Weird, cops keep getting caught doing racist shit in private

Fri, Aug 9, 2019

Ok - this article is a bit dated, but we need to pay attention to this kind of thing:


 A framed Ku Klux Klan application form was left displayed in the house of a white Michigan police officer while a Black man was there with a real estate agent.


"Some of those who work forces are the same who burn crosses," Rage Against the Machine famously said on its searing 1991 debut single "Killing in the Name," and many cops have pretty much been doing a terrible job of refuting that accusation ever since.

A Michigan cop is now being investigated after a framed Ku Klux Klan application form was found displayed in his house while a Black man and his family were inside on a real estate walk-through.

The Black man, Rob Mathis, took to social media to share his disgust in a viral Facebook post on Wednesday, adding that the house also had multiple Confederate flags on display.

"I feel sick to my stomach knowing that I walk to the home of one of the most racist people in Muskegon hiding behind his uniform and possibly harassing people of color and different nationalities," he wrote.

"To the officer, I know who you are and I will be looking at resources to expose your prejudice," he added. "As for now pictures speak 1000 words."

The officer, who was later identified as 48-year-old Charles Anderson of the Muskegon Police Department, had been previously cleared of fatally shooting 23-year-old Julius Johnson, a Black man, following a 2009 traffic stop. At the time Muskegon County Prosecutor Tony Tague ruled the shooting was in self-defense, with Anderson testifying that Johnson had beat him with his own baton during a struggle.

Eric Hood, the president of the Muskegon County chapter of the NAACP, has called for a comprehensive look at Anderson’s dealings with people of color, telling WOOD-TV, "We want a thorough investigation to be sure that when he goes out there and puts on that uniform and performs his duties as an officer that he’s being fair and impartial."

The City of Muskegon released a statement saying Anderson has been placed on administrative leave while an investigation is conducted. Both Anderson and his wife have declined comment to other outlets, saying they have been told to stay silent during the investigation.

It's the latest headline about law enforcement officers getting caught doing racist shit while off the clock. In July, Citylab published The Plain View Project, which uncovered more than 5,000 racist and sexist Facebook posts and comments made by members of law enforcement. That same month, ProPublica published posts from a secret Facebook group for border patrol agents, where agents joked about the deaths of migrants and posted sexist memes about Latina lawmakers.

As a direct result of The Plain View Project, the Philadelphia Police Department announced it would fire 13 officers following an investigation. Later in July, two Louisiana police officers were fired for a Facebook post that suggested that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should be shot.

The Case Against Political Ideology

How you think matters more than what you think. ….. beliefs are hypotheses to be tested, not treasures to be guarded.
– Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner (2015), Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction

We do moral reasoning not to reconstruct the actual reasons why we ourselves came to a judgment; we reason to find the best possible reasons why somebody else ought to join us in our judgment.
– Johnathan Haidt (2012), The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

People for the most part dislike ambiguity ….. people find it hard to resist filling in the missing data points with ideologically scripted event sequences. ….. People for the most part also dislike dissonance ….. Unfortunately, the world can be a morally messy place in which policies that one is predisposed to detest sometimes have positive effects and policies that one embraces sometimes have noxious ones.
– Philip Tetlock (2005), Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?

…. the typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field. He argues and analyzes in a way which he would readily recognize as infantile within the sphere of his real interests. …. cherished ideas and judgments we bring to politics are stereotypes and simplifications with little room for adjustment as the facts change. …. the real environment is altogether too big, too complex, and too fleeting for direct acquaintance. We are not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so much variety, so many permutations and combinations. Although we have to act in that environment, we have to reconstruct it on a simpler model before we can manage it.
– Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels (2016), Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Governments

One gets the sense, as my Post colleague Jennifer Rubin wrote, that if progressives championed the theory of gravity, conservatives would denounce it. In fact, public-opinion research suggests that many Republicans would be likely to support climate-change solutions if they were proposed by Republican leaders — and conversely many Democrats would be likely to oppose them even if they would have backed the very same policies when put forward by Democrats. We’ve already seen the parties flip positions on Russia because of Trump. That is the danger of ideology, and why I strive for an empirical, non-ideological approach instead, even if that leaves me in a political no-man’s land where I am sniped at by both sides.
– Max Boot (2108), Washington Post columnist, former republican commenting on the profound distrust that democrats and republicans feel toward each other


From a pragmatic, evidence and reason-based point of view, standard existing ideologies are factors that significantly contribute to, or directly cause, major social and political problems. Those problems are serious and potentially lethal. Current evidence argues that society and politics would be better off if standard, obsolete, ideologies were abandoned and replaced with a moral mindset that is empirical, non-ideological and focused on the core political values necessary to defend liberal democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties.

