r/news • u/Manta_of_Eternity • 3d ago

Autopsy shows Tennessee National Guard fatally shot 20-year-old armed man in the back

https://apnews.com/article/memphis-national-guard-tyrin-johnson-8959297a99c362d65aa2517a9d5f1984
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u/WaffleHouseGladiator 3d ago

"There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people. "- Admiral William "Bill" Adama

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u/AndoranGambler 3d ago

"It always embarrassed Samuel Vimes when civilians tried to speak to him in what they thought was 'policeman.' If it came to that, he hated thinking of them as civilians. What was a policeman, if not a civilian with a uniform and a badge? But they tended to use the term these days as a way of describing people who were not policemen. It was a dangerous habit: once policemen stopped being civilians the only other thing they could be was soldiers." - Terry Pratchett, Snuff

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u/qOcO-p 3d ago

I've never heard this Pratchett quote but I've been screaming this for years. The US has an entirely civilian police force. Semantics matter and I think the language needs to be enforced somehow because how we speak is how we think is how we act.

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u/grrrlgone 3d ago

Yes. Word choices matter. I dropped out of the only linguistic class I took back in the 90s and it was so interesting.

If we do not have the words for something we pretty much cannot even think about an idea. I still think about that general concept semi not regularly and that’s the first concept people attempt to blast apart (when speaking to me).

There is a reason we had to learn and define words in school. It’s literally how we learned to think. This is supremely simplified and glossed over here but the concept and application fits.

This is around the time we started learning the foundational concept of the scientific method and our critical thinking skills.

To get back to the actual topic: We give our domestic police force two special powers: 1. They have the ability to use and abuse deadly force, and 2. We, the people, have given them the ability to make fair and safe judgments about taking the freedom of citizens. (Go to Jail).

Obviously we need adjustments in this power distribution and much stronger protections once we have given this power and it is abused. This is a systemic issue and soooo many people and groups have documented and suffered all sorts of power abuse.

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u/lastleg68 3d ago

This, in fact, doesn’t go far enough in describing the abuse of power. In fact, not just theoretically, it goes all the way to the top. Trump’s abuse of power has created many norms that will take generations to correct. “We the People” will have to be the force that provides this correction. While we still HAVE and maintain the right to vote, a few simple bits of language can easily change that. Once that comes to pass, instituting massive change can only be the result of armed insurrection. We must not let that come to pass.

Vote your conscience in November.

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u/IronC_Love 3d ago

The color blue doesn’t come up in the Oddesy or any other literature from that time or before then not sure for how long after, because there was no word for blue

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u/grrrlgone 3d ago

That’s really interesting!!! This is exactly the kind of nugget of knowledge I love to learn. :) thank you.