Actually, about 3.5 percent of state inmates are in prison for possession. That's now that enforcement has largely been curtailed against minor drug offenses, so you can bet that number is greatly improved upon from previous years. You'll note that the federal prisoners aren't separated into possession, but according to this the numbers still don't look great, with 1.3% of federal drug sentences in 2019 being for possession. With something like 2.3 million people incarcerated nationally, that's a good number of folks in prison for just for possession. Your statement that "it's rare for people to be arrested for mere posession" is subjective, so you could argue that three percent of inmates is not a lot, but personally I think it is.

It sort of seems like you deliberately used SF, a liberal place among liberal places, because that's where this looks the best. I mean, we're talking about minorities being in prison for possession and you choose a place where possession is now considered a misdemeanor so even when people are imprisoned for it, it's a very short sentence, so the number incarcerated at any given time will obviously be lower. I don't think anyone is arguing the entire country is 100% consistently racist, only that it's racist often enough in enough areas to be a major problem. Finding an outlier doesn't do anything to disprove that. You should be looking at national numbers or at the very least seeing if there might be a reason one area would be different than another, as is the case with the laws in your example.

I'm only referring to your basic marijuana stuff. I was arrested for possession once, but me and my white friends were all allowed to go free, I think they called it "continued without a finding." Basically, they told us if we don't get in trouble again in the following three months, it's off our record. We were adults, not minors. That's the one time in the decades I've smoked it's caused a hassle for me, and we actually had a blast getting arrested, joking the whole time, and it was only made more amusing in court where the guy who negotiated our deal was cracking jokes about returning our weed to us. The only lesson we learned is we had nothing to worry about as white guys. There were numerous other occasions where I was caught with groups of people smoking in places we shouldn't, private and public property. We would walk down the streets of Boston as a group passing a pretty large bubbler around, and we could actually say hi to police without any problems, never even had the bubbler or marijuana taken away. Actually, forget the bubbler, I would strap a three foot bong to my back to go smoke in the park, that was egregious. So was the gas mask I kept in my coat that I'd attach to an autosmoker that just pushed smoke into it, smoke would just billow out the sides as whoever wore it tried to inhale all they could, and we'd do this all the time at the fens. Plenty of times being parked somewhere we shouldn't, caught smoking, then allowed to drive off high as cheese. Some would call us degenerates, we certainly didn't deserve all the mercy from police. This was long before medical or recreational marijuana was legal in Massachusetts. I don't live in Massachusetts anymore, but I still walk around smoking freely on the streets without any troubles, I try to avoid most folks just so they don't have to smell it if they don't want to (and I stay far from any children) but I don't go out of my way to stay far from police beyond that, I generally throw a friendly smile their way and they smile back and that's that. It's nothing serious enough to warrant prison time, but there are a lot of minorities in prison for simple possession of marijuana.

So that's all answering the first part of the question, though I guess it isn't limited to my youth since I still smoke, but why do I keep getting caught? Because it doesn't matter, I don't care if police catch me because I am white and there are never any consequences. Why would I trouble myself trying to hide it when I don't have to?

Given their total control over the data, they could be doing literally anything with it and nobody would know because we have nothing to check it against. But, aside from manipulating the data itself, as I said previously the data would present the same way whether minorities are committing more crimes or they're being targeted more by law enforcement. It isn't hard to figure out and isn't anything new, the police have long been alleged to ignore crimes committed by whites while arresting minorities for the same, and I don't find that surprising given the number of times in my youth I was allowed to walk after a stern talking to from crimes that many minorities are currently in prison for. With the low clearance rate of crimes, murder being one of the high ones at around 65% and many others closer to 20%, there's a lot of crimes that could be being ignored even after being officially reported. I know, most people think that shit sounds crazy and the police wouldn't lie like that, but this article is about video evidence directly contradicting police reports. We know they lie, we know they lie often, and we know they help each other lie to protect each other and themselves. This makes it impossible to trust the data they're providing, and is why there have been calls for independent oversight for decades. Had the police accepted this oversight and allowed the people they literally work for to review their actions, maybe we wouldn't be at the point where people across the country have taken to the streets to protest against police forces they can not trust anymore. They were given ample opportunity to show they're not lying, they blew that chance, there's no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt now and trust the data they provide about themselves to show they're not racist.

