What if…

Donald Trump had chosen to stay in office? AND Congress just rubber-stamped him? What if the media insisted he should stay president and that nothing was wrong with this situation at all? “They” are just gonna let him stay.

Would it be time for a bit of a revolution? Perhaps a little insurrection?

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Eric Funk

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FALSE PREMISES – and people acting on them

If you believe in certain false premises, then a lot of unreasonable actions start to look less… unreasonable. It all depends on your premise. So what’s the implication?

The Election and its Aftermath

Continues to baffle me that anyone thinks seriously that the election was “stolen” or any of that junk but we’ll get to that later.

Trump’s team had more than 40 lawsuits about the election based on alleged fraud to try to change results, change counting, etc etc. All of them failed, many of which were turned down by Republican- or even Trump-appoitned judges. There’s nothing here.

But… what if you believed, through whatever sources around you, that the steal was real?

“No War for Oil”

-Mass protests

-Republican “thumping” (quote GW Bush)

-General continuing notion in the left

None of it’s true at all. Like at all.

Oil is sold on the open market. That’s how it works. The US doesn’t directly get any of Iraq’s oil. Has to buy it like everyone else. The US buys less Iraq oil than India, China, or Europe. Why? Because there’s tons of closer oil. Most US oil comes from… the US, followed by Canada, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Venezuela… which is at 3%. Where TF is Iraq on the list? Way down there.

Almost ironically, US dependence on the Middle East for Oil has always been pretty low, but it’s been goind down since the Iraq war started, not up.

But maybe we got some sweet contracts? No. Of 23 extraction contracts, the US has two–they go to the lowest bidder (fixed fee per barrel extracted), so  Exxon really isn’t making dick on this.

The idea that any US action in Iraq was related to Oil is indefensibly wrong.

Black Lives Matter and police killings

What if I told you it was hard to find evidence that cops are more likely to shoot a black American as a white American?

Just sit with that for a minute. A somewhat-universally-agreed fact, which led to the largest protests the US has seen since the 60’s, a global movement, and hundreds of building being burned to the ground or smashed to bits in riots… what if I said it might be based on a false premise?

Surprising New Evidence Shows Bias in Police Use of Force but Not in Shootings

Digging into individual shootings, there is some evidence that the suspect being black leads to police hesitating or not shooting at all, when they otherwise might have.

Whether officers, veterans or civilians, the subjects consistently hesitated longer before firing at black suspects and were much more likely to mistakenly shoot an unarmed white suspect, the researchers found. And when they failed to fire at an armed suspect — a potentially fatal mistake — the suspect was about five times more likely to be black than white. The study’s 36 police officers were the lone exception in failing to fire: The suspect’s race wasn’t a factor in their decision not to shoot. “The findings were very unexpected given the previous experimental research,” said Lois James, an assistant professor who conducted the research.

“The notion that cops want to shoot anybody is a lot of baloney,” said Dr. Klinger, who has interviewed some 300 officers involved in shootings. “But white officers are much more reticent to shoot a black man than a white man because, all things being equal, they know the social context in which they’re operating.”

Now this is COMPLICATED and very possibly doesn’t capture the whole picture. You should read the article before running around and shouting “BLM is based on a lie!” — we’re not here to do the thinking for you. But it’s certainly not abundantly evident that Black Americans, especially unarmed, are more likely to be shot than White ones. 

So why do we see more shootings of Black Americans? Statistically, more interactions. So what’s driving that? 

“A report shows Black neighborhoods have been more heavily patrolled, but police officials have said that enforcement is mostly driven by 911 and 311 calls, not racial bias.”

The cops saying that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.

Even after years of the police using a lighter approach, the study found that Black New Yorkers were still nearly six times more likely to be stopped or arrested in 2018 than white New Yorkers were. And the ratio has not changed in more than a decade, according to the report. In 2003, Mr. Bloomberg’s second year in office, it was exactly the same.

So can we find evidence of systemic racism in the police? Maybe… 

…But hanging on to false premises is the real problem

So should we just sympathize with folks? Just try to educate? Well…

• I argued with a friend asking him whether any evidence of any sort could possibly make him question whether Trump absolutely won the 2020 election. He said he’d seen enough.
• I talk about the “War for OIl” thing all the time and often get back a scoff: “well, they did a bad job.” ORRRR maybe that was never the plan? Like what makes you think that was ever the plan? There’s zero evidence for it. IT’s because so many people around you believe it.
• I bring up the study from the NYT article and people get angry with me. Like, really angry.

In all 3 cases, people are surrounded by lots of people who believe it, or they get celebrity-types they trust telling them it must be true, so they get dug in. And note that on YOUR false premise, you probably haven’t done any research on it yourself. Because it fits a narrative you like.

“But surely I haven’t been systematically lied to by political agents who benefit from me believing a falsehood… that only happens to the other side!”

So: what action have you taken… on false premises?

Notes:

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-campaign-lawsuits-election-results-2020-11

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Iraq#Upstream https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php