Turning into a parking lot without signaling. Failing to repair a broken seatbelt. Driving at night with an unlit license plate. Driving with tinted windows....
His mother, Valerie, who was often called on to help when her son’s car was impounded, believes that the police were stopping Mr. Castile not because of his driving but because of his race. “Driving while black,” she said.
July 17, 2016
"In a 13-year span, Philando Castile was pulled over by the police in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region at least 49 times..."
"... an average of about once every three months, often for minor infractions."
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The state of our society in a nutshell: every time I read a news story, my first thought is "Is any of this true?" Did Castile get pulled over because of a (non)broken taillight, as originally reported, or because of a reported armed robbery?
Kind of a disturbing story. Probably evidence of racial bias, but - it sounds like his _car_ was a magnet, just looking like a bunch of problems all the time. I've been pulled over for a broken tail-light and such, but generally they gave some kind of warning or requirement to fix it within thirty days. But when he was pulled over, they would find that his license was expired or no registration etc. Hard to judge.
But none of that is the slightest excuse for shooting him. Something has to be done about that, something serious.
"...he drove for six consecutive years without a valid license, as officers would quickly discover after they pulled him over."
"In his first six years as a driver, Mr. Castile received nearly two dozen tickets, mostly for driving without insurance or with a suspended license. He managed to keep getting his license reinstated until late 2007, when it was revoked for a lack of insurance."
So, he constantly broke the law. He was a known violator of traffic laws.
I do believe that it possible that the officer acted improperly, but it doesn't necessarily mean racial profiling.
Usually if you get pulled over for any one of these minor infractions, you get a warning - the first time, or have the ticket waived if you show you've fixed your car. So many? Clearly a lack of understanding of or complete disregard for the law.
There is a car-profiling thing. We who drive know it. Cops know it. Some cars are more likely to be carrying bad news. Jay Leno knows it.
Philando had trouble following simple rules, it appears. Doesn't excuse his shooting, of course, but it does gives context to the story.
I was pulled over for a license plate bulb out. The cop didn't care about the bulb, he was looking for something of more importance - drugs, DUI. He let me go without even mentioning to get the bulb repaired.
So, this outstanding pillar of the community is consistently driving without a license, no insurance, etc., etc. Sounds to me like a profile for a petty criminal if anything and most likely what the local cops thought of him too.
What is such a person doing driving around with a handgun within reach? He had to know that any cop seeing him with a gun would react badly.
I met a cop who caught a thief in a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Young cop, maybe 24 or so. He told me he saw the thief driving down the road, and "he had no hair!" That was his basis for running the plate. Stolen car. He pulled him down and found a bunch of stolen goods in the back.
The thief was white. But he had no hair (shaved head), and was driving a pretty expensive Jeep. That was it.
It sounds like tax farming. It was a twenty-year-old, $275 car. Cop knew he could find something to write up. Fill the ticket book. Make quota. I've read unsubstantiated claims that St. Paul is known for this type of "policing for revenue." Anyone know if that's really the case? Radley Balko did a great piece in the Post about how this goes on in all of the St. Louis suburbs (including Ferguson.) It's a matter of the local governments putting the cops in a terrible relationship with the public. This is especially true of the poorer public, for whom a $100 fine is a huge deal and the loss of a drivers license can mean the loss of a job.
I know a white guy who was ticketed something like 20 times for not wearing his seatbelt. I think cops start recognizing the cars of people who don't learn and target them.
"he had no hair!"
I'm in trouble.
Did Castile get pulled over because of a (non)broken taillight, as originally reported, or because of a reported armed robbery?
If it was the latter (and it appears that the taillight was a pretense), that still doesn't excuse or justify the shooting. There is absolutely no evidence that he was involved in the robbery, he just fit the basic description.
What is such a person doing driving around with a handgun within reach?
For something many of you consider a human right, this statement is very telling.
I guess the second amendment only applies to white guys.
There are behaviors that attact the attention of the police. Smart people understand that.
If you drive at 10 miles per hour down a street known for its drug dealers you will draw attention to yourself. Cops run the plates of suspicious cars and know if the owners have a suspended license or a rap sheet.
This guy had to exhibit certain behaviors to get pulled over as often as he did.
Lamar Gonna Set You Straight....
I'm Lamar, and I'm a Young Black Man, Proud and prone to Anger Issues. I can't help it: living amongst all these White People with their Little White Problems just makes me Angry. Try MY Problems, Bitches...
You White People know the kinds of jobs you leave for us, if you leave any for us at all. Low-paying, menial work, meant to slowly sap the Black man's spirit...
If we are lucky enough to get a shitty job then maybe all we can afford is an old crap car: some car a White Person bought new, drove the shit out of, passed off to their white entitled teenagers, and then abandoned, used up, for another New Car. WE get THAT car, and we sure-as-hell get the bills that come due: the fucked-up brakes, the worn-out transmission, and -- yes -- the taillights that are soon to burn out.
Then your Police look out for shitty cars to ticket, so that we have to pay our money for the ticket rather than fixing the problem we were pulled over for in the first place. And don't think we don't know that the whites who get pulled over just get warnings: fuck you AND your Volkswagens and Audis...
Expired Registration? Oh yeah: I gotta pay the White People every year simply for driving my same shitty-ass car? What the fuck is that? Just another way for Black people to be hassled and arrested and shot because they can't afford a nice dependable car, that's what THAT shit is. But that's how you Whites want it. isn't that right? You WANT us driving a car that practically shouts "Nigger Inside"...
You think you got Problems? Fuck You.
I am Laslo.
How many non-automobile crimes was he arrested for over the same period?
I agree with Kylos. Cops are on the lookout for cars whose drivers repeatedly violate the law,often with relatively minor offenses, whether they are white or black.
Some cops may be looking for contraband. Some may be looking to fill out their ticket quota. It's modern police work, not necessarily racial profiling.
I am afraid that when anything negative happens to many African-Americans, they first go with the race card. Nothing like externalizing blame to avoid personal responsibility. It seems to be encouraged by the extremely poor leaders that African-Americans tend to vote for. White liberals are not doing them any favors either.
"I guess the second amendment only applies to white guys."
No but they had better keep their hands on the wheel and move slowly.
I interview kids applying to the military. They all have stories of being stopped, especially tinted windows and no insurance. I ask them "Why were you stopped so they could find out you had no insurance ?" More minor violations.
I think cops target young drivers. Probably because they are more commonly violating simple laws.
Oh, and very few kids applying to the military are black. Very few.
So this poor guy knew how to interact in a police stop. It looks like he played his part OK, but the young police guy had strong African Man Phobia, so he shot first and asked questions later.
Practice Tip: When a white officer in Minnesota says he wants your license and insurance, it means you should just sit there and chant, " Hands up... don't shoot."
So it was the dead man's fault after all.
My guess is that there's two sides to this story, but only one side will get publicized. It will not even be respectable to mention the other side........It's pretty obvious that the officer screwed up, but there's probably some extenuating circumstances.......In the other case, the one in Baton Rouge, my sympathies are completely with the police officers. If I'm wrestling on the ground with an armed felon, I might get a little trigger happy. Fortunately I have the presence of mind not to take a job that involves wrestling in the ground with an armed felon for forty grand a year......If we demonize these cops, will it be easier to re ruin better cops?
His side-kick chick has cigarettes whose tax stamps match the cigs from the robbery. So there is plenty of evidence.
He was also a known Crip. One of the results of the inability of police to arrest gang members en masse for their associations is that they use these minor infractions as ways to stop and then interdict known criminals.
That's the reality. You may disapprove, but step back to how else police can interfere with criminal enterprises, how they can hit arrest targets, how they can remove dangerous people from streets, and you'll see this is their practical way to sort out honest people from thugs.
(Gotnews.org lists all sorts of relevant info on Castile's criminal undertakings.)
Follow the money. The poor guys are cash registers for the local police budgets. They don't have a chance. The system is rigged against them. They are just lucky that the roads are not built by chain gangs anymore.
"If he had been a different sort of person, the police might have warned him, and driven on... On Basso they probably saw those indescribable little signs which mark, if not a criminal type, a man who has been in trouble with the law."
James Gould Cozzens, The Just and the Unjust (1942)
I don't doubt, actually, that his race played a role in how often he was stopped. However, I wonder why he was so often violating traffic laws. Is getting your car serviced regularly so that you conform to the law a "white" thing? Surely repairing minor issues like a taillight is cheaper than a ticket or getting out of impound. If I were being pulled over every three months, I'd wear my seatbelt and make sure I used my turn signal. Is that white of me?
Recruit, not re ruin.
"This guy had to exhibit certain behaviors to get pulled over as often as he did."
If so, it would be kind of nice for the police to describe any of those behaviors that were a threat to public safety. That was a pretty poor article, and I don't trust the NYT, but there was only one moving violation mentioned (failure to signal when turning into a parking lot.) He lost his license because he could not afford insurance.
