[nsporillo]

What exactly are the powers and material structures that contribute to the perceived racism in our society?

From my limited understanding of this position, it sounds like the goal is a dismantling of police and courts which form the backbone of a civil rule of law society.

[zasz]

Systematic exclusion of black people from social programs, like the GI Bill and Social Security, and redlining, which prevented black Americans from building up wealth through homeownership the way white Americans were. "The Color of Law" is a good book on redlining.

To expand on the bit about Social Security, farmworkers were excluded, since farmworkers tend to be not white. It was a nice sneaky way to be racist without coming out and doing so explicitly.

[twybriny]

One of the things that confuses me quite a bit is the focus on laws that expired or have been abrogated 50-60-70-150 years ago and make it as if everything wrong with contemporary American society is caused directly by such laws and nothing else.

* GI Bill: adopted in 1944, expired in 1956.

* Social Security: adopted in 1935, unclear what the impacts were at the time. Unclear what the impacts are today.

* Redlining: created in 1934, illegal since 1977.

As an immigrant that landed in US post 2000 with $1000 to my name and a tenuous F1 situation, all this sounds like ancient history. Much more stringent appear, in no particular order and not pretending to be exhaustive:

* the whole F1/H1B situation, which depresses the domestic labor market in technical jobs, especially software, but also research at large

* global competition, especially with China

* the over financialization of the economy

* the profits accumulating at the very top since the 2008 Great Recession

* the explosion of real estate market in big cities, way above what we pretend the inflation rate is

* manufacturing decline

* offshoring of entire industries to East Asia

* right now, the covid19 lockdowns which are destroying the service economy, which was supposed to be the future of jobs

* the decimation of small business America due to same covid19 lockdowns.

* specifically for the black community, the lack of academic achievement

* the rise of the gig economy and Amazon warehouse jobs

* the opioid, homelessness and suicide crisis

* the obesity crisis, and the related food deserts

Again, not a young black guy or gal. But if I'd were, there'd be 10 high priority items on my worry list before I'd get to the Civil Rights Era. As a nation we seem to have abandoned the middle and working class of all colors. The public discourse is obsessed with Instagram influencers and race histories half a century old if not older, sometimes much older.

[jwagenet]

I believe the focus on the expired laws is based on the assertion the effects of those laws are entrenched in their communities still. In SF, historical redlining is still obvious despite some gentrification in much of the southeast and the area around Van Ness north of Market. In these areas, things like smaller (cheaper) units, poorer infrastructure, and less business development perpetuate the segregation brought about in the years of redlining. Social norms further set up expectations about who should be living in certain areas, see the recent incident over a white woman challenging a black man's home ownership in Pacific Heights (rich, white neighborhood).

[agar]

I can't weigh in from personal experience, but I look at it like a marathon. One set of runners face a first half of the race with mud, crushed glass, vertical climbs, and other obstacles, while other racers had a nice tailwind and extra drink stations.

Regardless of the obstacles faced in the second half (which are still more numerous than the competition's), can't you understand why runners would still look back at that first half to explain their fatigue, anger, and feelings of injustice? Particularly when looking ahead and thinking, "Oh God, this crap /again/??"

The marathon in this example actually spans multiple generations, but even the horrible segregation of the 50's was experienced first hand by the parents of black people still in the workforce today.

Sounds like you came into the race halfway through. As an immigrant you're still facing those unfair obstacles in front of you, but just remember that you don't have the fatigue of carrying the baggage from the first half.

[asfnasubfg231]

I agree with this, but not all immigrants are the same so you are generalizing here. Some immigrants have faced genocide due to colonialism, and have not been better off (also have baggage).

What are your thoughts on that, because that's A LOT of immigrants

[Auracle]

You could also argue that the large majority of black people still alive came in to the race halfway through as well. At some point it just becomes an excuse. Constantly blaming other people is a good way to never have any self improvement.

[imtringued]

Obviously the best way to get out of a bad situation is to help yourself first. The hardest part of this problem cannot be solved by outsiders but outsiders can certainly prevent progress if they put their minds to it. If you are a victim of discrimination then you must demonstrate through your own power that you you can succeed despite the discrimination. If you depend on help from others then you may not be taken seriously and you might never learn to help yourself.