Ideologies that people bring to bear on politics are typically grounded in some combination of political, economic and religious belief. When one identifies with a particular ideology mostly to the exclusion of others, that orthodox mindset makes a person an ideologue. Personal identity and self-esteem is usually tightly associated with strongly held ideological beliefs and loyalties. That usually makes it very hard or impossible to accept both inconvenient truths and weaknesses or inconsistencies that ideology can lead to. History, current events and cognitive and social science research all clearly show that strongly held ideological belief often leads many or most ideologues to distort or even rejects facts, truths or reasoning that undermine or contradict the ideology. In short, ideology leads the mind to unconsciously make the world and reasoning better fit with personal identity, beliefs and the values that underpin them.

Rejecting inconvenient facts, truths and reasoning ideology arises from normal human psychological traits. One of them is motivated reasoning or cognition. It is an unconscious process that works to reduce the discomfort that ambiguity and cognitive dissonance generates. We are inherently motivated to make the world and thinking conform to the dictates of both ideology and existing ideological beliefs. That often comes at the expense of facts and reasoning. One prominent libertarian became self-aware of the power of motivated reasoning to distort both facts and reasoning. He described it like this:

Ever since college I have been a libertarian—socially liberal and fiscally conservative. I believe in individual liberty and personal responsibility. I also believe in science as the greatest instrument ever devised for understanding the world. So what happens when these two principles are in conflict? My libertarian beliefs have not always served me well. Like most people who hold strong ideological convictions, I find that, too often, my beliefs trump the scientific facts. This is called motivated reasoning, in which our brain reasons our way to supporting what we want to be true. Knowing about the existence of motivated reasoning, however, can help us overcome it when it is at odds with evidence.

Two other harmful aspects of ideology in politics merit mention. The fist is that ideology leads people to be certain that their beliefs are correct, despite the obvious complexity and uncertainty inherent in the world and political issues. Ideology tends to kill open mindedness and intellectual freedom. It also tends to lead people to not see nuance or shades of gray. That closed mindedness leads people to disregard or even attack contrary facts, counterarguments and points of view that would create at least some uncertainty in most open minds. People with a less ideological and more pragmatic mindset are more open to possibilities that the world, facts and logic operate without the mental constraints that ideology imposes. One libertarian who rejected ideology altogether cites it as a both mental prison and a threat to freedom:

I have abandoned that libertarian project, however, because I have come to abandon ideology. This essay is an invitation for you to do likewise — to walk out of the “clean and well-lit prison of one idea.” ….. Worse, [ideology] encourages fanaticism, disregard for social outcomes, and invites irresolvable philosophical disputes. It also threatens social pluralism — which is to say, it threatens freedom.

Another harmful aspect of ideology is its tendency to lead people to dehumanize other people and groups of people, including races. Dehumanization may decrease empathy toward dehumanized out-groups. That would tend to make politics less tolerant and more irrational than it is now. Social discord and conflict become more plausible. In a civil democracy, rational disputes center on ideas, not on vilification of political or social opposition. Dehumanization labels or even vilifies people, making it easy to ignore contrary ideas and beliefs with merit.

Currently, political rhetoric is rife with name calling. That tactic invariably foments negative emotions and irrationality. Derogatory use of labels such as un-American, socialist, fascist, atheist, libtard, liar, stupid and so forth attacks the target’s integrity, patriotism, intelligence, honesty and/or moral judgment. Once attacked, negative emotional reactions (anger, hate, fear, distrust, bigotry, etc.) arise instantly, making calm evidence and reason-based thinking and discussion difficult or impossible for most people.

Growing SUV and pickup sales are cancelling out emission savings from electric cars

Even if more cars go electric, it's almost pointless unless we get rid of light trucks.

The great benefit of electric cars is that there are no tailpipe emissions, because there is no tailpipe. And even with our usual complaints, it has been wonderful to see them taking off. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA):

Plans from the top 20 car manufacturers suggest a tenfold increase in annual electric car sales, to 20 million vehicles a year by 2030, from 2 million in 2018. Starting from a low base, less than 0.5% of the total car stock, this growth in electric vehicles means that nearly 7% of the car fleet will be electric by 2030.

 The IEA notes talk about "the beginning of the end for the ICE age.” As passenger cars consume nearly one-quarter of global oil demand today, does this signal the approaching erosion of a pillar of global oil consumption?"

Nope. In fact, emissions from transportation keep climbing, even as fewer cars are sold and more are electric, because so many more people are buying SUVs and pickups trucks.

On average, SUVs consume about a quarter more energy than medium-size cars. As a result, global fuel economy worsened caused in part by the rising SUV demand since the beginning of the decade, even though efficiency improvements in smaller cars saved over 2 million barrels a day, and electric cars displaced less than 100,000 barrels a day.

It's just going to get worse.

