ShazzieB
ShazzieB's JournalI don't believe that most people are ALL good or ALL bad.
We humans are complicated creatures, and most of us are a mix of varying qualities that range from terrible to wonderful. There are people like the former guy in whom the bad qualities predominate to the point where they crowd everything else out, and I believe most of us are farther to one side of the continuum or the other. But 100% totally evil with no redeeming qualities whatsoever is a rarity imo, as is 100% totally good. For this reason, I am very uncomfortable with absolutist statements such as "ALL _____ are bad people" or "There is no such thing as a good _____."
Case in point: I had an aunt (now long deceased) who did a tremendous amount for my family. She came and stayed with us for an extended period of time on two different occasions, to care for my sister and me while our mother was hospitalized. During those times, she washed, ironed, and mended our clothes, cooked our meals, kept our house clean, and provided a stable home base for us while our dad was working long hours. Without her help, little sis and I would have been farmed out to stay with family friends, probably in separate locations, instead of being able to remain in our own home together. She gave us a sense of stability that we needed badly. We loved her, and she loved us.
This same aunt was also racist af. She didn't actively hate black people so much as regard them as being not fully human. During the 60s, when the civil rights rights movement was at its peak, she was very much against integration and everything to do with it. If she'd still been alive in 2016, I could definitely see her voting for Trump.
I was disturbed by her racist views at the time, and writing about them now, I am absolutely appalled. Still, I know to the core of my being that she was not an "evil" person. She wasn't an angel, either: she was just an old fashioned southern woman with a GIGANTIC blind spot. She was dead wrong in her racist attitudes, of course, but I can't remember the love and care she showed for her 2 young nieces and say that despite all the good she did for us, she had to have been completely "evil" because she had some disturbing and erroneous beliefs.
A person with many good qualities can have erroneous beliefs and blind spots. A person who is deeply, disturbingly, profoundly wrong about certain things can at the same time also have good qualities. Such people are flawed, perhaps severely so, but that does not NECESSARILY make them 100% unadulterated evil. This is a paradox, but life is full of paradoxes.
I agree that there are Trump supporters who are as "evil" as he is, but I don't think all of them are. I suspect that a lot of them are like my aunt: deeply flawed people with very large, possibly multiple, blind spots (and some "good qualities), who have been led disastrously astray.
Well...
I think the providers of a platform do have the right, and even the responsibility, to control how their platform is used.
I also think whoever at YouTube decided to ban RWW is out of their damned mind. I think it is a BIG mistake, and I hope they come to their senses asap. But they do have that right, even though they may make some dumb decisions from time to time.
Voltaire famously said, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." While I agree with Voltaire, I would add: "I am not, however, obligated to provide you with a platform from which to promulgate those views."
Scratching my head over this one. 😕
WARNING: This post mentions TFG. If you don't want to read about him, you may want to exit this post NOW.
[TFG] suggests that Republicans might have been better off if Democrat Stacey Abrams was Georgia's governor instead of Brian Kemp
Former President [TFG] still has Georgia on his mind.
After now-President Joe Biden narrowly won the state in last year's presidential race, [TFG] prodded Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to convene the conservative-led state legislature in order to overturn the results and pressured GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" additional votes to ensure a statewide win.
[TFG]'s entreaties were rejected, but he has continued to attack both men for what he says was an unfair election process in the state, withholding an endorsement of Kemp in his 2022 reelection campaign and backing Rep. Jody Hice in a Republican secretary of state primary over Raffensperger.
(snip)
During his first post-presidential rally in Ohio on Saturday, the former president suggested that Abrams might have been a more preferable choice for the GOP than Kemp.
"By the way, we might have been better if she did win for governor of Georgia if you want to know the truth," [TFG] said. "We might have had a better governor if she did win."
More at source: https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-republicans-stacey-abrams-georgia-governor-kemp-raffensperger-2021-6
Does TFG even know who Stacey Abrams is? 
He's so mad at Kemp for not helping him overturn the election that he's kinda sorta endorsing a Democrat! What a hoot! 😁😂🤣
I agree with this comment.
Enough of this 🐔 Little crap!
I will never understand why some people are so ready to throw in the towel over every single bump in the road. So help me, God, I do not understand it. 
The LAST thing any of us should even be thinking about right is giving up. It's time to stand up and FIGHT LIKE HELL. 
I know I never agreed to any such policy!
And I would strenuously object if asked to do so.
Like it or not, he still exists, and he is still a threat to our democracy. He is dangerous and will continue to be so until he dies or is beyond bars (or the GOP regains its senses and tells him to go pound sand). Ignoring him or pretending he does not exist would be very unwise, imo.
In addition to that, there has been an uptick of news lately regarding legal action that involves him, and I'm
pretty sure that's only going to increase.
I'm all for not uttering his name any more than is necessary. We have plenty of nicknames to choose from. But never mention him here at all? That's not going to happen.
I think he's way too arrogant to commit suicide.
I also think he's probably a psychopath. No, I can't prove it. It's just the vibe I get from those cold, dead eyes and that expressionless face. Both in the courtroom and while he was in the act of murdering George Floyd, he has never shown a shred of normal human emotion. It's creepy af; HE'S creepy af.
If I'm right about this, he'll never commit suicide. Those people think they're above it all, better than all of us "mere" humans, with our messy, ambivalent emotions. They don't kill themselves, just other people. 
Thanks for this!
And thanks for doing that research. Even without that background, I didn't think the sentence was out of line, but it's nice to have this validation. 
I have felt sad reading some of the posts here from people who were deeply disappointed by the sentence. I know their pain is real, and I get it. But at the same time, I never thought he was going to get the max, so I wasn't at all shocked when he got 22.
There's something to be said, I think, for keeping one's expectations realistic, no matter we may personally think he deserves.
The max was 30. He got more than 2/3 of that.
I don't think the system failed. Acquittal would have been a failure, but he was convicted on all charges. Giving him the probation that the defense asked for would have been a failure, but that is not what happened. He is going to serve a significant amount of time.
Is this a perfect outcome? Hell, no. But perfect was never going to happen, because the criminal justice system is not perfect. It's a flawed, imperfect system that produces flawed, imperfect outcomes. That's not a good thing, and reforms are badly needed, but it's what the judge had to work with, and we need to recognize that.
"Possibly eligible for parole" are the keywords here.
"Possibly" means it could happen, not that it necessarily will.
"Eligible for parole" doesn't mean parole is automatic at that point. There are criteria that have to be met, and a lot can happen between now and then.
"Possibly eligible for parole" is a hypothetical statement. It is not a given that he'll be out at 15 years, and I'll be surprised if he is.
Life was never on the table.
Not for 2nd degree murder. And as someone pointed out, charging him with murder one could have resulted in his going free. The bar for conviction would have been much higher, and it wasn't worth the risk.
Personally, I wasn't expecting that he'd get the maximum sentence of 30 years, and I know he could have gotten a lot less than he did, so I'm okay with this. Thrilled? No. But I am very glad it wasn't less,, which it very well could have been. Knowing what the realistic possibilities were,
In a strict moral sense, sure, he deserves to be put away forever. But that's not how sentencing decisions are made. It just doesn’t work that way in this highly imperfect world that we live in.
Considering how this could have turned out and how amazed and relieved we all were when Chauvin was actually convicted on ALL counts, I'm okay with this.
Profile Information
Name: SharonGender: Female
Hometown: Chicago area, IL
Home country: USA
Member since: Tue Mar 26, 2013, 04:18 AM
Number of posts: 16,348
