Texas Progrs talk more national-level policing, minorities, etc

As noted in the lead-in to state half of this week's Wrangle talking about policing, brutality, and racism issues, I noted that Camden, New Jersey, has been touted as the model for "defunding" and starting a police department over, from scratch. The truth, though, is more complicated. That reminds us that this is not a simple issue. With that, let's dig in.

Alex Vitale talks about how neoliberal mayors have turned over problems created by their acquiescence in neoliberalism to police departments. He also discusses defunding or abolition vs other reform angles.


Why does Starbucks hate Black Lives Matter? Why does it lie when it claims it's not singling it out as a movement? Finally, when will librul (not leftist) whites find the principle to kick it to the curb.

Potential Status Quo Joe Biden veep nominee Klobberin Klobuchar has yet more splaining to do from her time as Twin Cities area DA, over a case rife with jailhouse snitches, police witness intimidation and more. The fact that the Klobberer refuses to withdraw her name from consideration shows how much she, as well as Biden, just don't get it, speaking of white librulz.

Wesley Lowery, booted from the pre-Bezos Post, talks about Black Lives Matter, reform vs defunding and White Lives Getting It.

Why is Trump warning against falsely labeling people as racist if other than he doesn't like being accurately labeled as racist? Like I hope many black Tulsans label him as, loudly and vocally, if he's stupid and arrogant enough to show up there on Juneteenth.

Mad Dog Mattis is still a mad dog, but his comments about Trump have freed more active-duty military to distance themselves from Trump.

A White House divided over how Trump should respond to unrest over George Floyd's killing? Those who appeal to his baser instincts will win, as they usually do. And, people of color in his White House staff who "fear a backlash" will likely continue to be Toms, Tacos and Auntie and Tia Jemimas. (Aunt Jemima is being pulled from the grocery store shelves but not from the White House and RNC ones.)

Fox is willing to break photojournalism ethics (until caught) to tell lies about protestors. And, then, it tells lies about how it used the photos.

Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields resigned after the third incident of police brutality or over-enforcement in six weeks, per Atlanta's mayor, this one fatal. I'm not sure this incident alone constituted a need to resign, but I'm not going to argue against it, and think that in the light of the history that Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms mentioned, this had to happen, for the good of the city and the future good of the Atlanta PD. And, I definitely think murder charges in the Rayshard Brooks case are an overcharge. That was even before reading that Fulton County DA is in a runoff and also faces corruption charges. We don't need politically biased policing against minorities, nor politically biased prosecutorial actions either for or against cops.

Many Zionist groups hate Black Lives Matter, and have so from the start, primarily because of fears of situational parallels between, and budding connections with, Palestinians.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott wants some sort of federal action on police reform, but without any real regulatory oversight. Shock me.

Long read: The devil's bargain between police unions and the larger organized labor movement.

Kumbaya humanism may trip itself up

About a year or a little more ago, I noticed that blog and Twitter friend, and fellow Massimo Pigliucci reader Shem the Penman was regularly commenting on a blog called Another White Atheist in Columbia.

I wound up adding it to my blogroll. But, in the last three-four months or so, M.L. Clark’s thoughts have become more “miss” than “hit” to me.

And, the most recent post, The Secular-Humanist Danger of “Proof, or It Didn’t Happen,” is definitely the most disconcerting.

I see basically two main issues with it. One is that Clark, in criticizing non-humanist atheists for having too many easy hot takes on religious fundamentalists and encouraging non-polarity actions, is herself setting up a new polarity. The other is that the post has a general incoherence throughout its fairly long length. And, as I write this out further, I’m thinking that was part of the problem she has with previous posts. They’re too long, and not so much too long per se, but too long while losing a focus or a central train of thought.

With that, let’s dig in.

She first claims to have divined “the reason” behind the fundamentalist or conservative evangelical type saying they know god is speaking to them, and feels no reason to dismiss this ultimate reason.

