A Maryland police officer was convicted on Friday of charges that he joined a mob’s Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and hurled a smoke bomb and other objects at police officers guarding a tunnel entrance.
U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden heard two days of trial testimony without a jury this week before he found Montgomery County Police Officer Justin Lee guilty of two felonies and three misdemeanors. The judge, who also acquitted Lee of two other misdemeanors, is scheduled to sentence him on Nov. 22.
Lee, 26, ignited and threw a smoke bomb into the tunnel entrance on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace, where a mob of rioters attacked a group of outnumbered police officers. The device struck a police officer’s riot shield and filled the mouth of the tunnel with a large plume of smoke, prosecutors said.
for your last paragraph: yes they are, and you partly explain why in this very paragraph. it’s about how they’re trained and how they’re used.
don’t forget that they started as a service to catch slaves for the owners. they’re still more or less on that mission, only now that slavery isn’t as common, they expanded to wage slaves and other oppressed people instead. and they still serve the masters.
Please read the thread as these are points that were already repeatedly litigated elsewhere.
Also I’m just curious: Where do you live, and would you ever call 911 in any sort of emergency whatsoever? A burglary of your house; the witnessing a murder in your neighborhood, etc. Do you have kids?
I’m not going to doxx myself here by giving details about my life and whereabouts but it is likely that if there was an actual emergency i would call the cops because there’s literally no other system in place. that doesn’t mean they aren’t bastards.
also it helps that I’m not a black person in the US. otherwise police would be much more likely to shoot me than someone who broke into my house.
Man isn’t it kind of fucked up that you’d rely on the only service available and to help you, but maintain the cognitive dissonance that they’re all bastards just the same, including Eugene Goodman? “Thanks for coming to help me and my mother, officer, but did you know you’re a bastard?”
Reminder that there are black officers in America. Like Eugene Goodman. Perhaps if there were more black officers in the force and they weren’t all labeled as bastards that the culture could change. Forgetting the fact that the media you consume focuses on the wrongful actions of police but rarely if ever the positive actions.
Can’t we just say MCAB to be more logically precise?
first of all it’s incredible that people still think they have a gotcha with this “yet you participate in society”-ass argument. it’s not cognitive dissonance if there’s a rhino that’s got you cornered and the only number you have is 1-800-LIONS you call a lion and hope for the best. you can acknowledge the lion could just as easily eat you instead.
you probably watched the end of Jurassic Park and thought wow the T-Rex really cares about those humans! no, sometimes a general threat may get rid of a more immediate threat. and more importantly, sometimes it doesn’t, and beats the immediate threat to be the first to kill you.
second of all, black officers aren’t magical beings. they can be and often are just as racist because they’re part of a racist system and are trained just the same.
the media should focus on bad things. doing what you’re supposed to do rarely makes news. you know when i design a nice looking website with good user experience the news crew doesn’t show up at my house. but if i designed a website so bad that a user ends up dying from using it i would expect some news coverage of it.
not massively fucking up shouldn’t earn you a spot on the news.
and lastly, no we can’t say mcab. because one bad apple spoils the bunch. the so-called “good cops” still enable and protect the so-calledv"bad cops" and that makes them all the same. because if there are cops who are actually good they either quit or get fired for trying to speak up.
Forget “lions” and “rhinos” (lol wtf?), if a cop came and protected your mother from a violent intruder, rapist… Would you say they’re a bastard to their face, or would you just say it behind their backs on a message-board? For in that moment, was the cop a bastard, or did they do their duty? Especially if they treated both you and your mother with respect?
You see, we’ve long respected those in society who practiced what they preached. Changers of society are rarely choosy beggars; that is, ones who protested a part of society so vehemently were rarely hypocrites who participated in the things they sought to change. So it strikes me as interesting that you’re willing to label ALL cops – even the good black cops like Eugene Goodman – as bastards – and yet, are fully willing to plead for their aid when the going gets tough. That’s fucking remarkable. I know if I had your conviction and belief that “ALL” cops were bastards, I sure as shit wouldn’t be calling anyone because that would only exacerbate the situation. For example, if I lived in a shithole like Russia or China, I probably wouldn’t call the cops.
And are you saying that all cops have a duty to be racist and all cops, including black cops, are always discriminatory toward citizens? Because that is precisely what you are saying when you say that “ALL” cops are bastards.