Oh, and very few kids applying to the military are black. Very few.
As usual you are full of shit. African Americans are over represented in the military.
Freder,
In Illinois, it is illegal to carry a gun in the from seat of your car. I do not know about other states.
When I drove to the target range, I had to put my gun in a case, in the trunk (or back of my SUV) with the bullets in a separate container. Otherwise, I could be arrested and charged with a felony.
I tend to obey laws. (Or, I speed when I think I can get away with it). It makes life so much easier.
So obviously he should have been recklessly/thoughtlessly without cause killed (13) years ago. Why did it take so long? Time to start re-training police officers not to be so prudent.
Follow the money. The poor guys are cash registers for the local police budgets. They don't have a chance. The system is rigged against them.
The poor guys are poor for a reason. They are cash registers for everyone, not just the police.
It is much more difficult to separate smart people from their money. That's why con men focus on the suckers. That's why payday loans exist. Stupidity is why the poor guys get so many traffic tickets.
There is a high price tag associated with being stupid. You can fix ignorant. But sadly, you can't fix stupid.
William @ 8:22: "Recruit, not re ruin."
It works both ways. Your spellchecker has a Freudian Slip subroutine.
The first report stated that Castile got pulled over because the car matched the description of a car seen pulling away from the convenience store robbery and Castile matched the video shot of one of the robbers.
And no Freder, Castile may have had his 2nd Amendment rights, but it was extremely poor judgment on his part to openly exercise them. In his case it would be similar to Freddie Gray buying a gun and waving it around. The cops justifiably would get jumpy about that.
"What is such a person doing driving around with a handgun within reach?"
He had a permit to carry the gun. The man had the same right you do and he had the right not to be killed because of it.
Wasn't Freddie Gray a felon? How was Castile like Freddie Gray, except they were both black.
"... an average of about once every three months, often for minor infractions."
And, I suppose, the rest for non-minor infractions.
"His mother, Valerie, who was often called on to help when her son’s car was impounded, believes that the police were stopping Mr. Castile not because of his driving but because of his race. “Driving while black,” she said."
Asians don't need driver's licenses, license plate lights or insurance, and don't have to use turn signals or seat belts, and can drive with blacked-out windows. It's not fair.
Mr. Castile had received only one ticket, for speeding, in nearly three years when Officer Yanez ...
He was turning Japanese and wasn't black anymore.
What proof is there that Castile was waving the gun around?
Freder Frederson said...
As usual you are full of shit.
This is a more general problem with right wing commentators on this blog. A significant fraction, not all, come to vent emotionally rather than being well prepared for a substantive argument. In this respect they are no better, or worse, than commenters on Huffington Post or Daily Kos, but it does limit the quality of the discussion possible here.
Some commenters seem to think it was wrong of the police to ticket this guy for driving without insurance. I disagree. I would have pulled his license and impounded his car if he kept driving without insurance. Because if he hits somebody (or is hit) while uninsured, everybody else will have to pay. He is (literally and figuratively) free riding.
Excuse me for being such a hater bigot plutocrat shill but this is in fact the deal society reasonably asks of every driver of any race etc in exchange for being permitted to drive on the public roads. Simple.
"African Americans are over represented in the military."
As usual, you don;t know the facts. This was an allegation back in Vietnam and was a lie then.
My experience is in Los Angeles and I would estimate our applicants, about an average of 55 to 60 per day, are 10% black or less.
I don't know what the composition of the army is in this volunteer era. I would not be surprised if it was more than 13% as it is the most integrated and least racist segment of American society.
Is it a necessary part of your leftist ideology to always be obnoxious ?
Try driving around with an expired brake tag or broken tail light or without a seatbelt on.
The one time I can recall doing any of those things I was stopped by the police in a high end town on the New Jersey shore. I was in town clearing out the house of my recently deceased parents and driving my recently deceased father's car. In my everyday life —driving my own car —I go to great lengths to eliminate anything that could give the police a reason to stop me while driving.
Police encounters are not pleasant events for White or Black drivers.
" A significant fraction, not all, come to vent emotionally rather than being well prepared for a substantive argument. "
I assume you are not including the Hillary trolls in your statement ARM.
The commenters here seem pretty tolerant of the lefties. I know I try to be but am constantly provoked with obscenity and personal insults like Freder's above. Is it necessary to be obscene to be accepted as genuine on the left ?
It certainly seems to be.
I've seen some other anecdotes and stats about the frequency of police pulling over black drivers in poor neighborhoods, and have become fairly convinced it is really happening.
What I would like to understand is what the police are doing it. I don't believe racial animus is the usual cause, although some of the police might have general disdain for the people in their communities.
The other possible reasons that come to mind and bear exploring, IMO, include:
1. Funding of their departments with the fees collected
2. Using traffic/vehicle violations as a pretext for reasonable cause in order to apprehend suspects and catch people with outstanding warrants
3. A belief that stricter enforcement for small violations is essential in trying to restore law and order in communities with high crime rates (similar to Rudy Guiliani's initiative to arrest people for windshield washing in NYC.)
All of those motivations might be either justifiable and helpful or wrongheaded, but until we even find out about the policies and attitudes prevailing in police departments there is no way to know. Labeling the actions as racist shut down that discussion.
My takeaway from is that the cops are always trying to get deathtrap cars off the road, for everyone's safety.
Owen said...
Some commenters seem to think it was wrong of the police to ticket this guy for driving without insurance. I disagree. I would have pulled his license and impounded his car if he kept driving without insurance. Because if he hits somebody (or is hit) while uninsured, everybody else will have to pay. He is (literally and figuratively) free riding.
What I can't understand is that the right wing can see this issue quite clearly when it applies to car insurance but not to health insurance, where the problem of free riders is a vastly bigger problem financially.
Once more, such misinformation...
First, Castile was stopped by the cops because he looked like an armed robbery suspect whose photo had been circulated the day before. If you look at the photo, he did indeed strongly resemble the suspect. The cop may have told the car occupants that he stopped them for some equipment violation, but that's SOP when the cops stop someone for an investigative reason. You lie to them and make up another reason, to calm their suspicions while you question them. So you tell them you're looking for a hit-and-run car, or that their tail lamp is out. It's perfectly legal and it's also makes good sense.
Next, from the family's own admissions, Castile drove for years with a suspended license, with no insurance, with faulty equipment, etc. Now, you may call the cops writing such people tickets "revenue generation" if you wish, but if that's your opinion, then have your legislature revoke all those laws making driver's licenses mandatory, requiring insurance to protect the rest of us, all that. Make it legal to drive like an idiot, don't use your turn signal or have operating brake lights, speed whenever you want, etc. So, call traffic enforcement "racist" and we'll feel so much better.
But remember, last year, about 8,400 were murdered with firearms. About 40,000 were killed with automobiles.
Personally, all that "Blacks are cash-registers" is Bunk. Traffic enforcement is actually the biggest area where blacks, especially poor blacks, receive less enforcement than middle and upper class persons do. Try speeding through the average bedroom community or suburb. But in the inner city, cops haven't got time or energy for all that. They're too busy dealing with real issues.
Or try this test. Next time you're on an interstate between cities, in the open country, notice the cars which are doing 85 or 90, speeding like morons, tailgating slower drivers, cutting in and out, etc. Identify the drivers by ethnicity. Are the black drivers about 12%? of this group (1 in 8) Then ask yourself: are black drivers violating beyond their participation in the general population or are they being racially profiled by state troopers?
And finally, even in the day he died, Castile was in possession of dope. His GF says on the video "All we had was a little weed." OK, no big deal, but it's illegal. Any number of the times Castile was stopped, he had "a little weed" then too.
When you consistently and constantly break the law, you tend to get attention from the people paid to notice that kind of thing. It's not racist. It's called Doing Your Job.
Michael K said...
Freder Frederson said..."African Americans are over represented in the military."
As usual, you don;t know the facts. This was an allegation back in Vietnam and was a lie then.
You're so full of shit, Michael K.; next you'll be claiming that the military itself is telling that lie:
2014 Demographics - Military OneSource
download.militaryonesource.mil/ ...
2014-Demographics-Report.pdf
"This pie graph presents the race of Active Duty and Selected Reserve members across the DoD.
Members who report themselves as White represent the largest proportion of the total DoD force (71.0%), while Black or African American members represent 16.8 percent."
IOW, Freder Frederson was correct and you were full of yourself and your stupid personal anecdotes.
My experience is in Los Angeles and I would estimate our applicants, about an average of 55 to 60 per day, are 10% black or less.
Your experience and the resulting anecdotes obviously don't mean jack shit. They never do.
I don't think traffic cops are racist. I think they just think in terms of quota. Their brains are too small for higher reasoning.
Forget the voting rights act - we need a anti-policing for profit law with double the penalties if the policing for profit scheme disproportionally affects a protected group.