It isn't that hard to understand and I've spelled it out a few times now but here it is in really simple terms: When someone is shown to lie as frequently as the police, you should stop assuming they're going to be honest.

If you abhor racism and believe we should fight against it, what's the point of saying we can't fully eliminate it to someone who is saying we should be fighting against it? I'm a little confused by that, you presented it as if it were a counterpoint to my statement that protecting other officers has allowed racism to survive and thrive. Are you suggesting those actions don't help racism survive and thrive, or just that it doesn't matter since it'll survive anyway? Seems like at best a pointless statement.

And while you can never really know a persons motivation or intent, a huge part of our legal system is based on exactly that. Your intentions make a big difference in what crime you'll be charged with in many cases. Police will tell you they know the motivation of people who kill, it's drugs or it's jealousy or it's rage or whatever else, this always comes up in court cases. Your intent, something that exists entirely in your own mind and can't possibly be known by anyone else, is what determines whether you'll be charged with murder or manslaughter. Hate crimes are those motivated by hate. Law enforcement every day determines the motivation or intent of others, why are you making a case that they should be exempted from the same thing?

As far as calling this "systemic," that isn't because of any individual incident. Nothing is considered "systemic" because of a single problem, it's the fact that it's gone on for as long as anyone alive has been alive. It's being called "systemic racism" because that department has a long history of racism, as evidenced by the lawsuits FROM THEIR OWN OFFICERS AND CURRENT CHIEF. This isn't a bunch of outsiders accusing the police of being racist, a lot of cops have been arguing that there is systemic racism in police forces across the country. You haven't presented any counterpoint to that, instead continuing to make arguments that hold police at a higher level of trust (while ignoring the ones with complaints) despite all the evidence showing they lie as much as anyone else. What's been asked for for decades is independent oversight so people can trust the police, because many do not right now. I'm not inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the group that is so adamantly against anyone looking too closely at them, and I don't understand why anyone would.

Studies conducted outside the departments, but where does their data come from? The FBI doesn't collect any of that themselves, they're just aggregating data provided by departments on an at-will basis. Attempts have been made to standardize data collection nationally, guess who has been against it? Law enforcement. So you are still basing this on data controlled by the people that are accused of bias. This is why they never should have fought so hard against oversight, now we simply do not have reliable numbers to go on. However, a cursory search will allow you to find many accusations and lawsuits from minority officers claiming systemic racism in their own departments. This is also imperfect, but it does show that there are a lot of police officers who feel the police are racist and have been fighting to change that.

Regarding the fact that nothing will prevent racism, sure that's true, but touting that as a reason to not fight against it is ridiculous. By that logic, we should disband the police anyway since we'll never stop all theft, homicide, or rape, either, so we shouldn't bother trying. And it's important to go after what's motivating people to commit crimes, whether it's racism or anger or hunger or boredom, if you want to reduce crime you need to do more than react to it after the fact.

Can you point me to any of those studies that aren't based on information provided by the police themselves? That's the problem I see with most arguments suggesting the police aren't racist: it's based on information provided by the police themselves. It's always factoring in things like arrest numbers, but statistically there wouldn't be a difference between police targeting minorities and minorities committing more crimes. This is why there's been people pushing for additional oversight and transparency for decades, we don't trust the police to police themselves and want a second opinion. What we're seeing right now is video evidence that directly contradicts official police reports and statements, that is what this article is about. The honor system clearly does not work. In the face of such evidence, one conclusion that can not be denied is that the police lie to protect themselves. This isn't new, it's just being thrown in our faces more as more people have cameras and the awareness that maybe they should be recording the police and expecting them to answer for their actions. Evidence of systemic racism is easily found, as I wrote in my above post the current Chief of the Minneapolis Police who are at the center of this controversy previously sued the department for racial discrimination. One claim was that another officer was using racial slurs to refer to a congressman, that officer is now the head of the police union because that is who police chose to represent themselves. He's been fighting against reform attempts by the current Chief. So, even the police think the police are racist and want to fix it but can't. This isn't an isolated case, either, there have been lawsuits all over the country from police officers alleging racism throughout their departments. Here's one article talking about a group of officers trying to fight against systemic racism in their department under Mayor Buttigieg, which you would think would've been a bigger deal while he ran for president, but this shit is so common it just wasn't on the radar. And the racism there predates him, as the article makes clear, but his response was to fully ignore it and let the police push black officers off the force. I don't see how it gets much more systemic than what's described there.

