I think it is relevant. My imagining of a perfect world was really to highlight the fact that this current situation isn't one. I thought my last sentence made that point clear by comparing the US to England. Not that England is anything close to perfect. But stuck, as we are, discussing the very imperfect world of the US where the police are armed and the citizens have a constitutional right to be, I can think of occasions where I'd be grateful for a police officer to shoot someone, because I probably wouldn't be able to bring myself to. An active shooter situation for example, where half a dozen people have been killed already. I'd rather the gunman was disarmed by a bullet in the leg before he could make it double figures. I certainly wouldn't rejoice in it, but as a hard choice in this real, imperfect world I'd prefer it to the alternative, wouldn't you? I wouldn't worry too much about the gunman being
technically innocent, having not been convicted by a jury at that moment. And I'm not talking about an "unachievable perfect world". This kind of thing happens here once in a generation and in the US about once every couple of weeks. The US alone among rich countries has a huge problem with gun violence that the rest of the world just doesn't. Why should it be that imagining something different to this is to imagine an "unachievable perfect world?"
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._countries.png
But we're kind of talking about two separate issues: police brutality/racism, and general gun violence. And none of this is to suggest that the US police don't have a massive problem with institutional racism and that they use disproportionate and often deadly force against black people. They clearly do and it's disgusting and it needs to stop. The police need to get their house in order; the culture of silence and protection needs to end and bad cops need to be dealt with immediately and forcefully by the legal system. Until that happens there will be riots. And under four more years of Trump I think they will get worse and people will probably die, because people are angry under Trump. People who are against Trump are obviously angry and his supporters are angry by default. Some of them positively want a race war. These current riots and demonstrations are already the worst since 1968, I hear.
I agree that for Joe Biden to start talking about 'better' ways for cops to shoot people is incredibly insensitive right now, but I imagine he was responding (clumsily, rambling) to a question from the audience in that clip. I doubt he said it apropos of nothing. Perhaps he is "a completely fucking useless piece of shit" but is he worse than the person occupying the presidency right now? Is there a viable third choice
right now? Nobody relishes having to vote for the lesser of two evils and I've heard a lot of scorn poured on people who accept that's what they are going to do in voting for Biden. If I was a US citizen I would have wanted Bernie Sanders for the nominee. That's where my politics most align. But right now I would be firmly resigned to voting for Biden because what's the alternative? Voting for Joe Biden doesn't equate to smugly embracing the status quo, and it isn't an endorsement of him or his policies. It's a simple choice to make in a voting booth where the only other realistic alternative is Trump. And it seems to me that getting rid of that sociopathic thug has to be the priority, after which America can have something of a breather while it thinks about a way forward. I don't understand left-wing vitriol against Biden. I mean, I completely understand it emotionally in terms of a personal dislike of him and his policies, but
right now how can it be anything but counter-productive? I know there's a left-wing school of thought that would actually prefer a Trump win. I've seen people toying with this idea under the logic that it will galvanise the left and facilitate some grand plan where everything works out perfectly next time, whereas a Democrat win would breed complacency. This seems
incredibly risky to me.
Or is there something I'm missing? There may we. There often is.
All the best