"What is such a person doing driving around with a handgun within reach? He had to know that any cop seeing him with a gun would react badly."
Because he apparently was legally permitted to purchase it and he wanted to own it. Do you ask why other gun-owners with a legal right to their guns drive around with their handguns with them? This is why he volunteered the information to the officer who stopped him that he had a firearm. He was trying, I believe, to avoid possible police violence, but in telling the officer he had a gun, the officer became frightened and panicked and shot him.
Bob R said...
It was a twenty-year-old, $275 car.
I bet he could have afforded a much better used car if the government had not chosen to destroy so many of them. Philando Castile, cause of death: Cash for Clunkers.
ARM: way to change the subject there. I was focusing on why cops might bust a driver regardless of race if he kept driving without insurance. If you really want to start a thread on healthcare policy, ask our hostess.
"health insurance, where the problem of free riders is a vastly bigger problem financially."
I've read multiple debunkings of this claim.
Practice Tip: When a white officer in Minnesota says he wants your license and insurance, it means you should just sit there and chant, " Hands up... don't shoot."
Ah yes, those hispanic white officers with Indian (feather, not dot) names.
Owen said...
ARM: way to change the subject there.
You brought up the issue of a requirement for universal insurance. I only broadened the context.
Original Mike said...
I've read multiple debunkings of this claim.
Care to share?
Ross Douthat has had something of a mental breakdown since the rise of Trump but he finally bounces back with an interesting column that touches on both military service and universal insurance.
@Freder - Your numbers are for enlisted - they don't include officers, who I am fairly certain skew more white.
Blacks are actually under-represented in occupations like pilot, special forces and infantry - you know, the guys most likely to die in modern combat. Blacks are over-represented in occupations like mechanic, driver, etc. - basically the guys who joined up to get a trade, some education and maybe a long-term career. No judgment there - a lot of blacks and hispanics join up as a way to get ahead or get out of the old hood. White rural and middle class kids are more likely to join up out of a sense of adventure, and look to serve one or two hitches before doing something else.
"IOW, Freder Frederson was correct and you were full of yourself and your stupid personal anecdotes."
It's a given and should go without saying, but it's good to mention it every couple days even though it will have no effect.
MK's a bullshitter. He knows he's a bullshitter. He knows that we know he's a bullshitter. We know that he knows that we know he's a bullshitter. And he keeps right on bullshitting. Gotta love him and applaud his consistency.
Re: his personal anecdotes he's been everywhere and is quite familiar w/every occupation since the beginning of time. Or he knows someone who's familiar.
And of course an expert on race as some of his best friends are Black/Latino/Asian/Native American.
Indeed, Althouse is truly fortunate/lucky that he drops by 24/7.
"Your experience and the resulting anecdotes obviously don't mean jack shit. They never do."
I understand your hostility now but that does not give you the right to make up stuff, Go right ahead and vent your ignorance.
ARM, Health insurance is another matter altogether. I spent considerable time a few years ago analyzing this and have a degree earned after I retired.from practice. The political left considers market mechanisms anathema. Free medical acre requires rationing. How it is done is up to you but I prefer incentives and not force. The left prefers, as usual, force.
Are you allowed to buy auto insurance after you have an accident ?
"we know he's a bullshitter"
And again we see the obligatory reflex to obscenity.
Poor kid. I hope you get a decent job and wise up.
Driving while Castile. It was a Castile issue, not a [class] diversity issue.
Statistics are hard. Freder Frederson has shown that black women are overrepresented in the military. What about black men? If they're 16% of enlisted military and 13% of the population, obviously overrepresented: slam dunk, right? It's not that easy. The active-duty military skews young, and blacks, having a higher-than-average birth rate, are actually 16.4% of the population of Americans in their 20s (you can get the data here and calculate yourself), and presumably even higher in the 18-19 age group. Not enough to call them underrepresented, but not really overrepresented, either, when adjusted for age.
"Care to share?"
I didn't take notes so that I could educate you later. Sorry.
But let me ask you. What's the mechanism by which free riders are a financial burden on the rest of us? How did ObamaCare fix that?
It must be great living in a world where every disappointment in life has so accessible an explanation.
Owen said...
I was focusing on why cops might bust a driver regardless of race if he kept driving without insurance. If you really want to start a thread on healthcare policy
From wiki:
"Each of the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia requires drivers to have insurance coverage for both bodily injury and property damage, but the minimum amount of coverage required by law varies by state. For example, minimum bodily injury liability coverage requirements range from $20,000 in Florida to $100,000 in Alaska and Maine, while minimum property damage liability requirements range from $5,000 (four states) to $25,000 (16 states)."
Essentially car insurance is a form of mandatory medical insurance that applies to a subset of medical problems, traumatic injury from car accidents. How is this fundamentally different to requiring universal medical insurance?
The Wikipedia entry on Minnesota gun laws says that if you transport a gun in your car, it must be unloaded and cased.
If Officer Yanez could see the gun, it was not cased and it was not in the glove compartment, door pocket, or whatever. "Waving it" may have been hyperbole on my part, but out in plain view yes. And this is something even normal people do not do, and for a person with Castile's record, it is an extremely foolish thing do.
Michael K said...
Are you allowed to buy auto insurance after you have an accident ?
Yes.
Shiloh, just curious, what part of the country are you in, where did you grow up, and where did you go to college? From what I gather, MK has largely been in the L.A. area, as I used to be. It gives one a breadth of experience (and thus legit stories to tell) rarely found in other parts of the country.
"Michael K said...
Are you allowed to buy auto insurance after you have an accident ?
Yes."
Let me know where so I can buy some to pay for my next accident.
I think you know better.
Dr Weevil said...
you can get the data here
Link didn't work for me.
Let the record show MK did not disagree he's a bullshitter!
Essentially car insurance is a form of mandatory medical insurance that applies to a subset of medical problems, traumatic injury from car accidents. How is this fundamentally different to requiring universal medical insurance?
The mandatory Liability and Medical insurances are there to protect OTHER people from accidents that you may have caused.
Medical insurance is to protect YOU personally for health issues of your own.
What you do with your own body, like eat cheetos and sit behind your computer at home, until you blow up into the Staypuff Marshmallow man doesn't hurt other people. Unlike a car on the road that runs into someone, your heart attack doesn't hurt or kill others around you.
That is the difference.
Michael K. above said Blacks in the military may be slightly above the 13% of the general population. 16-17% fits that.
My experience is older (1950's) and also personal, but I agree for the regular army (non-draftee) people. This would also hold for White and "other"southerners at that time. The military was more attractive as an employment opportunity in the south than in the north.
I served in the infantry, so I am talking about "gravelstompers," and I think the RA's did not work any different than us draftees. You joined, and then the Army told you what you were going to be.
Are you allowed to buy auto insurance after you have an accident ?
Yes.
Actually the answer is maybe or maybe not. The insurance, IF you are lucky enough to get it, will cost you much more as well. You will be rated as a bad risk. And rightly so. The insurance companies can also decline to cover you.
In addition the insurance you buy AFTER an accident doesn't cover you retroactively for the accident you have had.
You aren't very good at this logic and reasoning thing, despite your name.
The present comments resemble those on left wing blogs back in the day when I used to read them and comment,
The left hates opposing opinions and quickly goes to personal and obscene attacks to discourage anyone from disagreeing.
Is that what Ann wants here ? I doubt it. We will see.
The one guy who is mad about his girlfriend's medical care is another common experience of doctors. I used to avoid parking in doctors' lots after I had my car keyed a few times.
I have previously commented on a few aspects of Los Angeles military applicants. First, many are probably screened by recruiters before they get as far as history and physical.
Second, we get probably 50% Hispanic applicants and that is probably quite different from Omaha or some other places but LA is the busiest recruit center in the country. I've also commented on the large number of Asian recruits.
You may not like me commenting here but you should try to be honest.
"the insurance you buy AFTER an accident doesn't cover you retroactively for the accident you have had."
That, of course, was the point he ignored.
"until you blow up into the Staypuff Marshmallow man doesn't hurt other people. Unlike a car on the road that runs into someone"
Actually it does indirectly, especially if said cheeto man didn't have health insurance, as it will cause everyone's health insurance costs to go up.
And then there's Marshmallow man's family and how it effects them, but will leave that discussion for later.
No man is an island. We are our brothers keeper. Oh I'm sorry as this is a majority conservative blog. Nevermind!
the insurance you buy AFTER an accident doesn't cover you retroactively for the accident you have had.
This was self-evident.
You aren't very good at this logic and reasoning thing, despite your name.
Two hints for not appearing to dimmer than you really are, don't assume that your opponent didn't get it and don't resort to ad hominem. A sense of humor wouldn't hurt either.
I think the Minnesota authorities are repeating the mistake that has been made in the other celebrated cases of "white xxx shooting unarmed young black man" in sitting on the evidence so as to protect their eventual court case.