[malandrew]

What you’re describing is known as the soft bigotry of low expectations and the anti racism crowd is perpetuating this form of systemic racism:

https://1776unites.com/featured-essays/the-1619-project-perp...

[new2628]

This analogy would work if it weren't for the immigrants who arrive with no connections and resources, and successfully make it through hardships within one or two generations.

A more apt analogy may be a marathon where there are bystanders who latch on to half of the runners and keep telling them, "you cannot make it, you need us to help you, the race is unfair".

[imtringued]

Starting from scratch is easier than starting halfway through the race with your shoe laces tied together.

[taurath]

Immigrants tend to have a high amount of education or resources relative to the societies they come from. Those immigrants come with their own sets of biases. Social infrastructure for, say, Indian people moving to Bellevue, WA in terms of social connections and wealth is better than Black american's have just ever had.

[x86_64Ubuntu]

You make it sound like when those programs and patterns were ended, that the black community recovered overnight. Your post also acts as if the driving ideas of racism that lead to blacks being excluded from or vulnerable to the things you listed ended overnight also. And your post mentions how racism made the social landscape far more adversarial to blacks with things such as the War On Drugs used to target the black community.

Honestly to make such a post, one would have disregard network effects and intergenerational wealth transfer to a malicious level.

[pbhjpbhj]

I don't think you're being fair nsporillo (the GP commenter) asked what societal structures were [currently] a specific hindrance based on race. Noting that it appeared that the entire legal structure of society was the target.

In response someone posted about a load of laws, which it turns out are all historic.

They didn't say intergenerational wealth transfer (which is a poor-person issue not a race issue per se - though it has a non-representative racial profile for sure).

I'm not sure what you're suggesting with "network effects", presumably people in established positions of power can maintain a discriminatory hold on those allowed to join the group?

[imtringued]

Maybe you don't understand it because its so obvious to you but your "solution" basically involves all black people becoming migrants (at least within the borders of the US) and starting from scratch again. Now lets assume this is the perfect solution. Why would this method be so effective? What leaves black people and the communities they live in in such a bad condition that they have to get away from it? It takes dedication and effort over multiple decades to create a long lasting bad environment via bad political policies. By that same logic it will take a long time to recover from it if there is no dedication and effort put into recovery. Sure, migration is a quick way out for an individual but it's not a solution that scales to an entire population.

[pbhjpbhj]

All black people in USA? Or just poor people who haven't been lucky enough to break away from past injustices? Seems like rich and powerful people who are black are doing just fine??

Lots of people in the middle income brackets seem no worse off than other people too.

[socialdemocrat]

I agree that poverty and inequality in general is the real problem. But one must be able to point out that the shitty situations African-Americans are in today is the result of a whole bunch of dominos that fell over and if you follow them backwards they lead back to red lining, slavery etc.

Everybody is a product of the past. Hell, Anglo-Saxon’s are still worse off then Normans in the UK 1000 year after William the Conqueror.

There are people who never lived under communism who have to deal with the stain and prejudice of being an Ossi in modern Germany.

[dash2]

Have you got a cite for that Anglo-Saxon claim? It sounds like Greg Clark, but I think his finding was a bit less black-and-white (sorry) than that.

[zasz]

> * the obesity crisis, and the related food deserts > * specifically for the black community, the lack of academic achievement

Those are both related to a history of redlining. A huge factor in the wealth gap is due a lack of home ownership. Even now, real estate agents steer black customers away from the neighborhoods with good schools: https://projects.newsday.com/long-island/real-estate-agents-...

If someone's grandparents were forced to live in shitty housing and were never able to own their own home, that puts the next couple generations at a disadvantage. Most people who are able to afford a down payment on a home get financial assistance from their families. If one generation cannot help with that down payment, the next one sure as hell won't.

That point about the black academic gap is quite silly, because you're either ignoring or unaware of the fact that black students are punished more than white students for similar infractions in school: https://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/at-school-it...

I could go on all day finding more examples of other discrepancies that are current.

> As an immigrant that landed in US post 2000 with $1000 to my name and a tenuous F1 situation, all this sounds like ancient history.

Yes, my family did that too. However, we are not black, and as a result, we didn't have to put up with banks refusing to give us a mortgage when we wanted to move to a wealthy suburb that had excellent public schools.

