NYPD officers shot dead as "revenge" for Garner decision.

[© tweed]

a fun game to play with definitions: can this be considered an act of terrorism?  I'd argue not: an assassination of an agent of the state is not terrorism but, rather, an act of political insurgency.

[© tweed]

a fun game to play with definitions: can this be considered an act of terrorism?  I'd argue not: an assassination of an agent of the state is not terrorism but, rather, an act of political insurgency.

Wow, so deep man...

deep or not, 40 years of discussion at the international level has not created a consensus re: the definition of "terrorism".

a case like this sits right at the borderline of 'terror', which is why I feel it would be a fun discussion, at least in comparison to the rather useless course a discussion of this matter will take in the ensuing day or two.

[© tweed]

Can we not?

people either will or won't.  the likely alternative is an endless volley between people with pro-cop sympathies, who will feign tremendous grief and righteous anger at the growing anti-cop social movement, and the rest of us, who will say "live by the sword, die by the sword."  if police can continue to kill at will with legal impunity, it'll be clear to all with a greivance that "seeking justice" though the legal channels is a rigged game, and there will be those who take matters into their own hands.

RIP officers Liu and Ramos. A symbol of the tremendous diversity that is the NYPD.

we all shall cry a liberal crocodile tear at this one.

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"respect was invented to fill the place where love should be".  Tolstoy via Anna Karenina.

"lack of respect" -- why should police be respected?  at the one extreme, there's every reason for plenty of people to view them as the enemy, for reasons too obvious to need explanation.

this whole "respect cops" nonsense has taken a deep hold though, you are right.  they rank just below the military among the divine Icons of American civil religion, and for the most part get compensated quite well for a job that's not nearly as dangerous as all of those TV dramas would make it seem.  (as I said a few weeks ago, it's safer to be a cop than a construction worker, let alone a coal miner, let alone a nonunion construction worker or coal miner!)

we're at the point where the police do expect to be nothing short of worshipped.I'm sure you've seen the cop unions respond to the NFL players with the "hands up" gesture in St Louis and the "RIP Tamir Rice" in Cleveland.  both were incredulous and demanded the players' employers punish them for their "disrespect towards the police".  

the anger at de Blasio grows out of the same attitude.  how dare the Mayor meet with actual citizens!  he shoud be denouncing them while working closely with the PBA to find a way to crack as many of the protestors' skulls as possible.

[© tweed]

Well, police deserve respect as human beings, just as all humans deserve respect. You're a little too "sage" for your own argument tweed... not everyone can be loved. Leave that up to Jesus. Human love is something that is in precious quantity... we can only apportion it out one at a time. Respect, on the other hand, is something that can be delivered.

to go back to 19th Century Russian lit, here to Turgenev, Bazarov was asked by the proud noble Pavel Petrovich if he "had respect" for the aristocracy.  his answer: respect, what's that?  if they're correct, I'll agree with them; beyond that, I owe them nothing.

the concept of "respect" in the cop context is not of your universal cry, "all humans deserve respect."  I've no objection to that -- that's simply the absence of sociopathy, not a high bar to clear.  

no, the idea here is that the police somehow deserve to be more respected, or respected in a special way, that in practice crosses the line into veneration.  their claims and interests must supercede that of the general population.  these two cops will be venerated, idealized in death, and we'll hear how brave they were and what great fathers they were, etc... yet a mere public statement of "RIP" for Brown, or for Garner, or Tamir Rice -- gets the cops so angry that union heads write fuming letters demanding that anyone of stature who says such a thing should be punished.

all that can be concluded from this is that "respect the cops" in practice means to treat them as more important, more virtuous men than those they supposedly serve -- and Lord have mercy on you if you grieve for one of the unpeople, subhumans who die at the hands of the cops.

[© tweed]

I have a hard time seeing how De Blasio can hold on with this now.

a) that's three years from now b) NYC is a majority-minority electorate.  a Dem could lose 4 of 5 whites and win

[© tweed]

a few thoughts flowing through my head.

-GREAT luck for the NYPD/supporters of police power that this was a black guy shooting an Asian and a Hispanic. 

any criticism of police power is being tied to the double murder.  it should work on everyone except for the blacks, and isolating the blacks and then clubbing them over the head is a fail-safe, tried & true tactic.

-I think I get the cops grievance w/de Blasio.  Lynch said on Hannity "you don't want us to go after loosies, we won't go after loosies".  the problem is de Blasio has tried to curb the worst aspects of "broken windows" while not rocking the boat too much.  this translates to not "supporting the cops enough" when something bad happens due to broken windows re: Eric Garner.

if de Blasio came into office as a real reformist, brought in a new-blood commish (Bratton was a signal that, hey don't worry, thing will stay about the same), and blatantly said (internally) to the police: we no longer care about marijuana possession, we no longer care about drug possession, no longer care about any other daily life, petty crime: stay on your post and wait for something bad to happen", the cops would've accepted it.  instead de Blasio had tried to have cake and eat it.

the problem of course is, de Blasio needs broken windows to get enough black and browns to fill all of the prisons built upstate in the 80s and 90s, and to keep the correctional officers happy.. rock and a hard place.

[© tweed]

This never would have happened if the NYPD didn't continually act as judge, jury, and executioner anytime that a person of color walked toward them on the street, or looked at them funny, or [insert pig excuse for murder here].

c'mon man, this is counterproductive.  there is something deeply sick about the USA that makes it churn out stunning numbers of habitually abused, angry, violent, "mentally ill" people with easy access to lethal weapons.  police violence is only a small part of all that.