But again, it's not the crime - it's the arrest. — counterpunch

Which raises the question of why you bring up the murder rate. Do you have an argument to make there?

The crime is irrelevant - except insofar as it indicates a propensity to resist arrest. — counterpunch

The implied claim here is that the disparity can be explained by different behaviour when faced with arrest. Do you have evidence for that?

...and @jamalrob

Just reading through this thread, it seems to me that the site rules would benefit from something against this sort of posting habit. I know it's not currently against the rules, but repeatedly making specific factual claims without even an attempt at citation or support (as counterpunch is doing here) is just wasting forum space.

There are limits of tolerance on written style, I don't think it's excessive to have limits also on strucure.

If there are disproportionately more poor black people than poor white people then inequality could be the explanation. For example if 90% of black people are poor compared to 70% of white people, and if being poor is a motivator to committing violent crimes, then there will be disproportionately more black violent criminals than white violent criminals. What's your alternative suggestion? That black people are genetically predisposed to violence, and that racial disparities in income and poverty are incidental? — Michael

I have no explanation. I'm not looking for one. I'm merely pointing out the politically correct hypocrisies. It feels very uncomfortable to be speaking about race at all, but it's the left that are playing identity politics - and so it falls to me to state the statistical facts, over and over again until I look like a complete bastard.

Personally, I'm an individualist, and treat people as individuals regardless of skin colour, sexuality, gender or whatever - and I think that's the way it should be. These are what's called arbitrary characteristics, and it's wrong to discriminate on that basis.

It's not me that imagines all black people, or all white people, or all gay people share a common identity. That's the left, and it sucks - it's identity politics, and whether it's done by the right or the left, it's wrong.

Which raises the obvious question: why does anyone rent? Because owning is priced out of their range, because owning is not just a place to live, it's a way to get free money from other people who need a place to live, so people who have more money than they need for their immediate expenses are incentivized to buy housing just to rent it out, which makes owning more expensive, making more people stuck renting, which makes owning even more valuable to those who can afford it, raising the price of ownership, etc in a vicious cycle. — Pfhorrest

There are many good reasons to rent. And the problem isn't necessarily renting, its the political tax incentives that create the disparities. Again, most real estate laws were changed in the 80's and 90's to favor capital. This could easily be changed to balance the benefits. For instance, why not split the RE tax deduction 50/50 between landlord and renter? You could also apply this to depreciation [although that would get messy]. There are ways to create more equity (npi).

Renting is the obvious choice when starting out, first, because you generally have little capital available, and second, you are probably going to be reasonably transient. One of the best things anybody can do when they relocate is to rent for a year or two in order to get to know the area before you buy. Perhaps you'll decide it's not working for you [or your job didn't work out or whatever].

As you may know, buying a house is a huge commitment not only financially, but emotionally and every other way. The present system sucks the life out of buyers with the endless fees, costs, taxes, etc. Again, housing morphed into just another financialization scheme designed in the 80's to replace the real industrial economy that was outsourced so the few could live like kings and queens. Worked quite well.

I don't follow this. Getting something for nothing (nothing of their own at least) is exactly what capitalists do capitalism for. Being able to generate profit just from owning things that other people have to pay you to use is the core of capitalism. — Pfhorrest

In my ideal world, everybody would work for themselves. No parasites.

You can't hope for much forward movement in this world when so many people do nothing with their knowledge other than manipulate the system while creating no wealth (but plenty of grief), thus is revealed purpose of every political system (simply a clearinghouse to connect those who give brides with those who take them).

I just wish to point out that you say that the Nazi's may not have loathed themselves and they killed themselves because they did not want to live with an inferior race. The whole point Hitler was making was about wanting to destroy inferior people. This captures the whole problem underlying prejudiced hatred, which is the belief that one is superior to others.

