Posts from 2013

Facebook: http://www.thenation.com/blog/172831/constitutional-law-101-professor-droney

Facebook: February 12, 2013 at 09:13AM

COP 101: Introduction to Police Language. Police is a very complicated language which may be intimidating to beginning individuals. But with sufficient patience and effort its basic structures can be apprehended by most particular individuals. For example, police makes a distinction between exclusive responsibility for action and inclusive responsibility for action. When a suspect individual shoots a Police speaker, we use the simple active voice verb: “Dorner shot a police officer today.” When a Police speaker shoots at a suspect individual, however, the passive voice or related subject-less constructions are used to express officer-involved actions: “There was an officer-involved shooting today,” “Shots were fired moments earlier in a nearby area where LAPD officers were standing guard outside the home of someone targeted in an online manifesto that authorities have attributed to Dorner,” etc.

Facebook: NYPD releases stop-frisk data

Facebook: February 11, 2013 at 11:03PM

“. . . Reasonable Suspicion . . .”

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/nypdreleasesstopfriskdata_whf644ouNc8P7dP8u7NPcJ

“The NYPD last night released a report on its controversial stop-and-frisk procedure that breaks down by precinct — and by race — those who’ve been targeted.

“The figures, all from 2011, show the precinct with the most stops by sheer numbers was Brooklyn’s 75th, which includes East New York and Cypress Hills.

“MORE THAN 31,000 PEOPLE WERE STOPPED, 97 PERCENT OF THEM EITHER BLACK OR HISPANIC.

“Brooklyn’s 73rd Precinct, covering Brownsville, was the next highest, with 25,167 stops. ABOUT 98 PERCENT INVOLVED MINORITIES.

“The 115th Precinct — which includes East Elmhurst, Corona and Jackson Heights in Queens — ranked third, with 18,156 stops. NEARLY 93 PERCENT OF THOSE INVOLVED MINORITIES, THE FIGURES SHOW.

“The 40th Precinct in The Bronx, which covers Mott Haven and Melrose, racked up the next highest number — 17,690 — WITH 98.5 PERCENT INVOLVING MINORITIES

“And at No. 5 was the 90th Precinct in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where there were 17,566 stops, WITH 88.6 PERCENT INVOLVING MINORITIES.

“The New York Civil Liberties Union had fought for release of the stats last year.

“After getting them, the civil-rights group said they show a pattern of racial profiling — a charge that the NYPD denies.

“‘While it appears at first blush to be a slick, fact-filled response, nothing in the report can dispute the reality that stop and frisk NYPD-style is TARGETED OVERWHELMINGLY AT PEOPLE OF COLOR, SO INNOCENT OF ANY CRIMINAL WRONGDOING, THAT ALL BUT 12 PERCENT WALK AWAY WITHOUT SO MUCH AS A TICKET,’ NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said in a statement. . . .

“. . . A total of 685,724 people — 8.6 percent of the city’s population — were detained by cops for ‘reasonable suspicion.’ [sic] . . . Of that number, 9 percent were white, and 4 percent Asian, the figures showed.

“The No. 1 reason for stop-and-frisks that year was possible weapons possession, the report released yesterday said. . . .”

— Natasha Velez, New York Post (Feb 5, 2013)

Facebook: February 11, 2013 at 06:08PM

One thing that I think the repeated mistaken-identity overkill police shootings in L.A. have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt is that — in addition to the fact that the LAPD is a menace to innocent people, they also have every intention of summarily gunning Dorner down the very first opportunity that they get, without any attempt at arrest or any chance to surrender or any pretense of due process. (During the first mistaken-identity shooting, they unloaded 30 rounds at a pick-up truck for stopping and starting, with no identification as police and no commands to stop. During the second shooting, they rammed a car and then shot blindly into the car 3 times because their view of the driver in it was obscured by his airbag.) This actually makes me feel a bit uncomfortable over focusing as much as I have on the innocence of the victims that they’ve already shot. Because the LAPD are a menace to virtually everyone right now, and terrorizing people regardless of their connection to this case, and that’s important. But it is also fundamentally evil, and lethally dangerous, for heavily-armed paramilitary police forces to be roaming around assassinating Suspect Individuals at will even if the guy they’re gunning down really is the guy they were looking for. A calculated de facto policy of massive overkill and summary executions by police is the oldest thing in the police book, but it is also a terrifyingly dangerous form of police-state fascism, even if it never affects any bystanders, and it deserves to be called out as such.

