up to violent retaliation. this is important stuff and yesterday was a massive first-step victory, but this is a dire situation and people’s lives will hang in the balance, including a lot of my friends—you don’t get to sit here and say i think this is all fun and games

no, i’m drawing the only conclusion possible from your posts: you’re more concerned with the optics of a protest than with solving what’s being protested. if not, tell me— what would you do? how do we fix this if not by fighting to replace police departments?

astros were on a bit of a downswing before all this. yankees are up there but might not hit for enough average. dodgers are probably neck and neck. but twins hit the most homers ever last year, add a full season of arraez, and add donaldson

 

Jun 8, 2020

Conveniently you deleted your tweets before 2016. Huh! I wonder why

You were a standard Obama-Biden supporter by your own admission. For this reason and many others I am deeeeeeply confident your smugness and supposed conviction masks a great deal of overcompensation . Some people just try way to hard to be liked and approved of by their peers I get it.

But anyway, your slams on my character aside, I have to imagine most of America would have a hard time wrapping their head around policies attempting to ensure public safety that would not include some form of police. I mean hopefully there’s a middle path for Biden other Dems that’s still clear about reform, I think there will be — at the end of the day everyone is still in the pitch phase for this

I’m genuinely disappointed by your stridency . You owe me more. We know changes need to be made and hopefully most people are coming around to that - doesn’t mean your way is singular.

 

Jun 8, 2020

ok what’s the alternative?

 

Jun 8, 2020

one of the hallmarks of liberalism is the steadfast belief that there always must be some compromised way—less expensive up front, less “drastic,” less uncomfortable—to achieve necessary change. sometimes that’s true: i like hard national rent controls but think we can have more economically/racially just housing policy without them, for example. but police departments are cancers on a fundamental level, not something that can be made safe through reform (or something that any evidence suggests would bend to reform).

 

Jun 8, 2020

I don't have a comprehensive answer for you... but according to [---[ (who cautions me to not engage with bernie "losers" on this issue btw):

We still have police - we need police. But the focus must be different. They don't need a firearm at every call. They should be trained for de-escalting situations instead of chokeholds. There must be much greater emphasis on mental health, i.e. domestic disturbances should involve social workers, mentally disturbed persons need a mental health first responder. Police are there for safety. Also - better screening procedures for cadets -- there's (mostly) men who should not be cops. Too conservative.

Our country is set up so much differently than other countries, so what you're suggesting, total abolition, simply won't work. Maybe that doesn't gel with the rhetoric you have co-opted, but it's real advice.

I would encourage you - btw, if you're looking for a short term way to improve the greater good - to recommit to improving the rap discussion here. Your voice is needed, and appreciated. Your same level of passion could be way better applied here lol. We can create the change we want to see, if only good people stand up.

 

Jun 8, 2020

youre the only one mentioning bernie

abolition is, in fact, the only thing thing *will* keep communities safe. imagining being able to dial 911 and receive people trained to give you the kind of help you or another person needs, rather than to see a crisis and have to weigh whether you’d like to roll the dice on making it exponentially worse

 

Jun 8, 2020

OK that's completely different. You're talking about 911 dispatchers - the h--- does that have to do with police?

doesn't mean ZERO police. you can't send a 24 y/o social worker to some random apartment, etc.

OFC there's also the problem that getting rid of local police puts the emphasis on county, state, federal bureaus. Like here in DC. Can you imagine if they disbanded what Trump would do?

You're my friend Paul, I;m not trying to hurt you... but you're a little out of your depth imo!

 

Jun 8, 2020

i’m not talking about dispatchers i’m talking about the civil servants at a dispatcher’s disposal

respectfully you are way out of your depth; serious people have been putting forth serious abolition proposals for years, you should do some reading and catch up!

there will always be teams of people who are trained to deal with active shooters etc. there will be detectives to investigate things. nothing you sincerely want, that a police force currently provides, will be cut outright. it’ll just be fulfilled by a (usually unarmed) person who is trained in that specific field.

 

Jun 8, 2020

? That’s what I’m saying though did you read my post lol. I’m saying that doesn’t prevent police from participating, or like, existing. And apparently you aren’t either (detectives etc.) which again concerns me from an optics standpoint!!!! Your side is being pigeonholed by the right man, be better.

Otherwise - ok lol. Not doing this, I’m literally sitting across dinner table from an actual expert.

 

Jun 8, 2020

The Twins are a really good team until they get to the playoffs and play the Yankees

 

Jun 8, 2020

can't even deny it..

feel like if the twins ever somehow get past the Yankees in the playoffs(or even if some other team knocks em out), then it's gotta be their d--- year..

 

Jun 8, 2020

how do you build something from the ground up? whats your actual solution

"defunding" tactical equipment - OK. invest in real services, im with you. the rest of this however sounds like sloganeering (and i disagree, i think theres been a lot of open interpretation and confusion around what DefundthePolice even means... which is troubling.)

not that any of this will persuade any of you lol. what do i know right

 

Jun 8, 2020

I’m not sure what y’all think of John Oliver, but last night he talked about some realistic police reform that many people in the country can probably get behind. The first half of the episode he spends talking about all the police brutality from the past week and how we got here (from a historical perspective).

But the 2nd half of the video is where he dives into some of the ideas y’all are saying, stuff like defunding police and diverting that money to departments that specialize in dealing with issues like homelessness, addiction, and mental health. He talks about using de-escalation techniques instead of resorting to physical violence, getting rid of qualified immunity so individual officers can be held accountable when they commit crimes, explains the major issue across the nation with police unions being way too powerful, etc.

Here’s a link if anyone is interested. I recommend it.