You came in on a student visa? That means you had a certain amount of social capital to rely on in your home country. How many people in your original country were too poor to apply for even an F1 visa and shoot for a richer life in America? Your experience is not remotely analogous to the continuing problems of racial discrimination faced by black Americans. You have absolutely not faced the same problems with building up intergenerational social capital that they have. My family made it out of China, but millions of Chinese peasants in the rural countryside, even if they are equally talented and hardworking as my family, will never have the chance. They're too far behind. That's why I chose to focus on the historical legislation. You may think that it doesn't matter, black people should've pulled themselves up by their bootstraps by now, but it doesn't matter if they lack the same headstart.

[brentis]

Well said. For those who didn't net out what he enumerated, there is a long list of things that will bring personal, family, and community suffering long before inequality on a race basis.

[hef19898]

If that list so long, do you mind sharing it?

[bsanr2]

>As an immigrant that landed in US post 2000 with $1000 to my name and a tenuous F1 situation, all this sounds like ancient history.

Well, it's not. In living memory:

>The wealth of black Americans was halved by the 2008 financial crisis, in part because of predatory lending practices which specifically targeted them by race and misrepresented their creditworthiness

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/01/24/t...

>A million black farming families essentially had their wealth-producing land stolen from them: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/this-la...

https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/losing-ground/

>Multiple black activists pushing for more advantageous policy have been imprisoned and assassinated, with allegedly some incidents as recent as the last few years.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Martin_Luth....

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE#1985_bombing

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/puzzling-number-men-tie...

>Black students have become subject to levels of segregation - and associated disparities in educational quality - at levels rivalling those of pre-Brown v Board America

https://www.propublica.org/article/segregation-now-full-text

https://projects.propublica.org/miseducation

>Because many black workers were exempt from the initial impementation of Social Security and the GI Bill, their children (Silent Gen and Baby Boomers, currently in the process of passing on their inheritances) and grandchildren (Gen X and Millennials) are suffering the consequences in lost wealth-building opportunities

>Countless black Americans have suffered from poor healthcare based on apathy and stereotypes

https://features.propublica.org/diabetes-amputations/black-a...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/20/black-american...

https://www.heart.org/en/news/2019/02/20/why-are-black-women...

>Black Americans have watched a completely different and profoundly more compassionate response to the white people affected by the opioid epidemic than they experienced in the crack/cocaine epidemic

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/crack-h...

https://thewitnessbcc.com/crack-epidemic-opioid-crisis-race-...

>Marijuana, long a a drug whose sale and use was the pretext for the overpolicing of black communities, and which provided off-the-record income for many marginalized from the mainstream economy, was legalized in several states, under schemes that made sure that the overwhelming majority of those who profited were white.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/02/22/marijuana-...

https://qz.com/1194143/even-after-legalization-black-america...

https://psmag.com/economics/the-green-rush-is-too-white-hood...

>Historical atrocities were buried until after those afflicted were unable to see justice in their lifetimes

https://tulsa.okstate.edu/news/shedding-light-local-history-...

And, of course, bare-naked discrimination exists across aspects of American life, including employment, compensation, educational opportunity, freedom of movement, criminal justice, real estate, and on and on and on. When these and many more injustices were not directly impactful, they served as poignant examples of the extreme apathy, if not antipathy, American society has had for black Americans. On top of it all, black Americans still live under the specter of police departments nationwide, which have been allegedly infiltrated by white supremacist organizations, and which assuredly indoctrinate officers with racist training and policy, and root out anti-racist individuals.

I'll leave you with

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/05/29/...

a response to Ta-Nehisi Coates' seminal work, The Case For Reparations (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-cas...), which reopened the intellectual debate on racial justice with a focus on the subject above: racial injustice affecting living black Americans, however rooted it may be in the events of 50-60-70-150 years ago.

[phaus]

>Black Americans have watched a completely different and profoundly more compassionate response to the white people affected by the opioid epidemic than they experienced in the crack/cocaine epidemic

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/crack-h....

https://thewitnessbcc.com/crack-epidemic-opioid-crisis-race-....

Great post and you brought up a few things I hadn't considered. Just curious about this one though. America in general has gradually shifted towards a view that drug addicts are sick people that need help. The shift was already taking place before opioids and methamphetamine addiction reached epidemic levels. How much of an impact do you think systemic racism had on the response to the opioid epidemic and how much can just be attributed to the fact that we have gotten smarter about drug addiction in general?

