They are not THUGS!

[merrily]

154. In part, I agree. In part, this is something like saying women should dress more modestly so they

don't play into the hands of people who encourage rapists.

The grievous wrong is what I will call, for want of a better term, vigilante policing. It kills people for no good reason. People who are totally innocent. People who are guilty of a petty theft or not being "obedient" enough. Not of that is worthy of a death sentence.

And, at some point, a community gets terrified, especially for its youth, but also for itself, and angry and breaks some store windows and maybe takes some stuff. Yeah, both halves of the equation are wrong, but one is provoked murder and one is a crime against property that was provoked, although perhaps not by the specific property owner. There is a difference.

And, btw, if every person in the USA behaved like the model offspring of Goody Two Shoes and Pollyanna, the Koch brothers and their ilk would still do the exact same shit. They are about money and power, not social issues. Social issues do not affect them. They affect only the 99%.

The onus is, and should be, on society to fix this, not on the victims. Federal, state and local government needs to stop militarizing and mindlessly defending and protecting the LEO. Unions need to start making distinctions between when the thin blue line is appropriate and when it is contemptible. And so on. We may not be able to fix hearts and minds, but we can sure as fuck punish murder.