These cases are being manipulated for political reasons, and the politicians should overrule the lawyers, and insist on the known evidence being publicized immediately.
Dust Bunny Queen said...
That is the difference.
This is a reasonable argument, nonetheless the government forces you to pay for health insurance. The principle, a government mandate to pay for health insurance remains.
Actually it does indirectly, especially if said cheeto man didn't have health insurance, as it will cause everyone's health insurance costs to go up.
Not really. If we were allowed to have insurance that is REAL insurance where each risk is evaluated on an individual basis, then Marshmallow man's insurance premiums would go up because HE is the risk. Or...he would be denied insurance because the risk is greater than can be insured against. In that case he would not affect the rest of the pool of low risk people. Plus the low risk people can choose to have a lower level of coverage and only insure against the risks that they perceive instead of being forced to cover unlikely or impossible events. Like pregnancy for a post menopausal woman....for instance :-)
That is how insurance is supposed to work and has worked for thousands of years.
And then there's Marshmallow man's family and how it effects them, but will leave that discussion for later
Yes. That is their problem. Perhaps they should have had an intervention and taken the cheesy puffs away from him and disconnected his internet. Not my problem., t
"Is that what Ann wants here?"
Blog hits regardless of who or how. Although she does enjoy catering/cowtowing to her con majority. Even though she obviously is a "hard core" liberal. That dichotomy makes it somewhat interesting.
She only cares about never missing a day blogging which keeps her a happy camper!
ARM,
I think Dr K meant that you can't have an accident, then buy insurance *to cover that accident*. But I see this has been clarified.
Shiloh,
No one can or should be expected to respond to you, and the wise decision not to do so is a concession of nothing. I understand there's fierce competition to be the biggest loser on this blog, but rest assured, you are right up there with the leaders.
Go haze some swabbie why don't you? Do it like your daddy did.
Come now DBQ, I think insurance only dates back to the Italian renaissance, so hundreds, but not thousands of years.
Dust Bunny Queen said...
That is how insurance is supposed to work and has worked for thousands of years.
But medical insurance doesn't work like this in our moderne society. People without insurance are still treated in hospitals, it is illegal to turn them away. Medical insurance is fundamentally different in this respect to other insurance markets.
"Yes. That is their problem. Perhaps they should have had an intervention and taken the cheesy puffs away from him and disconnected his internet. Not my problem."
But cheesy puffs are soooo tasty. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. All that wanting to form a more perfect union nonsense.
Oh I'm sorry as again I forgot this is a majority con blog.
Where's the humanity? Rhetorical.
Unknown said...
ARM,
I think Dr K meant that you can't have an accident, then buy insurance *to cover that accident*.
Yes, I know. I was just making fun. He likes it. It makes him feel wanted. Have you ever had the misfortune to follow one of the threads where he gets into an interminable shitfest with R&B? He couldn't be happier.
"People without insurance are still treated in hospitals, it is illegal to turn them away."
So we pay for their treatment through higher medical prices or we pay for their treatment through tax-derived subsidies. Either way, we pay.
@ Hagar
Au contraire. Insurance was well established in ancient societies. China and Babylon.
But shortly after 1800 BC, Hammurabi, the first Babylonian king, popped a cold one (probably), grabbed his stone tablet, and carved out a rather novel idea: If merchants took out loans for each shipment, they could repay the loan with interest once the shipment arrived safely at its destination. But if the shipment wasn’t delivered, the loan would be forgiven. For the merchants, it was simply a matter of hedging their bets. For the lenders, it was a low-risk gamble that could net them significant profits.
Not exactly the same, but the concept of insuring (betting) against the risk is the same. This is why Obamacare is failing. It is not insurance as it has been know for thousands of years. The dynamics are broken.
" The principle, a government mandate to pay for health insurance remains."
This is a myth and has been used to try to sell Obamacare.
DBQ makes good points and you ignore them.
The "Free Rider" issue was at one time thought by Heritage to justify an individual mandate but they changed minds on this whenn they realized that it was priced into the existing rate structure.
Of course, the rate structure has been destroyed by Obamacare which will collapse of its own weight. It does not work and the best evidence of this is the failure of Democrats to try to enforce the employer mandate.
I expect that Trump will either make Obama either optional, which would be a simple way to deal with it, or to simply allow conventional health insurance to return to the market.
One good effect of all the controversy has been to educate the public about the possibility of cash medical practice. A lot of middle class people have discovered that they can get routine care by paying cash or with a credit card.
Ironically, Obamacare with its sky high deductibles has accomplished this.
Unknown, btw I'm assuming you're a conservative "Unknown". It's easy to stand out when you're in the minority and easy to be picked on. Obviously cons love being in the majority or they wouldn't be here agreeing w/each other ad nauseam.
And your, as well as other cons, kindergarten ad hominems are all part of this blog's attraction er je ne sais quoi.
"Obamacare optional," although the other idea is attractive,
Lamar Gonna Set You Straight....
I'm Lamar, and I'm a Young Black Man, Proud and prone to Anger Issues. I can't help it: living amongst all these White People with their Little White Problems just makes me Angry. Try MY Problems, Bitches...
You all are White: you ain't never had a Cop pull a gun on YOU. Me, I've had the Cops pull a gun on me four times, and three of those times was for no damned reason at all...
One time these two Cops pulled their guns on me for breaking into my own damned car: I guess no White People ever have accidentally locked their keys inside...
I asked them why they needed to have their guns drawn, and they replied that car thieves were in the area. Of course car thieves are in the area, it's the ghetto, motherfuckers. But they all are trying to steal some cars SOMEWHERE ELSE. Ain't no one trying to steal a broken-down 1985 Cutlass Cierra with a missing bumper, you dumb shits...
Then there was the time I accidentally left the Liquor Store without paying for my forty of Malt Liquor. What can I say, I was dazed from the Chronic, I didn't mean to forget paying. Anyway, the Arab who runs the place comes out into the parking lot and pulls a gun on me. Then the Police show up, and THEY pull their guns on me: hey, motherfuckers, I'm the only one here WITHOUT a gun, point those things at twitchy Omar over there...
This is the Shit you White people never have to deal with; I guess it's just MY problem, being black and all...
You think you got Problems? Fuck You.
I am Laslo.
Good one Laslo.
First note - the reason for the requirement for insurance is to protect everyone else. In late 1981, I bought my first new car, a Mazda RX-7 (with a stupid 70 mph speedometer and a governor). I was living in the DC area, but not DC. As should have been expected, I was hit twice in the first two weeks, once on each side. Neither was my fault, neither driver was insured, and both drivers were from DC, where insurance was not required (accidents were in VA and MD). Thank goodness for uninsured motorist insurance, which I had. And paid for, which is why the two drivers were free riding on my insurance. Heads they win, tails I lose. Regardless of who was at fault, I was the one paying.
"Mr. Castile did not follow his mother’s advice to lodge an official complaint about biased policing, possibly because he drove for six consecutive years without a valid license
The officer found only $377 in the pants pockets — which Mr. Castile said had come from cashing his paycheck. Mr. Castile was arrested and accused of possession of less than one-third of an ounce of marijuana, a charge later dismissed, and driving with a revoked license, for which he was convicted.
Mr. Castile’s sister Allysza said her brother’s love of wide-bodied, older-model cars, like the 1997 Oldsmobile he bought for $275 and was driving when he was shot, attracted police officers’ attention.
Ms. Castile was pulled over three times when she borrowed his car, she said, because “those are mostly stereotyped as drug dealer-type cars.”
--
So..car profiling.
Ok..having "only" $377 in his pocket might explain why he has a gun...might be connected to having just a little weed. They should change the story to him being on his way to DMV. And he apparently worked for a no doubt underfunded school.
DBQ,
This would be a merchants' guild rather than Hammurabi, i.e government?
"Have you ever had the misfortune to follow one of the threads where he gets into an interminable shitfest with R&B? He couldn't be happier."
So he really, really, really likes Ritmo. Say it's not true. I personally enjoy when Ritmo shows up and MK says he's leaving and then they continue to throw shit at each other for another couple hours. Never say never.
You could say MK has no willpower er he can't help himself he's soooo self-absorbed. Bless his whittle heart!
>
Have mentioned previously ~ wish I had 5¢ for every time MK said he was never/ever gonna talk to Ritmo again.
Rinse/Wash/Repeat ...
>
So speaking of DBQ's cheesy puffs, MK is addicted to Ritmo!
shiloh said...
So he really, really, really likes Ritmo. Say it's not true.
I cannot tell a lie.
Humperdink said...
"I was pulled over for a license plate bulb out. The cop didn't care about the bulb, he was looking for something of more importance - drugs, DUI. He let me go without even mentioning to get the bulb repaired."
