Survival Instict

It's an imperfect analogy, but you get the point.

Al Gore: "The climate deniers are really in some ways similar to all of those almost 400 law enforcement officers in Uvalde, Texas, who were waiting outside an unlocked door while the children were being massacred … Nobody stepped forward." @NBCNews

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 25, 2022

One of America's most prominent climate change hawks, who has publicly been on the global warming bandwagon for many years, almost predicted a massacre such as occurred in Uvalde, Texas.  He wasn't talking specifically about school shootings but did point out one of the most serious problems with policing in the USA. Spoiler alert: it has nothing to do with race.

In March of 2018, Bill Maher interviewed then-New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, who is now in charge of infrastructure in the Biden Administration. A few days earlier, a police officer in Sacramento had shot and killed an unarmed, young black man. Maher remarked (at 5:46 of the video below)

But I guess I'm asking a more basic question. It seems like the police have this idea in their head that it should be a completely no-risk operation and we know it is a job with risk.... By the way, they do keep statistics so on this stuff. a policeman is the 14th-ranked risky job in America....

Well, we have had episodes- but they seem to have this idea hat if I feel my life is threatened in any way, I have the right to just take you out.

 

Four years ago, Bill Maher recognized that race is not the only component of policing which must be evaluated. Despite the abuse which would rain down upon him from Twitter and elsewhere in the political discourse, Maher should return to this theme. The truth will make left, right, and center uncomfortable but a solution is rarely implemented without first recognizing and acknowledging the problem.

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