They're tear gassing peaceful protesters and arresting journalists in Ferguson tonight.

Where have I said it... never mind.

Also, why would conservatives be opposed to "militarized" police (whatever that means, it sounds catchy and it plays into MSNBC's class & racial warfare narrative), but if anything the conservatives should welcome it, since they're currently in a panic about central american gang members infected with Ebola crossing the border and raping our white women.

Pretty good except you forgot one thing. Initially, the rioters were not the citizens of Ferguson. They were primarily thugs from North St Louis and East St Louis looking for an excuse to pillage.

Implied when you said "to what end?" Not as blatant as "half-time is over," but implied.

Got you to look me in the eye, though.

My point is, historically, there's a larger picture when it comes to police overeach. You don't even need to go back to the union-busting and commie scares of the 1930s. Just check out who was getting beat on in the Sixties. Too much bad PR from the fire hoses in the Fifties, so smacking down on white protestors in Chicago was their definition of "equal opportunity" against accusations of brutality in Watts, etc.

Marso wasn't the only one here yukking it up over campus protestors getting pepper-sprayed. And it's okay to cave in a few skulls if it's just them damn dirty Occupiers, but 9/11 opened the door to a raft of new anti-terrorism units in most major cities and I don't recall anyone here objecting to, say, some town in the middle of New Mexico acquiring Humvees and MRAPs to hold the line against al Qaeda.

They've got the stuff. Can't let it just sit in the garage now, can they?

He also has never been qualified to write a fifty word synopsis.

People, conservative and libertarian people, have been harping on militarization for years now. Are there conservatives like you describe? Yes, but they're fading fast. Pretending that they all walk in lockstep on the issue is either ignorant or dismissively partisan.

Again, this isn't a Red/Blue issue, and treating it as such only pushes it under the rug to bubble up again later.

Sadly, some people cling so hard to their windmills that they can't get past the fact that someone they don't always see eye to eye with might actually agree with them.

At no point did I mention Red/Blue, conservative, libertarian, liberal, moderate, Bajorans, or the House of Duras. I was talking about Police vs. Civilians and how there are patterns that repeat over time, and if the overreach starts to concern the majority population (i.e., white people), then these police forces will get yanked back by vox populi hammering on their mayors and governors...until next time.

It is possible to have that conversation elsewhere than in the Red Room without some people's immediate reaction being the glorifying of Bundy-type "civilian militias."

I told a liberal friend of mine I'd like to see the President put a moratorium on the transfer of military hardware to law enforcement. That is something positive he could do, wouldn't cost anything, and would be huge in terms of spotlighting the issue.

When I ask "to what end" I'm not looking for an end to "halftime". I'm asking why does our federal government see it necessary to put armored personal carriers on suburban streets? What's the logic behind it? Is it just cronyism, keeping the equipment rolling so that parts suppliers make a buck? Or is there something else at play? If it's just trolling of the conspiracy set, then someone should answer for the damage it's all doing to law enforcement.

There's no market for it.

About the shortest synopses I ever get paid to write are on the order of a thousand words...

Wow......the crazy world of Liet never ceases to amaze me.

As tends to happen every time the media focuses on a white on black shooting. If the two participants were of the same color the media wouldn't care and none of us would know about it.

For fun, you could swap this thread with the Israel/Hamas thread and get the same responses. It really boils down to getting everyone to stop, relax, think, and then act--in that order.

That sounds suspiciously short, Async

Shhhh....! Don't go there, it's quicksand, trust me. BTW if Fox News reports a black on white shooting it's "fear-mongering" 101. If A liberal slanted new source reports the exact same thing it's "gutsy journalism 101." Gotta love it!

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/14/us/missouri-teen-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Tips for being an unarmed black teen.

Studies have shown that peaceful protests can turn violent, simply because the police have turned up in riot gear. It seems that when folks see the cops in riot gear show up, they figure they're going to get their ass beat by the cops, and decide to make sure they get some licks in before they get beaten down. Having regular uniformed cops watching an area, with other officers in riot gear out of sight of protesters, but able to be deployed at a moment's notice has been found to be much more effective.

