Yeah, WTF, I can join in with anti cop sentiment, but what good does burning your own city down? Next they will want a law requiring businesses to build in their area when every franchise with any sense rebuilds elsewhere. Cops are evil therefore burn down the nearest McDonalds,  perfect example of leftist logic.

I agree Digital, earlier news reports (since summer) clearly showed non-residents arriving to take part in the riots. The locals were volunteering to clean up the mess. I'm reminded of a sci-fi short story I read [from well over 60 years ago] about "flash mobs" who beamed in on Star Trek type transporters to potential hot spots for the fun and organized looting. That writer also predicted cable News and hovering cameras' and what sounded like internet cult personalitys. Can anyone here help me remember who that far sighted writer was, personally I'm thinking Heinlin, Clarke or Asimov.

Yet again the lovers of  big government are proven wrong.

Where is the public police force when the shop owners needed them most? If they had there own private security, they'd still have their stores. If the private security guards ran off the job as the police did in Fergeson, they could sue their company for damages. Instead, the politicians keep their jobs and the police unions keep their pensions, they sucker taxpayers pay for all the damage.

Meanwhile the irrational continue to believe that if someone is working in the public sector, they don't have any greedy or self centered motives, only private sector workers and owners can be greedy. If one has their payroll done by government, somehow their self-preserving DNA is magically turned off and they just want to serve everyone but themselves.

 I stayed out of this thread since it was posted here because I have been dealing with this subject since it this all happened. 

I can handle the economic crap with you guys. I can also handle the fake protection of religion as if it should never be questioned.

None of you have any clue as to why history keeps repeating itself. Over simplying a long term problem to placing blame  because it is much easier to do that than to actually listen to those directly affected by these repeated events.

You want to blindly back Wilson up? You say he is being unfarely targeted? Good, think about that feeling because that is what blacks go through on a much bigger scale at a higher frequency than Wilson or any of us, regardless of guilt or innocence.

I was a dumb teen myself. I smoked pot, drank beer under age. One night my "friends" and I went smashing cars with bricks for fun. Our damage made the local paper. Another party I had in my basement we were drinking and smoking pot and doing acid. A girl got beat up in my back yard. Another time I had a full size replica 38 cap gun, no red nose, no way to tell it was not real. Someone called the cops on me, cop drew his gun on me. I did not end up dead. Saw friends shoplift too. Seen plenty of fights worse than a mere shove, on my street, in highschool and at bars and frat parties.

This isn't about Brown's parents giving birth to him just to say "Hey we think it is a good idea if you assault a cop". This isn't about other blacks saying "yes we love it when you take a few and paint us all the same". Lots of outrage over the pumpkin festival wasn't there? How about after a college football loss or pro hockey game?

Now you feel sorry for Wilson? Lets go with the narrative he didn't do wrong and run with that for a second. He according many, had to lose his job out of fear for other officers, himself and his family. From now on he will have to look over his shoulder and wonder what people think. THAT is what blacks feel every day regardless of innocence or guilt. This is not about Brown, this is about how economics and fear lead our system to judge much more harsly and to a greater degree one segment of the population more than others.

Otherwise when I assaulted the cop I did, she would have had the right to shoot me and I was unarmed as well.

Digital, you have actually out of everyone on every subject have merely posted stories. This was not aimed personally at you. And even out of the divisions that are clear on this board, this was aimed at a general audience. I have seen the same narratives on other boards long before this post that reflect the same general attitude.

This was a post I made on another board. I hope it sums up what Furguson protestors, Treyvon protestors and tons prior understand. It isn't about advocating violence or lawlessness. 

You mean specific audience.

Also I think parts of Wilson's story is bullshit. It was his unchecked ego as well Micheal Brown's unchecked ego which ballooned in to this entire cluster fuck of a protest. These people are protesting by the way, they are rioting. Protesting is completely different. I believe what Charles Barkley said was dead on. These people burning Ferguson are scumbags.

Going back to Wilson's story, I believe pretty much every thing he said up to the point where he chased the guy off. I believe that after Brown ran (which he ran because he was scared) transferred power to Wilson's ego which then took over and blinded him. The ending of the entire situation was not needed. He was no longer in a threatening situation. He had control over Micheal Brown. He could have ended this with out shooting him again.

To bring up another issue with recent black men/boys dying at the hands of police.

The guy selling cigarettes was choked and while he was fat, obese, out of shape, bad heart, etc, he could have been taken in with out conflict. I mean, come on... TEN FUCKING COPS were there. Really? For selling untaxed cigarettes? bs.

