Grand jury reaches decision in Ferguson case (Announcement Monday night)

[Beet]

I'm 5'5 and would never consider fighting another 5'5 man (even 40% heavier) to be someone "bigger and stronger" even if it is technically true. "Fatter and heavier" is more like it. Brown was fatter and heavier. Ask me about fighting someone "bigger and stronger"  is more like me vs. someone who's 6'1, in my mind. You can't put it on the same level, someone who is the same height as you vs. someone who is six inches or more taller. Officer Wilson is 6'4 so he is probably used to dealing with shorter people 95% of the time, I don't think he really knows what it feels like to be physically intimidated.

[Beet]

If you're going to riot and burn things, why would you do it to your own town?

It's not their own town. They don't actually own it. They don't own homes, they don't know businesses, many of them have to take public transportation. They don't pay property taxes. Ferguson, MO is just a place they happen to be stuck living in, not their own community.

That's why it's not that hard to imagine why people there would be so comfortable in destroying it.

They are destroying rented homes, rented businesses, and rioting on rented streets. No liability to them.

Its more than that...they still shop at these places, live around those streets, etc.

The same people destroying the walmart tonight are going to be mad that its not open for 2 weeks after this.

It's not really more than that. If anything, they are creating economic prosperity for themselves. Wal-Mart will now have to further increase holiday staffing to clean up the mess. Nobody has any reason to care about the cost of the damage.

Until they are given real stable opportunity to own businesses and homes of their own, nobody will ever care about the cost of the damage.

But will Wal-Mart keep open the shop up again, Ferguson have seen a large demographic change from 2000 to 2010, it has become blacker and poorer (and I doubt we see that will turn around with what Ferguson now is famous for), there is a major risk than many of these shops, will just close down and their owners open new ones other places.

The Wal-Marts and Little Caesars and AutoZones can afford to open up shop again and hedge the risk. It's the small businesses - including and especially the black businesses - that will not be able to recover.

Wal-Mart is the #1 destroyer of small businesses. The rioters are just accelerating the process of creative destruction.

[Beet]

This is getting crazy. Riots in nearly 200 cities? I get that there are conflicting witness accounts, but it's undisputed that the guy robbed a store and then assaulted a police officer. Aren't there any better poster boys out there for all this outrage?

All in all, this month has been very weird and not in a good way.

[Beet]

What's it matter whether Michael Brown was a "bad guy"? Even if he were, I've not seen any legitimate argument for why deadly force was in any way reasonable.

If he was trying to grab the officer's weapon, then it is reasonable for the officer to use deadly force to stop that from happening.

It's only reasonable because a gun is a deadly weapon in and of itself. If it's kill and be killed, then sure, it's justified to kill. If no firearm had been within grabbable range, then deadly force would not even have been in question. That's why in many countries, the police don't carry firearms. Alas, in the U.S. with our gun worshipping culture this is impossible.

[Beet]

That's why in many countries, the police don't carry firearms. Alas, in the U.S. with our gun worshipping culture this is impossible.

Name them; because the vast majority of European forces do.

Off the top of my head, England, Japan and China. In China it's starting to change in some areas because of terrorist attacks, not because the police couldn't handle ordinary crime.