If you don't want the protection of life and property to be in conflict - don't let the "protectors" kill people. That'd be a good start.

Here's another way to see it:

The United States is objectively an oligarchy. This means - the state is not controlled by the people.

So, when the people come into conflict with the state, whose side you're on says a lot about your position in the oligarchy.

It's very difficult to defend the authorities in the modern United States. If we're honest with ourselves, it always should have been. The idea of American democracy has always been a joke.

@Jeff ... what's happening in Ferguson could happen virtually anywhere in the midwest, but we aren't all living in southern states. Racism isn't a southern thing, racial segregation and racial classism exists all around the country, and undoubtedly police exploitation and police brutality exists all around the country and in people from anywhere in the country from New York to LA.

This is stupid.

Thucys stance is...

because a cop shot a kid and it was potentially unjustified -> Cops should let private citizens shops be pilfered.

And your assumption that these are "White assets" is unfounded. These are small businesses being looted, liquor stores, beauty salons etc. I want to know where you get the idea that the small business owners are white. I know for a fact one of the small business owners who owned a beauty salon was black.

and a quick +1 to that garbled mess of flawed logic that Thucy just spewed. I can't say I'm surprised.

"because a cop shot a kid and it was potentially unjustified -> Cops should let private citizens shops be pilfered."

Incorrect. The stance is:

The police do not currently have any legitimacy. The citizens themselves have been doing more for the security of their community that the men in body armor have.

Yeah, you really are going off the deep end there, Thucydides. Again, even if what happened to Brown was entirely unjustified that does not mean all other laws are suspended in Ferguson and it's OK to loot stores and engage in violent behavior.

To think that just because I see the police as a gang of thugs, that I endorse the destruction of our environment, is a bit unfair. What I endorse is actual freedom. The black people in Ferguson do not have it. Their police are plainly not on their side. Till that situation changes, I don't blame any of them for what they do.

Have you not seen the behavior of the police department with respect to Mike Brown? They respond to allegations of murder by police by releasing a video where he stole a cigar. Then they say "he had been smoking weed."

What pray tell does any of this have to do with being gunned down by a policeman?

I'm not saying it's OK, I'm saying it's understandable, and no justification for a military crackdown - the military crackdown is the source of the unrest, and not the reverse.

And I hope I'm never in your "shallow end," Invictus. Standing too long in the shallow end may seem safe, but you eventually forget how to swim.

@bo_sox: Whether it *could* happen isn't entirely germaine. It *did* happen in Ferguson. This isn't 1968. MLK wasn't just assassinated. A tidal wave of Baby Boomers aren't just entering their most criminally active young adulthood. It is an isolated instance shaped by specific local factors, not generational and national ones. St Louis has been percolating for a while now. I guess it was just their time.

lol if you think what is happening is an isolated incident. if you think trayvon martin has nothing to do with ferguson, for instance, i pity your intellect

So to Thucy

Small business=oligarchy
Business=white (forget that owners named in Ferguson have been white black Hispanic and Asian)
Looting= Justice

What a crock of shit

"if you think trayvon martin has nothing to do with ferguson, for instance, i pity your intellect"

I pity yours if you really believe that.

@Jeff ... this happens in Chicago every day. It happened in Florida and it happened in LA (and there were certainly riots in LA). It happened in New York City just a few weeks ago. The idea of an unarmed man, often a black man, being killed as a result of police aggression or overstep or whatever term you'd like to use, is by no means an isolated Ferguson incident. The fact that the people of St. Louis and surrounding suburbs are rallying is because this is almost commonplace, and they are shocked that it happened in their home.

Seriously? You don't think the unrest in Ferguson has ANYTHING to do with black people being outraged and tired of feeling unsafe in their own country, because of racism?

You really never consider racial issues at all, do you, even in the midst of them? Incredible

Is that to me?

no dog

"Seriously? You don't think the unrest in Ferguson has ANYTHING to do with black people being outraged and tired of feeling unsafe in their own country, because of racism?"

That's a different thing than the unrest in Ferguson being related to the Trayvon Martin case.

"That's a different thing than the unrest in Ferguson being related to the Trayvon Martin case. "

These are largely all part of the same thing.

And now they're arresting people en masse...

Police clearing the media away, "for public safety". Of course, I'm a bit disappointed in the media for actually complying with these commands.

Considering what they did to the media last time they didn't, I would be happy to follow their orders until they prove they aren't going to shoot more people and fire tear gas at cameramen.

@Thucydides: Reread what I said with your reading comprehension hat on this time.

@bo_sox: No, riots do not happen in Chicago every day.

@ Jeff: I don't think bo_sox claimed that riots happen in Chicago every day. He was in fact claiming, as I read it, that the police oppress black people, in Chicago, every day.

Jeff, perhaps you should reread what bo said with your reading comprehension hat on this time.

Earlier in the thread, bo made comments about riots. He invoked 1968 first. Fact is, riots--understandable or not--don't occur every day.

I don't see how any of my statements can be construed to deny that police oppression doesn't exist, especially Thucydides straw man questioning.

http://i.imgur.com/MPFB5R8.jpg

on top of this, the turnout for the last election was 11.7%

Jeff, I specifically singled out the only city out of the four I listed where there were riots following famous police aggression cases. I don't know how you assume that I'm saying they all had riots.

Not related to Ferguson, but has anyone seen this? http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/05/17/4123183/behind-bars-a-brutal-and-unexplained.html