Talk About Tennis 2.0

Given the full text message being shared that he sent, the officer clearly gave permission to use his full name. If he's okay with it, I'm okay with it even if I don't think it's the safest thing.

Must listen.

ti-amie wrote: ↑Mon Jan 11, 2021 2:12 am

The end is my favorite: "China or the Smithsonian"

No funds for anything remotely related to culture, knowledge or education. No way.
They do love their ignorance.

So the NY Post has published an article stating that Democratic leadership will have difficulty because it's become public that Officer Sicknick was a Trump voter. In a tweet to promote the article the author spells his name as Sicknict, and now that spelling is trending on twitter. I feel sick to my stomach.

skatingfan wrote: ↑Mon Jan 11, 2021 3:58 am So the NY Post has published an article stating that Democratic leadership will have difficulty because it's become public that Officer Sicknick was a Trump voter. In a tweet to promote the article the author spells his name as Sicknict, and now that spelling is trending on twitter. I feel sick to my stomach.

The NY Post is a rag anyway, but I don't understand their point? Why does it matter that he was a Trump voter?

It seems to me that the USA is falling into this trap that if you belong to either side (and most likely you will, as it is almost a dichotomy), then you "deserve" some things to happen to you. If you are a Trumpist and you catch covid, you deserve it. If you are a Dem and are unemployed, you "deserve" it.
I am seeing that in other countries. If you are for the Kirchner government and can't find work, you deserve it. The other side also sees it that way: if you were with Maccri (the recent former president) and something bad happens to you, well, you deserve it.
I tie this to the levels of hyperbole that are now used by everybody, the media included. The HuffPost and the Daily Beast use that lingo frequently: people no longer make a point about something, they "destroy" the person articulating the opposite view. You no longer made a point clear in a conversation, you "own" the other person. We are entering, I believe, an era of disproportionate response and evaluation, in which everything is expected to be a binary choice and in which one single act defines you completely. One single use of a slur, regardless of context, makes you a bigot. One positive comment about one tragic historical event makes you part of it. One criticism of one person makes you a "hater", with no other purpose in life but to hate people or things (the truly idiotic phrase "haters gonna hate" springs so easily to mind). On and on. Context loses meaning because the simple action or word defines you instantaneously.
So you are correct. Does it matter that he voted for Trump? No; 75 million people did. Bill Maher has been saying it now for two years: THEY are not going to leave the country, and neither are YOU (whichever side you are in). So better start dropping the volume. And the death of this police officer must be treated impartially, regardless of where he stood politically.

If the video and still images of the officer being dragged down the stairs and beaten with a flag pole are him then you do have to stop and ask yourself what he was thinking while that was happening to him.