I commute home between midnight and one AM. License plate bulb out is one of the reasons I've been pulled over. I'm white. I get pulled over more then most people. Because I commute between midnight and one AM> Prime time for DUIs and DWAIs. Occurs more frequestly each time I start using a different car on the route. Eventually, the local police learn who I am and get used to seeing me, and after that I'll get pulled over by the occassional state trooper or county sheriff. Sometimes I get told- fix it. Sometimes I get nusisance tickets, that don't cost money as long as I get it fixed, but cost me time.
What I don't get pulled over for is moving violations. The illegal turn, speeding, running a stop sign... I know the route. I know that 23 of the 36 mile commute is one long speed trap through several small towns, so I use my cruise control. If you're getting pulled over, a lot, by your local police, you're coming to their attention somehow. And not in a good way. And if you're not smart enough to figure out why, that's a problem. Yours, not theirs.
His mom's advice might have included getting a valid license. And if you are being "targeted" by police, leave the contraband at home.
As they say, just sayin'.
This would be a merchants' guild rather than Hammurabi, i.e government?
Yes. A voluntary participation to insure against the risk of losing your cargo. Just like medical insurance used to be voluntary. Insure or not to insure your choice. If you think the risk of your ship being sunk is low, then you take your chances and don't buy the insurance. If you lose your ship. Too bad. You chose poorly.
Unlike Auto insurance which protects OTHER people from you which is mandatory....losing your cargo (property insurance) or having a broken arm or even getting cancer (medical risk insurance) those are the risks that YOU personally take or bear.
Having someone run into you with THEIR car, even if you are just a pedestrian walking, is not a risk that you voluntarily assumed. This is why it is government mandated.
So back to our guy in the article. He defied the law and chose to not insure and put OTHER people at risk of being injured or property damage from his cop magnet beater vehicle.
Two points:
1. It is possible for blacks to be both over-represented in the military and under-represented in the number of recruits. Hypothetically, imagine if blacks signed up at 1/2 the rate of whites, but served an average of 4 times longer. They would be serving at twice the rate they occur in society. I am not saying this is the case, just that it is mathematically possible.
2. "What I can't understand is that the right wing can see this issue quite clearly when it applies to car insurance but not to health insurance, where the problem of free riders is a vastly bigger problem financially".
Okay, there are free riders in health care--they don't buy insurance and everybody else's is higher as a result. Solution: We subsidize poor people's health care and Voila! We taxpayers are still giving them a free ride. What exactly did we solve?
Where's the humanity? Rhetorical.
7/17/16, 10:10 AM
From you it is rhetorical. You don't act like a human being and you certainly don't treat others like human beings. Maybe you're not always like this, maybe on HP or DU or wherever you act normal and behave nicely, but no evidence of that here.
Oh. Forgot the 49 times pulled over in 13 years. That's less then 4 times a year. I'm easily past that. Way past that number. Again, becasue I commute between midnight and one AM. Nothing to do with being white or black, but with being out and driving during DUI prime time. Doesn't bother me so much, it's the police doing their job. I hate , detest, and completely abhor DUI checkpoints where they stop and check everyone going by. Completely unconstitutional, despite courts ruling otherwise. Reminds me of internal checkpoints in totalitarian nations. They nail very few DUIs, but enourmous numbers of paperwork violations. Especially since most of them are during daylight hours.
White people get profiled and stopped too.
We have a friend who was routinely stopped. She is white,a retired teacher. The most innocuous, straight laced person I know. The reason she was always stopped. She drove a red Corvette. She called it "arrest me red". She wasn't speeding. She just looked fast.
Husband used to have a couple of older trucks that looked like beaters. Primer spots...called patina in the collectible auto world :-) Under the hood a new crate motor and fully redone suspension, brakes, transmission, exhaust etc. Basically, a rat rod. It's a thing. Until the sheriffs began to recognize his truck, he was often stopped for dumb things. Trailer ball obscuring one number of the plate. Didn't use a blinker. He did. They were just dim. The cops probably thought he was a Mexican dope grower because the vehicle looked so 'used' and ratty.
Profiling the vehicles is a common common police tactic.
Our regular driver is what we call "old person incognito" driving. An 8 yr old white Chevy Blazer. The most boring car in the world and one of probably a zillion on the road.
dbp said...
What exactly did we solve?
Medical cost induced bankruptcies
"A study done at Harvard University indicates that this is the biggest cause of bankruptcy, representing 62% of all personal bankruptcies. One of the interesting caveats of this study shows that 78% of filers had some form of health insurance, thus bucking the myth that medical bills affect only the uninsured."
The average person doesn't understand how quickly medical costs can build up in a serious illness because there is no real 'market' for medical treatment. As a consequence, people either underinsure or fail to get insurance. At the very least it is an incredibly stressful and inefficient system and the stress comes at a time in people's lives where they are least able to cope.
"She drove a red Corvette."
Anyone in a sports car is more likely to be stopped.
Also breaking ... water is wet!
Any cop will tell that when they are in traffic behind you, they run your licence plate. They run probably 1000's a day. What they see when they run it can influence whether or not not you get pulled over for a light out. And chronic scofflaws are not likely to worry about lights being out anyway.
Law abiding citizens vs. scofflaws. There are many, many factors at play
So now there is a Constitutional mandate for stress relief? Excellent! I'll require a lot of that, twice daily for a start. Redheads preferred.
I have been subject to a "commuter tax" as I call it in Atlanta, Baltimore and Austin over the past three decades, wherein anyone driving during morning or evening rush hour was subject to a revenue-enhancing stop by the police, just for being in the normal flow of traffic (i.e., usually 5 to 10 mph over the posted limits whenever traffic allowed it).
Except for that one time, shortly after I got my Concealed Handgun License here in Texas, when the officer kept me waiting for 20 minutes until backup arrived so he could have backup (damn you, Pflugerville, for your witlessness), I haven't minded being stopped. No, I haven't minded, once I realized it was just business for the city, nothing personal. Any reason to stop a car is reason enough, when revenue enhancement is the goal of policing rather than detection/prevention of criminality. And having a tail light not work, or not being seatbelted, or driving too fast/slow, changing lanes, or just being in a car in a neighborhood with lotsa other people is plenty of reason to enhance revenue.
Either accept it and pay up quietly, or get your city to change how it uses police to make money for the city.
It's kind of interesting to see the lefties go on about my "debates" with Ritmo.
Ritmo is a strange type who posts long series of comments that have no real point but are the sort of thing you see with some psychological disorders. I don't have long exchanges with him/her but usually decide a thread is not worth following once he/she makes an appearance,
I try not to get involved with fools.
shiloh said...
Anyone in a sports car is more likely to be stopped.
I often follow these cars in traffic if they are going fast on the assumption they they are the ones who will be pulled over. Hard to tell how well this works in practice. I speed a lot and never get tickets, but nor does anyone else, except for a few minorities.
"this is the biggest cause of bankruptcy, representing 62% of all personal bankruptcies."
As you probably know, that "study" was quickly debunked as the bankruptcies were rarely caused medical expenses but they were frequently mentioned as a factor.
I remember my partner once scheduled a surgery on a woman whose occupation was "bankruptcy consultant."
Guess what.
Rephrasing, anyone in a sports car, especially if they are Black.
ok, it pretty much goes without sayin' ...
Now my main point. Part of what is required of, in particular, males in a civilized society, no matter how sophisticated is learning to respect authority and their place in society. For males, it is a hierarchy thing. Full of testosterone, it is a hard lesson for adolescent males to learn. But is much easier if the first authority they have to deal with is a father. Absent that, the police, representing society, are the ones to teach this lesson. If it is not learned, young males are often a threat to society. Their inherent aggression has to be properly directed and contained. We all know what happens if this is not done (as evidenced by the level of violence in communities where many, if not most, adolescent males are raised without fathers).
I don't want to slow down from 70 to 25 when going through small towns here in rural MT, or not rolling through stop signs. But I leaned my lessons decades ago, and know that it is easier to obey even stupid laws than get ticketed, and see my insurance rates go up. But I am old enough now to be on Medicare. I was telling my partner the other day about the time between high school and college when I got three tickets in two weeks. Father had left me his fast car, when the rest of the family went on vacation. Both speeding tickets were for essentially 35 in a 45, and could have been far worse. For one, I had been doing > 120 in a 70 zone, pulling away from the cop. The other should have been for better than 90 in downtown Denver (16th street bridge). Of course, I lost my license. Lost it again two years later. Luckily I was at a college where I could easily walk everywhere. It was great fun, and I barely thought about the speed limits, except that sometimes it was great to double them. They were for old people. I probably had that car up to maybe 140 on I-70 west of Denver several times. With less than two years of driving under my belt. With most of a half a century of driving under my belt now, I can see how stupid that was. And, yes, I had multiple instances of being pulled over and occasionally ticketed for driving while young and stupid before I figured it out.
Yes, there is such a thing as being pulled over for being black, just like there is for being young and stupid. But it isn't because the cops are prejudiced, but rather because they are smart. This was a guy who had not figured out the authority and hierarchy thing yet - obviously since he was still getting tickets. I rarely get tickets any more because I have figured it out. I pay attention, and set my speed control to the posted speed limits (ok, maybe 5 mph higher on the highway). I don't like all those silly little rules any more than he did. But I obey them.
