04 Aug 2020

Bob Murphy Show ep. 135: Adrian Lee Oliver on Police Abuse and Pros & Cons of BLM

Bob Murphy Show, Police 21 Comments

I saw Adrian on Benjamin Boyce’s podcast and had to continue the discussion. A very interesting take on things. Audio here, video below:

21 Responses to “Bob Murphy Show ep. 135: Adrian Lee Oliver on Police Abuse and Pros & Cons of BLM”

  1. Minor_Liberty says:

    Why does the ‘msm’ and the entire left establishment only care about black lives once every 4 years?

    https://i.imgur.com/UfaivRw.jpg

    Which political party benefits?

    What happens when ‘racists’ are running a supposed ‘anti-racist’ organization?

    Hatred? Check

    Violence? Check

    Destruction? Check

    Murder? Check

    Racial division pushed every election year [4 years]? Check

    The Democrat Party never let go post-civil war, they just implemented a new form of control/’ownership’ over the black population.

  2. Harold says:

    18:00 -he describes structural / systemic racism to a tee. The police would like to treat everyone badly, but they can only get away with it with black people. Even without any racist thoughts by the police, black people are treated worse by the police. That exactly describes systemic racism. yet he says the concept of systemic racism does not sit well with him. What gives? Does he mean something else by systemic racism? That could be why these things are never resolved – everybody is just talking past each other.

    His twitter comment is similar. Using the terms left and right simply for ease of labeling, What has happened is the most extreme versions of the leftist racial agenda have been seized on by the right. This has distorted the message to such an extent that nobody can hear the actual message. The leftists have been instrumental in this by re-defining terms in such a way as to play into the hands of the right. Those on the extreme left have also used this confusion to their advantage.

    We can see this here – because Adrian does not like the idea of systemic racism, when he actually acknowledges it does exist and describes his situation in exactly the terms required for systemic racism. What he does not like is the portrayal of what systemic racism means as portrayed by the extreme right and possibly the extreme left. It is very easy to radicalize people against the ideas if the ideas are not actually addressed.

    Addressing one of the “conspiracy theories” he says are being embraced: “We need white people who won’t sheepishly acquiesce to being told PoC can’t be racist, and PoC who condemn that acquiescence & that lie.”

    It is not so much a lie as a misunderstanding. All the links Bob and others provided (in other posts) to demonstrate that people are saying this also demonstrate that none of them meant that black people could not be prejudiced and discriminate against white people. None of them said anything about what black people think. They were (stupidly in my opinion) using the term “racism” to mean something more like “structural racism.” This almost guarantees they will be misunderstood and provides easy ammunition for their opponents as well as easy ammunition for the extremists on their side to radicalize people. These extremists on the left may exist, but I would be grateful in the interests of balance to have some links to people who do say that black people cannot be prejudiced or discriminate against white people.

    The twitter thread seems to be based on misunderstanding the actual message. So to all those who do say black people cannot be prejudiced against whites, I condemn you. You have missed the message too.

    There are bad people everywhere. It is incumbent in the good people not to fall in with the way the baddies misrepresent stuff for their own benefit. It is incumbent on the good people to clarify and discuss the actual issues, not straw men and misrepresentations.

    The fundamental thing is to at least understand what the “other side” is saying.

    As reasonable people, we should be able to agree some common ground to base a discussion on. We do not have to be polarized.

    For example, I propose that these 2 things are true today in America.

    Some people are racist in that they will openly act against black people because they are black, such as those described in Adrian’s stories (of which there are many more in the podcast with Benjamin Boyce – if you disagree please listen to that first.)

    Black people are treated worse than white people by the police because the police know they are more likely to get away with it. They know this because black people are less likely to be connected with power.

    This is based only on what Adrian said in the interview with Bob.

    On Implicit Bias – it is now controversial. There are lots of problems with it and I agree it has been given too much importance. It does have useful things to contribute, but it has been rolled out without sufficient evidence. However, one very important fact is that implicit bias is malleable. When Adrian says “you are racist and there is nothing you can do about it” he is not representing implicit bias test. One – it does not say you are racist, it says you have implicit bias. Two – there is something you can do about it..

    I have only listened to 40 minutes so far, so maybe more to add.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      Harold, the way you are saying we should understand “systemic racism,” the following could be true of a hypothetical society:

      1) A society has not a single racist person in it.
      2) Every single person uses pure meritocracy in making hiring/promotion/eviction/traffic stop decisions.
      3) There is a disparate outcome for black people on average.
      4) Therefore the society suffers from systemic racism.