Oh. He's looking to "own" a leftist. They don't have many forums open to them these days — frank

Indeed. This is one of the few places on the internet someone will be remain able to have that kind of conversation in good faith. And a willing sucker like me is willing to put in the time as a left symbol for a stranger to work out his emotional issues on. @counterpunch here seems to be a species of Brit whose heart is for worker populism and class politics but whose media diet has lead him to forget what those actually looked like in Britain.

Labour needs another Blair - not another Corbyn, because the working man wants capitalism with a social conscience; not to seize the means of production. He has no such aspiration. He never has done. All that Marxian bullshit is another middle class idea of the working class interest - like political correctness. If Labour ever want power again, they need a centrist pitch - like Blair's Third Way. Not political correctness, nothing to the left of Clause IV, but a practical pitch for government that recognises the value of business, so that he can go out and earn a decent living. — counterpunch

You demand I answer for the actions of my ancestors? My working class ancestors built the Labour Party from nothing to represent their interests relative to the owners of the means of production. And you've abandoned us, to weep bitterly and constantly on behalf of everyone but us - while the owners of the means of production have privatised everything, sold off council housing, destroyed the unions, cut pensions, ended job security, imposed zero hours contracts...etc, etc, and I'd still vote for them before a Labour Party overrun by people like you! — counterpunch

This confusion isn't really his fault. In the UK, @counterpunch's brand of populism is articulated along class lines. It's a rather effective bridge builder; the UK's older left leaners (like over 30) have lived through a time of worsening conditions for the lowest earners and the erosion of state institutions by replacing them with public-private partnerships; it started (I think) in the 70's with coal, it ripped through public transport, public housing, libraries, education, care work... and the NHS is teetering on the brink of becoming an insurance style system. Both parties agreed on this programme of fostering public-private partnerships, just differed on implementation issues. As Thatcher put it when asked what her greatest legacy was, she replied "New Labour" - that was the Blairites.

The working class regardless of race suffers from all that, and Labour's (rightly in my view) perceived as a lighter shade of corporate corruption than the Tories after 2008 with their banker bailouts. They've been tearing themselves apart for years trying to reconcile their internal contradictions; their base demands that they have to be the party of workerist populism, they have to be the party of cosmopolitan pro-EU middle class and business interest, and they now have to appeal to this nostalgia fuelled nationalist reaction of the UK's working class against the international public-private partnerships Labour helped foster. It's a borderline intractable divide. (If you'd like I can dig up a Youtube video from a political scientist in support of this analysis of the split). And it winds up having people who're talking worker-populist points rallying to support people whose policies go against those points.

The implied claim here is that the disparity can be explained by different behaviour when faced with arrest. Do you have evidence for that? — Echarmion

I cited evidence; albeit somewhat anecdotal. Dylan Roof - alive. Michael Brown - dead. Roof - gave up. Brown - resisted. It's not rocket science.

The police don't kill people unless they can't help but do so. The number of arrest related deaths is tiny. 1000 deaths per year, from over 10 million arrests. 0.1% - from all causes, i.e. suicide, overdose, shot by police. etc.

I know it's not currently against the rules, but repeatedly making specific factual claims without even an attempt at citation or support (as counterpunch is doing here) is just wasting forum space. — Isaac

The facts cited are from the Bureau of Justice Statistics - data sets from 2003-2012. I have mentioned this in previous comments. Mentioning it every time I have had to repeat the same points over and over again to try and push the facts past the political correctness goggles of left wing ideologues, would be a waste of forum space. Unlike your comment - which was sooooo worth the pixels.

I cited evidence; albeit somewhat anecdotal. — counterpunch

You can ditch the "somewhat". The reason I ask is this: since the evidence you have is not different from the evidence some random person in a BLM protest is likely to cite, what makes you so certain you are correct (certain enough you're willing to "look like a bastard", in your words)?

The facts cited are from the Bureau of Justice Statistics - data sets from 2003-2012. — counterpunch

Working backwards. ..

