Politics Thread 6

Fed up talking videogames? Why?

Who will you vote for at the next General Election?

Conservative
16
10%
Labour
64
41%
Liberal Democrat
28
18%
Green
22
14%
SNP
16
10%
Brexit Party
4
3%
UKIP
2
1%
Plaid Cymru
3
2%
DUP
1
1%
Sinn Fein
2
1%
The Independent Group for Change
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 158
User avatar
Return_of_the_STAR
Member
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by Return_of_the_STAR » Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:32 pm

Igor wrote:
Return_of_the_STAR wrote:We’ve discussed the grouping of all police as a single entity as though they are a person before and clearly disagree so I won’t go into that any further.


Speaking about the police service as a single entity is the only useful way of discussing the police as a concept within our society, I think. I've already mentioned why I feel ACAB is a valid statement; you entrust the police to enforce the law and the moment one of them is not held accountable, the rest of them are tainted.

I also think it's pointless speaking about individual police officers because it actually doesn't matter if there are zero racist police officers; in its current form and operation, the police force and its policies would still be racist.

There's an interesting phenomenon in statistics called Simpson's paradox. It occurs when a trend appears in several different data sets that then disappears or reverses when the sets are combined. So for example, you might be testing two different treatments for kidney stones; treatment A seems to be more effective than treatment B against small kidney stones, and treatment A also seems to be more effective than treatment B against large kidney stones, and yet as soon as you combine your data set, it's clear that treatment B is the better overall treatment.

Another example I just made up, goalkeeper A has a better penalty save percentage than goalkeeper B against left-footed penalty takers, and right-footed penalty takers, and yet when the dominant foot of the penalty taker is ignored, goalkeeper B has a better overall save percentage.

It's reasonable to expect there are police officers that are not racist who work with other officers that are also not racist, and those officers might understandably be confused when someone calls their organisation racist. The interesting thing is, you don't need there to be any racist police officers for systemic racism to exist within the police force. Much like the Simpson's paradox, we might get one trend when we look at the individuals but an opposing trend when we look at the collective. We very much like to see everyone as an individual, treat everyone on their own merits. We fail to see how those individuals might interact and miss the change in trend.

Black households are the most likely group to have an annual household income of less than £20,800, at 35%. Just 19% of black households have an annual income of more than £52,000 against the UK average of 27%. Lower incomes mean the black population need to congregate where there are jobs and available housing, which means cities, which means over 98% of the black community in the UK live in urban centres. A dense population suffering from high income inequality has, to my knowledge, never not led to higher incidence of crime. So those areas are policed more. And the people in those areas are associated with the crimes being committed. BAME population in the UK is just under 14%, yet they make up 26% of the prison population and over 50% of the youth offender population.

None of this requires a cabal of secretly racist cops. It doesn't require any racist cops at all. It's all just a natural consequence of rampaging income disparity. So it doesn't matter if you're not racist - if you're not racist, then you are not the problem. It doesn't matter if most police officers are not racist because the problem isn't racist police officers. Remove all racist police officers and BAME people will still make up a disproportionate share of the prison population because they will still be involved in more crime because they will still be clustered in urban centres because they will still be in the lowest income brackets because minorities always fall to the bottom. Until the issue of income inequality is fixed, this will always be a problem in our modern society and it's going to get worse.


Thank you Igor, that is the most sensible post I have read on here in a long long time. Well done. :toot:

I disagree on the ACAB statement though. It’s divisive in my opinion and unnecessary. I just personally don’t like it when people refer to one group as a whole as though everyone in that organisation, ethnicity, gender, appearance, culture, religion, hobby are all the same person. ‘All stamp collectors are boring’, are they really? Of course they aren’t, they are all individuals. No one is the same as anyone one else.

Yid Army
User avatar
Lex-Man
Member
Joined in 2008
Contact:

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by Lex-Man » Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:41 pm

Moggy wrote:
Lex-Man wrote:slashdot


Image


It's a joke format that was developed on the website slashdot.org. Companies use to come out with stupid business plans which people on Slashdot would write up in the format:

Step 1
Step 2
???
Profit

Now I look into it, I think it might have been in South park first. I always thought that Slashdot used it first but that episode is from 1998 and Slashdot was only a year old at the time.