      Do you think that is a good way to use that term? It actually means that we have to say “Systemic racism might characterize the ideal society,” which is surely not how the people using this term want us to think.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      To continue, what is happening here Harold is the classic motte and bailey. Say things like “The US is a white supremacist society built on systemic racism,” and then when challenged say, “Oh we just mean black people are sentenced to prison and earn lower incomes on average,” which could be consistent with other factors not directly stemming from individual racism.

      • Harold says:

        ““Oh we just mean black people are sentenced to prison and earn lower incomes on average,”

        No, that is not what I said. I said “Black people are treated worse than white people by the police because the police know they are more likely to get away with it. They know this because black people are less likely to be connected with power.”

        Do you agree with Adrian about this?

  3. Jim O'Connor says:
  4. Transformer says:

    I do not think a society that had the attributes described by your first 2 points could be described as “systematically racist”, at least not as the term is described by Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism).

    Adrian describes some horrendous examples of racism that show that in present day USA your points 1 and 2 are not true. There is much evidence beyond this podcast that they are not true to an alarming extent. It is this reality that causes many people to support anti-racist organizations such as BLM. I am very pleased to see that it has also led the Libertarian Party to take an explicitly anti-racist stance.

    I see that some ‘anti-anti-racists’ claim (and Adrian says something similar) that these anti-racists organizations are controlled by shadowy ‘antifa’ and ‘post-modernists’ cliques. Where is the evidence for this ? I wonder if it is any stronger than the very weak evidence provided by Bob in his last post on this topic to justify his claim that white people are being systematical being told they are bad ?

    • Transformer says:

      Meant as a comment on Bob’s reply to Harold

  5. guest says:

    By the way, the George Floyd body cam footage has been leaked:

    Body Cam Footage of George Floyd Encounter Leaked
    [www]https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/08/03/body-cam-footage-of-george-floyd-encounter-leaked/

    We now know why they tried to hide it. It largely exonerates the cops. No racism is displayed other than what would be consistent with non-racist actions, and I only allow for the possibility of racism because the cop that kneeled on George Floyd’s neck actually knew and worked with him as security for another business.

    Here’s a fair assessment of the footage:

    Leaked police body-cam footage shows agitated George Floyd resisting officers
    [www]https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/aug/4/george-floyd-resisting-officers-leaked-police-body/

    ““The video does not justify officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes,” said Mr. Whitlock in a Tuesday op-ed for OutKick. “But it does offer context why Chauvin would be reluctant to believe Floyd’s ‘I can’t breathe’ cries. Nearly every word out of Floyd’s mouth was a desperate lie.””

    At the beginning of the video, the cop pulls his gun on George Floyd pretty early, and this, at first glance, seems to conveniently play into the racism claims, but just before you actually see the gun, you can see both of the officer’s empty hands in the reflection of the back seat, driver-side window as the cop motions to George, while he’s also giving him instructions, to show his hands.

    So that the cop can see his hands. So he knows that George isn’t about to attack *him* with a hidden weapon. This is why cops want to see your hands, and for you not to make sudden motions with your hands behind your back or into your pocket, or into the glove box.

    After George does not comply with allowing the cop to see both of his hands, you see the cop point a gun toward George.

    Except for the length of time that the one cop was kneeling on George’s neck, everything happened how you should want it to happen if your job is to subdue someone.

    *Should* the cops have been there to subdue George? That’s an entirely different question. The government should not be the one’s doing this; rather, a private security service should be doing this, so that you lose contracts, and therefore income, when you kneel on someone’s neck for too long.

  6. Tel says:

    Floyd had four different types of drugs in his system, and also tested positive for Covid-19 so it is entirely possible that his lungs and heart were not in good condition that day and he was being completely honest about breathing difficulties. The classic symptoms of Covid-19 are reduced lung efficiency, increased blood pressure (especially the pulmonary artery), additional strain on the heart, and low oxygen supply to the brain. Put that together with fentanyl (slows the heart) and meth (cause the heart to race) plus THC and caffeine (probably minor effects) and you have a guy who is really not in great shape.

    Leaning on the side of the neck has no effect on breathing, but it does reduce the blood flow into the brain, which was very likely already low in oxygen to begin with. We don’t know how much weight was applied … obviously enough to pin him down but maybe not enough to fully close off the blood flow. I would guess the same hold has been used on healthy strong men, many times, without any long term effects … but this time around the victim was somewhat more fragile than expected. The problem for police is knowing the condition of each and every person they encounter … before it’s too late.

  7. Transformer says:

    This is the original article that Breitbart bases its report s on:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8576371/Police-bodycam-footage-shows-moment-moment-arrest-George-Floyd-time.html

    The Daily Mail is a right-wing (Pro-Brexit) British Newspaper and it is interesting to see how they report this story.