There are plenty of poor white people. They don't commit murder at 6 times the national average. — counterpunch

BLM used carefully edited cell phone footage to create a social media narrative to suggest that police were murdering black people — counterpunch

, but give yourself up to police and they won't kill you. — counterpunch

Or they are more likely to resist arrest - thereby endangering the police officer or members of the public. — counterpunch

The raw data doesn't show that:

unarmed black people are 3.49 times more likely to be shot. — counterpunch

various demographic and factors have been ASSUMED, — counterpunch

Violent offenders are more likely to get shot. — counterpunch

we messed around with the raw data until we proved our own politically correct assumptions." — counterpunch

There are plenty of poor white people.[enough to affect the conclusion that] Inequality isn't the explanation. — counterpunch

All of these claims require support. There's absolutely no point in maintaining an internet space to act as nothing more than a selective database of what some random people reckon might be the case.

. (If you'd like I can dig up a Youtube video from a political scientist in support of this analysis of the split). And it winds up having people who're talking worker-populist points rallying to support people whose policies go against those points. — fdrake

If you have time, yes!

So counterpunch really has no one in the government representing his interests? And his sense of having been betrayed by the supposed left has left him more angry at leftists than the tories?

How does racism and anti-semitism enter his worldview? Racial diversity just magnifies his sense of living on unstable ground?

I cited anecdotal evidence for the idea that resisting arrest is more likely to get you shot. It's common knowledge that police don't judge the crimes people commit. That's not their role. They arrest people who are suspected of committing crimes. If the courts then prove they committed those crimes, the courts sentence them. The police only arrest people, and if someone resists arrest, they use force - sometimes lethal force.

It's repeating statistics over and over that makes me look like a bastard. But that is Bureau of Justice Statistics data, that shows the BLM narrative is a false narrative - created by left wing ideologues under the cover of political correctness. No-one challenges it because political correctness is an aggressive, oppressive dogma. But black people commit more crime, more violent crime - and so, perhaps, are more likely to resist arrest.

Michael Brown resisted arrest, George Floyd resisted arrest, Breonna Taylor's boyfriend opened fire on police and she ended up dead. It's fairly easy to conclude that if they'd complied, they wouldn't have died.

"The market" is not something that exists like a market in your local town. It's a theoretical model that explains the formation of price according to supply and demand, if certain conditions are met.

In another sense, a "market" is just a descriptive term for transactions that happen in a specific region or concerning a specific ware.

In either case all that a market can be said to control is the price and distribution of goods, but not who profits from their production, how they use those profits etc. — Echarmion

The market is more than just price discovery as anybody who has been cancelled can attest. It's an all encompassing force that players on all sides attempt to manipulate to their own advantage.

Although quite obedient to the demands of capital over the last several decades, I remember the catch-phase, "look for the union label," and I am notthat old.

Regardless of how we wish to define it, I believe we can both agree that the freer the market, the more the price of any commodity reflects the actual value contained (which is most important to having a highly efficient economy).

All of these claims require support. There's absolutely no point in maintaining an internet space to act as nothing more than a selective database of what some random people reckon might be the case. — Isaac

The people here are not random. They are self selecting. They are here to share and discuss ideas. Not all ideas require support. It's perfectly acceptable to express an opinion. Like you did when you said:

"There's absolutely no point in maintaining an internet space to act as nothing more than a selective database of what some random people reckon might be the case."

It would be bizarre to demand, can you support that opinion with evidence? Nonetheless, I think we've all learned something from the fact you said it!

George Floyd resisted arrest — counterpunch

Resisting arrest is not an explanation for murdering someone *after* they're cuffed. Condoning racist murder with such obviously flawed argumentation is disgusting.

How does racism and anti-semitism enter his worldview? Racial diversity just magnifies his sense of living on unstable ground? — frank

No. I'm perfectly fine with a diverse society. I'm pointing out the hypocrisy of political correctness - and the weakness of political correctness given the tendency of Labour to abdicate from major political crises (brexit) and disappear up its own arse in search of anti-Semites. I have no problem with Jewish people, or black people, or anyone else. But I do have a problem with political correctness - not least that it leaves people like me, lacking political representation.

