When you need to rant...

[Drtooth]

Still, in the cases where the police were in the right to use force to apprehend these criminals, they managed to be dishonest if not outright treacherous in their handling of the perps. That, to me, makes the whole thing worse. They didn't need to do anything to make themselves look like the good guys, and by cheating and skewing the truth, they managed to add to the growing distrust when they easily could have diffused the situation and made out to look like the good cops we all need to see more of. Nope. Let's be shifty and make cops look even worse. Brilliant.

It just pains me that all of society's problems are shrugged off as "Blame America First" whining by the same ones that whine about how terrible this country is when they don't get their way. The whole "this country is terrible because gay people exist but someone hauls you off to jail for saying 'Merry Christmas' even though they don't and no one cares" mindset that sure, they can get mad at companies moving their jobs overseas, but never complaining that there are too many tax loopholes and lobbyists for these shifty, crooked, CEOs that got the company because their father was majority stock holder or something.

 

[D'Snowth]

how come you rarely see dedicated, justice fueled cops that became cops for the right reasons

Do those even exist?

 

[fuzzygobo]

Good cop bad cop.
I've seen plenty on both sides. I've seen plenty of cops commit outrageous acts in the line of duty, and true justice getting smeared because the men in blue stick together, and the powers that be turn a blind eye to the corruption (sometimes they have a hand in it too, making them equally at fault).

On the other hand, there's a media that demonizes cops and gives maximum coverage to extremist protesters, and elevates thugs to martyrdom. A convicted felon with a mile-long rap sheet, armed to the teeth, out to kill the first cop he sees, gets gunned down while trying to shoot the police. Instant hero. What bravery, what valor.

And protestors rioting before all the facts were known. I'm all for peaceful protesting by morally committed people, like Martin Luther King led. There you saw blacks and whites united for a common goal.
Where's the unity in Milwaukee? Ferguson? Baltimore?
Screw unity, let's burn the neighborhood down.
Next thing you know they'll be attacking firefighters while they're trying to save someone's house.

 

[D'Snowth]

A convicted felon with a mile-long rap sheet, armed to the teeth, out to kill the first cop he sees, gets gunned down while trying to shoot the police. Instant hero. What bravery, what valor.

That's what I'm saying, it seems like it's gotten to the point that they're just waiting for the hat to be dropped just so they can go back to protesting for the sake of protesting. Like back in the day, when all these different guilds just kept looking for reasons to go on strike.

Next thing you know they'll be attacking firefighters while they're trying to save someone's house.

Or attacking paramedics and EMS for trying to tend to the injured.

 

[fuzzygobo]

So much of society coming apart due to lack of respect. No respect for elders, police (if you have a badge and a gun and can arrest me, I'm NOT going to make things worse for myself), teachers, parents.

Not even respect for someone else's opinion.

 

[D'Snowth]

Well, like they say, "Hey, this is the 21st century! All that crap's outdated now!"

 

[Drtooth]

On the other hand, there's a media that demonizes cops and gives maximum coverage to extremist protesters, and elevates thugs to martyrdom. A convicted felon with a mile-long rap sheet, armed to the teeth, out to kill the first cop he sees, gets gunned down while trying to shoot the police. Instant hero. What bravery, what valor.

It depends on the media. From what I've seen, it's more of the case of overpaid loudmouths that claim to speak for morality being suspiciously adamant that there's nothing wrong, and everyone else is to blame for everything. I have yet to see anyone actually say "all cops are evil," but rather "there's no accountability, institutionalized racism, and a general lack of transparency."

But hey. What better way to crush nuance by making a strawman argument and turning an important talking point into a one dimensional "I'm right, you're stupid" argument. There's a difference between a healthy debate with thoughtful ideas and moral quandaries and painting everything out as a dumpster fire to keep the public fearful and angry while selling books and making money off of their misery.

That said, to be perfectly clear no one is calling any of the crazy, unassociated with protesters, vigilantes heroes by any stretch. The very idea plays into the Bill O'Reilly/Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh (or the "I'm not racist" racist sexual harasser, the bully conman who can't keep his conspiracy theories straight inbetween selling Gold scams, and the drug addict, sl** shaming, womanizer) mentality that sold the country on terrible, hateful, immoral ideas. The protesters find them just as detrimental to their cause as anyone else. Black church leaders who support Black Lives Matter also mourn the deaths of innocent cops that get caught up in dangerously insane individuals who let disillusionment cloud their judgement. Anyone saying anything different is just trying to push anger and fear to sell some terrible book and/or Doomsday Prepper products that were probably left over from 1999 when Y2K was nothing. Or aforementioned gold scam.

I find this hilarious that anytime a leftish leaning (or anything the right wing talk show hosts can find objectionable) protest group has one or two little barely associated jerks, the whole movement is evil commie, Unamerican, terrorist sympathizing, Apocalypse bringing bunch of pot smoking hippies...yet the Tea party is full of horrible people and it was all like "WAAAAAAAAHHHH!!! Marvel comics made fun of us! You libtards are soooooo mean!!!"

 

[mr3urious]

Now there's this controversy over a 12-year-old girl and her dad hunting animals in Africa, even though they're doing it legally to species of least concern like giraffes and zebras, and their meat even went toward feeding orphans in local villages. Props to the girl and her dad for defending themselves against the naysayers, even the ones going as far as sending death threats. Seems like they're totally aware that posting stuff like this online for all to see would result in controversy like this.

https://gma.yahoo.com/12-old-girl-f...-hunting-113309909--abc-news-topstories.html#

 

[D'Snowth]

I have two new rants today; pick whichever you want to weigh in on. . . .

First of all, we've talked before about ads and what a pain they've become, so much so that they're reaching passive aggressive levels of trying to get people to stop using adblockers and actually pay for services to remove ads, and I see now they've stooped to another new level with something they call popunder ads. They're popup ads, but coded in a way to where they automatically hide themselves under whatever windows you currently have open. Oh yeah, sooo clever. And it would seem Opera doesn't even have a decent popup (or under, for that matter) blocker, but IE sure did. Oh, and you have to be careful too, because apparently some popunder ads have viruses in them.

Secondly, it's great when you're able to upload custom thumbnails for your YouTube videos and all, but what gets me is some channels out there completely abuse this privilege by uploading thumbnails that are intentionally designed for clickbait; often times it's something plainly sexual, or an obviously bad Photoshop job like a dinosaur walking across a road. As the ol' saying goes, we can't have nice things.

 

[D'Snowth]

What's the point in even getting insurance when all insurance companies ever do is screw people over? Particularly middle, lower, and working class people?

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting . . . money. You don't put bunches and bunches o'monies in der pockets, dey won't be nice to you.

Seriously, they won't even let me get my full refills on my prescriptions anymore, because they've decided they'll only let me get partial refills to keep the price the same. But what's the diff? They're dropping people by November anyway.