It’s not “if the facts hurt my position I don’t believe them”, it’s about “cops have a record of bullshitting to try and save their asses to the point of bodycams becoming a necessity to save the public from their constant lying”
That plays well for other leftists, but not for people who aren’t there yet. It’s much easier to get people on board with “we should be skeptical and check the cops’ story” than it is to get them to wholesale reject anything the police say. And if the latter is your position, you can get proven wrong.
I’m not talking in hexbear to make optics and to make leftists look good, I’m talking my mind because I feel like this is a safe space to do so. Anyway, optics aren’t everything, being on the right side of things is important. For example, saying that there’s no ongoing genocide in China (look at my last post) is important regardless of it meaning alienating people right now, because in 10 years time it will be obvious to everyone, and then when people are like “oh my god how could we be so dumb to believe it”, you can explain why analysis of material conditions from a leftist perspective gives better results historically. An actual example of this, would be the leftists opposing the invasion of Iraq, as seen on a 2005 debate between Michael Parenti and Christopher Kitchens in which Parenti rightly predicts that in 5-10 years time, the situation in Iraq won’t be better.
That is not my experience. It is much easier to convince people that cops are just organized crime for capital than to achieve anything worthwhile by pretending they deserve the benefit of the doubt.
As for believing the story: we should absolutely be skeptical, but “if the facts hurt my position I don’t believe them” is an unfalsifiable stance.
It’s not “if the facts hurt my position I don’t believe them”, it’s about “cops have a record of bullshitting to try and save their asses to the point of bodycams becoming a necessity to save the public from their constant lying”
That plays well for other leftists, but not for people who aren’t there yet. It’s much easier to get people on board with “we should be skeptical and check the cops’ story” than it is to get them to wholesale reject anything the police say. And if the latter is your position, you can get proven wrong.
I’m not talking in hexbear to make optics and to make leftists look good, I’m talking my mind because I feel like this is a safe space to do so. Anyway, optics aren’t everything, being on the right side of things is important. For example, saying that there’s no ongoing genocide in China (look at my last post) is important regardless of it meaning alienating people right now, because in 10 years time it will be obvious to everyone, and then when people are like “oh my god how could we be so dumb to believe it”, you can explain why analysis of material conditions from a leftist perspective gives better results historically. An actual example of this, would be the leftists opposing the invasion of Iraq, as seen on a 2005 debate between Michael Parenti and Christopher Kitchens in which Parenti rightly predicts that in 5-10 years time, the situation in Iraq won’t be better.
Then you shouldn’t have replied to my comment about the value of this as agitprop.
I’m gonna go with “touchée” here
That is not my experience. It is much easier to convince people that cops are just organized crime for capital than to achieve anything worthwhile by pretending they deserve the benefit of the doubt.