The General Terrorist Rampage Thread

The Human Q-Tip said:

Race:

I think he reflexively sided with blacks in almost every situation/controversy, and he basically announced that with the whole controversy around the beer summit. He immediately raised the issue of racial profiling without a shred of evidence to support it. He reversed course only when extrinsic evidence proved that assumption wrong. That incident revealed his bias from the outset of his Presidency.

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Wanna link to back up what you're stating?

From a quick Wiki-

Here's Obama's original quote:

"I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home, and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there's a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately."

Here's his clarification/apology:

"I want to make clear that in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically – and I could have calibrated those words differently." Also, that "I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station. I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Professor Gates probably overreacted as well."

I genuinely feel the reaction to his comments were way overblown, given that he opened with the caveat that he wasn't seeing all the facts before speaking on the broader issue.

And, if I'm being honest, it's hard to take this kind of criticism seriously given the amount of pure bullshit the current president spews without any basis in fact. Obama handled criticism with thoughtfulness and respect, even though nothing he said was inaccurate. And this is seen as him blindly siding with blacks in any and all incidents? How divisive of him to acknowledge racism we all know exists in law enforcement (not at all saying it's isolated to law enforcement).

The Human Q-Tip said:

Well, the bitter clingers don't quite agree with that spin.

In any case, I don't see being a "uniter" as a key quality of a President anyway. If you're doing big, important things, you're inevitably going to piss off a lot of people. That's why we choose leaders by election rather than by acclamation.

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It's fast becoming one, though the only people that seems to hail Barack Obama as the great uniter are generally conservatives being sarcastic.

caf said:

His argument that there is a racial bias in police homicides is/was completely unsubstantiated. When looking at violent crime statistics (murder/manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assult) blacks commit roughly 40% of these offenses. It would be logical that homicides by police would correlate with these statistics rather than by population demographics.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/43tabledatadecoverviewpdf

Pushing that narrative was extremely divisive for the country by highlighting a racial problem that does not exist.

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Christ...

This is not the place for the discussion beyond this nonsense.

But....Jesus Christ...

-Akronite- said:

I genuinely feel the reaction to his comments were way overblown, given that he opened with the caveat that he wasn't seeing all the facts before speaking on the broader issue.

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Okay, and I don't feel the reaction was overblown. It was a complete, one-sided view of such incidents. In fact, if you listen to the audio of the event, it's pretty clear which guy was being abusive and escalating the situation. The professor was a race-baiting, hypersensitive a-hole, but the thought that was possible apparently never even occurred to the President.

Or to put it differently, he assumed which "broader issue" was at play before knowing any of the facts. If you see it differently, fine. I'd ask why wasn't the "broader issue" on which he chose to comment "people being rude and needlessly antagonistic to cops trying to do their job?"

Picking a narrative before knowing any of the facts is pretty much the definition of bias.

And, if I'm being honest, it's hard to take this kind of criticism seriously given the amount of pure bullshit the current president spews without any basis in fact.

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The question wasn't which President was more divisive. It was asking for specific examples of Obama being divisive. This incident occurred and was commented on long before Trump, and without any reference to him.

AZ_ said:

Christ...

This is not the place for the discussion beyond this nonsense.

But....Jesus Christ...

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Should violent altercations with law enforcement not correlate with violent crimes?

Because that's what you are implying.

The Oi said:

Would be interested in arguments that he was a uniter and interested in arguments that he was divisive.

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Personally, I liked Obama's personality. He was charismatic, I just didn't agree w/ a lot of his politics.

Aside from the normal political divisiveness that is part of the "game", the only thing that really resonated w/ me was the Trayvon Martin handling. I think his speech after the verdict was better than his earlier responses that felt divisive sitting in my living room.

I don't love the ACA, but I think it's collectively better than what we had. We still need get this into a good place.

There are tons of policies, executive actions, yadda yadda that I completely disagree w/, but that doesn't make him more divisive than any other politician I disagree w/.