I'm not super educated on the opioid epidemic, but is there evidence that even now the resources allocated for a response are being distributed unfairly?

[taurath]

> How much of an impact do you think systemic racism had on the response to the opioid epidemic and how much can just be attributed to the fact that we have gotten smarter about drug addiction in general?

Most of society now empathizes with drug addiction because its hit white society a lot and the race of users can't be used as a political scapegoat. As long as you're white, the richer you are, the less likely you are to go to jail for it. Rehab is for rich people.

We haven't gotten smarter about drug addiction in general, which is why we have the largest prison population in the world.

> is there evidence that even now the resources allocated for a response are being distributed unfairly?

Given a huge percentage of the "response" is police and prisons, and police and prisons dramatically discriminate against people by race, yes.

[phaus]

>We haven't gotten smarter about drug addiction in general, which is why we have the largest prison population in the world.

Legalization and decriminalization of Marijuana is still a relatively recent phenomenon. It seems to me like it will eventually get legalized by the federal government. If that happens, wouldn't we expect this to get better? The right thing to do would be to release everyone that was in jailed on marijuana related charges as long as they weren't also convicted of something more serious (like violence). Maybe I'm being too optimistic.

I think a lot of Americans realize how insane it is that we jail more people than any other country. While progress is always slow, it seems like we're hearing more politicians talk about doing something about it.

[pbhjpbhj]

>As long as you're white, the richer you are, the less likely you are to go to jail for it. Rehab is for rich people. //

Any sources to support this, that equally wealthy people go to jail in higher proportions - for the same [drug] crime - if they're non-white?

[jimbokun]

> America in general has gradually shifted towards a view that drug addicts are sick people that need help.

Just a coincidence that this shift happened as more white people started suffering from such addictions?

[catalogia]

It probably has more to do with the internet facilitating the dissemination of information that ran counter to the governments' anti-drug propaganda.

[taurath]

There seems to be a concerted effort on HN to downvote any non right-wing viewpoints, especially quality posts like this one.

[3nob9sh3nsOwn]

Adolph Reed has written on the Social Security exclusions that you're referencing, and the issue is not so clear cut: [1].

The initial iteration of Social Security excluded many types of temporary and informal labor. Although black workers were disproportionately impacted by these exclusions, the large majority (about 75%) of people who were excluded were white. One possible reason why these exclusions were in place is that getting accurate payroll figures for informal jobs is difficult. In any case, these exclusions were lifted between 1950 and 1955.

Keep in mind that Social Security was not the only New Deal program, and things like the Public Works Administration disproportionately benefited African Americans. The New Deal was extremely popular among African Americans, and is one of the major reasons why most African Americans switched over to voting for the Democratic Party. That's what makes the recent narrative that the New Deal was racist (and to blame for today's disparities) so strange.

1. https://newrepublic.com/article/155704/new-deal-wasnt-intrin...

[nouveaux]

If a publicly traded company is not doing well, the CEO gets canned and no one bats an eye. If one department is not doing well, it's very common to just fire a bunch of people or get rid of the department completely.

The idea of "dismantling of police" does not mean we do not offer protection. It just means that the current organization "police" is not providing the services it's customers want. Years of "tweaking" the police orgs have failed to provide results. It's time to create a new way to protect citizens.

[DenisM]

> the current organization "police" is not providing the services it's customers want

Is that really true? What do you think will happen if we put it up for a vote? Something like: defund police - yes/no?

[commoner]

> In a poll conducted by ABC News/Ipsos on June 10-11, 34% of US adults supported "the movement to 'defund the police'" and 64% opposed it. Support was higher among black Americans (57%) than among whites (26%) and Hispanics (42%).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defund_the_police#Public_opini...

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/64-americans-oppose-defund-p...

[Larrikin]

The people who have faced the discrimination, know people affected by it, or have educated themselves about the discrimination will vote yes and the people who have not faced the discrimination and want to believe its mostly made up because they have never been personally effected by it will vote no.

20 years ago its easy to see how the vote would have ended up, but now with tons of cell phone footage and large scale protests its interesting to see which side people will land on now.

[DenisM]

> people who have not faced the discrimination and want to believe its mostly made up because they have never been personally effected by it will vote no

So, you think that only people who do not believe in discrimination will vote "no"?

