For York's audience of conservatives, life is about fear. They're afraid all the time. For them, it's only a matter of time before you, me, everyone is a victim of violent crime.
That's one of the reasons why they're absolutely obsessed with guns. Because they're terrified of everyone else, and especially of minorities. A classic example of the type is a business acquaintance of mine. He lives in rural South Carolina, and there is essentially no violent crime in his area. But he and everyone he knows is armed to the teeth because the [Blacks/Mexicans/Haitians/Crips/Bloods/MS-13] are one the way! When he comes to visit me in rural Vermont, he brings at least one handgun. Because you never know!
I can't imagine going through life that terrified all the time.
Yeah, I see it with the conservatives I work with too. Their conservative politics spring from fear of others, of change, of complexity. Most of the time, the gun is a pacifier and a symbol to let them feel like they are in control in unfamiliar situations.
I can. I used to be afraid of anyone with a penis, regardless of gender. My response was to stay the fuck home. Because if you're walking around strapped with no one to watch your fucking back, you're making yourself less safe, and other people too, though you presumably don't give a shit. Bring a friend, not a gun.
Here in Northwest Washington (60 to 70 miles north of that den of violence--
Seattle) we like to post signs on our garage doors that warn "Nothing in here is worth dying for" with a drawing of a gun pointing outward. So you really think your stuff is worth that much? I understand being unnerved and afraid of the stranger on your property--who may be carrying a gun, too but I'll stick to my trusty baseball bat. I've lived here 20 years and never even suspected a break in. What I do find unnerving is my neighbor who is sliding into dementia and his family can't find his guns.
2021 had the mishugas of Covid quarantine and stresses on front line workers none of which could have contributed in any way to any increase in crimes. It's not just the "conservatives" pushing this line of shit but the mainstream as well. Amongst all the flaws of establishment reportage -- political fantasies passed off as reality, economic disinformation, etc. -- reporting on crime trends is right up there.
And one tell here is that the spike involves whatcha call your crimes of passion: an increase in people cracking from increased stress.
As a dotard, I'm finally understanding our loss of patience with all the bullshit the media spew. I mean, how much patience does one need to have with a torrent of destructive lies?
Yeah, it is unexplainable that crimes that require the presence of people, like murder, are way up, while crimes that are best in the absence of people, like burglary, are way down. Well unexplainable by conservatives
I'm also going through a dotard thing in which I belief that crime #s are per se bogus because crime is found where you look for it, and what's not looked for maybe isn't found so isn't counted. So I'm some degree of skeptical to everything regarding crime rates.
That's exactly what he's getting at, isn't it. Because sure, murders are up in cities that spent last summer threatening to defund the cops, but it's up in cities where you can't put a mask mandate in place, either. Fact is, violent crime is up everywhere. To focus on progressive cities is an incredibly transparent attempt to scare people about the presence of people of color, especially young people of color. Especially the ones who spent last year demanding cops stop shooting them, which seems like such a small ask. Cops aren't supposed to rely on their guns, even when they're "scared".
Of course “crime” is shorthand for “Black people” and York really doesn’t attempt to hide that fact.
You almost have to give him credit for his directness. Rightwing mouthpieces seem to usually put in some qualifier like “of course racism is evil and everyone should be against it” and then go on to argue that no actual people, policies, or institutions are ever in fact racist. So what exactly do they think racism *IS*? An unavoidable act of god like a hurricane or an earthquake, destructive and regrettable, but what can you do?
“ I believe York threw this in just because it made him feel damn good, like he had his knee on someone's neck.”
I’ve always thought that image of Chauvin nonchalantly kneeling —with his hands in his pockets and a smug smile on his face— on the neck of a dying black man is exactly what white supremacists want. It could be a poster on the wall for these people.
Behold the racist stylings of Byron York, former CNN producer, contributor to the Atlantic, Huffington Post, NPR, Meet the Press... more proof that no one on the right is too rancid to be denied access to the so-called liberal media.
I agree with you in general but am not sure about your property damage comment regarding the George Floyd unrest. Over 700 buildings in Minneapolis were damaged, 31 had walls or roofs collapsed, and 53 were written off as total losses.
Big folks like banks and cop shops? Yes. Many small businesses however had limited coverage that rarely covered all the repairs and loss of business costs. And a lot of small businesses were damaged especially in St Paul's Midway (the fact that unrest happened in pockets throughout the metro area was very undercovered by national news media, and a lot of SE Asian businesses (MN has a very large number of Hmong and Lao refugees) took heavy losses).
This is an unpopular opinion, but I don't think "Defund the police" is a good slogan. Despite what Twitter leftists might make you think, a normal person thinking "defund the police" means taking their money away and reducing the number of cops without redistributing those funds to social programs (those dealing with mental health, homelessness, domestic abuse, etc.) and worrying what might happen is not "imagining a guy that doesn't exist." It's a real issue that, if we're serious, we need to deal with.