Facebook: The Gnu’s Room

Facebook: It Isn’t Class Warfare Unless We Fight Back

radgeek on 6 Types of libertatians

He uses an *Alliance of the Libertarian Left logo image* several times during the discussion of "liberal-tarians," but seeing as ALL is an anti-electoral, left-wing market anarchist group, which is extremely radical on questions of both economic freedom and the existence of the state as such -- and since this image pops up allegedly to illustrate a discussion of, essentially, civil-libertarian and anti-war political Progressives (he mentions Ralph Nader, Naomi Wolf and Glenn Greenwald along the way), using a label that was actually invented to describe the views of a couple guys at Cato (Brink Lindsey and Will Wilkinson, in particular) who wanted libertarians to reach out less towards conservatives and more towards those sorts of Progressives, largely for the purpose of greater success in government elections, it is pretty clear to me that the guy is, to put it gently, speaking outside of his area of expertise, and has not understood the views he's alluding to. Moreover, there is a considerable world of left-wing anarchist efforts other than ALL which aren't even mentioned. (For example people associated with Food Not Bombs, CopWatch, the anarchist factions within Occupy Wall Street, publishing projects like the Independent Media Centers or Infoshop.org, or more ideologically-driven groups like NEFAC, etc.) There is actually a wide range of views here and I don't expect anyone to have a comprehensive grasp of all of it if they haven't spent a long time immersed in it. But it is important to note the existence of such "types" if your goal is to make a video about all the types of libertarians. On the other hand, it seems clear enough that neither ALL nor other left-wing anarchist efforts could have been seriously addressed in the video without seriously disrupting his ridiculously forced conclusion that the Presidential campaign of Ron Paul supposedly unites all forms of "libertarians." Because, in general, we want nothing to do with Presidents, nothing to do with campaigns, and nothing to do with Ron Paul. If'n it helps, [here's one of the ALL's websites](http://praxeology.net/all-left.htm), which may help provide some orientation on what this sort of thing is about and why the video doesn't actually address it.

radgeek on 6 Types of libertatians

He uses an *Alliance of the Libertarian Left logo image* several times during the discussion of "liberal-tarians," but seeing as ALL is an anti-electoral, left-wing market anarchist group, which is extremely radical on questions of both economic freedom and the existence of the state as such -- and since this image pops up allegedly to illustrate a discussion of, essentially, civil-libertarian and anti-war political Progressives (he mentions Ralph Nader, Naomi Wolf and Glenn Greenwald along the way), using a label that was actually invented to describe the views of a couple guys at Cato (Brink Lindsey and Will Wilkinson, in particular) who wanted libertarians to reach out less towards conservatives and more towards those sorts of Progressives, largely for the purpose of greater success in government elections, it is pretty clear to me that the guy is, to put it gently, speaking outside of his area of expertise, and has not understood the views he's alluding to. Moreover, there is a considerable world of left-wing anarchist efforts other than ALL which aren't even mentioned. (For example people associated with Food Not Bombs, CopWatch, the anarchist factions within Occupy Wall Street, publishing projects like the Independent Media Centers or Infoshop.org, or more ideologically-driven groups like NEFAC, etc.) There is actually a wide range of views here and I don't expect anyone to have a comprehensive grasp of all of it if they haven't spent a long time immersed in it. But it is important to note the existence of such "types" if your goal is to make a video about all the types of libertarians. On the other hand, it seems clear enough that neither ALL nor other left-wing anarchist efforts could have been seriously addressed in the video without seriously disrupting his ridiculously forced conclusion that the Presidential campaign of Ron Paul supposedly unites all forms of "libertarians." Because, in general, we want nothing to do with Presidents, nothing to do with campaigns, and nothing to do with Ron Paul. If'n it helps, [here's one of the ALL's websites](http://praxeology.net/all-left.htm), which may help provide some orientation on what this sort of thing is about and why the video doesn't actually address it.