I don’t tend to go to that extreme, though, because I find it much easier to address the underlying concern of people who ask this question. What they’re really asking, after all, is far more humanistic: Don’t you believe me? Don’t you believe my experience of the cosmos? Don’t you find value in what I perceive to be the state of our shared reality?"

IMO, the fundamentalist version of a believer, at least, is NOT asking that.

To which I say that’s not the case, or it’s certainly not always the case.

They are asking: "Don't you believe me and my experience of the cosmos which I know is true because an omnipotent, omniscient being told me?"

That’s MUCH different.

And, no, I don’t believe you because of your stated or implied reasons for why you’re saying this.

And per the last rhetorical question? No, not even when they're family. Which they are, since unlike her, I'm not a "born atheist."

I'm not a Gnu Atheist and in part because of them, don't normally use the word "atheist" to describe myself. But, I'm not a Kumbaya type of secular humanist, either. I have no need to go out of my way to denigrate religious beliefs. AND I have no need to go out of my way to turd-polish such beliefs either. (That's a riff on President Kumbaya, also known to me as Dear Leader, the previous occupant of the White House.)

I can, as necessary, compartmentalize how I interact with such others. That means not sharing that part of their reality, so your last rhetorical question simply doesn't fly with me. I have no need to call it a "figment of their imagination" to simply not accept it. 

==

Then this:

But when we say that, we’re being disingenuous: treating divinity as an invisible friend, when the neuroscience says something much more fascinating. If “God” is a tool that can enhance our inner convictions–give us a bolt of courage, or clarity, when it comes to our instincts–then there are good reasons for its persistence in our species.

Well .... first, neuroscience says all sorts of things. Doesn't mean they're true. In fact, lots of stuff currently peddled with a "neuro-" prefix is pseudoscience. Ditto for evolutionary psychology and its application to the growth of religious believe across the developmental history of Homo sapiens. And it ain't just me who says so.

I think you're using that "if" as a rhetorical device. I think it's better used as an actual "if." Much better used. We will never know or even come close to knowing exactly how and why religious belief developed. Even if the big picture of its start is right, internalizing a combination of agency imputation and pattern detection, that's far shy of God being a tool to enhance our inner convictions.

After all, many prayers are not for courage, or other emotional or moral gifts. They're for success in the hunt, a new job, and other quite materialistic issues.

==

Then this:

However, we secular humanists also have to recognize that we give this ammo away when we, too, practise a complete dismissal of other human beings’ subject-positions.

That, and your phrasing of the two-part option that follows doesn't recognize that you yourself may be setting up and holding to a similar two-part option.

As for how you apply this to politics-based social justice here in Merika, since I'm not a member of either duopoly party, that doesn't apply to me. Tis true that few Merikuns operate outside the polarities of the duopoly box, but some do. (Beyond that, I already know that women can, have, and do lie about sexual abuse claims. And, when it comes to sexual abuse of one adult by another, and even more, child sexual abuse? Women can be abusers just like men. Gays and lesbians can be abusers just like straights.)

Beyond that, I think it's in a sense weak tea to transition from this broad "we give this ammo away" to such a narrowly focused follow up.

Tying this back to your two-part option? I am going to situationally assess fundamentalist / conservative evangelical claims different from others' claims as a starter. And no, that doesn't mean I'm playing on his or her turf. Basically, you're coming close to your own two-option polarity by seeming to indicate that there's only one way of not playing on their turf.

Wrong in spades, overall.

Rather than engaging in repeated battle, I can have a one-off conversation with a fundy. If it's online rather than meatspace, if they don't appear amenable to pouring their Humean passions into the filter of reason, then I move on. Including muting, blocking or whatever. See, that's a third way right there. Or I can go a second step down the road if I see a crack, but then cut things off whenever needed. 

All of this applies to general political discussion with the far right. And many other things.

Finally, a lot of good psychological research says that empathy isn't the blanket good that you seem to postulate it is. And, that ties back to my “Kumbaya humanist” comment above.

At this point, it's time to close with old friend Idries Shah:

And this one from Shah is good, too. I am working to apply it more and more to myself.