I remember someone saying "Republicans run on defunding schools, but people still vote for them, so why are you afraid of the phrase 'defund the police'?" And the thing is, Republicans *don't* run on the phrase "defund the schools." They run on "school choice." Just how their union-busting efforts are put under the guise of "right to work," or their anti-abortion efforts under the guise of "pro-life" (but healthcare, of course, isn't part of that, so it's fine if a 12-year-old child dies of a tooth infection).
I know messaging isn't everything, but it's something, and as much as I, too, want to defund the police, we have got to come up with a phrase more palatable---even if that involves tricking people.
Well, "messaging" is essentially tricking people to agree with you by focusing on relatable statements. The thing is, "defund the police" got attention and forced opponents to respond, which something the cops et. al. would rather not do. Staying in the shadows makes playing their games easier for them. Now, it would be tactically reasonable for allies to propose a less drastic-sounding meme, but there's no evidence that anyone not already in agreement would ever hear it. Cracking the Thin Blue Line is going to be a long and ugly process at the local level. Defunding the police won't even really change its culture, which is the root problem.
As a current resident of said Urban Hellhole, I have lost count of the number of co-workers, family members, friends in distant localities who have swallowed this utter bullshit and regurgitated it back to me. The majority of people who have done so are not conservatives, which is not surprising since you correctly noted that the horrible communist America-hating MSM has been breathlessly reporting how NYC and other cities are sliding back to the Bad Old Days.
At first, my response was to calmly explain that, anecdotally, I haven’t felt any more unsafe on the streets than I did two years ago, four years ago, ten years ago. Also, nobody understands statistics. If someone wants to press the issue, I can always pull the Grizzled NY’er shit of “I first moved here over 30 years ago. Ask me about crime and urban blight compared to back then.”
Because it’s true! I still have that “always be aware of your surroundings and the people around you” mindset, but I can’t remember the last time I felt unsafe anywhere in the city. I’m not stressed out if my wife goes out at night. I am not aware of much more petty crime here. I get that everything has ticked up a bit, but that’s also what you should expect when a pandemic hits and there’s not much of a safety net in place.
It made me feel good to read the final sentence of this piece, as well as the lede. The kind of glib pronouncements about those people and how their statistical behaviors justify treating them as less than human just come too readily to the lips of others who want to deny there is inequality at all. Going step by step does not seem to help. The bigots start and finish in their rationalized fear, both of the dark folks and their own doubts about themselves as good folks who earned every privilege they try also to deny they have.
Of course, year-on-year comparisons of crime rates between 2020 and 2021 without noting that the vast majority of city residents were in lockdown and not interacting is willfully misleading at best. Yor knows this as does everybody else but it doesn't serve his larger point so he ignores that huge elephant in the room.
In the 1970s we used to joke about our Florida relatives' supposed fear of even setting foot in the City. Then again, after having been refugees from Poland and then from Cuba, they may just have been continually on-edge.
We talk about their being "constantly afraid," but could it, in some cases, be something else? Like projection? They don't so much fear violence being done to them, as harbor desires to do violence to others (minorities; women; modernity itself), and so unconsciously ascribe that rage to others? We said "it's always projection with these people" all during Trump's admin, after all.
I've used the "slave masters feared rebellion" analogy before, and its true enough, but I believe the root fear is the loss of privilege, of no longer being the default and center of culture. Other fears come out of that, the infamous fear of being "replaced" or "cancelled". It's like a fish being afraid of all the water evaporating, they can't quite define it but it's terrifying to them.
They are t..h..i..s close to just dropping the final ostrich fan and letting it all hang out, but I think a big part of the game (and it is a game for them) is being able to misrepresent with a you-know-what-I'm-saying-and-I-know-you-know whaddayagonnadoaboudit smirk. It's an echo of 80's Reaganism with fear and resentment replacing the Morning In America optimism, and owning-the-libs the only joy left for them. Another sunny Reagan might lead them to legitimate power, but the right-wing ecosystem is so saturated with fear I don't think it would let him/her have a shot.
For York's audience of conservatives, life is about fear. They're afraid all the time. For them, it's only a matter of time before you, me, everyone is a victim of violent crime.
That's one of the reasons why they're absolutely obsessed with guns. Because they're terrified of everyone else, and especially of minorities. A classic example of the type is a business acquaintance of mine. He lives in rural South Carolina, and there is essentially no violent crime in his area. But he and everyone he knows is armed to the teeth because the [Blacks/Mexicans/Haitians/Crips/Bloods/MS-13] are one the way! When he comes to visit me in rural Vermont, he brings at least one handgun. Because you never know!
I can't imagine going through life that terrified all the time.