"dbp said...
What exactly did we solve?
Medical cost induced bankruptcies"
Have bankruptcies gone down? If so, great for them but how exactly does that help me?
Besides, your Harvard Study by the well regarded economist Elizabeth Warren is pretty throughly debunked in The Atlantic.
Elizabeth Warren and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Utterly Misleading Bankruptcy Study
While the lefties have been busy blathering here, seven police officers have been ambushed in Baton Rouge, and three are dead.
The country is unraveling.
Anyway, back to the beginning of this thread. From what has come out so far, I think that eventually it will turn out that Castile not only looked like the convenience store robber; he was the convenience store robber.
His mother should have the hierarchy/rule of law thing figured out. But it seems like she was more interested in working an injustice angle than getting him legal. The only one in his family with any sense appears to be his sister who figured out the car was a cop magnet.
Michael K,
You are calling the kettle black. Anyone who spends so much time on a blog's comments section has some issues of their own. You obviously object to anyone who isn't one of your tribe commenting here. Everyday we hear you calling for Althouse to "block" liberal commenters with a private profile from commenting. Get a grip old man.
Freder Frederson wrote:
If it was the latter (and it appears that the taillight was a pretense), that still doesn't excuse or justify the shooting. There is absolutely no evidence that he was involved in the robbery, he just fit the basic description.
But that's not why he was killed, only why he was pulled over and why the cop might view him with extra suspicion.
Franciscan, your relationship with reality appears tenuous. For one thing, everybody here knows that blogger has no blocking mechanism. Althouse would have to find every post by a suspect person and delete it manually. There is a certain good faith issue. Since those on your side have no good faith, it's easy to abuse the system here.
Eventually you'll get bored or your energies will be otherwise diverted. I don't say your Democratic paymasters will send you to ruin websites with a higher ROI, but perhaps one way or another you will find it unprofitable to remain here.
You certainly have nothing to contribute to the ordinary everyday run of commenting and it's pretty certain that after the election none of you will be here.
dbp said...
throughly debunked in The Atlantic.
More recent coverage from the Atlantic. There are other studies that broadly support the Harvard study.
@ARM
What that "study" really proved is that people who go bankrupt tend to have unpaid bills (shocker!) and that those unpaid bills often include medical bills (which is even less shocking, since unpaid bills for past services are relatively consequence-free - i.e. they don't turn off your lights or heat). Yes medical bills, just like all kinds of bills, can contribute to insolvency, but the methodology of that study didn't prove what you and Senator Warren want it to have proved.
"Everyday we hear you calling for Althouse to "block" liberal commenters with a private profile from commenting. Get a grip old man."
Another blank profile troll.
holdfast said...
Yes medical bills, just like all kinds of bills, can contribute to insolvency
It is fair to say that it is difficult to tease out the contribution of the various factors. You did not mention it but becoming seriously ill by itself will increase your risk of bankruptcy because of lost wages, earnings opportunities, decreased work performance etc. Nonetheless, the number of medical cost induced bankruptcies is clearly not zero. No one seems to argue this. I have know people where unexpected medical costs was the thing that tipped them into bankruptcy. So the question is what is the real number. Reasonable discussion here and here.
Lamar Gonna Set You Straight....
I'm Lamar, and I'm a Young Black Man, Proud and prone to Anger Issues. I can't help it: living amongst all these White People with their Little White Problems just makes me Angry. Try MY Problems, Bitches...
Fuck, but you all are oblivious to how fucking oblivious you all are. This post -- from a white lawyer, no less -- is on how a Brother got himself shot; yet somehow you White People turn it into a discussion about car and health insurance...
Because that's what White People REALLY care about: worrying about their Insurance and Retirement and Corvettes and shit. The only Insurance I want is that I won't get shot by a trigger-happy cop, feel me? Black People would LOVE an Insurance that protected them against White People, but you'd probably then make it too expensive for the Black Man to buy...
Maybe the next time a cop shoots a Brother you can talk about recipes and shit. The only recipe I give a fuck about is on the side of a box of store-brand Macaroni and Cheese, cause that's all a Brother can afford...
Go ahead: go back to moaning about White Shit while you drink your coffee and lattes; I'm gonna put on NWA's "Fuck the Police" and imagine a World without you...
You think you got Problems? Fuck You.
I am Laslo.
$377 buys a lot of store bought mac n cheese.
Black People would LOVE an Insurance that protected them against White People, but you'd probably then make it too expensive for the Black Man to buy...
Yeah, Lamar, acting normal or decent is probably a price "y'all" can't or won't pay. For certain values of y'all, of course...
"This is a more general problem with right wing commentators on this blog. A significant fraction, not all, come to vent emotionally rather than being well prepared for a substantive argument. In this respect they are no better, or worse, than commenters on Huffington Post or Daily Kos, but it does limit the quality of the discussion possible here."
Oh please, ARM. I well remember the night of your nervous breakdown here. You exercised your avoidance by redirection schtick for all it was worth, but Drago had you cornered and you fell completely to pieces. Venting emotionally, indeed.
Watched a show last night on the real west, and they were following 3 or 4 people at essentially the same time in the late 1870s: Jesse James, Billy the Kid, and Wyatt Earp. Then the sheriff hired to get Kid, Pat Garett. Kid apparently survived a shootout, unscathed, where the posse had the assistance of the regular military, who used a Gatling gun. He then apparently met with James in Las Vegas, NM, the most lawless town in the country, with better than onemurder a day. James, after being abandoned by his brother was trying to form a new gang, and offered Kid a job robbing trains (which turned out to have been a stupid business plan, since businesses had switched to using checks instead of cash in the years that James had been laying low, playing a farmer). Kid turned him down, lacking trust. Earp, meanwhile, had gotten frustrated after cleaning up Dodge City with the powerful avoiding jail time for murder, so was on his way to his famous shootout in Thombstone and the silver fields there.
The relevance there is the connection with my previous post about males having to be civilized to live in an ordered society, and that if no one else will, law enforcement had to do the job. Time and again in the west, men would go somewhere and congregate. Sometimes they were cow towns. Sometimes mining towns. They would blow their money, and come to blows. Sometimes scores would be settled with guns. Then the women would follow the men to the towns, and demand that the violence stop. They would bring churches and the law. And the worst elements who survived would move onto their next opportunity. Of course, compounding this was a generation who had become inured to violence by fighting in the Civil War. And esp from the south that had been devastated by their loss.
The point here is that males are, by evolutionary necessity, violent. It is driven by our testosterone. Two big horned sheep colliding loudly competing for mates. Lion males fighting for control over prides. And human males fighting to protect their families from human and animal dangers. And, to some probably lesser extent for mates (since we're are primarily monogamous). That male aggression must be controlled and directed if a society or community is going to survive. We saw in the old west, and we are seeing in poor minority communities today, what happens when that does not happen. Parts of Chicago today probably have murder rates comparable to some of the worst places back then. And, it probably wouldn't matter as much if the young males would just kill each other. But the killing spills out into the murder of innocent women and children in their communities, and innocents of every kind outside it.
And, realistically, that is the ultimate purpose of law enforcement - two protect society from male violence, and to direct it into more societally beneficial directions. Males, statistically, are better than females, in a number of realms, ranging from business creation to inventions (and Nobel Prizes). But their testosterone and aggression has to be redirected for that to work. The residents of Dodge City looked the other way when Wyatt Earp would routinely strong arm the drunks and miscreants, on his way to putting them in jail. It worked - the town went from being a wild cow town to being civilized. And we need to continue to look the other way when people like Castille don't get the message and continue to break the law, year after year. I am not defending his getting shot, but rather his getting pulled over. Sure, he may have been profiled, but we profile for a reason - it works. Profiling is a natural human survival mechanism that uses pattern recognition to distinguish between important threats and lesser concerns. If he was profiled, it was justified, since he hadn't yet learned to accept the limits placed on us by an ordered society.
Hagar said...
"Anyway, back to the beginning of this thread. From what has come out so far, I think that eventually it will turn out that Castile not only looked like the convenience store robber; he was the convenience store robber."
Yep. Allison called it, except it's GotNews.com, not .org. The cigarettes the stupid bitch was waving around at the rally were stolen in the holdup.
Try "driving while Crip".
ARM (9:45am):
Sorry about the link. The URL at the top of the page is http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk.
However, as far as I can tell the Census Bureau has somehow fixed their site so copied links don't work. Why they would want to do that I do not know.
The title of the table is "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population by Sex, Age, Race Alone or in Combination, and Hispanic Origin for the United States and States: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2015" - then select 2015 in the left margin. Searching some or all of that text ought to get you to it. I forget what Google search led me to the page in the first place. Once you get there, you can copy selected cells into Excel and add/multiply/divide them to get the percentages.