Just reading through this thread, it seems to me that the site rules would benefit from something against this sort of posting habit. I know it's not currently against the rules, but repeatedly making specific factual claims without even an attempt at citation or support (as counterpunch is doing here) is just wasting forum space. — Isaac

This is not a scientific journal, only a discussion between interested parties. You can choose to agree or disagree. Obviously you have access to the internet, so you can do your own research and counter arguments.

If we follow your notion of correct conduct, then where does one draw the line? Can any thought be original or do we need to certify such via a lexicon of acceptable thinking?

Even if this was a scientific journal, any breakthrough requires taking accepted thought and jumping up and down on it until it is no longer recognized as truth.

Even if this was a scientific journal, any breakthrough requires taking accepted thought and jumping up and down on it until it is no longer recognized as truth. — synthesis

Via the complete opposite approach to unsubstantiated claim.

But I do have a problem with political correctness - not least that it leaves people like me, lacking political representation. — counterpunch

How does political correctness leave you unrepresented?

The market is more than just price discovery as anybody who has been cancelled can attest. It's an all encompassing force that players on all sides attempt to manipulate to their own advantage. — synthesis

As I have said before, the idea that the market is some kind of "force" is unfounded. There is no such thing. It goes back to Smith's "invisible hand", by which he meant: God.

Regardless of how we wish to define it, I believe we can both agree that the freer the market, the more the price of any commodity reflects the actual value contained (which is most important to having a highly efficient economy). — synthesis

That depends on how we define "free" as well. So it's one of those statements that's true by definition, but the devil is in the details.

I cited anecdotal evidence for the idea that resisting arrest is more likely to get you shot. — counterpunch

You're not answering my question, but then this seems something that people who agree with you always seem to do - never answer the question, but always repeat your claims.

Resisting arrest is not an explanation for murdering someone *after* they're cuffed. Condoning racist murder with such obviously flawed argumentation is disgusting. — Kenosha Kid

Floyd was arrested. He resisted arrest. He was restrained. The restraint may have contributed to his death. What was racist about it? What was murder - about it? You're the one employing flawed argumentation?

The restraint may have contributed to his death. — counterpunch

May have? It was videoed. You are without doubt the most disgusting individual I've ever really encountered, conversationally speaking.

Labour were built by my forefathers to represent me, but I cant vote for a Labour party overrun with politically correct, far left ideologues. They don't represent me, they represent blacks, gays, women, trannies - anyone before me. They're too easily distracted by some politically correct twitter mob witch-hunt to form a government I can trust in a crisis. The Tories don't represent me except maybe in some distant trickle down fashion - which is only ever so slightly better than the nothing Labour have to offer.

I has high hopes for Starmer after Comrade Corbyn was rejected by the electorate - then he unequivocally endorsed gender self identification and leapt to his knees for Black Lies Matter. So had Starmer not heard of GIDS, and the 30 or more therapists that quit since 2016, citing politically correct pressure to hand out puberty blockers to dysphoric children? Did Starmer not check out the stats on the number of Arrest Related Deaths - or did he endorse Black Lies Matter on the basis of politically correct pretence alone?

I don't want a government with less strength of character and less integrity than 30 gender therapists - who don't unequivocally endorse gender self identification, especially in children. Nor do I want a government that lacks the presence of mind to do two minuets googling before abasing themselves before an organisation burning and looting homes and businesses across the pond on the basis of a false narrative.

Labour were built by my forefathers to represent me, but I cant vote for a Labour party overrun with politically correct, far left ideologues. They don't represent me, they represent blacks, gays, women, trannies - anyone before me. — counterpunch

I think you're just a bigot.

May have? It was videoed. You are without doubt the most disgusting individual I've ever really encountered, conversationally speaking. — Kenosha Kid

Your opinion means less than nothing to me because I have a very great disrespect for the virtue signalling motives behind it. The fact is, you don't know what the cause of death was, and deciding whether it was murder is absolutely not your call.