By discrete logic, if I merely show that one cop has been an upstanding citizen leading by example, then that clearly undermines the whole “All” part of ACAB, yes…?
And moreover in what magical society do you seek to live in where your participation does not necessitate some sort of accountability for laws established in said Democracy…? What is this Utopian society?
And okay, let’s do this weird analogy with feral lions and dinosaurs… If said T-Rex or Lion after killing the naughty Rhino (let’s say Hippo to be more accurate since Hippos are actually far more dangerous), then comes over and simple licks your face, then rolls over and lets you give it a belly-rub… Would one not conclude, “Wow, not ALL lions and T-Rexes are man-eating monsters with no soul!”? Like… You get how your analogy is flawed from the outset right? The circular-reasoning begging-the-question assuming-the-premise take that is, “All Cops are Predestined to being Man-eating monsters”? What kind of fucking take is that?
And where is your proof that this OTHER analogy, “one bad apple spoils the bunch” applies to cops? Your entire prejudice against cops are built atop a fucking house of cards fallacious argument about Lions and spoiled APPLES. What in the actual fuck? And if you really want to get misanthropic-meets-nihilist, then you can simply say that about literally any human in any group and as a result we are all spoiled apples anyway. But I don’t subscribe to that. Obviously, cultural change begins with promoting those good apples, and weeding out the bad apples over time. If we want to go with fruit analogies now, then I’ll just say that just because one barrel goes bad doesn’t mean we stop growing fucking apples. We just implement better picking methods, promoting healthier apples while working on a new system that weeds out the bad apples sooner.
Even the FBI proves this. How far we’ve come from being complicit in the assassination of liberals, to the very same institution blowing the whistle on right-wing extremism and white-supremacist movements, INCLUDING corruption INSIDE Law-Enforcement precincts.
you really have trouble with analogies.
“you know this is like tying cement block to your ankle and trying to swim”
“yeah but what if the block floats though”
the whole point of using a cement block is that it doesn’t float. saying a T-Rex would lick your face because it’s one of the good ones doesn’t work. the analogy was lions vs rhinos because you asked how someone helping in one instance could ever be described as a bastard.
since you’re not an analogy guy let me say it plainly: having a bastard get rid of a son of a bitch doesn’t make the first one not a bastard. especially since there is always a chance the bastard would get rid of you first.
Our discussion aside, I want to let you in on a rhetorical tip because this is the kind of shit I study: Analogies are frankly terrible to use in a debate/argument. They are more useful in non-controversial things where there is not strong often emotionally-charged disagreement, such as a classroom to help explain a concept. Best just to avoid them in general because at their core, analogies are pretty much never 1:1, and thus will be scrutinized and nitpicked to oblivion.
The problem isn’t that I disagree with Lions or T-Rexes being inherently bad… It’s that even if all police were as feral as a lion, it still doesn’t make sense because a lion would go for the most vulnerable, wounded prey and not the hippo or rhino lol.
Moreover the premise of the analogy itself just does not apply to the circumstance at hand, and helps me convey why all cops != feral cats.
… Do you understand how this is the classic logical fallacy that is circular reasoning? When there are clear examples of police coming to your aid and NOT acting like feral cats and in fact can act like good domesticated house cats, then I reveal the exception. And if there is merely one exception, then not ALL cops are feral cats, or bastards.
So please explain how Eugene Goodman, specifically, is a bastard.
for someone who studies this kind of shit you seem to miss the point of the analogy consistently even when i said the same thing without the analogy.
so I’ll try to go another level in stripping the premise:
your question: cop sometimes help, how help bastard
my answer:
as to your last request, he’s a cop. that’s how.
I think saying all cops are bastards because they are bastards is unfair to however few actual good cops there are out there. It’s the system that is failing us, and putting bad cops in a position where they can’t fail and where they can’t or won’t be held accountable. I think it’s unfair to however many cops out there who just want to help, aren’t racist, aren’t willing to abuse their power, etc to claim that ACAB means all cops are bastards because they are all bastards and that there are no good cops. I feel like it’s a step away from saying the only good cop is a dead cop, which is probably not the most popular sentiment, but I think some people here might actually believe in that sentiment.
I know this is probably an unpopular opinion, and I’m not afraid of acknowledging systemic problems, and I think I have done so. Oh well, that’s my thoughts.