Good Lord, man. You were screaming repetitively in all-caps into the wee hours of the morning. It was Drago's Finest Hour.
The Cracker Unknown said...
Oh please, ARM. I well remember the night of your nervous breakdown here. You exercised your avoidance by redirection schtick for all it was worth, but Drago had you cornered and you fell completely to pieces. Venting emotionally, indeed.
This only happened in your imagination. I have had some completely fruitless exchanges with Drago in the past but I felt sorry for him because he was so defenseless and I deleted my more obnoxious posts. Drago like MK seems to love abuse and I am sometimes all too happy to oblige them. Forgive me, for I am a sinner.
The Cracker Unknown said...
Good Lord, man. You were screaming repetitively in all-caps into the wee hours of the morning. It was Drago's Finest Hour.
I doubt Drago has ever had a finest hour. And, I never use all-caps, which proves you have a faulty memory of the incident.
Dust Bunny Queen said...
Unlike Auto insurance which protects OTHER people from you which is mandatory
You are fine with the government mandating that X must buy medical insurance to cover some potential Y. What is the logical objection for the government to do the same when X = Y? Why is this condition the only problematic condition?
"Drago like MK seems to love abuse and I am sometimes all too happy to oblige them. Forgive me, for I am a sinner."
I don't know why you feel the need to get into this abusive mode.
I will avoid responding to anything you and your lefty friends post. I guess that is better than trying to debate or respond.
I expect that the hysteria on the left will grow more and more as Trump sweeps toward a win in November.
I just hope the violence in the streets does not also grow. We are on the verge of anarchy as it is.
Chiming in with some of Michael K.'s anecdotal evidence.
Some years ago, I saw a notice in the paper about a research project where you could get an MRI done for $200 and for $50 more a radiologist evaluation. So I found out where that was, which was in an 18-wheeler in a church parking lot with an MRI machine and a couple of nurses.
A couple of years later I got curious about something and asked my doctor about it, so he sent me to the hospital for x-rays and the radiologist there said he would like to also have a new MRI to compare with the previous one.
I expected $500 or so from the hospital, but they wanted $935, which I thought was a little rank, but in for a penny, in for a pound, so OK.
Howver, they billed me for $1,350+, so I protested, and while we were arguing about that I got another bill for $2,750+ and a threat about sending the sheriff for me if I did not pay up pronto.
So I really protested, and it turned out that they had done two MRI's in different ways "because they always did that" though only the one (and simplest way) had been asked for. They then agreed that this was their mistake, but still wanted the $1,350, except that they could not explain all this to their accounting department, and they finally said to forget the whole thing, just please go away, so in the end I was out just the $935 for which I got the radiologist's report - or rather my doctor did - but not a copy disc of the MRI.
The point of all this is meant to be that even before Obamacare, the medical financial system was totally FUBAR.
I posted before about the lady who had some blood tests done for which the hospital billed her insurance company $80/each of which she was to pay $30, but they also told her that if she had just paid cash, she could have had them for $15/each, though that would not have counted toward her deductible since she then would have gone around the insurance company.
I think this is what happens when the regulated get in bed with the regulators.
Government at work.
Michael K said...
I don't know why you feel the need to get into this abusive mode.
I tend to fall back on the Christian concept of original sin when these kinds of questions come up.
A pre-paid medical care program is not "insurance" regardless of who pays for it.
Hagar said...
The point of all this is meant to be that even before Obamacare, the medical financial system was totally FUBAR.
The problem is that it is impossible to create a real market in health services/products. When faced with a life threatening illness you have no leverage. You need powerful surrogates (employers/insurers) to get any leverage.
AReasonableMan said...
There are other studies that broadly support the Harvard study.
Followed your link. That study does not support the Harvard study. It is in fact based on the Harvard study.
"Practice Tip: When a white officer in Minnesota says he wants your license and insurance..."
I'll keep that in mind, but what should you do when, as in Castile's case, the officer is a Hispanic man that your girlfriend thinks is Chinese?
@Bruce Hayden,
Do not believe anything you see on television about "the real West," and especially not when produced by Bill O'Reilly!
Maybe Philando had the $377 for an MRI. Sorry Lamar..this thread has gone a bit astray. Damn white people and their yappin.
I do not have any "leverage" with my automobile insurer either, but have had no difficulties.
Word soon gets around as to which companies intend to stay in business and which are there just to take advantage of the compulsory insurance laws.
60 years ago, Marvellous Marvin May told us in class that hospitals and universities were the worst run bbusinesses in the country, and they have done nothing but go downhill since then.
"A pre-paid medical care program is not "insurance" regardless of who pays for it."
This is the root of all our health "insurance" problems. Nothing can be fixed unless this is addressed.
ARM: better commenters than I have answered your medical insurance puzzler. I agree with those who note that if I drive without insurance I put others at risk, while if I choose to go without medical insurance the risk is mine. Only where well-meaning legislators make free with other people's money can the risk be shifted from me, for example when I go to the ER for whatever ails me and by law they must treat me and then chase me for payment.
So: a different configuration of risk and responsibility, and one that creates different incentives to avoid risk. In the case of car insurance, if I don't pay for it and face no cost (the other guy's insurance may cover my injuries when we collide) or maybe I just don't care. That carelessness may extend to my driving habits as well, so that's a second reason for the authorities to get me off the streets. With medical insurance, if I don't have it I might try to take better care of myself. I can't count on others' charity, but least my decision has not put them at risk (excepting here the ER/must-treat dodge that in fact prevails).
@Blogger holdfast said...
"Ah yes, those hispanic white officers with Indian (feather, not dot) names."
Jeronimo is a Spanish name, not an Indian name, feather or dot, despite Officer Yanez's famous namesake. Yanez (a Spanish name too, BTW) does look like an Aztec, and he was called "Asian Chinese" by Diamond/Lavish, probably because she lacks awareness and discernment, and was stoned out of her mind. Oh well, now that he shot dead a member of the Special People Club, Yanez is white, and the Grand Dragon of the Knights of the KKK, as far as #BlackLivesMattter is concerned.
What I can't understand is that the right wing can see this issue quite clearly when it applies to car insurance but not to health insurance, where the problem of free riders is a vastly bigger problem financially
Are you kidding?
We would love for health insurance to be sold the way Car insurance is sold.
You are fine with the government mandating that X must buy medical insurance to cover some potential Y. What is the logical objection for the government to do the same when X = Y? Why is this condition the only problematic condition?
Driving is an option, breathing isn't.
Lamar Gonna Set You Straight....
See my 11:48 post: You all can't help yourselves. A brother gets shot and you all continue to bicker like little ho's over Insurance...
Does it hurt to be THAT White? When the grave is being dug for the next black man shot you all will probably start talking about gardening...
You think you got Problems? Fuck You.
I am Laslo.
In other words, black people shouldn't 't expected to follow basic traffic rules. Got it. You know why cops often use "minor offenses" to pull people over and run their licenses? To see if they have any outstanding warrants. Racial profiling is just one component of common sensical policing. Or will we not be satisfied until elderly Chinese women are stopped by cops in exactly the same rates as black men?
If you found out that one of your colleagues or acquaintances regularly drove without a license and/or insurance, would you think that they were an irresponsible shithead or a charming rogue?
Well, the police tend to profile for irresponsible shitheadedness, and those folks get pulled over a lot.
ticket for not signaling into parking lot is lame.
car full of white boys in lompoc, ca (driver: air force officer) got that ticket from a prick local cop. happens. not racism.
how are these 'driving while black' victims such mind readers that they can tell a prick cop from a racist cop? do they follow along and see all the white drivers in similar situations this particular cop treats differently?
that said, down-class out-of-neighborhood people do get harassed by local police. and this is exactly what the (usually rich liberal) locals want.
laslo @8:11am: really believable. and they told me i couldn't understand because i'm white ...
"I doubt Drago has ever had a finest hour. And, I never use all-caps, which proves you have a faulty memory of the incident."
It was the greatest example of blog commenting as blood sport that I have ever seen. It isn't surprising that you've blocked the trauma.
Black males commit more crimes, more serious crimes and them more often than Whites (And far more so that Asians). Therefore, why should anyone question the position that Black males are far more likely to commit moving traffic violations than Whites?
I will be specially interested in: The toxicology report on that Minnesota subject; And, if there is any evidence linking him to the noted robbery OR, if someone is arrested for that crime, if there is any physical nearness to the shot driver.
Hagar said...
I do not have any "leverage" with my automobile insurer either, but have had no difficulties.
But there is a real market in auto insurance. There is not a real market in health care services/products, by and large.
Owen said...
better commenters than
You are arguing from consequences not principles. If you accept mandatory health insurance in the case of car drivers, what is the principled objection for all cases? We all agree that the government can make me buy health insurance for someone, which seems to be the big issue, at least when it comes to personal liberty.
