grim.

"Conquest" by benevolels on X

“The police spend very little of their time dealing with violent criminals—indeed, police sociologists report that only about 10% of the average police officer’s time is devoted to criminal matters of any kind. Most of the remaining 90% is spent dealing with infractions of various administrative codes and regulations: all those rules about how and where one can eat, drink, smoke, sell, sit, walk, and drive. If two people punch each other, or even draw a knife on each other, police are unlikely to get involved. Drive down the street in a car without license plates, on the other hand, and the authorities will show up instantly, threatening all sorts of dire consequences if you don’t do exactly what they tell you. The police, then, are essentially just bureaucrats with weapons. Their main role in society is to bring the threat of physical force—even, death—into situations where it would never have been otherwise invoked, such as the enforcement of civic ordinances about the sale of untaxed cigarettes.”

since i think many will have had the memory slip with just how many other atrocities have occured in the past 11 years, or are simply too young to remember, the last bit about the sale of untaxed cigarettes isn’t just some hypothetical, it’s a reference to the killing of eric garner

“The feral woman is usually extremely hungry for something soulful,”

I think one of the things that surprised me the most about the cgtn documentary "fighting terrorism in xinjiang" is that they take great care to make sure the viewer doesn't walk away with the idea that these terror attacks are an innate part of islam. they go to great lengths to explain that these attackers are generally isolated young adults who have been preyed upon by recruiters with a political agenda, and that many of them don't actually know even the basic principles of the islamic faith such as the five pillars of islam

Link here!

the reason some speech is criminalized (restorative justice perspectives notwithstanding) is bc if what you're saying can be distilled down to "i think this group of ppl is deserving of death" it stands to reason you're a threat to another human being's right to a full, fulfilling life. that is the crime you're being (reasonably, rightfully) accused of.

i feel like we as a digital society have forgotten the important rules of the internet