Yeah, I see it with the conservatives I work with too. Their conservative politics spring from fear of others, of change, of complexity. Most of the time, the gun is a pacifier and a symbol to let them feel like they are in control in unfamiliar situations.
I can. I used to be afraid of anyone with a penis, regardless of gender. My response was to stay the fuck home. Because if you're walking around strapped with no one to watch your fucking back, you're making yourself less safe, and other people too, though you presumably don't give a shit. Bring a friend, not a gun.
Here in Northwest Washington (60 to 70 miles north of that den of violence--
Seattle) we like to post signs on our garage doors that warn "Nothing in here is worth dying for" with a drawing of a gun pointing outward. So you really think your stuff is worth that much? I understand being unnerved and afraid of the stranger on your property--who may be carrying a gun, too but I'll stick to my trusty baseball bat. I've lived here 20 years and never even suspected a break in. What I do find unnerving is my neighbor who is sliding into dementia and his family can't find his guns.
Someone needs to break into these garages and post signs facing the inside that say "Nothing in here is worth killing for."
Absolutely. But, of course, that sign is not readily for sale at the big box hardware store.
You've told me something about this. It's grim up Northwest!
Hate and fear is all the GOP has to offer its voters. Nothing better.
2021 had the mishugas of Covid quarantine and stresses on front line workers none of which could have contributed in any way to any increase in crimes. It's not just the "conservatives" pushing this line of shit but the mainstream as well. Amongst all the flaws of establishment reportage -- political fantasies passed off as reality, economic disinformation, etc. -- reporting on crime trends is right up there.
And one tell here is that the spike involves whatcha call your crimes of passion: an increase in people cracking from increased stress.
As a dotard, I'm finally understanding our loss of patience with all the bullshit the media spew. I mean, how much patience does one need to have with a torrent of destructive lies?
Yeah, it is unexplainable that crimes that require the presence of people, like murder, are way up, while crimes that are best in the absence of people, like burglary, are way down. Well unexplainable by conservatives
I'm also going through a dotard thing in which I belief that crime #s are per se bogus because crime is found where you look for it, and what's not looked for maybe isn't found so isn't counted. So I'm some degree of skeptical to everything regarding crime rates.
Shorter Byron York: "The only good n***** is a dead n*****."
That's exactly what he's getting at, isn't it. Because sure, murders are up in cities that spent last summer threatening to defund the cops, but it's up in cities where you can't put a mask mandate in place, either. Fact is, violent crime is up everywhere. To focus on progressive cities is an incredibly transparent attempt to scare people about the presence of people of color, especially young people of color. Especially the ones who spent last year demanding cops stop shooting them, which seems like such a small ask. Cops aren't supposed to rely on their guns, even when they're "scared".
Of course “crime” is shorthand for “Black people” and York really doesn’t attempt to hide that fact.
You almost have to give him credit for his directness. Rightwing mouthpieces seem to usually put in some qualifier like “of course racism is evil and everyone should be against it” and then go on to argue that no actual people, policies, or institutions are ever in fact racist. So what exactly do they think racism *IS*? An unavoidable act of god like a hurricane or an earthquake, destructive and regrettable, but what can you do?
“ I believe York threw this in just because it made him feel damn good, like he had his knee on someone's neck.”
I’ve always thought that image of Chauvin nonchalantly kneeling —with his hands in his pockets and a smug smile on his face— on the neck of a dying black man is exactly what white supremacists want. It could be a poster on the wall for these people.
It's not already...?
It's also their ticket to never having to _look_ for pornography again, much as footage of an hanged Pence would have been for Mr Trump.
Behold the racist stylings of Byron York, former CNN producer, contributor to the Atlantic, Huffington Post, NPR, Meet the Press... more proof that no one on the right is too rancid to be denied access to the so-called liberal media.
I agree with you in general but am not sure about your property damage comment regarding the George Floyd unrest. Over 700 buildings in Minneapolis were damaged, 31 had walls or roofs collapsed, and 53 were written off as total losses.
At least some of this damage was done by right wing groups/people, such as Cops, Boogaloo Boyz, 3%ers, etc.
The damage was instigated, in some cases, not by protestors but by opportunistic white Nazis: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/29/umbrella-man-white-supremacist-minneapolis/
How much of this damage was covered by insurance?
Big folks like banks and cop shops? Yes. Many small businesses however had limited coverage that rarely covered all the repairs and loss of business costs. And a lot of small businesses were damaged especially in St Paul's Midway (the fact that unrest happened in pockets throughout the metro area was very undercovered by national news media, and a lot of SE Asian businesses (MN has a very large number of Hmong and Lao refugees) took heavy losses).
