submission and punishment

[Josh]

Everything is connected and the roots of our law enforcement culture run very deep, as do the characteristics of our culture that led us down the path we are on. The cultural differences between the US and say Norway are profound.

Norway’s population is about 90% white. America is 60%.

Norway is accepting a large increase in immigrants. Nearly all the crime is committed by non-white non-Norwegians; of the white criminals, they are overwhelmingly Eastern European.



I would agree with you that the cultural differences between the US and Norway are profound.

[barnhart]

thank you ernie, for bringing the conversation back to what i would like to discuss.

Because we have bad ideas about power and authority and tend to blame the victim.

so what can be done to change that? and specifically, to what should we change it?
what would be the correct ideas about power and authority?

I suspect this is something the US will continually struggle with, there are prices to be paid for our love of individualism and self expression. The frontier mindset has not washed entirely out of the system where every MAN with a rifle and ax was king of his own castle. We have designed our law enforcement and criminal justice for "those people" rather than for "us" which results in a system a little more harsh than societies with a more collective mindset and criminals more likely to push back.

[Josh]

I suspect this is something the US will continually struggle with, there are prices to be paid for our love of individualism and self expression. The frontier mindset has not washed entirely out of the system where every MAN with a rifle and ax was king of his own castle. We have designed our law enforcement and criminal justice for "those people" rather than for "us" which results in a system a little more harsh than societies with a more collective mindset and criminals more likely to push back.

How do you propose to have a “collective mindset” when America simultaneously plays host to extremely different cultures?

For example. I don’t feel much of a “collective mindset” with people who think having children out of wedlock is acceptable. Likewise, I don’t feel a “collective mindset” with people who think they need to drive around town with a machinegun stuffed down their pants, consuming marijuana and alcohol.

Without first agreeing on shared cultural values, the only other way to maintain any sense of law and order and minimise violence is to either maintain separation or have a police state. America seems to have chosen the latter.

[Josh]

As an example, three teenagers decided to beat a man to death outside a Kroger grocery store in Columbus. They did not use guns - just fists and kicks.

https://www.10tv.com/amp/article/news/c ... edded72d34

They had already been asked to leave by store security. On the way out, they decided to beat someone to death.

They were detained by a bystander who happened to be armed. I guess there was a gun involved.

As an interesting aside, the man they beat to death was a father and had been cohabiting for a decade but wasn’t married. We can see two examples of what I described above that mean I don’t feel any “collective” with the values of these people.

[justme]

so what should that man have done to avoid being beaten to death?
i'm asking since according to some people, it is possible to avoid being beaten to death by police by obeying the commands of same police.
surely he could have avoided being beaten to death if he had just done something right.

[justme]

I suspect this is something the US will continually struggle with, there are prices to be paid for our love of individualism and self expression. The frontier mindset has not washed entirely out of the system where every MAN with a rifle and ax was king of his own castle. We have designed our law enforcement and criminal justice for "those people" rather than for "us" which results in a system a little more harsh than societies with a more collective mindset and criminals more likely to push back.

individualism and self expression. when you stop to think about it, that is what anabaptism is built on. the first anabaptists were very much doing their own thing. they pushed back against the accepted religious practices of their times. even Jesus pushed back against the accepted religious practices of His times.
but now? the focus of anabaptism is the group. the good of the group is paramount.

but, that individualism is still very much in existence. after all, there are many many church splits.
no wonder there are struggles in secular society, if the religious society can't even get it right.

[Josh]

so what should that man have done to avoid being beaten to death?
i'm asking since according to some people, it is possible to avoid being beaten to death by police by obeying the commands of same police.
surely he could have avoided being beaten to death if he had just done something right.

The three of them weren’t police officers lawfully detaining him, and the three also weren’t subject to judicial review of overuse of force (such overuse of which happens very, very rarely in America).

Rather, the situation was that these three youths refused to obey lawful commands to stop trying to start fights and were ordered to leave the store, at which point they decided to engage in premeditated murder instead.

This is not a problem due to guns, despite the attempts of many of the pro gun control crowd to claim it is. Rather, it is a clash of irreconcilable cultures: one has a value that certain people should be allowed to engage in violence with impunity and any attempts to impose basic law and order violate their cultural “values”. The other culture wants a neat, tidy, and polite society. These two cannot coexist.

[RZehr]

so what should that man have done to avoid being beaten to death?
i'm asking since according to some people, it is possible to avoid being beaten to death by police by obeying the commands of same police.
surely he could have avoided being beaten to death if he had just done something right.

From the article:

The suspects were asked to leave the store by security. Once they went outside, a fight occurred between them and 53-year-old Donald Smith Jr.

…

Court documents state that the teens waited outside for Smith to exit the store, then assaulted him, knocking him to the ground.

Perhaps there was an altercation inside the store between the parties. If so, it is probable that the victim had engaged in a less than Christlike manner in the store.

Possibly.

[Josh]

Perhaps there was an altercation inside the store between the parties. If so, it is probable that the victim had engaged in a less than Christlike manner in the store.

Possibly.

From other news sources, this trio had started multiple altercations with shoppers and was ordered to leave by store security. I’m not sure what the comment about “less than Christlike manner” in the store is supposed to mean, though.

In any case, three people lying in wait and then murdering someone whilst laughing with each other about it is not good behaviour.

https://lawandcrime.com/crime/teens-sus ... stmas/amp/

On the night of Dec. 6, Jamarion Fredrae Evans-Bennett, 19, Dionta Davon Hughes, 18, and a 17-year-old male allegedly had a fight with shoppers inside the Kroger on South High Street. According to the Columbus Police Department, when store security told to the teens to leave, they waited outside for 53-year-old Donald “Donnie” Smith, Jr., to exit the store and attacked him.

I am open to hearing alternative ways people like this can be dealt with without the use of force. It seems the store security did the right thing - they ordered the trio to leave and stop causing trouble. The now-murdered man was also on his way to leave.

You cannot have an orderly, polite society where police may give suspects the benefit of the doubt when a simple order to leave results in the trio being so upset they premeditate a murder. This kind of thing plays out over and over whenever the police try to identify someone or pull them over and ask for ID. Something I’ve experienced multiple times, except I didn’t refuse, try to outrun the cops, or murder anyone.

I once got asked to leave a Sprint phone store by the manager (I offered to help someone with a broken phone who couldn’t afford to buy a new one whilst we were standing in line. The manager must have thought I was interfering with a sale of a new line.) So I left. I didn’t murder anyone on the way out.

I’ve had people be very rude to me or say crude things to me in stores. I didn’t start a fight, nor lie in wait to murder them on the way out of the store.

I’ve been detained and frisked by the cops, when I matched a suspect’s description. I didn’t resist and submitted to the detention and the stop-and-frisk. We all lived and the cops eventually found the suspect, who was rampaging through my neighbourhood threatening to kill people.

At the end of the day, people should be able to go shopping at Kroger without fearing getting beaten to death by a trio of teenagers.

[RZehr]

I’ve had people be very rude to me or say crude things to me in stores. I didn’t start a fight, nor lie in wait to murder them on the way out of the store.

Right. And I’m suggesting, based on the article, that there was possibly an unpleasant interaction between the teens and victim in that store which led to the teens being kicked out and then waiting for the man to come out.

It could be that had the man responded to the teens in the store as you or I would have, with patience and wisdom and kindness and love - they wouldn’t have waited on him outside the store.

Of course this is all conjecture on my part. But it is possible. And it is in response to justme’s question, “what should that man done to avoid being beaten to death?”.