Sadly, I wish he was more of a unifier than he was. I did not expect racial relations to get WORSE under our 1st Black President. That was actually my silver lining in his win; that things would be better because of it.

caf said:

Should violent altercations with law enforcement not correlate with violent crimes?

Because that's what you are implying.

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Mmm yes, tell me more about what I think.

Wrathe said:

Personally, I liked Obama's personality. He was charismatic, I just didn't agree w/ a lot of his politics.

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He certainly looked and sounded more like a President that Trump does.

It was the substance of what he said and did that gave me gas.

AZ_ said:

Mmm yes, tell me more about what I think.

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You seem to oft find yourself victim of this. I do find it amusing that in these examples, you call out that someone tells you what you're thinking, but you never actually qualify what your thought was on it, if they were wrong.

Could ya help everyone out and restate what it is you actually think in these cases? It's tough to criticize people for making assumptions when you're not providing enough information for anything to be said aside from an assumption. Maybe that's the idea?

Wrathe said:

You seem to oft find yourself victim of this. I do find it amusing that in these examples, you call out that someone tells you what you're thinking, but you never actually qualify what your thought was on it, if they were wrong.

Could ya help everyone out and restate what it is you actually think in these cases? It's tough to criticize people for making assumptions when you're not leaving providing enough information for anything to be said aside from an assumption. Maybe that's the idea?

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Well, I think I prefaced my comments with a reminder that the terrorist rampage thread was not the place for his or my thoughts on the race issue that some people believe does not exist in this country.

And I'm leaving it at that, instead of being dragged down the rabbit hole of his scorching hot take.

The Human Q-Tip said:

He certainly looked and sounded more like a President that Trump does.

It was the substance of what he said and did that gave me gas.

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I think you can find good qualities in anyone, and I wish we as a people were less bitter and cynical than we are and spent more effort looking for it.

Said another way; we need to spend more time humanizing those we disagree with, rather than demonizing them.

AZ_ said:

Well, I think I prefaced my comments with a reminder that the terrorist rampage thread was not the place for his or my thoughts on the race issue....

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Valid point. If you want to cut and paste responses over in the race thread, I don't think anyone would complain.

Interesting that saying A should be correlated with B instead of C is considered a hot take.

Wrathe said:

I think you can find good qualities in anyone, and I wish we as a people were less bitter and cynical than we are and spent more effort looking for it.

Said another way; we need to spend more time humanizing those we disagree with, rather than demonizing them.

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I think there's a difference between personal qualities, and what they do in office. In terms of personal qualities, President Obama seemed to be a good man.

The Human Q-Tip said:

Okay, and I don't feel the reaction was overblown. It was a complete, one-sided view of such incidents. In fact, if you listen to the audio of the event, it's pretty clear which guy was being abusive and escalating the situation. The professor was a race-baiting, hypersensitive a-hole, but the thought that was possible apparently never even occurred to the President.

Or to put it differently, he assumed which "broader issue" was at play before knowing any of the facts. If you see it differently, fine. I'd ask why wasn't the "broader issue" on which he chose to comment "people being rude and needlessly antagonistic to cops trying to do their job?"

Picking a narrative before knowing any of the facts is pretty much the definition of bias.

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But again, he didn't pick that narrative. He didn't make a assumptions if you look at his words.

The issue of race relations and law enforcement was clearly the broader issue in this as that's what the discussion was about nationally. It's the reason it was a story. Obama states that he does not know if it played a role but acknowledged the broader issue. Then some snowflakes get their panties in a bunch because Obama didn't declare law enforcement infallible.

The question wasn't which President was more divisive. It was asking for specific examples of Obama being divisive. This incident occurred and was commented on long before Trump, and without any reference to him.

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Still. The comparison of Obama's transgressions, especially in terms of rhetoric and public relations, is just so silly as to make his divisiveness moot at this juncture. It's just incredible to have spent 8 years hearing about how divisive Obama was and how he was a disgrace to the White House only to put a fucking asshat clown into the office. But whatever.

EDIT: Just wanna throw another laugh in at the people that still consider Obama to be an elitist but elected a billionaire asshole to be president.