#Debate2016 — No. 1 was #DumbAndDumber

Good fricking doorknob.

Yes, I Tweeted about "Dumb and Dumber" last night.

I said Trump insults intelligence of people in general (Dumber) while Clinton insults intelligence of well-informed people (Dumb).

If you want a chess-match scorecard?

Clinton "won" with a gentlewoman's C-minus, to riff on  Shrub Bush and Hillbot extraordinaire Charles Pierce's calling him a C-plus Augustus. She did do some good Muhammad Ali rope-a-dope, but, she's the same semi-vacuous incrementalist, when discussing her own ideas, she's always been.

Trump "lost" with an F-plus.

I don't give him an F because he didn't always lie.

Biggest example? Yes, he was endorsed by ICE's union.

And, it's MSM gnat-straining to claim that his claim of being endorsed by ICE was a fib. As I told NBC's Kelly O'Donnell, I say that as both a Green voter and a media person myself.

I very likely won't watch the other two debates.

We've seen that Donald Trump is going to approach the debates as ... Donald Trump.

And that Hillary Clinton will be rope-a-dope Clinton because it's easy and defense-smart.

Blech.

Within this actual debate, Trump told plenty of lies, of course.

And, Clinton told her fair share.

Beyond the "I'll be tough on regulations" likes designed to appeal to Berners dumb enough to buy, her biggest lies were in Russia-related cybersecurity issues. Beyond spreading the Manchurian candidate idea by indirect innuendo, she had a whole series of lies.

She claimed the U.S., unlike Russia or China, never commit cyberespionage, let along cyberwar.

Really?

So Stuxnet never happened?

See "Dumb and Dumber."

Why I don't believe in "justified" actions with serious moral consequences

A blog post of mine last month, about the 70th anniversary of the world's first atomic bombing, at Hiroshima, is the basis of this.

At least one liberal to left-liberal friend asked if I thought the bombing was "justified."

My response? I said that I generally tried to avoid that word.

Why? I pointed them to my review of Walter Kaufmann's "Without Guilt and Justice." The title it self should offer some hint as to my thought. The fact that Kaufmann is the world's best mid-20th century expositor of Friedrich Nietzsche should offer yet more. But, click the review link for details.

Of course, existentialist morals can differ from one another, Nietzsche's own are surely different from Kaufmann's, and this is his book, not Nietzsche's. Both are surely different again from Sartre's or Camus'.

The big point is that he disagrees strongly with John Rawls on ethics, and his critiques surely apply in a general sense to other liberal humanistic schools of ethics.

Perhaps a better way of looking at this is that Kaufmann believes in his own version of humanistic ethics. It is an empirical one, and one that fully accepts the Problem of Induction in trying to formulate moral laws.

And speaking of induction and empiricism, perhaps this is a good time to reference David Hume's "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals," which in turn, may have influenced Nietzsche's "On the Genealogy of Morality." (Yes, he reacts against some British philosophy, but that appears to be against utilitarianism.) Certainly, it's arguable that Kaufmann sees Nietzsche through a Humean set of glasses, to the degree either one is influencing him.

I take Hume's focus on "the passions" and morals as descriptive, rather than prescriptive, and certainly not an overarching theory. Of course, I think Hume rejected such theories in general, and that itself is arguably a theory, or an anti-theory.

People of any ethnic background can be racist

That’s contrary to Jeff over at Shakesville, who says whites who have a problem with Jeremiah Wright really have a problem with themselves, because blacks can’t be racist.

To which, I replied:

This is pure drivel.

First, let me qualify my bona fides. I’m a left-liberal who voted Green in 2004 and will likely do so again in 2008.

And, I'll tell you right now, the idea that black people in America can't be racist is a lie.

I have personally seen in America racism out of the mouths of whites, blacks, Hispanics and American Indians. I'm sure South and East Asians do it too.

Jeff, I don’t know whether you have “white guilt complex” or what, but, you're an idiot for spreading lying myths like this.