Additionally, there are some times elements which can be quietly removed that make a riot much less likely. For example, in Baghdad, the US military figured out that if they blocked food vendors from an area after 1 PM, it cut down on the riots. If people slowly started gathering in preparation for a riot, they would eventually become hungry, and if there were no food vendors, they'd have to go elsewhere to eat, so they'd kind of forget about the whole rioting thing.

Anyone remember the pro Democracy demonstrations in the late 1980s in Seoul not long before the military govt. gave up?

South Korean police had a ferocious reputation.

Finally, at yet another massive confrontation between police and demonstrators/rioters, the South Korean police in full view of everyone took off their gas masks. Indicating of course that they would NOT use tear gas against the demonstrators.

This simple act dramatically deescalated the situation and IIRC in subsequent protests, the police started doing it every time.

IIRC (correct me if I'm wrong) the level of violence was lowered dramatically.

@Dayton3:

Switching to the MHP officers from local riot squads will likely be seen as a similar symbol, and will no doubt de-escalate more violent impulses. The protesters will want an opportunity to show that they can work with a different group, and the highway patrolmen will want to demonstrate that they are an elite, professional force, skilled at working with emotionally charged crowds.

I'm seeing more and more accounts that many of the news crews who were "targeted" by the police (notably, the Al Jazeera America crew) were outside the perimeter where they were "supposed" to be. In the video and still shots of the AJA crew getting run-off, the public was nowhere around them.

The crazy train has left the station and Liet is a-blowin' the whistle...

Never go full nutjob.

On a less serious note, Liet--with his remarks here--has finally gotten me to rethink whether anyone should be able to own a gun...

Everyone should own a gun if only to protect themselves from fascist wannabes like Liet who would gleefully kill people he doesn't like.

Hahahahahaha.......Liet goes full retard and wants to see cops blown away. He'd go to Ferguson himself and bag a cop or two, but he's afraid they might shoot back. So he'll settle for murder by proxy.

What a tool.

Liet isn't a fascist. What he wants to be is an honorary member of the Black Panthers. In reality, he's a wannabe who wound never have the balls to pull a trigger himself. Liet wants to talk like a revolutionary, but you won't find him within 1000 miles of Ferguson. He's happy to agitate from the sidelines, and cheer as the pawns rush headlong into death, but risk his own hide? Never. He's Magneto using Rogue to power the mutation device.

This kid was with Brown when the shooting occurred.

http://www.ksdk.com/story/news/local/2014/08/13/dorian-johnson-michael-brown-eyewitness/13986845/

This incident happened at 2pm. There was no late night disturbance.

He has told the same remarkably consistent story to several media outlets but astonishingly, he has not been interviewed by local police yet.

What's worth noting here is that Ferguson is a small suburb of St. Louis and it's demographics has gone through a radical change over the last 20 years or so. There have been no shootings in Ferguson in 2014, until Mike Brown.

Mike Brown had been a peaceful kid and was preparing to go to college in a few weeks. I find it difficult to believe that a non violent, college bound kid would decide to walk up to a police car and begin to wrestle an armed cop for his gun and then decide to run away, then stop running, turn around with his hands raised and say "Don't shoot me."

This is undeniable. Looting did occur, but reporting I've seen seems to indicate that most of the protesting and protestors have been peaceful. You wouldn't know that based on the reaction by police. There have been reports of gunshots by both sides, although I've yet to see any evidence of that.

I guess everything's relative. To me, 21,000 is a small town. Curious thing though... Ferguson has only 53 police officers. You'd think a town of that size would need a larger police force.

If Ferguson is a peaceful town then why would it need more police for it's size?
Anyway there does need to be a distinction between protestors and rioters.
The protestors might be from Ferguson and peaceful, but the looters are from other areas of St. Louis adjacent to Ferguson.
That's why "small town" doesn't mean shit. A small town way out in the middle of the mountains is isolated from the nearest crime ridden city.
It's crime rate might be low. That same city as a suburb of a city might as well be that city - it differs by name only.

Another eyewitness appeared on MSNBC last night....

http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word-...o-brown-shooting-tells-her-story-318326851993