Jonathan Graehl said...
ticket for not signaling into parking lot is lame.
People like you shouldn't be allowed to drive. You don't want people to know where you're going? It's none of my business? Quit driving -- you're doing it wrong.
The Cracker Unknown said...
It was the greatest example of blog commenting as blood sport that I have ever seen.
Let's think about this another way, since you have failed basic smell tests on this issue. Can you give me another example where Drago has done something similar to someone else? Any example will do. The most-dimwitted 'leftie' you can find will be sufficient. Let's see if we can establish whether or not Drago possesses these magical qualities that you assign to him in a more general form.
You are fine with the government mandating that X must buy medical insurance to cover some potential Y.
No. I am NOT fine with the government mandating that I must buy medical insurance. I am NOT fine with the government telling me what KIND of medical insurance/coverages I must have. If I decide to not insure and then get ill...well, that was my bad choice. If I decide to have a catastrophic only policy and pay out of pocket for routine maintenance medical costs, those are my choices.
However, those choices have been taken away from us.
You keep trying to compare liability and medical coverage on automobiles with personal medical insurance. There is NO comparison. As I pointed out. The auto insurance is to protect OTHER people. The medical insurance is to protect you PERSONALLY. Other people do not need to suffer the consequences of your decision to not get auto insurance and that is why it is mandated.
There WAS a market in medical insurance before. Yes. It could have been better by allowing people to purchase policies over State lines. However, you could choose between many different companies and choose many different levels of coverage, including to chose nothing. Now you are stuck with a couple of insurance providers and only given a few choices.
Gahrie said...
Driving is an option, breathing isn't.
Sorry, I meant when X=X.
Dust Bunny Queen said...
I am NOT fine with the government mandating that I must buy medical insurance.
But, for all effective purposes, that is what liability insurance is, since the major risk is medical costs.
Dust Bunny Queen: "... Now you are stuck with a couple of insurance providers and only given a few choices." Government doesn't like competition.
But there is a real market in auto insurance. There is not a real market in health care services/products, by and large.
But, for all effective purposes, that is what liability insurance is, since the major risk is medical costs
Those are two completely separate things. Liability /= medical coverage. Plus the medical coverage is for IF the auto driver injures someone. Not for if you get a sore throat or hangnail or cancer. Accident insurance, not medical insurance.
Again the major difference is the auto medical coverage covers OTHER people in case YOU injure them and they can get some coverage. Usually that coverage from your auto policy will help pay their deductible, IF they had insurance.
You are comparing apples to concrete blocks. Doesn't work.
And another thing -- I spent all of my twenties living at or near, and sometimes below, the poverty line, often working temp and part-time jobs, and multiple jobs, but I ALWAYS had my car registration and insurance up to date, and carried the proof in my glove box, and I never felt compelled to break traffic laws and not pay the fines. I rarely got tickets, and most of those were for winter parking rules, and I always paid them. It's a white thang.
Based on his numerous citations for not wearing a seatbelt, Philando Castile cared about his own black life about as much as I do.
Dust Bunny Queen said...
Liability /= medical coverage. Plus the medical coverage is for IF the auto driver injures someone.
You make two claims here. The first is quite clearly false since the major costs that liability insures against are medical costs, even if this coverage is of a limited nature. The second point is a reasonable one, as I noted previously. But, it elides the key issue, whether or not the government can reasonably make you buy health insurance, for anyone for any amount of coverage. If, you say yes to liability insurance then it is hard to find a principled objection to other forms of mandatory health insurance, no matter how much you might dislike them. You can find practical objections, liability protects me from other people's stupidity, but the government can then reasonably argue that mandatory health insurance protects you from your stupidity.
Mr. Castile, a 32-year-old school cafeteria worker, had regained his license and had been driving legally for three years when a Hispanic police officer, Jeronimo Yanez, pulled him over in a tiny suburb called Falcon Heights, Minn., on July 6, ostensibly for a cracked taillight.
"A cracked tail light" is what Diamond Williams claimed - but she offers no proof. Her video actually shows a distraught Officer Jeronimo Yanez clearly saying:
“Fuck! ... I told him not to reach for it – I told him to keep his hands off it ..." referring to the visible gun on Castile's left thigh.
So how did Sharon LaFranier and Mitch Smith of the NYT miss that teeny, tiny little detail that so closely followed Ms Williams description of events? The officer's words were the only emotionally spoken words on entire Diamond William's movie presentation - although she did try to fake emotion.
Again, pre-paid blanket medical care is not "insurance," and is not that what you mean by "There is not a real market in health care services/products, by and large."?
The Federal Government has sent the whole medical industry through the looking glass and into Wonderland.
Hagar said...
Again, pre-paid blanket medical care is not "insurance," and is not that what you mean by
No I was referring to the lack of transparency when it comes to pricing. But there is another issue, the lack of transparency when it comes to treatment options. Since you typically lack the ability to judge treatments options, or even have an awareness of treatment options, it is relatively trivial to manipulate you into buy unnecessary or unnecessarily costly medical procedures.
That is total B.S. I do have the ability to judge both doctors and treatment options and do so - since I am paying out of pocket.
Pre-paid medical services "paid by my employer" through payroll deductions - who the hell cares?
Hagar said...
I do have the ability to judge both doctors and treatment options and do so - since I am paying out of pocket.
I doubt that you have as much information as you think. Judging treatment options is generally highly technical and most people, quite reasonably, lack that technical expertise. Figuring out the bottom line price for a particularly procedure is close to impossible. Simply because you talked them down from their initial price doesn't mean you are anywhere near close to what someone else may be paying. The insurance companies pay widely varying prices from state to state.
I am not saying that there is no market, just that it is, in large part deliberately, a very difficult market to judge. This is without taking into account the fact that most major decisions are made under considerable duress and time pressure after a stroke, cancer diagnosis or accident.
You are still just confirming what I said; it is Alice in Wonderland and nobody cares.
What I am saying is that I can decide whether or not to have confidence in the doctor, and I certainly have the ability to say, no, we are not going to do that.
walter said...
(Castile) apparently worked for a no doubt underfunded school.
He worked for a Montessori school, where the rich liberals send their children, and they loved having having a pet negro working in the kitchen, so colorfully diverse, so real, and so... so BLACK! Mr. Rogers in dreadlocks! They all thought he was wonderful, having never seen him in his element.
Do not believe anything you see on television about "the real West," and especially not when produced by Bill O'Reilly
Not sure of your point. Are you suggesting that things didn't often got a bit violent in western towns when the men got together before there were many women there, and then when the women arrived, they got churches and law enforcement?
I don't think that was much of a myth. I grew up in that part of the country. Probably 60 of my 65 years have been spent in parts of what was once the Wild West. Been through Dodge City, stopped in Thombstone. Most recently, last winter, Las Vegas, NM, where that meeting between Kid and James was supposed to have taken place. Took my kid to see Doc Holiday's grave (and Buffalo Bill's - looking down on where I grew up, put under tons of concrete, so it couldn't be stolen by Cody WY). Seen dozens of ghost towns. Remember seeing open carry of six guns growing up (ok - I know an old cowboy 20 miles east of us in MT who does that to this day). Indeed, talking cowboys - I had great uncles and my partner had a grandfather who were such. Which is why she learned to shoot handguns and rifles at a young age. (Don't worry - I am a better shot than she now). The dynamic I was pointing out was well known and relatively common there. Maybe not as bad as portrayed by Louis L'Amour. But real, none the less.
Bruce Hayden said...
My mothers father was given a choice. He could either finish college or take the money and do whatever he wanted. This was in 1898 or 99. He became a land surveyor in West Texas/Eastern New Mexico. He rode a horse and his crew,(rod man) drove the wagon. He tells the story that the most common firearm in those days was a shotgun. Pistols were pretty expensive. And most of the gunplay wasn't in the streets, but in alleys where one pasty would lay in wait and shoot the other guy in the back. I have a photograph of him in his torn pants with a S&W Schofield in a holster and a Winchester sporting rifle in his hand. He surveyed until 1911. He was paid in land chits and left the west more broke than when he started.
Ms. Castile was pulled over three times when she borrowed his car, she said, because “those are mostly stereotyped as drug dealer-type cars.”
This does not seem on it's surface to be racial profiling. Unless a car has a race, and in this case it wasn't a Japanese, Korean, German, etc. car -- although it was old, so maybe age profiling.
Do not drive around with a "probable cause to pull me over granted" sign in your window if your intention is to avoid interaction with police. It's not that hard.
Owen: "Excuse me for being such a hater bigot plutocrat shill but this is in fact the deal society reasonably asks of every driver of any race etc in exchange for being permitted to drive on the public roads. Simple.
7/17/16, 8:47 AM "
Except for New Hampshire, and many, many other states until the 1970s. One wonders how the union continued without state-mandated payments to insurance companies for likely insufficient coverage for material loss events prior to that time.
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