It's anecdotes, but there's one after another after another after another if you go looking. So to suggest there's no evidence at all of systemic racism is an outright lie, it's all over the place it just doesn't present in the numbers controlled by the people accused of being racist. That's not to say every cop is racist, or even that there's a racist in every department, but the police very clearly put each other first and will defend and protect racists if it means protecting their own. This is what promotes systemic racism, it doesn't need to be an active effort to promote racists, just a lack of effort to remove them and allowing them to continue to influence things in their racist way.

Where do those numbers come from? Oh, right, the official police reports that these videos "contrast sharply with." There wouldn't be a statistical difference between minorities committing more crimes and minorities being targeted more by the police, because those statistics are based on who the police arrest. I'm not saying it's definitely one way or the other, just pointing out you're basing this on information provided by a group that's been shown to provide false information to make themselves look better. A major part of what folks have been asking for is additional oversight and transparency, that way we wouldn't be relying on the honor system where a group is expected to police themselves. Police have been fighting against this additional oversight and transparency the entire time. So, police haven't just been offered the opportunity to show they're not being racist, they've been repeatedly asked to allow someone to show they're not being racist, and they've fought against it.

Personally, I don't think most cops are racist, but I do think the vast majority prioritize protecting each other over their communities and this allows racism to survive and thrive in our police departments. Maybe with some additional oversight and more transparency, we could get to the bottom of things instead of just guessing.

It isn't about the pay. We actively discourage and reject overqualified applicants, and discrimination against higher IQs has been ruled legal. Old case, but the ruling still stands and the rules remain. Those candidates you're talking about with a higher IQ are already trying to join the force, the police do not want them. Most departments also use psychological screening, so the officers they hire are exactly the officers they're aiming to hire. When you have a situation like Minneapolis, where cops stand by and watch another cop murder a man, where they're pepper spraying peaceful protestors exercising their rights, where they're attacking the press for covering their actions, it becomes pretty clear their screening methods can and do result in departments dominated by violent thugs. Their own police chief has previously sued the city over the racial discrimination prevalent in the department, and he's been trying to improve things, but the police union has been fighting against reform. The head of the police union is one officer who was originally named in the chief's discrimination suit, for using a slur to refer to the now attorney general, because that's the guy the police chose to represent them.

Generally speaking, I'd agree that officers aren't paid enough to put their lives on the line for the rest of us. That said, I can't support rewarding decades of bad behavior and systemic racism by increasing their wages now. Reform needs to happen first; you pay someone more for doing a good job, not in the hopes that they'll grow into the employee you needed all along.

Could you not push this stupid lie? Henry Ford started off paying his workers the same dirt rate as everyone else, then had to hire 52,000 people to fill 14,000 positions in one year because nearly 75% of people quit. He started paying more because the production downtime cost him more than increased wages. Your shining example of an employer paying a good wage to his employees so they could afford the products they make is an absolute lie, he paid them more because it was cheaper than training a new hire in the same position four times a year while production suffered. And even then, he tied the increased pay to character requirements enforced by the Socialization Organization, people who would actually show up at your house and tell you how to live your life. Source: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Ft...

You shouldn't really say other people have zero understanding of how the world works when your own worldview appears to be heavily influenced by falsehoods you could've easily discovered on your own.

Isn't this the only real issue? Fear of welfare programs and their impact? You're arguing against automation, but what you're really saying is these programs need to be improved upon to allow for it. Do you think automation will never come? Do you believe it will never be cheaper for companies to automate their labor than hire people? Seems like it's going to happen for a decent number of jobs eventually anyway, and fighting against that is counterproductive. Maybe we should revise our support programs now, before it's a major issue, so people can get support but are actually encouraged to find work again instead of discouraged? It seems like that's the real problem everyone has, maybe that's what we should address.