This is an unpopular opinion, but I don't think "Defund the police" is a good slogan. Despite what Twitter leftists might make you think, a normal person thinking "defund the police" means taking their money away and reducing the number of cops without redistributing those funds to social programs (those dealing with mental health, homelessness, domestic abuse, etc.) and worrying what might happen is not "imagining a guy that doesn't exist." It's a real issue that, if we're serious, we need to deal with.
I remember someone saying "Republicans run on defunding schools, but people still vote for them, so why are you afraid of the phrase 'defund the police'?" And the thing is, Republicans *don't* run on the phrase "defund the schools." They run on "school choice." Just how their union-busting efforts are put under the guise of "right to work," or their anti-abortion efforts under the guise of "pro-life" (but healthcare, of course, isn't part of that, so it's fine if a 12-year-old child dies of a tooth infection).
I know messaging isn't everything, but it's something, and as much as I, too, want to defund the police, we have got to come up with a phrase more palatable---even if that involves tricking people.
This is certainly the cri de coeur of centrists everywhere
Well, "messaging" is essentially tricking people to agree with you by focusing on relatable statements. The thing is, "defund the police" got attention and forced opponents to respond, which something the cops et. al. would rather not do. Staying in the shadows makes playing their games easier for them. Now, it would be tactically reasonable for allies to propose a less drastic-sounding meme, but there's no evidence that anyone not already in agreement would ever hear it. Cracking the Thin Blue Line is going to be a long and ugly process at the local level. Defunding the police won't even really change its culture, which is the root problem.
So what case would you make instead of defund the police?
Of course, given the media's role as supporters of the GOP, there is no good way to spin defunding police...
Why doesn't York just come out and say "Floyd deserved to die", since he clearly thinks so.
He was no angel does imply that he deserved to go to h-e-double hockey sticks
As a current resident of said Urban Hellhole, I have lost count of the number of co-workers, family members, friends in distant localities who have swallowed this utter bullshit and regurgitated it back to me. The majority of people who have done so are not conservatives, which is not surprising since you correctly noted that the horrible communist America-hating MSM has been breathlessly reporting how NYC and other cities are sliding back to the Bad Old Days.
At first, my response was to calmly explain that, anecdotally, I haven’t felt any more unsafe on the streets than I did two years ago, four years ago, ten years ago. Also, nobody understands statistics. If someone wants to press the issue, I can always pull the Grizzled NY’er shit of “I first moved here over 30 years ago. Ask me about crime and urban blight compared to back then.”
Because it’s true! I still have that “always be aware of your surroundings and the people around you” mindset, but I can’t remember the last time I felt unsafe anywhere in the city. I’m not stressed out if my wife goes out at night. I am not aware of much more petty crime here. I get that everything has ticked up a bit, but that’s also what you should expect when a pandemic hits and there’s not much of a safety net in place.
It made me feel good to read the final sentence of this piece, as well as the lede. The kind of glib pronouncements about those people and how their statistical behaviors justify treating them as less than human just come too readily to the lips of others who want to deny there is inequality at all. Going step by step does not seem to help. The bigots start and finish in their rationalized fear, both of the dark folks and their own doubts about themselves as good folks who earned every privilege they try also to deny they have.
Of course, year-on-year comparisons of crime rates between 2020 and 2021 without noting that the vast majority of city residents were in lockdown and not interacting is willfully misleading at best. Yor knows this as does everybody else but it doesn't serve his larger point so he ignores that huge elephant in the room.
In the 1970s we used to joke about our Florida relatives' supposed fear of even setting foot in the City. Then again, after having been refugees from Poland and then from Cuba, they may just have been continually on-edge.
We talk about their being "constantly afraid," but could it, in some cases, be something else? Like projection? They don't so much fear violence being done to them, as harbor desires to do violence to others (minorities; women; modernity itself), and so unconsciously ascribe that rage to others? We said "it's always projection with these people" all during Trump's admin, after all.
They fear that minorities will do to them, what they have done/want to do to minorities
I've used the "slave masters feared rebellion" analogy before, and its true enough, but I believe the root fear is the loss of privilege, of no longer being the default and center of culture. Other fears come out of that, the infamous fear of being "replaced" or "cancelled". It's like a fish being afraid of all the water evaporating, they can't quite define it but it's terrifying to them.
It's like high school - or how high school used to be before it got all "woke" and jocks stopped beating up queers.
Wow, so depressing to have a window into the dumpster fire that is Byron York’s mind.
They are t..h..i..s close to just dropping the final ostrich fan and letting it all hang out, but I think a big part of the game (and it is a game for them) is being able to misrepresent with a you-know-what-I'm-saying-and-I-know-you-know whaddayagonnadoaboudit smirk. It's an echo of 80's Reaganism with fear and resentment replacing the Morning In America optimism, and owning-the-libs the only joy left for them. Another sunny Reagan might lead them to legitimate power, but the right-wing ecosystem is so saturated with fear I don't think it would let him/her have a shot.