In fact, SUVs were responsible for all of the 3.3 million barrels a day growth in oil demand from passenger cars between 2010 and 2018, while oil use from other type of cars (excluding SUVs) declined slightly. If consumers’ appetite for SUVs continues to grow at a similar pace seen in the last decade, SUVs would add nearly 2 million barrels a day in global oil demand by 2040, offsetting the savings from nearly 150 million electric cars.

We do go on about how SUVs and pickups are killing and maiming people by the thousands, and all of the other problems that they cause, but surely this should raise some eyebrows. Many countries offer incentives and tax credits to encourage people to buy electric cars, which all seems kind of silly if they don't have disincentives for buying light trucks like SUVs and pickups.

The government actually subsidizes big SUVs.

It gets still worse; if you buy a truck or SUV in the U.S. that is heavier than 6,000 pounds, the IRS gives you a massive tax write-off for depreciation. Range Rover is even using this in their marketing to people who use their cars for business. Another site conveniently lists all the cars over 6,000 pounds (copied below) that are eligible for this.

The government is giving these tax deductions because they consider these to be work vehicles. Given how dangerous they are, it's time to license their drivers to a higher standard as they do for trucks over 10,000 pounds. That would get a lot of them off the road fast.

Here's the list of 2018 cars and trucks that are over 6,000 pounds, via Financial Samurai.

Audi Q7
BMW X5
BMW X6
Buick ENCLAVE
Cadillac ESCALADE AWD
Chevrolet Truck AVALANCHE 4WD
Chevrolet Truck SILVERADO
Chevrolet Truck SUBURBAN
Chevrolet Truck TAHOE 4WD
Chevrolet Truck TRAVERSE 4WD
Dodge Truck DURANGO 4WD
Ford Truck EXPEDITION 4WD
Ford Truck EXPLORER 4WD
Ford Truck F-150 4WD
Ford Truck FLEX AWD
GMC ACADIA 4WD
GMC SIERRA
GMC YUKON 4WD
GMC YUKON XL
Infiniti QX56 4WD
Jeep GRAND CHEROKEE
Land Rover RANGE ROVER
Land Rover RANGE ROVER SPT
Land Rover Discovery
Lexus GX460
Lexus LX570
Lincoln MKT AWD
Mercedes Benz G550
Mercedes Benz GL500
Nissan ARMADA 4WD
Nissan NV 1500 S V6
Nissan NVP 3500 S V6
Nissan TITAN 2WD S
Porsche CAYENNE
Toyota 4RUNNER 4WD
Toyota LANDCRUISER
Toyota SEQUOIA 4WD LTD
Toyota TUNDRA 4WD
Volkswagen TOUAREG HYBRID

All-American

I’m this tiny, this statuesque, and everywhere

in between, and everywhere in between

bony and overweight, my shadow cannot hold

one shape in Omaha, in Tuscaloosa, in Aberdeen.

My skin is mocha brown, two shades darker

than taupe, your question is racist, nutmeg, beige,

I’m not offended by your question at all.

Penis or vagina? Yes and yes. Gay or straight?

Both boxes. Bi, not bi, who cares, stop

fixating on my sex life, Jesus never leveled

his eye to a bedroom’s keyhole. I go to church

in Tempe, in Waco, the one with the exquisite

stained glass, the one with a white spire

like the tip of a Klansman’s hood. Churches

creep me out, I never step inside one,

never utter hymns, Sundays I hide my flesh

with camouflage and hunt. I don’t hunt

but wish every deer wore a bulletproof vest

and fired back. It’s cinnamon, my skin,

it’s more sandstone than any color I know.

I voted for Obama, McCain, Nader, I was too

apathetic to vote, too lazy to walk one block,

two blocks to the voting booth For or against

a women’s right to choose? Yes, for and against.

For waterboarding, for strapping detainees

with snorkels and diving masks. Against burning

fossil fuels, let’s punish all those smokestacks

for eating the ozone, bring the wrecking balls,

but build more smokestacks, we need jobs

here in Harrisburg, here in Kalamazoo. Against

gun control, for cotton bullets, for constructing

a better fence along the border, let’s raise

concrete toward the sky, why does it need

all that space to begin with? For creating

holes in the fence, adding ladders, they’re not

here to steal work from us, no one dreams

of crab walking for hours across a lettuce field

so someone could order the Caesar salad.

No one dreams of sliding a squeegee down

the cloud-mirrored windows of a high-rise,

but some of us do it. Some of us sell flowers.

Some of us cut hair. Some of us carefully

steer a mower around the cemetery grounds.

Some of us paint houses. Some of us monitor

the power grid. Some of us ring you up

while some of us crisscross a parking lot

to gather the shopping carts into one long,

rolling, clamorous and glittering backbone. 

"All-American" from Dear, Sincerely, by David Hernandez