Then you got the kid in Cleveland who, along with his parents, are just as much to blame. He has a weapon which looks like a real lethal weapon and the cops pull up and shoot the kid who later dies. Did he need to die? No. Did the cops screw up? Yep. What cop drives up on the grass and then exposes his partner to the 'suspect' who if he was a real killer would have shot at least one cop to death before he got out of the car. When approaching a perp you turn the car so the front of it is directed at the perp. Both cops then can use the doors for protection. They also didn't need to go driving up on the lawn like Rambo. There was no need for it. The 911 caller did not say he was shooting people. They did not say any one was in danger.

In San Francisco there was a transit cop who claimed to be pulling out his taser and then shot the black man to death. It could have been avoided.

All of these scenarios are EGO driven. If people would learn to control their ego this shit wouldn't happen.

Holy crap. 

You will not get Brown's parents to claim that when he was born, their goal was to say "do stupid shit and resist cops"

I did stupid shit as  teen. I am not big guy or Barny bad ass. I have in my life seen guys his size fight each other and do stupid shit. I have witnessed shoplifting. I have witnessed phyisical assaults far worse than a mere shove. I was part of destruction of property where a bunch of middle class metal heads one night decided to go smash cars for "fun". That damage made our local paper.

Back in the 80s I had toy cap guns that eventually got banned that were EXACT replicas of the real thing no red nose or anything denoting the difference. One day I was outside shooting my cap gun, not sure if it was the 38 or the Glock. Someone rightfully called the cops. Cop showed up, drew his gun on me. I didnt end up dead.

Another time I was pulled over for speeding. I did not comply. I was pissed because I was not feeling well left work on my way to get care. Cop walks up to my window, she asks me for ID, not thinking and in a bad mood, I quickly reached for my wallet and threw it at her, hit her right in the chest.  All I got was a disorderly conduct charge.

If the rate of death of unarmed whites vs unarmed blacks were even, one could claim blacks are bitching for no reason.

That...seems pretty reasonable. I also doubt I could get Brown's parents to claim that.

Okay, so you did a lot of stupid stuff...

I'd like to respond, except I don't understand where we're not connecting. You quoted me and seem to disagree with me (?), but I don't see where you actually answered any of my questions or addressed anything I said.  

Are you implying that if you had been black, you would not have gotten away with all those things you did when you were younger? That's.....possible, but we don't know either way. That's anecdotal and hypothetical.

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. 

It's possible for police officers to discriminate against African Americans, just not to the extent of being more likely to shoot them. So, working with those assumptions, black people would still have a good reason to bitch. 

You're saying the rate of death of unarmed caucasions vs blacks are not even. That's a good place to start. What are their death rates? Beyond Saving says they ARE even, but he didn't include a link in his post. Do you have a source?

www.nbcnews.com/id/21255937/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/study-died-police-custody-over-years/#.VIJBUYvF9CQ

This is a smaller study than the one I was referring to, but the results are similar. I think I linked to the large one that covered about 10 years worth of data last time we talked about Brown and Brian ran away from the thread as soon as I started linking complicated sources. 

www.rationalresponders.com/forum/34670

The rate of arrests are at

www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-43

(hispanics and latinos are lumped in with "white" in the fbi report.)

Do you think the numbers are off at all?

www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ard0309st.pdf

This report breaks down custody deaths by type on page 6 of the pdf.  I was just looking it over again and on page 11 they include the total number of arrests by race in the jurisdictions that participated on page 11. Blacks accounted for 27.8% of arrests and 31.8% of all deaths, 31.7% of deaths labled as "homocide". 

The most stark difference between blacks and whites is that blacks account for significantly fewer suicide rates. Perhaps cops watch blacks in custody closer? Or is it just all the white guilt from being dirty rotten racists that makes them more suicidal?

That is what I had heard previously about these reports. It is all voluntary, plus they can fudge their own numbers. I would at least need to consider this as a possibility.

Yes lets equate the few as being the entire community. Forget all the blacks telling other blacks not to do that. And of course Obama was secretly sending blacks the message to riot more becuase he sank the Titanic too. 

Forget about the Pumpkin festival and that drunk riot. That must mean all white people riot too.

Your simplistic crap plauges everything you argue. And all of it at it's core is the same. Blame everyone else because that is easier to do than listen.

You, "They want to rob me"

You, "Me me me mine mine mine"

You, "It is tyranny if I don't get what I want"

Instead of doing what you always do in blaming workers and the poor, how about shutting up, stop your classest judmental crap and try listening. 

It is not a conspiracy against you like you want to make it out to be. You live in a bubble and merely don't like an ugly truth pointed out to you.

Riots are generally similar regardless of the politics or purpose. I don't, for one second, believe that the activities can truly be described as the fault of leftist thinking.

It is really a palestine-israel type issue, just on a smaller scale. When a group of people feel marginalised and powerless, this is the result. It doesn't matter what colour the skin is or what god is or isn't worshipped or what political agency can most effectively be identified at work. It is basic human psychology.

Bullshit. Protests at abortion clinics which often explode, protests at funerals. The right is just as grandiose at riot-like behaviour as the left