I mean, it might not be happening right now, but is there even a reason not to want it? That's what I don't understand. If we can automate more and keep people from having to work basic labor jobs, why shouldn't we? Isn't this part of how the human race should progress? Seems like folks just get up in arms about it because they hate/fear the idea of UBI or welfare-like programs, hate/fear the idea of funding education for the unemployed so they can find other jobs when theirs are automated, and hate/fear the idea that the lives of the next generation might be easier than the last. This is all selfish bullshit, though. If society as a whole can improve, it benefits us all. We know there are jobs which can be automated, jobs that are safer to automate, they're just not always as cheap to automate. There's nothing wrong with automation by itself, the real problem is folks pushing back against supporting each other, the idea that everyone must work or they don't deserve to live. We already generally produce more value than we consume, waste is abundant across the world, why not share the excess and improve everything? Only reason I've seen is selfishness.

If the agreement was to indemnify Levandowsky against claims brought by Google, what's the justification for rescinding it BECAUSE there were claims brought by Google? Seems like a catch-22, they agree to protect against any claims made by Google but the claims themselves will void the agreement. Is a false sense of security the whole point of agreements like this or am I missing something?

I'm not saying they haven't had to raise them at all, but that's their average wage from 2018. I'm saying they haven't had to pay more than $25/hr to get workers as you're saying they need to here. You're deliberately twisting things because your argument has no merit, you've lost and you're flailing about pathetically. You can say you're not playing anymore, that's fine, you lost long ago.

Hah, sounds like you ran out of bullshit to spew after I took apart every point you failed to make. Okay buddy, nice try, better luck next time.

So your previous statement about there being 300 million ready to work in factories wasn't just you being wrong, it was a lie?

So you say factories need to pay more in order to encourage Americans to work there, while they have not had to do so in other countries. Chinese manufacturing salaries average just over $10k annually and manufacturers are moving to countries with even cheaper labor than that, is the lack of income tax going to make it worth paying more than 5x for wages? Seems wild, show me some numbers.

Saying it over and over doesn't make it so, you need to explain how.

The rich are the same people that own all these companies you expect to move here, decreasing their income and increasing their expenditures are the same thing. If they're expected to make up for there not being an income tax, why wouldn't they stay somewhere with an income tax instead?

Again, these are the same people who run the companies you expect to bring manufacturing back here. If they didn't care about losing money, then the income tax wouldn't discourage them. You can't argue that they'll all come here to save money while saying they won't mind spending way more of it. If you're going to argue they'll reinvest the money when there's no income tax, they already could've done that, there's no reason to think they wouldn't pass on whatever savings there are to their own salaries.

Again, no reason to think high level executives will choose this over raising their own salaries. They don't need to lower prices to accommodate the local markets, because as I think you're forgetting, the USA is not the entire world and they can still sell their stuff for the same price everywhere else.

Expected by who? You and your libertarian friends? It's nice to dream but you're basing it all on assumptions, even relying on the altruism of the rich.

But they have to spend more to cover the consumption tax you're pushing, so it's a wash. I know you say the rich will pay more, but the rich are rich because they still have their huge bundles of money. It's the rest of us that spend the majority of what we get, and there is no reason to think that'll change.

Yes, this is because you are continuing to forget that the USA is not the entire world. If you're an international corporation and there's a safe and secure country where you can pay no taxes and hide all your money from other countries, that's what you do. They don't need to buy anything there, they can live where there are income taxes to cover that stuff and just not pay those since the income is in the USA. It's what they already do in tax havens and that's what you want to turn the USA into, and I don't know why you think that would change.

It doesn't matter what anyone SAYS of income taxes, we are all only human and very often wrong. That's not to say you and JFK are definitely wrong, only that you need to present some supporting evidence and you haven't presented any. At all. You assume quite a bit about what would happen after removing income taxes, and much of that runs contrary to what we observe already in the world. You have this weird idea that the rich will move their factories here because there's no income tax, but they won't mind paying the lion's share of that tax out of their own pocket as a consumption tax. That's downright crazy.

I like the idea of not paying an income tax, but you haven't made any real case for it. You make a lot of sweeping statements, and it'd be cool if they're all true, but they're not really based on anything but what you want to be true. I think the root of the problem is that you're speaking as though factories are independent entities with a will of their own and not subject to the desires of their owners. But that isn't true, factory owners will do what's best for themselves, not necessarily the factory itself. It's no different than the case for pure socialism or communism, a long list of reasons why it'd work out great that ignores reality.