Of COURSE black lives matter...but why don't the lives of whites, Asians, Semites, Amerinds, kids, etc. matter? Why do certain people get all P.O.'ed at the mere suggestion that all lives matter?
You're not going to win any points here in your game, by alternately showing off your intelligence, and playing dumb.
It's easy to see when an argument is being misrepresented. Intent doesn't matter. You only have to look at the original argument, consider the most and least charitable versions of it, and compare those to the proffered counterargument.
As I understand it, having reviewed the thread, you're arguing that we're all under attack from the authorities, so to focus on how black people are negatively affected is a distraction from the larger problem, is that more or less right?
You asked the same question earlier today.
Didnt you get the answers you wanted ?
I'm not attempting to show my intelligence or to play dump. I truly could not care less what people think about me, RP. It is FAR more important to me that people simply THINK critically.
In any case, I WAS attempting to have a serious discussion--hopefully/eventually about the REAL problem of police abuse. Inasmuch as YOU have elected to make this about me throughout (or at least until now), I'm now attempting to demonstrate how your silly obsession with me has hamstrung your own 'argument.' To wit:
If "intent doesn't matter" even though you've continuously accused me of 'misrepresenting' an argument which exists in no other place than your head, why have you expended so much time/energy on the subject of me, my agenda, my intent, etc.?
And now to the meat of the matter, as it were:
"As I understand it, having reviewed the thread, you're arguing that we're all under attack from the authorities, so to focus on how black people are negatively affected is a distraction from the larger problem, is that more or less right?"
Close! DAMNED close! In actuality I am SUGGESTING FOR CONSIDERATION (which could, I suppose, be construed as some sort of argument even though I didn't state it as a premise) that our focus on silly slogans is drawing attention from the real issue: the wholesale abuse of American citizens by those we've (foolishly) entrusted to protect us. Instead of submitting ourselves to linguistic divide-and-conquer, we COULD be circumventing the usual nonsense and focus our attention on THIS issue. According to most of the stats I've read, the police really aren't that particular about whom they brutalize--at least not on account of race. If you have evidence to the contrary I'll be GLAD to review it.
Sorry, but I have not collected such a statistic. I dont think thug lives matter much.
You're not gonna get any argument from me. Not on that last point, anyway! Blue lives will matter when blue lives stop thumping on, lying about and killing the citizenry...REGARDLESS of race!
Mark my words: as long as we continue the wholly self-destructive/unconstitutional 'war on drugs (a/k/a human rights),' et al, there WILL be hell to pay, and at the hands of far more people than just Blacks.
I don't care how well-armed/trained the thugs may imagine themselves to be, they are not ready for the shitstorm that's coming.
OK. So it's as I thought. You're treating this "Black Lives Matter" slogan with the fallacy of relative privation. This is what I've been trying to tell you, and what nearly everyone else has been trying to tell you. What's going on with black people in America is a specific issue in itself that deserves attention. There are always going to be "bigger problems" and "real issues" to appeal to, that divert attention away from the so-called "smaller" problems. That's precisely the kind of rhetoric that BLM has faced from the start.
This is why I was so frustrated right off the bat with this post, because this is such a blatant, basic mistake, that I can't believe any thinking person can fall for it.
If you have a "bigger issue", you don't need to address what you consider the "lesser" issue, just speak to your big issue. Whenever I see a post like this, the only conclusion I can draw is that it's meant to draw attention away from the real problem of systemic racism. The question is, why are you doing this?
Dont be too sure :-)
This accusation (i.e., fallacy of relative privation) might be true if a) I saw "what is going on with black people" as a separate issue (I do not), and b) were willing to treat it as such (I am not). To me there is no 'separate issue' of the abuse of blacks by police, and thus there is no comparison between X and Y. There is ONLY abuse by police. It may help to understand, at this point, that I don't think in group-ese. Groupthink and group identity are antithetical to individual liberty, and to pretty much every value to which I subscribe.
And you must have missed that part of my response where I indicated that I could not possibly care less about what other people are "trying to tell me" in regard to my argumentative (where applicable) style. That is ESPECIALLY so given your/their hostile demeanor.
As for the problems of BLM, many of them just might be on account of their insistence on exclusive attention to 'THEIR' problem. In reality the problem is SHARED, but no! It has to be about THEM. Notice my use of the pronoun THEM? That's what happens when one makes a problem shared by all about a 'specific' form of victimization applicable only to and worthy of consideration for ONE group among a gestalt. I am well and truly SICK of this sociological/cultural fragmentation!
Well, if you are going to ignore their premise that black people are disproportionately targeted by police, then I don't know what to tell you. You're essentially dismissing all the people who are saying that they are getting it worse than everybody else.
If you really think that the matter of Americans being abused by police is of utmost importance, shouldn't you be even more concerned about the people who are statistically much more likely to be victims of that abuse? Isn't it worth investigating why this disparity in abuse exists?
Just doing my devil's advocate thing, truly makes no difference to me. I find few slogans that are inherently bigotted. Acts? That's a whole other thing. But not so much with slogans. Jmo
Well said.
You don't have to 'tell me' anything, but you're right. I see no disproportionate abuse of one group over the rest of us. I'm willing to entertain stats which prove my position wrong, but for this reason alone I obviously cannot be guilty of the fallacy which you've attributed to me. I've not contended that whites (or any other group) have fared better or worse than another.
As to your latter point, don't you think we need to establish that such disparity exists at the outset? Once you've demonstrated that Blacks are the recipients of an inordinately large percentage of the abuse, THEN we can can proceed to the premise that, because they bear the brunt of abuse, they should be considered singularly. Until that happens I shall continue to see this as a problem which impacts us all.
I've only asked this question once, and thus far the only ones to have made the attempt to answer it are you and RP.
It's not that the slogan is bigoted or even exclusionary which drives me crazy. It's the fact that it's designed to take attention away from the real issue of police abuse. Police abuse of all of us.
Don't be too sure!? Dude, I'm dead-bang POSITIVE Albright's the ugliest woman on earth! I'd tap the woman in that picture a thousand times before I'd let Albright see my chubby through a thick pair of jeans and an overcoat. :-)
Boys! What is this? Kindergarten? Btw, they will behave better. What does looks have to do with a discussion, unless it's a beauty contest? Seriously.
Btw, the picture of Madeleine Albright was brought in an article in February this year (that will be a few months before her 79 years birthday). Age and responsibilities have an impact on our outer looks. That's no secret. Furthermore age will apply differently on us. Here is another photo of her, but younger at age, taken in 1955.
Age has an impact on all of us. Look at the Republican candidate for POTUS:
And the same goes for the Democrat candidate for POTUS:
You guys, you should know better than pulling a discussion down on such levels. And please, don't come with "he started it!" Tsk tsk.
Most people would agree that all lives do matter however the militant Black Lives Matter movement would disagree.
I just gotta keep the corn juice out of my taters' when it comes to stuff like that... it's mind's way of keeping concepts nice and distinct from one another. Otherwise you get sucked right back into that herd-thinking ('you'll hurt your fellow cows!') and I refuse to think in those terms.
"It's the fact that it's designed to..."
I can't assign a motive to the slogan because I can't assign a single motive to an entire group. Maybe this can be said for some using it, but not others.
What I will grant is that has been a result of the slogan. It may sound chicken and egg-ish, but it isn't intended that way.