Amusement under late capitalism is the prolongation of work.
User avatar
Igor
Member
Joined in 2008
Location: Not telling...

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by Igor » Wed Jul 01, 2020 12:02 am

Return_of_the_STAR wrote:I disagree on the ACAB statement though. It’s divisive in my opinion and unnecessary. I just personally don’t like it when people refer to one group as a whole as though everyone in that organisation, ethnicity, gender, appearance, culture, religion, hobby are all the same person. ‘All stamp collectors are boring’, are they really? Of course they aren’t, they are all individuals. No one is the same as anyone one else.


I agree with you, I don't like to group people together either but I believe the police are different enough to any other group that it's warranted in their case. Despite me earlier saying that ACAB is a valid statement, I don't think it should be taken literally. Like, I don't think you are a bastard, for example. But you have been afforded a set of powers that separates you from the other citizens and given the evidence so far, I don't think you could reasonably expect and trust that a police officer will enforce the law against one of their own. You would, I am sure, but I would not bet on it if we met for the first time while you were on the job and all I saw was a uniform.

I know it's happened, I know corrupt police officers have been brought to justice in what is probably a number of examples you could give me but that would never be the expectation in the same way I would expect a doctor to save my life, or a fireman to save my house. That mistrust becomes a presumption. ACAB is saying 'you are all the problem, until you excise the cancerous elements of your organisation, you are all the problem because you cannot be trusted'.

I'm not trying to make you agree with me by the way, just explaining what I think is the reasoning behind ACAB. I still think racism within the police is a consequence, not the cause.

User avatar
Rocsteady
Member
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by Rocsteady » Wed Jul 01, 2020 6:01 am

Great posts Igor.

Image
User avatar
Knoyleo
Member
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by Knoyleo » Wed Jul 01, 2020 11:01 am

twitter.com/iainaitch/status/1278256146332164106


:|

pjbetman wrote:That's the stupidest thing ive ever read on here i think.
User avatar
Dual
Member
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by Dual » Wed Jul 01, 2020 11:20 am

:lol:

User avatar
Moggy
"Special"
Joined in 2008
AKA: Moggy

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by Moggy » Wed Jul 01, 2020 11:22 am

#notallpolice

User avatar
<]:^D
Member
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by <]:^D » Wed Jul 01, 2020 11:23 am

is that real :dread: ?

User avatar
Moggy
"Special"
Joined in 2008
AKA: Moggy

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by Moggy » Wed Jul 01, 2020 11:24 am

<]:^D wrote:is that real :dread: ?


Yeah it was real. Now deleted.

User avatar
<]:^D
Member
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by <]:^D » Wed Jul 01, 2020 11:25 am

:fp:

User avatar
Lex-Man
Member
Joined in 2008
Contact:

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by Lex-Man » Wed Jul 01, 2020 12:35 pm

With China's new Hong Kong law do you think many people will take up our governments offer to move over here?

Amusement under late capitalism is the prolongation of work.
User avatar
captain red dog
Member
Joined in 2008
Location: Bristol, UK

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by captain red dog » Wed Jul 01, 2020 12:46 pm

I hate the ACAB slogan. It just fuels more division in society. We have some of the best policing in the world, under very difficult circumstances where their numbers have been reduced ridiculously. Don't get me wrong, we have some major problems far worse than the deleted tweet above, and we should always be working to reform the police and amend laws where needed. We aren't, however, in the situation that the US is in, with a largely militarised force and absolutely horrendous cases of racism.

The racism in the police here does exist on a less overt level, partially pushed by local authority policy such as stop and search, lack of numbers to do the job properly and government policy and law making.

ACAB is a completely useless slogan though, does nothing to assist reforms and just further divides things.

User avatar
Lex-Man
Member
Joined in 2008
Contact:

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by Lex-Man » Wed Jul 01, 2020 12:58 pm

I think the antagonism makes it more effective because it sticks in the minds. If they used a politer less antagonistic phrase less people would talk about it and nothing would change.