[raxxorrax]

People who faced discrimination often like the police and stability instead of mob justice. Since there is a problem with racial profiling there might be some skewed results.

Many parents of black children tell them to be wary of police. Police sees more crime in these areas and we have a self reinforcing problem of distrust. Additionally there are clueless white people talking about being their personal savior.

[manfredo]

> The idea of "dismantling of police" does not mean we do not offer protection.

Who offers the protection? Ultimately the are going to be people tasked with stopping criminal behavior, with force if said criminals resist. This isn't a dismantling of the police it's a rebranding.

[free_rms]

Camden NJ rebuilt their police department overnight a few years back. Cancelled the union contract, fired everyone and started over. Rehired some of the same cops I believe as part of the new structure.

Murders are down 50% from then, it's still not a nice town or anything but it's not the worst town in America anymore.

[manfredo]

The police department wasn't dismantled. Camden's police department very much still exists: https://camdencountypd.org/

Restaffing he police is a vastly different measure than dismantling the police or abolishing the police, which is what many activists are pushing for.

Furthemore, the idea that this was an instance of dismantling the police to reduce police abuses doesn't seem to hold up to scrutiny [1]:

> With the city under duress, over the objection of Camden community members, local officials partnered with Christie to enact a plan to disband the city’s police force and replace it with a regional county force. The goal was to dissolve the local police union, which would allow for a cheaper force that would enable more policing, not less.

> The new force embraced broken windows policing. In the first year of the new force, summonses for disorderly conduct shot up 43 percent. Summonses for not maintaining lights or reflectors on vehicles spiked 421 percent. Summonses for tinted car windows similarly increased 381 percent. And farcically, summonses for riding a bicycle without a bell or a light rose from three to 339. It was straight out of the Giuliani handbook.

> Unsurprisingly, these moves provoked tensions between the community and the police producing a parallel rise in excessive-force complaints. These tensions were still bubbling in 2014 when a particularly harsh and disturbing arrest was caught on video with officers using violent techniques similar to the ones that killed George Floyd in Wisconsin. When pressed about the incident, Camden County Public Affairs Director Dan Keashen said that an investigation showed it to be “a good arrest.”

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/16/camden-nj-...

[free_rms]

I was just saying that there are reasonable ideas under the "defund" umbrella.

When several city depts don't seem to feel like they have to take orders from elected government, drastic measures start looking more reasonable.

[wolco]

Defunding would move those roles from public jobs to private jobs.

In the end the only the rich would have protection. Probably not the best path. For an example see the private police in London. They answer to no one.

[jacobush]

I don't understand how you make the conclusion that the money must go to private jobs? Can't the municipality reallocate the funds and spend it elsewhere in the public sector?

[bsanr2]

Perhaps if the funding is used on alleviating the sources of petty crime - poverty, mental illness or social disaffection, joblessness or purposelessness or apathy - the only people who would need protection would be the rich. And you can fine them out of their wealth if they transgress.

[1121redblackgo]

New way same as the old way presumably. This is a baby with the bathwater situation. It can be fixed no need to scrap it.

[nouveaux]

I would agree with you that there would be the same if it's the same people running. This is the systematic part that needs to change. When companies fail, there is a new CEO, new board, new executives. Let's do the same with failed police departments.

There is 0% chance that all police departments will all change in 2020. I'm happy to voice my support that some cities are willing to try new things. If it works great. If not, back to the drawing board.

[fzeroracer]

With what, exactly? You can pass more laws, but laws don't matter if the police don't obey them anyways. You can enforce things like bodycams, but then the police cover up the cams or conveniently turn them off.

At what point will you be convinced that you need to start over? Because removing corruption is like removing an invasive species: you don't solve it by taking a half-assed attempt with trimming and call it a day.

[pbhjpbhj]

The ruling elite don't obey the laws either, USA have let the President flout the law on the international stage; if "so long as you can subvert the 'courts' it's fine" goes for the President then how are you ever going to have a strong Rule of Law?

[geggam]

Not sure I agree. The concept of meeting mental illness or crimes of poverty / lack of education with escalating violence is really uneducated at best.

Violence being the language folks use after all else fails.

Starting with violence means you don't really care about solving the problem and just want the incident to go away

[ntsplnkv2]

It can be fixed, but will it under the existing paradigm?