I imagine you've seen the cell phone footage. You should really watch the leaked police bodycam footage. It paints a very different picture. Watch it and tell me, if it was your job to arrest that man - would you keep him restrained?

The fact is, you don't know what the cause of death was, and deciding whether it was murder is absolutely not your call. — counterpunch

Yes I do. The world does.

Watch it and tell me, if it was your job to arrest that man - would you keep him restrained? — counterpunch

Yes, and once he was restrained, I would not then murder him.

I think you're just a bigot. — frank

Typical. I'm the white working class majority that Labour used to represent, but now don't because they have been overrun by politically correct ideologues. It's a typical lefty ideologue move to cast insults like bigot and racist at people like me - particularly when they complain that they're not represented by the left.

I'll repeat this again for you slow kids at the back - I don't discriminate against people on the basis of skin colour, gender, sexuality - or any other arbitrary characteristics. I do judge people on the strength of their character. You judge people on the basis of skin colour. You're the racist here. Not me. You discriminate against people like me - with an ideology that makes me last in line because I'm a straight white male.

I'm the white working class majority that Labour used to represent, but now don't — counterpunch

At least you're clear that it's Labour's perceived failure to represent your whiteness that you hate them for. I mean, not that it was particularly unclear before.

Government should buy up all the poor quality housing stock, demolish it - and build more and better housing on the same site, and then have a government backed rental/ownership scheme - where the money is ploughed back in to fund the purchase of poor quality housing stock, and the building of more and better housing. Self financing solution to the housing crisis! — counterpunch

I could get behind that. It's not a solution to the problem but it's palliative of the symptoms, and harm reduction is priority #1.

in many Third World countries, the end result is too few housing is built and that what is built is likely built only for the richest buyers. Others live in cramped housing and on rent. And when large segment of the population are forced to rent, then in the end of their lives they have nothing to give to the next generation. — ssu

So I guess the United States (or at least California) really is a third world country now? Because living this end result first-hand is the origin of my complaints.

the ability for even ordinary people to save by investing in a flat or two — ssu

It is mathematically impossible for it to be ordinary for people to own more housing than they use themselves in order to rent it out to others. If everybody ordinarily owned their own housing, then nobody would be renting someone else's excess housing, so there would be no takers if you had excess housing you wanted to rent out. There can only be a rental market when there are some who own more than they need to use, and others who need to use more than they own.

They won't invest, if there's the possibility of very punitive legislation to "help" those who rent. — ssu

Good. Stop buying up all the fucking housing for an "investment" at the expense of people who actually need housing to live in.

I've seen those studies often quoted that rent control reduces the availability of housing, and the catch is that it only reduces the availability of rental housing -- because the houses that had been rented out are instead sold off. The reduction in rental housing stock is counteracted by an increase in purchase housing stock. More people buy, fewer people rent. That's a good thing, not a bad thing.

In order to do this you'd have to plop down a significant amount of cash and likely cash out investments. — BitconnectCarlos

Only in the housing market as it is today. Changing that is the entire point of this exercise. Most people don't have investments to cash out of to put toward housing in the first place. The people who do aren't the ones who are suffering under the current system, and I agree that within the current system it's smarter to keep your money somewhere it grows faster in order to pay down lower service on debts. (It being stupid to do otherwise is precisely why I don't have some super expensive mortgage right now, but instead live in a tiny trailer and am investing elsewhere at least until my investment can put enough down on a house that the mortgage isn't so expensive anymore). My proposal is that there shouldn't be "service on debts" and a huge up-front pile of cash required to begin with: that owning should be as affordable as renting in the short term, and actually result in ownership of housing in the long term.

You discriminate against people like me - with an ideology that makes me last in line because I'm a straight white male — counterpunch

I'm not going to roll in the mud with you. You've chosen a road of hatred and fear. You can change any time you want to.