Amusement under late capitalism is the prolongation of work.
User avatar
Moggy
"Special"
Joined in 2008
AKA: Moggy

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by Moggy » Wed Jul 01, 2020 12:58 pm

captain red dog wrote:I hate the ACAB slogan. It just fuels more division in society. We have some of the best policing in the world, under very difficult circumstances where their numbers have been reduced ridiculously. Don't get me wrong, we have some major problems far worse than the deleted tweet above, and we should always be working to reform the police and amend laws where needed. We aren't, however, in the situation that the US is in, with a largely militarised force and absolutely horrendous cases of racism.

The racism in the police here does exist on a less overt level, partially pushed by local authority policy such as stop and search, lack of numbers to do the job properly and government policy and law making.

ACAB is a completely useless slogan though, does nothing to assist reforms and just further divides things.


The main problem for me is the police (as a group and as individuals) never ever admit that there are any problems. It's always fobbed off, ignored or denied. That creates the impression that they are all bastards, we know there are major problems in the police, hiding it makes it worse.

It's similiar (I am not accusing the police of this one!) to the child raping priests in the Catholic Church. We all know that not all priests harm children. But the covering up, the denials and the culture of just moving them along makes the whole damn lot look guilty.

ACAB is obviously disliked by the police, but I am sure young black men dislike being pulled over to be searched just because they are black.

And ACAB is no worse than any other generalisation that we apply to certain professions. We know not all referees are wankers, we know not all politicians are corrupt, we know not all priests are paedos, we know not all accountants are boring and we know not all actors are overpaid divas. But writing NACABBWAAWTOTAC (Not All Cops Are Bastards But We Are Angry With The Ones That Are banana splits) just takes too long.

User avatar
Knoyleo
Member
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by Knoyleo » Wed Jul 01, 2020 1:40 pm

Lex-Man wrote:With China's new Hong Kong law do you think many people will take up our governments offer to move over here?

I'm sure a few who are able to do so, will, but it really does very little to protect the right of the majority of Hong Kong people, and offers no help to anyone who wants to be able to live free in their own home country.

Sadly, there's very little the UK government can do to force the hand of Beijing, and so there's really not much we can actually expect them to do in order to hold up the protection promises in the joint handover agreement.

pjbetman wrote:That's the stupidest thing ive ever read on here i think.
User avatar
Return_of_the_STAR
Member
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by Return_of_the_STAR » Wed Jul 01, 2020 3:52 pm

BBC News - Hong Kong: UK makes citizenship offer to residents

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53246899

I have to say well done to the UK government on this. On the face of it it seems a good thing.

As said above I don't see what else we can do in the face of China and this will likely piss off China massively on its own. Expect a wrath of random cyber attacks and aggressive tone.

Yid Army
User avatar
Lagamorph
Member ♥
Joined in 2010

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by Lagamorph » Wed Jul 01, 2020 3:54 pm

Good thing the UK is so welcoming to immigrants at the moment.

Lagamorph's Underwater Photography Thread
Zellery wrote:Good post Lagamorph.
Turboman wrote:Lagomorph..... Is ..... Right
User avatar
Cuttooth
Emeritus
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by Cuttooth » Wed Jul 01, 2020 4:06 pm

Fingers crossed there are no problems with their status to remain in the UK in say, 40 to 50 years time.

User avatar
Lex-Man
Member
Joined in 2008
Contact:

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by Lex-Man » Wed Jul 01, 2020 4:13 pm

I still think it's a bit of a ploy. The Tories know nobody will come and it's an easy PR win with the more centre leaning Tories.

Amusement under late capitalism is the prolongation of work.
User avatar
Return_of_the_STAR
Member
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Politics Thread 6
by Return_of_the_STAR » Wed Jul 01, 2020 4:22 pm

Cuttooth wrote:Fingers crossed there are no problems with their status to remain in the UK in say, 40 to 50 years time.


Very good point.

Lex-Man wrote:I still think it's a bit of a ploy. The Tories know nobody will come and it's an easy PR win with the more centre leaning Tories.


Yeah indeed. I only expect a few tens of thousands to potentially take up the offer over time. Likely those who already have family here.

Yid Army

Return to “Stuff”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Grumpy David and 347 guests