[malandrew]

Only someone that has never lived in other countries with serious crime problems could claim that the police here are not providing a service people want.

Almost no one lives in fear of organized crime like the mafia in Italy, PCC, Comando Vermelho or Terceiro Comando in Brazil, the FARC in Colombia, the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, etc. this list is very very long.

Americans life very safe lives with relatively low crime and this is largely the result of very effective law enforcement. Is it perfect? No. But to claim it isn’t providing a service people want is pure ignorance.

Law enforcement in the US is so effective at stopping crimes that we aren’t even aware of the value they provide.

[churchillracist]

> Law enforcement in the US is so effective at stopping crimes that we aren’t even aware of the value they provide.

Any concrete evidence of this? How was that conclusion derived?

[triceratops]

> it sounds like the goal is a dismantling of police and courts which form the backbone of a civil rule of law society.

It's not. The goal is to demand equal protections under the law for all, eliminate racial bias in policing, judging and sentencing, and make police themselves follow the law.

Don't be misled by the "defund police" mantra. It's just a way to divert resources to community engagement programs and/or get out of contracts with police unions. It doesn't literally mean "shut down the police department and courts".

> From my limited understanding of this position

At least you're honest about it. I'd encourage you to educate yourself instead of just relying on soundbites and scare-mongering media headlines (not saying that's what you've been doing so far).

[neonate]

It's more complicated than that. There's a debate about what it means among the people advocating for it, with (as far as I can tell) the people who originated the phrase strongly objecting to the suggestion that they didn't mean it literally.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23470187

https://twitter.com/jduffyrice/status/1270380991178321921.

[cmdshiftf4]

>It doesn't literally mean "shut down the police department and courts".

This doublespeak, which reminds me of the whole "Kill All Men" issue, which itself was quickly followed by a rush to say "Noo you stupid man, we don't mean kill all men, just some men", makes my skin crawl.

Let's take a quick look at the dictionary:

Defund:

verb

prevent from continuing to receive funds.

If you are failing to use the language correctly, correct yourself. Don't attempt to gaslight people and twist the meaning of established terms.

[triceratops]

If it helps, I think "kill all men" is reprehensible and illegal. "Defund police" even taken literally, is neither of those things, so you're drawing a false equivalence.

If you eliminate funding for an existing police department, firing all of the employees, and divide all of its functions, including dealing with violent criminals, and performing investigations, up among other departments (both existing and new), isn't "defund" accurate? That's the most extreme position on the spectrum along which police reform plans lie. "Defund police" is a pithy catchphrase, an opening position for negotiations. I don't think the language is what needs "correcting". It's important to educate oneself on the issues instead of assuming the worst about anyone you disagree with.

[ScottFree]

> If it helps, I think "kill all men" is reprehensible and illegal.

Why would that help? Did you start the meme?

> isn't "defund" accurate?

Yes. That's the whole point. "defund the police" is wildly unpopular, so people have started to change the very meaning of those words so the other people won't hate them quite so much. It's not working.

> an opening position for negotiations

I can't tell if you actually believe that or if you're arguing in bad faith now. Nobody believes the people saying "defund the police" aren't extreme and serious. Killing people and burning down their homes and businesses is not the beginning point of a negotiation. It's a hostage taker's demand.

[Fellshard]

The Motte-and-Bailey is the ploy of either an intentional deceiver, or a parroting crony. Neither shows sign of arguing in good faith or reason.

[triceratops]

Given that this whole thread started with a strawman ("dismantling of police and courts ..., civil rule of law society), a motte-and-bailey seems appropriate. Thanks for introducing me to that term btw, TIL. It's a nice one.

The reply by cmdshiftf4 was an example of tone policing - criticizing the words and attacking a simple slogan, instead of addressing the meat of the issue. You yourself have engaged in an ad hominem argument by calling me (indirectly) "an intentional deceiver" or "a parroting crony", rather than talk about the issue.

(See, I, too, know the names of some logical fallacies. I also like dropping them into online debates to show that I alone have developed my opinions using solely logic, reason, and facts, whereas everyone else is biased and relies on emotion and personal history. :-P)

[bsanr2]

The backbone of the rule of law is its legitimacy in the eyes of the people. Police brutalizing journalists on camera in clear violation of the law (and presumably with no rectification in court to come) probably does more to dismantle that legitimacy than anything a protestor could do.