    • guest says:

      I noticed that, too. That’s why I opted to cite a different article.

      To your point, here’s a bit from the Daily Mail article:

      “The tapes show in minute detail how a very distressed Floyd begs ‘Mr. Officer, please don’t shoot me. Please man,’ before the struggle that ended with his death on May 25.”

      Yeah, right.

      • Transformer says:

        When the Daily Mail (who infamously supported the British Fascists in the 1930s, https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/opinion/revealed-the-extent-of-the-daily-mails-support-for-the-british-union-of-fascists/28/10/) runs articles like that I don’t know whether to be pleased or worried.

        • Harold says:

          I am no great fan of the Mail, but credit where its due, they are not quite as bad as they were in the 1930’s. For example, they did run a fairly courageous campaign for justice for Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager murdered in London. Here they are blowing their own trumpet.

          https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2080159/Stephen-Lawrence-case-How-killers-finally-brought-justice.html

          They are much more subtle than Breitbart. The slant of stories and articles subtly reinforces stereotypes, rather than out and out bigotry. This gives them plausible deniability.

          I am not sure if Guests “yeah, right” is just acknowledging that Floyd said those things, or if he is trying to make another point.

          • guest says:

            “I am not sure if Guests “yeah, right” is just acknowledging that Floyd said those things, or if he is trying to make another point.”

            Yeah, please don’t musunderstand that, as that would not bein my interest.

            George Floyd was definitely *not* “very distressed” when he “begged” the cop not to shoot him.

            He was putting on a show – as his comment about his mother that “just died” shows (with a pronounced, affirmative nod to suggest just how recent was her death).

            His mother’s death was two years prior, and her death is irrelevant to the traffic stop.

            He was hamming it up to make the cops look bad.

            • Harold says:

              Your remote mind reading skills must come in very handy.

              • guest says:

                You have assumed racist motivations based on less evidence than this video provides for my assessment.

                Double standard, much?

              • Harold says:

                Cuts both ways.

                But you are concluding something the exact opposite of what is demonstrated and claiming it is acting. I am claiming the thing appears to be what it is.

              • guest says:

                “But you are concluding something the exact opposite of what is demonstrated and claiming it is acting.”

                George Floyd is approached by a cop while he is inside the confined space of a vehicle: He is not claustrophobic.

                He repeatetly fails to comply with orders to show his hands and get out of the car.

                He references his dead mother, who passed away two years prior, as a reason for why he is not complying. Not too distressed to drive a car, but too distressed to follow simple instructions.

                Other people who were witnessing the event told him to stop resisting.

                Inside the back of the police car, with nobody choking him, he franticly says he cannot breathe: An obvious lie.

                At this point, an officer drags him out of the cop car to apply pain and suffocation techniques to reduce the energy with which he is capable of resisting the officers, and to elicit compliance.

                The length of time on his neck was the mistake, while the application of pain and suffocation techniques is a logical part of an effort to subdue someone, which is what we are told is the job of the cops (again, policing should be privatized in my opinion).

                Those are the facts.

        • guest says:

          @Transformer,

          From your The London Economic article:

          “It is not often that news stories rely on the testimony of Hitler to back-up facts. But in this case, the Fuhrer’s words are compelling indeed.”

          LOL.

          Prepare to be blown away when you listen to Bob Murphy’s interview of Tom DiLorenzo about Abraham Lincoln.

  8. guest says:

    Adrian mentioned the Arab Spring, and I wanted to inform people that the Arab Spring was absolutely not a grassroots protest.

    It was manufactured by Socialists:

    Spontaneous? No Way! Organizers Speak in Egypt
    [www]https://chieforganizer.org/2011/02/11/spontaneous-no-way-organizers-speak-in-egypt/

    “We’ll if I had a $100 for every time Anderson Cooper or someone on CNN or Fox or any of the other pundits, reporters, or talking heads told the story of the demonstrations in Cairo being the product of a “spontaneous” uprising of the Egyptian people, then ACORN International would have the money to open a half-dozen new cities around the world this year.”

    That website is Wade Rathke’s blog. He’s a socialist, and he’s been around for awhile.

    Here are a couple of articles that talk about Wade Rathke. Notice that he’s with SEIU, same as Stephen Lerner, who organized and agitated for the equally manufactured “Occupy Wallstreet” protests:

    Revenge of the Radicals
    [www]https://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/259/39937/

    Wade Rathke
    [www]https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individuals/wade-rathke/

    Just for kicks, here’s an article about Stephen Lerner from Discover the Networks:

    Stephen Lerner
    [www]https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individuals/stephen-lerner

    I’ve already provided links, in prior posts, regarding Stephen Lerner’s involvement in the “Occupy Wallstreet” protests.

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